DLSS3 Frame Generation Quality

With this generation, NVIDIA introduces DLSS 3, which adds a completely new way of generating frames. While DLSS 2 focused on upscaling and supersampling, DLSS 3 Frame Generation takes two frames and generates an intermediate frame in-between, based on how things have moved in between these two frames. The underlying hardware engine, the "Optical Flow Accelerator" has been improved in Ada, which is why Frame Generation is not available on older GPU architectures. Just to clarify, "DLSS 3" is a combination of "DLSS 2" plus "Frame Generation". Owners of older NVIDIA graphics cards can still enable "DLSS 3", and the upscaling functionality will work just fine. Every DLSS 3 game has a new option now called "Frame Generation", which is a separate, independent option to enable. Actually, you can enable Frame Generation even when DLSS upscaling is completely turned off, or you can enable DLAA + FG, if you prefer that. Combining Frame Generation with other DLSS modes like "quality", "performance" and "balanced" is possible too, of course.

For the testing below we picked a difficult scenario--gameplay at 1080p, so it's easier to see small differences, and running at low FPS, which makes the difference between frames bigger, so the Frame Generation algorithm has to work even harder. NVIDIA made it clear to us that you'll get the best Frame Generation results when doubling FPS rates of 60+, and that artifacts at very low FPS rates are not unexpected.

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Open in new window (for fullscreen)

In Microsoft Flight Simulator I really can't spot any noteworthy differences, not in the stills, certainly not in the video running at normal speed.

F1 22 60 FPS

Open in new window (for fullscreen)

Things are different in F1 22. Even at 60 FPS (= 120 FPS with DLSS 3), there are small artifacts, if you look for them. Things to pay attention to are tyre shadows, the fence on the right, people in the crowd, and the rearview mirrors. All these are pretty much invisible if you watch the video at normal speed, and imagine you'll be focused on driving the car too.

F1 22 30 FPS

Open in new window (for fullscreen)

To further amplify the differences, just to see what happens at lower FPS, I tried F1 22 at 30 FPS. While image quality doesn't fall apart, the artifacts are more visible than before. Still, overall a very solid first implementation. Good job, NVIDIA!