NVIDIA has lifted the embargo on DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction. And since the green team has provided us with early access to it, we can finally share our thoughts about it. Is DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction good? Let’s find out.

To test NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction, I used an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 32GB of DDR5 at 6000Mhz, and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090. I also used Windows 10 64-bit. Finally, NVIDIA has provided us with the latest version of the NVIDIA App.

At launch, only a few games will support DLSS 4.5 RR. These games are the following ones. You may be able to force it via other methods (like with the NVIDIA Inspector Tool) for some other games, too. However, you may also experience visual or performance issues.

I personally tested five games. These were: Cyberpunk 2077, Crimson Desert, PRAGMATA, Resident Evil Requiem, and Samson.

Let’s start with the good ones. Resident Evil Requiem and PRAGMATA had major visual issues with DLSS 4 Ray Reconstruction. I’ve mentioned them in an older article. And I’m happy to report that DLSS 4.5 RR fixes them.

Inside the spaceship at the intro of PRAGMATA, there were a lot of visual artifacts with DLSS 4 RR. DLSS 4.5 RR fixes all of them. As for Resident Evil Requiem, it will no longer look as blurry as it did with DLSS 4 RR.

Crimson Desert also had some annoying visual issues with DLSS 4 Ray Reconstruction. To be more precise, there were some awful flickering issues with it. There were also trailing/ghosting issues with the reflections of fireflies at the start of the game. DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction fixes these problems. As such, you can enjoy the game with this tech, provided you use a high-end GPU.

These three games were the ones in which I had major issues with DLSS 4 RR. And these issues have been fixed. I then tried Samson, but I could not spot any major visual differences between DLSS 4.5 RR On and Off. Not only that, but the performance hit of Ray Reconstruction is quite big. So, in this particular game, there is no point enabling it. I mean, here is a blind test. Can you spot which ones are the DLSS 4.5 RR shots? I took them, and I sure as hell can’t tell.

Then we have Cyberpunk 2077. With DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction, the game looks sharper. Unlike Resident Evil Requiem, which was a total blur-fest at the opening street area, Cyberpunk 2077 never looked that bad. It’s a welcome improvement, but it’s not as transformative as what I saw in Resident Evil Requiem, PRAGMATA, or Crimson Desert.

But what about performance? Well, I’ve got some good news for you. Preset F (DLSS 4.5 RR) performs almost exactly like Preset D (DLSS 4 RR). The only game that behaved strangely was Crimson Desert. For some reason, performance went up. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I was able to replicate this multiple times. This is an outlier, though. In most games, DLSS 4.5 RR will perform similarly to DLSS 4 RR. This is great news, as this makes DLSS 4.5 RR a must, without any downsides. Well, at least for those who want to use Ray Reconstruction.

All in all, NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction is exactly what I’ve been asking for all these months. It fixes a lot of the visual issues I’ve seen in some games. And it does not come at any extra performance cost. So, good job, NVIDIA. It took you a while, but DLSS 4.5 RR is a step in the right direction.