Nvidia DLSS 3.5 promises better ray tracing on all GeForce RTX GPUs

pcgamesn.com:

Nvidia DLSS is already an invaluable way to improve performance and image quality, particularly when ray tracing is involved. Now, with the advent of ‘Ray Reconstruction’ as part of DLSS 3.5, Nvidia is working to improve ray tracing fidelity and frame rates across its entire GeForce RTX graphics card range.

We’ve not had an update to the Deep Learning Super Sampling software suite since January 2023, with DLSS 3.1, which introduced small but welcome improvements to provide better UI stability and quality. DLSS 3.5, however, looks to be a much more substantial update.

The main goal of Nvidia DLSS 3.5 is to solve the problems that arise from bespoke denoisers by cutting them out altogether and leveraging team green’s machine learning smarts in the form of a new feature called ‘Ray Reconstruction’. If you’ve never heard of a ‘denoiser’ before, don’t worry. In short, its purpose is to resolve raw ray-traced pixels that can often resemble a noisy static mess into the final rendered image we see.

In a briefing with PCGamesN, Nvidia claims that by swapping from hand-tuned denoisers to Ray Reconstruction, gamers will benefit from more accurate, detailed, and less-performant heavy ray-traced effects. While this sounds great in theory, team green has kindly shared screenshots showcasing DLSS 3.5 in action.

Both screenshots from Cybperunk 2077 in the gallery above are inarguably improved thanks to Ray Reconstruction, with reflections retaining more detail and lighting behaving more accurately.

However, I’d like to discuss the Portal with RTX screenshot in more detail. While the changes here are more subtle, they’re hard to ignore once you’re aware of what to look for. Note the pixels that make up the heart of the Companion