It feels like just yesterday when NVIDIA showed off their DLSS technology for the first time, and we all saw what Remedy's Control looked like if you took a vat of vaseline and rubbed it all over the screen. Ever since NVIDIA came out with DLSS 2.0 in April 2020, Team Green has had the clear upper hand in upscaling tech.

Fast-forward nearly six years, and we just saw DLSS 4.5 come out, which, in effect, could truly be called DLSS 5.0, considering just how much it improves over the last full iteration. I've been using the new DLSS for a week now, and I've got a lot to say about it, to say the least. For starters, it's not good news for everyone.

DLSS 4.5 fixes some major quirks with DLSS 4

I had my complaints, and now I don't

I don't know a single person who could call what NVIDIA achieved with DLSS 4 "terrible," or even "bad" for that matter. The upscaling is genuinely impressive, as it has been since version 2.0, and there were but a few problems remaining — the occasional screen tearing, foliage pop-in, and slight ghosting even at the highest "Quality" preset. With DLSS 4.5, however, the image quality improvements are hard to miss, even to the naked eye. To pixel peepers like yours truly, the improvement in fidelity, stability, and particle effects was impossible to deny.

Now, since I've ardently stuck to my 1440p resolution instead of going up to 4K for the past half decade, my RTX 4070 Ti has never had to complain much, regardless of what new game I throw at it. So far, though, I've never felt the need to go below DLSS Quality on any game that's more demanding than the rest. NVIDIA's DLSS tech hasn't been "terrible" since version 2.0, really, with each new iteration improving upon the last one. And yet, there's no denying that foliage is one of the last remaining problems I have with the upscaler, even at DLSS Q, which leaves just a 25% difference between the internal and output resolution of the game.

Going into the NVIDIA App, there's a simple menu switch to go from DLSS 4's Preset J and Preset K to DLSS 4.5's Preset L and Preset M. Primarily, I used Preset M, since I don't need to go all the way down to DLSS Ultra Performance or Performance at 1440p.

DLSS 4.5's image quality improvements are undeniable

The benefits vary by game, but they're always benefits

Using DLSS 4.5, however, fixed that almost immediately. In Arc Raiders, my game runs at a steady 119 FPS while maxed out with just DLSS Quality helping it along. Switching over to DLSS 4.5 and changing nothing else did two things. First, the edges and tearing around distant and semi-distant foliage is almost gone now, leading to improved bushes and vegetation across the board. Second, my average FPS dropped, but stayed above 110 FPS at all times, meaning this is a cost I am happy to pay. Not only that, but it's impossible not to notice deeper darks now, with an HDR-like effect on my screen that just doesn't exist in DLSS 4.

Black Myth: Wukong, however, is the biggest difference maker here. Before going into the FPS cost, DLSS 4 (Quality) in this game delivered rather impressive visuals, but the illusion fell apart at the slightest screen movement. The ghosting, Unreal Engine 5 shimmers, and object trails are laughably bad in the game, even at DLSS Quality. I was playing the game at maxed-out graphics settings with full ray-tracing on. Switching over to 4.5, the ghosting and shimmers almost disappeared, with "almost" being the operating word here. It's not gone completely, but it tells me that I can lower a few settings and get a stable 70+ fps experience without the jarring outline of my character's hair (or fur?) ghosting around him.

The other good stuff followed here, too — richer darks and denser foliage every time I looked up at the skybox. For Black Myth, I think DLSS 4.5 is an absolute non-negotiable if you're playing the game on any RTX 40-series GPU or above.

The downsides exist, but they're easy to ignore

What's another handful of straws in a haystack?

Unless we're talking about something like VLC media player, nothing good comes for free. The same goes for DLSS 4.5's image quality improvements in every game. There is a cost, and it's rather minuscule, but only if you have the right GPU. During my testing in Black Myth, switching over to DLSS 4.5 while keeping everything else the same (max graphics, DLSS Quality, no Frame Generation) resulted in better image quality and less tearing, of course. On the other hand, it also resulted in the average FPS dropping from 64 FPS to 61 FPS, which is about a 4–5% fps cost. Does it matter? Not in the least, I'd say, because the image quality improvements are genuinely visible to the naked eye, without the need for pixel peeping.

