Nvidia Doubles DLSS 5 Performance, Cuts 4K VRAM Usage by 20% in October Update

DLSS 5 Gets a Major Speed Boost

Nvidia has announced that its DLSS 5 neural rendering technology for gaming is now two times faster than the current model, marking a 10x performance leap since March. The company says the gains come from a combination of systematic pipeline optimizations and neural model refinements, meaning the transformation DLSS applies to games through lighting and beyond will now run at higher frame rates or more intense settings.

Smaller Model, Lower VRAM Usage

The October update shrinks the overall DLSS 5 model footprint by nearly a quarter to 118 million parameters and reduces VRAM usage at 4K by 20%. Nvidia claims that at similar visual fidelity, GPU overhead versus the September model has been halved, and the change can boost frame rates by up to 1.4x.

Game Support and Rollout

The new faster model will debut in NBA 2K27 on October 16, and Nvidia confirmed it will bring DLSS 5 to Hogwarts Legacy next month. The technology continues to be supported on RTX 50-series GPUs, as well as GeForce NOW and the new RTX Spark lineup.

New Frame Generation Preset

Nvidia is also introducing a faster Performance Mode for Frame Generation on RTX 50 Series and RTX 40 series GPUs, as well as RTX Spark laptops. A new "Preset C" mode replaces the AI model previously used to calculate optical flow for elements like UI or ray-traced effects with a faster, lighter algorithm, boosting DLSS Frame Generation, MFG, and Dynamic MFG. The company says this is worth 35% in terms of speed on the RTX 5060.

Sources: Tom'S Hardware