Games that support DLSS 4:
A series of games are already compatible with DLSS 4, on the day of the launch of the RTX 5080/5090. We’ve been able to get hold of them in order to begin a series of tests and highlight the performance achieved thanks to DLSS 4. We’ll be coming back to the qualitative side of rendering in detail in the coming weeks. Of course, the upscaling principle here will be to support our NVIDIA RTX 5080 against 2160p performance with graphics options at maximum and ray tracing or path tracing if available.
To measure our FPS, we had access to a beta version of CapFrameX v1.7.5. This measurement tool is certainly one of the best and most intuitive when the game doesn’t have an integrated benchmark. If you’re interested, we can come back to the details in an article on how to use it.
Cyberpunk 2077:
In this well-known first game, and with the arrival of DLSS 4, we’re going to opt for the ultra graphics options with path tracing enabled. Here are the graphics options available in Cyberpunk 2077. So we have path tracing, DLSS in Performance mode and Frame Generation in x2, x3 or x4. The idea is to measure the differences in performance between DLSS OFF, one generated frame (x2), two generated frames (x3) and three generated frames (x4). It’s important to understand that you can choose the number of images with Multi Frame Generation.
Here’s the performance we obtained between our ASUS RTX 4090 TUF OC, the NVIDIA RTX 5090 Founders Edition and, of course, our ROG Astral RTX 5080 OC Edition.
As you can see, from the moment you decide to use DLSS 4 x3, i.e. two AI-generated images between two native ones, our RTX 5080 takes the lead over the RTX 4090. The lead will be even more comfortable with x4 and three generated images. With Overdrive mode, for any graphics card, DLSS is mandatory. It will also be important to assess how it feels to play, and we hope to find some time this weekend, after these two weeks of testing, to get back into it.
Hogwarts Legacy: The Hogwarts Legacy
Hogwarts Legacy doesn’t have a built-in benchmark, so we’re going to use CapFrameX to take our various readings. In terms of graphics options, there’s no ray tracing in this game, but we have enabled ray reconstruction. As far as DLSS 4 is concerned, we have all the options at our disposal.
In terms of performance, we’re starting from an average of 92.5 FPS in 4K DLSS OFF to an average of 428.4 FPS in 4K DLSS Performance x4. Of course, the average can vary from one scene to another, so the results will differ from one site to another, depending on the scene you choose to reproduce.
The same applies to Hogwarts Legacy, where we were unable to achieve an average of 60 FPS when rasterised. Everything improved with DLSS 4, which enabled our RTX 5080 to get ahead of the RTX 4090.
Alan Wake 2:
From January 30, Alan Wake 2 will also benefit from the DLSS 4 option, as well as RTX Mega Geometry. But what exactly is Mega Geometry? RTX Mega Geometry allows developers to offer up to 100X more triangles in ray tracing. RTX Mega Geometry will reduce processor overload and increase ray tracing performance and image quality.
Now it’s time for the graphics options, and the least we can say is that Alan Wake 2 is surely one of the most comprehensive games to showcase NVIDIA’s technologies(ray tracing, path tracing, ray reconstruction, direct lighting, transparency, etc.). So, of course, we activated all these options.
As far as performance is concerned, we start with an average of 32.4 FPS in 4K DLSS OFF to reach an average of 265 FPS in 4K DLSS Performance x4. Of course, the average can vary from one scene to another, so the results will differ from one site to another, depending on the scene you choose to reproduce.
Once again, DLSS 4 gives our RTX 5080 the edge over the RTX 4090. I hope you now understand the irrelevance of the NVIDIA slide that talked about RTX 5070 = RTX 4090. Of course, this is possible in a scenario where the RTX 5070 will be in DLSS 4 x4 against an RTX 4090 DLSS 3.
Star Wars Outlaws :
Star Wars Outlaws is the third game to be supported directly. There’s no ray tracing in this game, so we’re using DLSS Performance in 2160p with Multi Frame Generation. We’ve also activated ray reconstruction and NVIDIA Direct Lighting.
In terms of performance, we start from an average of 25.9 FPS in 4K DLSS OFF and end up with an average of 233.2 FPS in 4K DLSS Performance x4. Of course, the average can vary from one scene to another, so the results will differ from one site to another, depending on the scene you choose to reproduce.
All our cards suffer and the DLSS 3 or DLSS 4 are there to help you get the most out of your game. Despite factory overclocking on the ROG RTX 5080 Astral, the differences between our two RTX 5080s are quite small.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Finally, our last game on this panel: Dragon Age: The Veilguard. So here, no DLSS 4 available within the game’s graphics options. So we’re going to force DLSS using NVIDIA’s new application. To do this, launch the application and go to Graphics > Program Settings screen under Driver Settings.
This will allow you to make the following changes. Firstly, in DLSS Override – Model Presets, select the ” Latest ” option, which will activate DLSS Super Resolution Transformer. Then go to DLSS Override – Frame Generation to choose between two or three images, and finally, you can also make a change in DLSS Override – Super Resolution. We’re not going to touch that, as we’re going to choose Performance in the game’s graphics options.
NVIDIA has provided a small overlay in the game so that we can check the settings we’ve chosen. There’s no ray tracing here, just DLSS 4 Performance upscaling and Frame Generation.
Here’s the performance we obtained according to our choice of parameters.
Here we can really see the contribution of DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation when a game benefits from the various NVIDIA technologies: ray tracing, path tracing, ray reconstruction, direct lighting, transparency, etc. … . On the other hand, you don’t have to activate DLSS if you don’t need it, and you can always opt to generate a single frame and not necessarily three, since you can choose the number you want to activate.