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Door staff@engadget.com (Igor Bonifacic) - 13 Oct 2026
One of the confusing things about DLSS is that the branding has come to encompass a handful of related technologies that you can use in combination with one another.
Deep Learning Super Sampling: The initial version of DLSS arrived in 2019, following the release of NVIDIA's RTX 20 series GPUs. At launch, only a handful of games supported DLSS, namely Battlefield V and Metro Exodus, due to a limitation that meant NVIDIA had to train the algorithm specifically for the game it was meant to enhance. Since the release of DLSS 2 in 2020, that limitation no longer exists, and according to NVIDIA more than 1,000 games and apps offer DLSS support as of the start of 2025.
Following 2020, the biggest upgrade to DLSS came at the start of 2025 when NVIDIA reworked the algorithm to take advantage of a new transformer-based machine learning architecture and released DLSS 4. The new model offers better image quality, reduced ghosting and improved image stability. On older RTX GPUs, running DLSS 4 can result in worse performance relative to previous versions of DLSS due to a higher overhead. For that reason, NVIDIA gives users access to different DLSS "presets" (separate from the modes described above), which they can use to access older models.
Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing: Where DLSS is primarily designed to increase performance at the cost of image quality, Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing or DLAA does the opposite. Rather than upscaling an image, DLAA takes a native output and makes it more stable by reducing the amount of shimmer and flickering. Think of it a better version of temporal anti-aliasing or TAA. Not every game natively supports DLAA, but even in the ones that don't, you can use the NVIDIA app to add DLAA.
Frame Generation: Originally introduced as part of DLSS 3, frame generation allows NVIDIA RTX 40 series GPUs and up to generate a single interpolated frame from every two traditionally rendered frames, thereby increasing the overall framerate of a game. Frame generation is best used when your GPU can render a game at a consistent 60 FPS or more, and you have a high-refresh rate monitor that will benefit from the extra frames.
With DLSS 4, NVIDIA introduced multi frame generation, which allows RTX 50 series GPUs to generate and interpolate a greater number of frames based on a single traditionally rendered frame. As of the release DLSS 4.5 this past March, the current limit is six generated frames for every rendered frame.
Ray reconstruction: With DLSS 3.5 NVIDIA introduced ray reconstruction, a denoising algorithm designed to reduce artifacting from ray tracing effects. The algorithm works by sampling the light rays in a scene and then generating high quality pixels in between those rays. While ray reconstruction can offer performance gains, it's primarily designed to make games with ray and path tracing look better and more coherent.
Deep Learning Super Sampling: The initial version of DLSS arrived in 2019, following the release of NVIDIA's RTX 20 series GPUs. At launch, only a handful of games supported DLSS, namely Battlefield V and Metro Exodus, due to a limitation that meant NVIDIA had to train the algorithm specifically for the game it was meant to enhance. Since the release of DLSS 2 in 2020, that limitation no longer exists, and according to NVIDIA more than 1,000 games and apps offer DLSS support as of the start of 2025.
Following 2020, the biggest upgrade to DLSS came at the start of 2025 when NVIDIA reworked the algorithm to take advantage of a new transformer-based machine learning architecture and released DLSS 4. The new model offers better image quality, reduced ghosting and improved image stability. On older RTX GPUs, running DLSS 4 can result in worse performance relative to previous versions of DLSS due to a higher overhead. For that reason, NVIDIA gives users access to different DLSS "presets" (separate from the modes described above), which they can use to access older models.
Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing: Where DLSS is primarily designed to increase performance at the cost of image quality, Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing or DLAA does the opposite. Rather than upscaling an image, DLAA takes a native output and makes it more stable by reducing the amount of shimmer and flickering. Think of it a better version of temporal anti-aliasing or TAA. Not every game natively supports DLAA, but even in the ones that don't, you can use the NVIDIA app to add DLAA.
Frame Generation: Originally introduced as part of DLSS 3, frame generation allows NVIDIA RTX 40 series GPUs and up to generate a single interpolated frame from every two traditionally rendered frames, thereby increasing the overall framerate of a game. Frame generation is best used when your GPU can render a game at a consistent 60 FPS or more, and you have a high-refresh rate monitor that will benefit from the extra frames.
With DLSS 4, NVIDIA introduced multi frame generation, which allows RTX 50 series GPUs to generate and interpolate a greater number of frames based on a single traditionally rendered frame. As of the release DLSS 4.5 this past March, the current limit is six generated frames for every rendered frame.
Ray reconstruction: With DLSS 3.5 NVIDIA introduced ray reconstruction, a denoising algorithm designed to reduce artifacting from ray tracing effects. The algorithm works by sampling the light rays in a scene and then generating high quality pixels in between those rays. While ray reconstruction can offer performance gains, it's primarily designed to make games with ray and path tracing look better and more coherent.