DLSS boosts Nvidia RTX graphics by up to 50 percent in 3DMark

Nvidia’s latest driver update brings with it the usual enhancements to SLI profiles, better performance for G-Sync in certain games, and bug fixes. The big news with the new 418.81 WHQL driver though is that it allows deep-learning super sampling (DLSS) in UL Benchmarks’ Port Royal benchmark. The result is said to be huge gains in frame rates and an increase in overall visual fidelity. DLSS was one of two major features introduced with Nvidia’s RTX series of Turing graphics cards. It acts as a form of anti-aliasing and effectively upscales visuals to an equivalent of 4K from 1,440P without the same sort of visual overhead. Better yet, it is vastly cheaper on resources than traditional anti-aliasing solutions like Temporal Sampling Anti Aliasing (TSAA or TAA) which is why enabling DLSS in Port Royal is able to boost frame rates so effectively. Nvidia has interactive versions of these screenshots in its blog post. Port Royal was designed to test the effectiveness of ray tracing with Nvidia’s RTX graphics cards and it does a good job of that. Unfortunately, it also acts as a stark warning for how much of a performance hog ray tracing is, with frame rates rarely above 30 when rendering at 1,440P even with the most powerful Nvidia graphics cards. DLSS appears to make a big difference to those numbers, edging them much closer to 60 FPS on average. Even so, as with any benchmarks or demonstrations produced by first-parties, we’d suggest taking the claims and visual representation of these improvements with a grain of salt. Many have already pointed out that the anti-aliasing used in the non-DLSS version of the demo appears to be very heavy-handed, making the DLSS rendering appear, in comparison, far crisper than it perhaps should. It’s also worth taking into consideration that even with DLSS enabled, frame rates aren’t stellar and the volume of supporting games for either technology (let alone both) is exceedingly thin. However, there is no denying that DLSS appears to have the potential to have a dramatic effect on frame rates without impacting visual performance and may in fact improve it. That may be useful for those with the most expensive RTX graphics cards, but it could be even more impactful for those with more affordable cards, like the RTX 2060. Better yet, if DLSS is possible with the rumored, and even-more-affordable, GTX 1660 Ti, that could make those entry-level cards far more capable and therefore more attractive to prospective buyers. To take advantage of the new DLSS implementation in Port Royal, you’ll need an RTX graphics card, the Windows 10 October update, and Nvidia’s latest driver. Nvidia has released a new GeForce Hotfix driver, version 576.26, aiming to fix a fresh batch of bugs affecting its latest RTX 50-series graphics cards. This fix comes shortly after recent patches, indicating Nvidia’s ongoing efforts to refine the experience for early users of its latest GPU lineup. The 576.26 driver update is said to address several issues across both games and display configurations. One notable fix resolves a crash in Black Myth: Wukong, specifically during the character’s transformation sequence. Nvidia has also patched display flickering in Resident Evil 4 Remake, a problem that had been affecting gameplay immersion for some users. Additionally, the update tackles a problem with DisplayPort 2.1 mode when HDR is enabled on certain LG UltraGear monitors, where the display would fail to wake after the monitor entered standby. Nvidia might be one of the world’s most valuable companies (less valuable after the recent tariff-inspired drops) but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have problems. In the graphics cards space, this once-keystone-component of its business has turned into an absolute quagmire of failures following the launch of the RTX 50 series of GPUs and we’re only just starting to see how bad it’s gotten. And we’re not even talking about the missing ROPs, the burned out power cables, or the ridiculous pricing. Nvidia’s drivers are an absolute mess and they’re causing crashes, black screens, and freezes in a number of games and with a wide range of Nvidia GPUs.
Nvidia’s list of the best graphics cards is about to expand with the arrival of the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB/8GB and the RTX 5060 non-Ti. We don’t know yet, but we know that they’re coming. But today’s leak shows us that gamers may have been right to worry about how much these GPUs will cost. It looks like Nvidia could walk down the same path it has paved with the RTX 40-series, and that’s not necessarily good news. The information comes from Board Channels, which is a source with a good track record. Still, remember that we need to take everything with a pinch of salt until Nvidia itself confirms the specs and the pricing.