I've been using Nvidia's dynamic multi-frame generation, and it feels like a natural step forward for DLSS

Amid all the furore over Nvidia's showcases of DLSS 5, the AI upfilter that it still claims it'll release this year, the brand's comms team are probably hoping people can shift their attention back to graphical features that are actually available to use as of now – meaning those included in DLSS 4.5.

That update is available to those with compatible hardware right now, but the nature of its rollout also means that your library of games is a bit of a factor in how much you can experiment with it to see if it's to your liking.

With that in mind, I spent some of this week playing around in what remains one of the best graphical showcases of all time, Cyberpunk 2077, to see what one specific feature felt like in my hands (and on my 5070 Ti). I saw Nvidia's new dynamic version of its multi-frame generation tech at a hardware event months ago, but this is the public version, and it's been fascinating to tinker with.

To catch you up, Nvidia's been pushing its multi-frame generation system for a while now, and I'm a big fan. The feature lets your graphics card insert generated frames between rendered ones, often getting you a big boost in smoothness as a result, and the latest version of DLSS can go up to six generated frames for every one "real" one.

However, the nature of PC performance means that if you stick your system on 6X frame generation, there might be plenty of windows where that many frames aren't even needed, since your system might be able to handle more of the rendering load in less busy scenes.

The new dynamic setting lets Nvidia's software adapt on the fly to what you're playing, ramping up multi-frame generation settings if you hit more complex scenes, but turning it right back down if it's not needed. That's a big change for those who find that frame generation introduces more latency than they're comfortable with, since it can help

DLSS 4.5 | Enhanced Super Resolution & Dynamic Multi Frame Gen - YouTube

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Firstly, since this tech is still pretty damn new, you won't find settings in that many games' menus to let you activate dynamic frame generation. Rather, it's something you have to activate in the Nvidia app, as an override. This, in turn, means that you won't get in-game confirmation that it's working.

Thankfully, you can use the Nvidia overlay to get a performance readout that shows what level of frame generation you're on – crucial for checking it's active at all. I found it pretty easy to set up, though, and once it was turned on, I could indeed see the level fluctuating depending on how busy my screen was.

I've said for a long while that frame generation is a great example of where Nvidia's approach to AI can work really nicely. It's not a silver bullet, and you need powerful hardware to unlock it, but I think for many non-competitive gamers the small latency cost is easily worth it for the boost in smoothness.

That makes the new dynamic setting feel like a no-brainer when you use it for more than a couple of minutes. That said, it also brings the latency into slightly sharper focus, given you'll be swapping back and forth between the modes on the fly. Generally, these switches didn't feel noticeable to me, especially between 2X and 3X, for instance.

When it clocked up further, though, I could start to feel a real difference, and that might make some people leery of the feature. In my view, that's almost entirely solved by setting an FPS target (also in the Nvidia app). This lets me tell the system to, for instance, aim for a smooth 90fps rather than shooting for my monitor's maximum of 144Hz.

I found that making that adjustment, which was easy to do, put a ceiling on how much frame generation was needed, and was a great example of how Nvidia isn't making everyone use one version for all cases. The fact that you can set these settings on a per-game basis is great, too.

It's left me assuming that I'll play around with dynamic frame generation every time I try out a new PC game that remotely supports it, to be honest. It's fascinating to see how the system adapts, albeit with an RTX 5070 Ti in my PC, I don't really struggle for performance headroom most of the time.

Again, I think it's an example of what Nvidia can do right – and it makes me all the more confused that DLSS 5 is even labelled the way it is right now. Filters and frame generation don't feel like they belong under the same banner, especially when the latter can work this well.