Frame generation is, without a doubt, the most polarizing intersection of AI and gaming as we know it today. A vocal majority of enthusiasts can be found clamoring for raw rasterization, and meanwhile, the biggest name in the industry, Nvidia, has a trajectory that suggests that the days of traditional rendering pipelines may be limited. At CES 2026, Team Green bypassed a new discrete GPU architecture for the first time in decades to debut DLSS 4.5, powered by its proprietary second-gen transformer technology. Now, with DLSS 5 and 6x multi-frame generation, it is clear what future Nvidia has in mind for the gaming industry.

Yet, as Nvidia (and following its footsteps, AMD and Intel) pivots towards a paradigm where neural rendering has a bigger role to play in how games are experienced, gamers find themselves wondering if it is, at all, the right direction for the medium. My recent benchmarking experiments beckon the very same question. Is frame generation a universal enhancer in how a game plays and feels?

Forza Horizon 5

A classic case of quality over (frame) quantity

Forza Horizon 5 is a particularly tough title to critique, because honestly, it is a technical masterpiece on every level. It's optimized so well that it remains perfectly playable even on my old RTX 2070 Super straight out of the box, which naturally made me ponder whether a game this efficient requires any frame generation at all. For the longest time, I treated frame gen as a default, operating under the assumption that a higher frame output meant a better experience. My recent testing has proved me wrong, perhaps for the better.

After reverting to the native resolution (that brought down the average FPS from 160+ FPS to 130–145 FPS in highly textured areas), the compromise of synthetic frames became glaringly obvious on multiple levels, despite using a 40-series GPU and DLSS 4.5. The Mexican peninsula where the game is set is packed with dense vegetation with countless trees, shrubs, and destructible environments that, under the lens of frame generation, are uniquely susceptible to immersion-breaking shimmering and temporal artifacts.

At extreme speeds (central to the racing experience), these generated frames also introduce noticeable ghosting. After disabling frame generations, most of these aspects were, surprisingly enough, absent from the experience. It's one of those times when you absolutely do not miss the throughput over the visual clarity and consistency.

Black Myth: Wukong

Avoid frame gen, if you can

Black Myth: Wukong is a title that thrives on the "combat dance", just like any other Soulslike, but that's probably where the similarities end. Where they do overlap, though, is that it also relies on precise dodges, parries, and perfectly timed counters. Since frame generation has been known to introduce input latency and ghosting, my testing confirmed my pre-conceived hypothesis. Frame generation indeed added more weight to the controls, reducing the "snappiness" of movement you'd consider as absolutely essential for a game like this.

This problem wasn't exclusive to my rig either. Since launch, Steam community threads have been rife with complaints relating to poor optimization, and some users have been quick to point fingers at the anti-piracy software, Denuvo. While there's no decisive benchmark data linking the anti-piracy layer to poor performance, it is obvious that the additional layer does indeed introduce additional CPU overhead.

As with any other title with dense textures and vegetation, disabling DLSS frame generation does clean up the visual noise by eliminating the shimmering and ghosting in high-movement scenarios, making the game's combat sequences more immersive. While Nvidia Reflex works hard to mitigate the input delay, it can't entirely offset the 'floaty' sensation that interpolated frames inevitably introduce. For anyone with a high-end 30, 40, or 50-series card, this title is more enjoyable without frame generation.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

Flying feels better without AI

As one of my most frequently played titles, Microsoft Flight Simulator finds itself in a uniquely ambiguous position in this debate. On one hand, the case for frame generation is very compelling here. The simulator's photogrammetry-heavy world almost requires consistent smoothness, and the uplift is extremely tangible at the ground level when the airport's geometry and the fluidity of the ground and air traffic can be seen benefiting enormously from the added frames. The silky transitions between the weather layers and terrain tiles at higher altitudes is also hard to argue against.

And yet, the title still finds itself on the list as frame generation's most high-profile victims. Cockpit displays in aircrafts (particularly ones with glass avionics) can often smear into unreadable blur and garbled textures, which is a critical failure point for simulation. DLSS Preset M has come close to resolving the ghosting issue to an extent, but it still remains an imperfect fix. I would rather have FG off than on given the stakes, but that's coming from someone on a 4070 Ti-Super. For other hardware, the mileage may greatly vary.

Sorry Jensen, frame gen is far from a universal enhancement

The silicon giants are all keen to usher gaming towards the era of neural rendering, yet raw rasterization continues to dictate the gold standard for visual clarity and tactile responsiveness, just as the experiment confirmed. This is not to say that frame generation can't meaningfully contribute to the game experience in any case. If anything, its implementation has become a vital equalizer in a hardware economy where flagship GPUs (and even generational upgrades to non-flagship SKUs) has become unaffordable.

Rather than being leveraged as a clutch for poor optimization, frame generation works better as a necessary lifeline for budget conscious gamers, but it is undeniable that preserving the essence of gaming as an experience requires a fine blend of engine optimization, hardware capability, and neural rendering.