CES 2026: Nvidia’s Updated DLSS Technology Is Hurting Game Performance on Older Graphics Cards.
Unless you run a data center specializing in AI, Nvidia’s announcements at CES were rather muted. There were updates to GeForce Now cloud streaming and DLSS upscaling technology, but no new graphics cards. This is normal—Nvidia typically has a lull in consumer technology, and the RTX 50 series graphics cards were released only last year. Unfortunately, it turns out that these DLSS updates actually degrade game performance on older graphics cards.
The new version of DLSS, dubbed DLSS 4.5, is quite good when it works. It already makes lighting much more realistic, even when ray tracing or HDR aren’t in use, and dynamic frame generation will be coming this spring, which will be able to adjust the number of frames added to a game by AI on the fly, so as not to waste computing resources generating more frames than necessary or than your monitor can display. I saw examples of both of these use cases in person at CES, and as someone who primarily plays without scaling whenever possible, I was so impressed that I might consider upgrading my graphics card.
And I emphasize “new GPU.” Unfortunately, DLSS 4.5 seems to work best only on the latest Nvidia graphics cards. Yesterday, it launched in beta for all Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics cards, but gamers using older RTX 3000 series cards are already reporting issues. According to user X Mostly Positive Reviews (via Tom’s Hardware ), Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti users may notice performance drops of up to 24% in Cyberpunk 2077 and up to 14% in The Last of Us Part 2. These are just a few examples, but other users in the comments, as well as on Reddit , have also reported their own issues.
This is a significant issue. The RTX 3080 Ti may be a few generations behind, but when it was at its peak, it was one of the best. More importantly, according to Steam data, the RTX 3060 is currently the most common graphics card on Steam , and it’s weaker than the RTX 3080 Ti. And technically, DLSS 4.5 is available even for the even weaker RTX 2000 series graphics cards, which would likely face even more serious issues.
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So where does this massive performance loss come from, and what can be done about it? It’s likely related to the new AI transformation model underlying DLSS, which Nvidia says was designed with the RTX 40 and RTX 50 series GPUs in mind. While DLSS 4.5 can be used with older GPUs, it doesn’t appear to be specifically intended.
Fortunately, if you decide to try DLSS 4.5 on an older graphics card and don’t like the results, that doesn’t mean you have to put up with it. The public implementation of DLSS 4.5 is currently in beta and can be applied to games by selecting the “Model M” or “Model L” preset in the Nvidia app (under “Recent” and “Custom,” respectively). Selecting a different model, such as Model K, should return you to normal. When DLSS 4.5 is released in full on January 13th, I expect this will become even easier.
However, it’s disappointing that most gamers using Nvidia graphics cards can’t take advantage of this exciting new feature. While it can be disabled, it won’t break anything, but it also shows that Nvidia is starting to leave all but the most dedicated users of its graphics cards behind. And as someone who primarily uses scaling only on weaker hardware, like the Steam Deck, I find it particularly odd that scaling already boils down to relying on performance-boosting software when raw power is scarce. In theory, this should make gamers with weaker graphics cards the target audience.
But it’s not all bad news for my fellow budget-conscious gamers. Along with DLSS 4.5, Nvidia also announced a native Linux client for Nvidia GeForce Now, as well as a native app for Amazon Fire TV. This expands the cloud gaming platform’s reach to even more users, and since GeForce Now offers a free tier, it’s quite a bargain. If you do it right—for example, by buying a discounted Fire TV and playing a free game—you can play games using Nvidia’s latest GPUs on a big screen for under $20 . Of course, this may come with some lag and video compression—an inevitable tradeoff in cloud gaming—but as DLSS 4.5 demonstrates, even using local hardware has its challenges.