Are you still holding onto your RTX 40 graphics card? Every PC gamer interested in cutting-edge hardware has to consider the pros and cons of sticking with the prior version vs. upgrading to an RTX 50 series. Trust me, there are plenty of reasons for both sticking with the RTX 40 and making the jump to the RTX 50.
However, it seems that the former stance has gotten a little stronger over the past few weeks. See, you can call me cynical and cold, but I seriously thought that Nvidia would stop developing RTX 40 features as soon as RTX 50 came out. It's a common business practice, right? When a company releases a new product, it adds all the new, shiny features to it to encourage people to ditch their old product and pick up the newer one.
So, color me surprised when Nvidia began bringing its developments with the RTX 50 back to the RTX 40 series. Not only was Nvidia still looking out for those on the older gen, but they were actively helping out RTX 40 owners using the advancements they made on the RTX 50 models. So, if you're an RTX 40 owner, here's what you're getting
3 Nvidia brings advancements with DLSS over to the RTX 40 models
Sharing the progress
When Nvidia announced the RTX 50 models at CES 2025, it also introduced DLSS 4. This was a step up from the DLSS 3 we saw on the RTX 40 series, and for a little while, people thought that DLSS 4 would be an RTX 50 series exclusive—myself included.
However, Nvidia bucked the trend by bringing its new DLSS 4 tech to the RTX 40 cards. Granted, it didn't mean all of DLSS 4's features would be backported—the RTX 50 will keep its Multi Frame Generation exclusivity, after all—but everything that could be added to older cards was.
This meant that, even if RTX 40 owners couldn't get all of the developments to DLSS that the RTX 50 brought in, they could still benefit from the bits that did apply to them. Nvidia didn't gatekeep those advancements from their newer cards, and it was great to see that people sticking with the older generation of cards would benefit from the newer ones.
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2 Nvidia may introduce Multi Frame Generation to the RTX 40 series
Still a maybe for now
Okay, so I just said that Multi Frame Generation wasn't on the RTX 40, but Nvidia is thinking about it. Granted, the company hasn't confirmed that the RTX 40 will get it guaranteed, but in an interview, the company did say it was thinking about it:
Bryan Catanzaro: I think this is primarily a question of optimization, and also, engineering, and then, the ultimate user experience. So, we're launching this frame generation, the best multi-frame generation technology with the 50 Series, and we'll be able to see what we squeeze out of older hardware in the future.
Here's hoping they find a way.
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1 RTX 40 owners will also get Smooth Motion from the RTX 50 series
It's not quite done yet, but it's on the way
If you've peeked over at what Team Red has been up to, you'll know that AMD has some tech called Fluid Motion Frames. This helps improve framerates and smooth out performance by generating frames between frames.
Well, Nvidia has been striking back with its own tool called Smooth Motion. People began seeing this tool pop up within the Nvidia App, and it only appeared if you had an RTX 50 installed. As such, it was only natural that people speculated that Smooth Motion would be locked away on the RTX 50 series.
Fortunately, Nvidia caught wind that people were prodding at Smooth Motion and cleared up what it would mean for the future:
“NVIDIA Smooth Motion is a brand-new driver technology and requires time for validation and QA across multiple products. Support for GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs will be coming in a future update.”
As such, the RTX 50 owners will get to play with the Smooth Motion feature exclusively for the time being, but if you're patient enough to wait it out, Nvidia will also grace your RTX 40 with it in time.
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RTX 40 owners aren't out of luck yet
In short, Nvidia has shown that just because the RTX 50 is the new kid on the block, doesn't mean that it can now forget about its older generations. In fact, whenever Nvidia makes a major stride with its new GPUs, there's a chance that it'll have a ripple effect on its older models. And with the RTS 50 series just beginning its stride, who knows how many more features are on the way?