NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 SDK Releases with Dynamic Multi-Frame Generation and 6X Mode Tools

NVIDIA's DLSS 4.5 has finally been released in SDK form on GitHub for widespread use, and with that release it should allow for DLSS 4.5 to be more easily added or updated for existing games. When we last covered DLSS 4.5's Multi Frame Generation feature, users could enable up to five generated frames or even do dynamic frame generation that would automatically scale to the display's refresh rate. The SDK release additionally adds the ability to enable up to six generated frames as well as Preset B, which enables User Interface Recomposition. There are also miscellaneous "Bug Fixes & Stability Improvements."


For those of you concerned about the input lag implications of NVIDIA DLSS 4.5, don't be. While it's true that reaching a refresh rate target with real frames will feel better and have lower input lag than with generated frames, the technology shouldn't be dismissed outright. As we tested across various games, input lag does not substantially change between 2X to 5X generated frames. This makes higher factors of MFG surprisingly appealing once you've gotten used to the initial input lag trade-off between native and 2X FG, especially with the help of features like NVIDIA Reflex.

In terms of pure GPU performance, there can be some concerns if you choose to run DLSS 4.5 on older NVIDIA GPUs. While RTX 50 series GPUs can handle the new Transformer upscaling model as expected, RTX 40 series can lose as much as 15% render framerate when moving between Preset K (DLSS 4) and Preset L (DLSS 4.5) upscaling. Our multi-generation GPU testing points toward the trade-off being generally worth it on RTX 40 series, but questionable for RTX 30 series and older NVIDIA GPUs, which are heavily strained by the new Presets. Thankfully, the NVIDIA App does make it much easier to override DLSS Presets between games without the former requirement of third-party tools to achieve the same result.

Overall, it's good to see NVIDIA is still focused on improving and iterating upon the DLSS 4.5 SDK, particularly considering the extreme performance demands (and controversy) of DLSS 5.