Nvidia’s newest graphics trick just got a lot cheaper to run. The company announced an updated DLSS 5 model on October 13 that roughly doubles the speed of its neural rendering engine, cuts video memory use at 4K by 20%, and trims the model itself by nearly a quarter — all without asking players to buy a new graphics card.
DLSS 5 is different from the upscaling and frame generation PC players already know. Its 3D-Guided Neural Rendering uses AI to rework a game’s lighting and materials in real time, rather than just sharpening a lower-resolution image or inventing extra frames. When it launched in September alongside NBA 2K27, the effect was striking — and expensive. Early testing showed the feature cutting frame rates by 60% or more, to the point that holding 60 frames per second at max settings in NBA 2K27 at 4K effectively demanded an RTX 5090, while an RTX 5070 only managed the same at 1440p.
The October model attacks that cost directly. Nvidia says it refined the training data and shrank the neural network by 24%, down to roughly 118 million parameters. The leaner model runs about twice as fast as the September version and needs roughly half the GPU overhead at similar image quality. In practice, Nvidia puts the gain in NBA 2K27 at more than 30% — frame rates jumping from around 65 FPS to 90 FPS in 4K in the company’s example — with up to 40% higher frame rates overall. The update reaches NBA 2K27 on Friday, October 16.
More games are on the way. Hogwarts Legacy gets DLSS 5 on November 5, and its developer has used the new controls to dial the effect back: instead of reworking character faces, as an early demo did to sharp criticism, the update focuses on lighting and shadows. Where Winds Meet follows in late November, and classic games get a turn through RTX Remix starting October 23, with Fallout 4 and the original Mirror’s Edge among the first to show off reworked reflections, lighting, shadows, and ambient occlusion. Nvidia also says DLSS 5 is headed to RTX 40-series cards down the line.
There is a smaller bonus for players who don’t mind beta software. A new “Preset C” frame generation preset in the Nvidia app beta trades a little image quality for speed, with Nvidia claiming up to 35% faster performance on an RTX 5060.
The usual caveat applies: these are Nvidia’s own numbers, and independent testing will tell how the gains hold up across different games and cards. But if the October model delivers anything close to what Nvidia promises, DLSS 5 goes from a flagship-only curiosity to something mid-range cards can actually use — which is exactly what it needed to be.
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