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Nvidia DLSS 3.0 only works on GeForce RTX 4000 GPUs

Nvidia DLSS 3.0 is the latest version of Deep Learning Super Sampling, but the greater performance and image fidelity requires a GeForce RTX 4000 GPU to use it

An illustration of Nvidia DLSS, reconstructing a black and green racer car

Nvidia DLSS 3.0 is coming October 12, with the technology poised to deliver greater image fidelity and higher levels of performance than the current version. However, it appears that the latest iteration of the upscaling technology only works on RTX 4000 GPUs, leaving current generation GeForce GPU owners high and dry.

The reason behind this limited compatibility stems from the fact that Nvidia DLSS 3.0 requires fourth-generation Tensor Cores and a new Optical Flow Accelerator, which are only found on GeForce RTX 4000 graphics cards, like the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080.

This hardware pairing found on the best graphics cards in Nvidia’s product stack allows the feature to boost fps even further through ‘Optical Multi Frame Generation’, which sees entirely new frames rather than pixels drawn by the deep learning technology.

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Comparing DLSS 3.0 versus native rendering using Cyberpunk 2077 as a benchmark, performance appears to jump from 20 frames per second to around 100fps. Similarly, impressive gains are shown in comparisons to DLSS 2.0, from 60fps to 90fps.

Over 35 games, including Portal RTX, A Plague Tale: Requiem, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt are currently slated to support Nvidia DLSS 3.0. We can expect this number to grow exponentially, however, as team green claims that game developers “can quickly enable it in existing titles that already support Nvidia DLSS 2.0”.