NVIDIA has just lifted the review embargo for DLSS 5. As I mentioned in my DLSS 5 NBA 2K27 article, this tech is currently available only on RTX 50-series GPUs. However, NVIDIA plans to bring DLSS 5 to RTX 40-series GPUs in the near future.
As NVIDIA told us, its current focus is on optimizing performance for the GeForce RTX 50 Series, with model updates expected later this fall. These new models will further improve the performance of DLSS 5. This is something crucial, as DLSS 5 is already quite demanding.
Once RTX 50 Series performance is more fully tuned, NVIDIA plans to work on expanding official support to the GeForce RTX 40 Series.
So, there you have it. NVIDIA will eventually make DLSS 5 compatible with the RTX 40-series GPUs. It will take a while, but the green team will not abandon those who are currently gaming with these GPUs.
Now, I know that some will say that the DLSS 5 Mods work with the RTX 40-series GPUs. However, the performance hit of DLSS 5 is already too high. Not only that, but DLSS 5 is only supported by one game right now. So, you are not missing much.
All in all, NVIDIA appears to be really careful with DLSS 5. Normally, you’d expect a bunch of games to support it. However, we only have one. In a way, it makes sense as NBA 2K27 is not a demanding PC game. So, NVIDIA needs to further optimize and improve the performance of DLSS 5 so that it can be used in more GPU-heavy games.
To put it simply, DLSS 5 currently comes with a 50–60% performance hit. So, most path-traced games will likely not run well with it. This is exactly what we’ve seen with the DLSS 5 mod when used in a path-traced game. As such, NVIDIA needs to reduce the performance hit of DLSS 5. This will allow it to work properly in more demanding games.
So, consider this an early release of DLSS 5. The tech is not finished yet. It will improve over time, and it should also get faster. Once DLSS 5 reaches an acceptable state, NVIDIA will make it compatible with RTX 40-series GPUs.
Some NVIDIA RTX 4090 owners may not like this, but hey. Better late than never, right? Until then, we may see some mods that will unlock native implementations of DLSS 5 for the RTX 40 series GPUs!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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