Nvidia's answer to AMD Fluid Motion Frames works on all DX11 and DX12 games

[Daniel Sims]

In brief: Buried near the end of the description for the Nvidia App update that introduced support for RTX 50 series graphics cards, multi-frame generation, and DLSS 4, is a little-noticed new feature: driver-level single-frame generation for any DirectX 11 or DirectX 12 game running on Nvidia's latest GPUs. Early testing suggests that the company's "Smooth Motion" AI model significantly boosts perceived frame rates in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, with only minor visual artifacts.

The few users who have managed to get their hands on a GeForce RTX 5080 or 5090 can engage frame generation in most games released in the past 15 years through a new Nvidia App setting. A future update will extend the functionality to RTX 40 series GPUs.

Dubbed "Nvidia Smooth Motion," this driver-level model interpolates one AI-generated frame between every two traditionally rendered frames in DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 titles that lack native DLSS or frame generation support.

Similar to AMD's Fluid Motion Frames, it extends the benefits of single-frame generation – originally introduced with RTX 40 series cards – by bringing it to back-catalog games.

The Smooth Motion setting is located in Graphics > Driver Settings for both individual program settings and global settings in Nvidia App version 11.0.2.312 or later, just below the DSR Factors setting. According to PC Games Hardware, which tested the feature on a pre-release build of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, toggling Smooth Motion on or off requires rebooting the game.

When enabled on an RTX 5080 at 4K DLSS quality mode under the game's maximum "Experimental" graphics preset, Smooth Motion increased the average output frame rate from 83.3 fps to 135 fps – a 62% uplift. However, capping the frame rate at 120 fps and enabling variable refresh rate resulted in significantly smoother frame times while reducing the rendered frame rate to 60 fps. Fortunately, latency remains largely unaffected, especially if Nvidia Reflex is activated.

Note the distorted text and blurred characters. Compare with non-AI-generated frame here. Click to enlarge.

However, Smooth Motion introduces more noticeable artifacts than full native frame-gen implementations because it applies interpolation uniformly rather than selectively. For instance, interface elements like subtitles may appear distorted in AI-generated frames.

Additionally, the feature remains active during Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's cutscenes, which are normally locked at 30 fps. While visual flaws such as blurred characters are less apparent at higher frame rates, they become more pronounced when 30 fps cutscenes are interpolated to 60 fps.

More in-depth testing will likely emerge as RTX 50 series GPUs reach more consumers in the coming weeks and Smooth Motion rolls out to RTX 40 series cards.

Permalink to story:

Nvidia's answer to AMD Fluid Motion Frames works on all DX11 and DX12 games

 

[Kirby1]

Any RT gpu should be able to do this. Is dumb that Nvidia locks it to the 50 series.

 

[manowar51]

Any RT gpu should be able to do this. Is dumb that Nvidia locks it to the 50 series.

You didnt read the article then as it says Nvidia will be providing it to the 40xx series with a future update. It literally says it at the end of the second paragraph.

 

[themastergoose]

Any RT gpu should be able to do this. Is dumb that Nvidia locks it to the 50 series.

Nowhere near as dumb as reviewers stating frame gen is free extra performance.

 

[yRaz]

Nowhere near as dumb as reviewers stating frame gen is free extra performance.

People keep forgetting to mention that frame gen only really works if the GPU is already capable of getting 60 FPS. So a 5070 turning 30 fps into 100 using 4x frame gen? That's not a thing.

 

[yRaz]

You didnt read the article then as it says Nvidia will be providing it to the 40xx series with a future update. It literally says it at the end of the second paragraph.

Sure, but hacked drivers have already shown that nVidia has been soft locking features to the 30 and 40 series. 4x frame gen is soft locked to the 50 series.

 

[fazy shah]

It's only for 50 series f*** nvidia we dont need 50 series fake frames crap.

Ams Fluid motion works even on my apu.

 

[fazy shah]

People keep forgetting to mention that frame gen only really works if the GPU is already capable of getting 60 FPS. So a 5070 turning 30 fps into 100 using 4x frame gen? That's not a thing.

Well for me if Im not getting 60 fps that's why I need frame gen tech why would I need it if I already have 60fp at least I need it for lower fps.

 

[Burty117]

Well for me if Im not getting 60 fps that's why I need frame gen tech why would I need it if I already have 60fp at least I need it for lower fps.

Precisely! It's a technology that only works (somewhat) well when you already have a half-decent framerate.

Frame-Gen is a technology that makes already smooth gameplay, slightly smoother, is useless for anything competitive, and is NOT a free performance upgrade, It just makes people who see a higher number (framerate) feel good about their purchase, in reality, it's pretty useless, I found it "nice" in the Witcher 3, I found it horrible in Cyberpunk 2077, and this is on a 4090.