Then there's the VRAM usage. For me, VRAM usage spiked from an average of 7,328 MB to 7,530 MB over the course of five consecutive tests, which is about 4.7% more. Thankfully, I had plenty to spare from my 12GB card. Effectively speaking, DLSS 4.5 used 202 MB extra VRAM, which falls completely in line with the official programming guide, which mentions around 207.98 MB extra required to run DLSS 4.5 when switching from DLSS 4.

RTX 20 and 30 series cards have less currency

The cost of entry for any non-flagship card is a little too high

Over on 4K, that added VRAM cost goes up to almost 500MB if you're using an RTX 40 or 50-series card. Anything below that, and your card will be paying over 600 MB more VRAM to use DLSS 4.5. Again, for a 40-series or 50-series card, that's a cost that's affordable. I love that NVIDIA has allowed RTX 20 and 30 series cards to use DLSS 4.5 as well, but those FP16 cards definitely struggle with the new upscaler version, especially the RTX 20 series. Unless you have an RTX 2080 Ti (which is the only 20-series card mentioned in the programming guide), you're better off staying with DLSS 4's Preset K, which costs 97% less VRAM than the new DLSS 4.5 at 1440p (143 MB vs 282 MB).

From the RTX 30-series, you could, perhaps move to DLSS 4.5 if you own anything above an RTX 3070, provided you stick to 1440p instead of attempting 4K upscaling with the new tech. RTX 3090 owners, though, can go crazy — the VRAM headroom remains insane even in 2026.

Power draw is another added cost for DLSS 4.5

Another small cost for newer GPU owners

DLSS 4.5's significantly improved image quality is not up for debate. With that aside, another cost to pay for those improvements is increased power draw. Those who love running their GPUs in undervolted states are not going to be fond of what DLSS 4.5 does to their cards, and that's just the 40-series and 50-series owners. On RTX 20 and 30-series cards, DLSS 4.5 demands some serious extra power, constantly threatening to make the older RTX cards hit their power limits and throttle, resulting in worse performance across the board.

So, while I have zero reason under the sun not to recommend DLSS 4.5 to anyone with an RTX 40-series card and above, I'd say that RTX 20-series and RTX 30-series owners need to carefully measure if the improved image quality is worth the VRAM cost and power draw. DLSS Performance and Balanced will give you plenty more frames than native visuals while looking almost as good and better than ever, but it's all pointless if your card runs out of VRAM trying to deliver those upscaled graphics to your screen.

Path-tracing does not work with DLSS 4.5

The whole point of DLSS was to help ray-tracing along, wasn't it?

Now, some might say that the whole point of DLSS was to help ray tracing along. After all, the internal compute time of ray-traced frames is insane, and it's DLSS that helps make that time shorter. So, when path tracing enters the mix, Ray Reconstruction takes the charge, denoising the visuals to deliver anything close to a clear image. Without Ray Reconstruction, every shiny surface on your screen is a shimmery mess, and without it, even DLSS 4.5 suffers from the same problems that full ray tracing poses.

So, you'd think to simply toggle Ray Reconstruction on with Preset L selected, but that's where you'll realize that Ray Reconstruction overrides DLSS 4.5. Ray Reconstruction models of DLSS tend to do their own upscaling, denoising, and anti-aliasing, which means they don't let DLSS Super Resolution do its own thing on top of it. As such, right now, if you want to enjoy your path-traced sunlight in Cyberpunk 2077's Night City, you're better off using DLSS 4.0 and keeping that Super Resolution model firmly at Preset K instead of L or M.

DLSS 4.5 truly earns its version number

At the end of the day, DLSS 4.5 feels like one of those rare upgrades that actually earns its version number. The image is cleaner, the foliage is calmer, and ghosting is finally getting bullied into submission (it's yet to tap out). The whole thing looks more native than DLSS has any right to. Sure, there's a cost of a few frames here, a couple hundred MB of VRAM there, and a little extra power draw for the privilege, but on RTX 40 and 50-series cards, those costs are so tiny they might as well be pocket change.

On something like a 3080 or 3090, you can start flirting with 4K DLSS 4.5 if you've got the headroom and DLSS Performance and Ultra Performance pass your personal eye test. An RTX 3070 should be kept at 1440p, but the RTX 20-series owners simply don't have the VRAM margin to make this a no-brainer upgrade. At 1080p, they could definitely benefit from how significantly DLSS 4.5 increases the overall resolution, which is what makes it so genuinely impressive and commendable that NVIDIA is even keeping them in the conversation 8 years later.