Owners of older Nvidia graphics cards will get a free upgrade! DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction will offer better quality without sacrificing performance

This year, Nvidia is rolling out improvements to its DLSS suite in parts. CES saw the introduction of better image scaling (Super Resolution), then frame generation with 5× and 6× multipliers, and now, at Computex 2026, the final piece of the puzzle is here. It’s called DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction and it handles the most computationally demanding aspect of today’s games: ray tracing.

What’s changed under the hood

Ray Reconstruction replaces hand-tuned denoisers with a single AI model. This model calculates how areas not reached by ray tracing should look and directly upscales the result to a higher resolution. The new version is built on the second generation transformer architecture. According to Nvidia, it processes 35% more input data and works with 20% more parameters, all within the same computational budget as before.

In practice, this should mean more accurate lighting, a more stable image, cleaner motion, and less so-called ghosting, i.e., trails behind moving objects. As always, however, these are currently figures and pre-prepared demonstrations from Nvidia itself. The flickering laser in Pragmata or the wall of noisy televisions in Alan Wake 2 look convincing, but the final verdict will only come in real games.

It will also run on older cards, without a performance penalty

Here comes the most pleasant news. While DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution noticeably burdens older hardware, Ray Reconstruction remains fully compatible with all GeForce RTX cards, including the RTX 20 and RTX 30 series. And more importantly, without any performance penalty. Owners of Nvidia cards a few years old will thus get an upgrade practically for free, which is certainly not the rule with similar new features.

27 games in August, Blender will also be supported

Ray Reconstruction will launch in August via the Nvidia app and will be supported by 27 games at launch. Among them are big names like Cyberpunk 2077, Hogwarts Legacy, Resident Evil Requiem, Star Wars Outlaws, and DOOM: The Dark Ages. Moreover, the technology won’t be limited to games; later this year, it will also head to the 3D tool Blender, where it is intended to replace slow denoisers and speed up work in the viewport.

One thing, however, is more notable for its absence. The announcement of DLSS 5 was expected at Computex, but Nvidia discreetly remained silent about it. Whether development has been delayed, or something else is being prepared behind the scenes, only time will tell.

Do you use DLSS in your games, or do you prefer an unedited image?

Source: Nvidia