 

[kira setsu]

It's funny seeing rabid PC fans so hyped, camping out, burning cash on these cards to get features...

...that cheap tv's have had for years.

 

[yRaz]

Well for me if Im not getting 60 fps that's why I need frame gen tech why would I need it if I already have 60fp at least I need it for lower fps.

that's not how it works, frame gen doesn't magically fix studdering. Smooth frame rates aren't just a number. Frame time is very important to smoothness in gameplay. Lower NATURAL FPS number have higher frame times(the time to render the frame). What you experience with "bad FPS" isn't just a number, it's several things that are expressed as a number. Frame Gen does nothing to address Frame Time which is why it doesn't really work when getting less than 50-60 FPS. FrameGen will not magically turn a 20FPS experience into a 60 FPS experience.

This is essentially what 1% lows are trying to tell people. The difference between the average FPS and the 1% lows gives a good general idea of how smooth the experience is. The closer the 1% lows are to the average FPS, the smoother the experience.

Frame Gen does nothing to change that relationship. Actually, FrameGen makes the difference between average and 1% lows larger which is why you need a minimum of 60FPS to get any benefits at all from frame gen.

If you are having a bad gaming experience, turning FrameGen on isn't going to fix that. You're still going to have a bad gaming experience, just with a larger number on the FPS counter.

 

[Lew Zealand]

It's funny seeing rabid PC fans so hyped, camping out, burning cash on these cards to get features...

...that cheap tv's have had for years.

So what's the input latency on that TV?

 

[kira setsu]

that's not how it works, frame gen doesn't magically fix studdering. Smooth frame rates aren't just a number. Frame time is very important to smoothness in gameplay. Lower NATURAL FPS number have higher frame times(the time to render the frame). What you experience with "bad FPS" isn't just a number, it's several things that are expressed as a number. Frame Gen does nothing to address Frame Time which is why it doesn't really work when getting less than 50-60 FPS. FrameGen will not magically turn a 20FPS experience into a 60 FPS experience.

This is essentially what 1% lows are trying to tell people. The difference between the average FPS and the 1% lows gives a good general idea of how smooth the experience is. The closer the 1% lows are to the average FPS, the smoother the experience.

Frame Gen does nothing to change that relationship. Actually, FrameGen makes the difference between average and 1% lows larger which is why you need a minimum of 60FPS to get any benefits at all from frame gen.

If you are having a bad gaming experience, turning FrameGen on isn't going to fix that. You're still going to have a bad gaming experience, just with a larger number on the FPS counter.

The truth is nvidia is really targeting a 30fps baseline, which is then cranked up with tech magic to reach 60 or whatever else.

its pretty much the smooth image setting on tvs on steroids(pricewise) people are gonna be playing games that'll "feel" like how ps3/360 gen games did, just smoother, aka really smooth 30fps games.

 

[yRaz]

The truth is nvidia is really targeting a 30fps baseline, which is then cranked up with tech magic to reach 60 or whatever else.

its pretty much the smooth image setting on tvs on steroids(pricewise) people are gonna be playing games that'll "feel" like how ps3/360 gen games did, just smoother, aka really smooth 30fps games.

I dont think nVidia has been targeting 30fps. What's going on is a consequence of developers relying on things like DLSS and framegen to get playable frame rates instead of just making a regular game. Graphics fidelity has gone DOWN over the last 4 years, not up. Ray tracing is a thing, but if the horsepower to run it isn't there then it isnjust a gimmick. Developers bet big on nVidia to provide the horsepower they need and nVidia didn't provide. Now we have "next gen" games that noone can play and, if you try, they look like crap. They are filled with artifacts from upscaling, cards aren't nearly powerful enough to provide enough rays to make a proper image amd were stuck paying for cards made for features they can't use.

We were basically expecting the 5090 to be able to 40k60path tracing in CP2077, we got half that.

I say bring back ps4 level graphics to the mainstream.

 

[manowar51]

Sure, but hacked drivers have already shown that nVidia has been soft locking features to the 30 and 40 series. 4x frame gen is soft locked to the 50 series.

Yes I know. And im not upset at Nvidia for it. If Nvidia had decent competition we wouldnt get this sort of behaviour from them.

AMD and Intel are the mega corporations that let us down. Constantly. And its not as if either company doesn't have any spare cash.

Although I would ask, how do you know that 4x frame gen could work on 30 and 40 series cards? I have not seen this evidence and I would like to. Because it would be foolish of me to just assume that Nvidia is doing it out of corporate greed.