Nvidia will introduce DLSS 3.5 this autumn, the latest version of its industry-dominating super-sampling tech, enabling AI-enhanced path-tracing for all RTX graphics card owners.
DLSS 3.5 is aimed at path-traced games, not standard ray-traced titles, utilising a single smart denoiser driven by deep-learning AI algorithms to improve realism and (in some cases) frame rates.
DLSS 3.5 is built on five times the amount of data that powered DLSS 3. It will be available as a separate selectable option in certain games, similar to DLSS 3 frame gen settings.
Games that will support path-tracing at the launch of DLSS 3.5 include Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty expansion, Alan Wake 2 and Portal RTX.
Nvidia’s blog post states: “The solution: NVIDIA DLSS 3.5. Our newest innovation, Ray Reconstruction, is part of an enhanced AI-powered neural renderer that improves ray-traced image quality for all GeForce RTX GPUs by replacing hand-tuned denoisers with an NVIDIA supercomputer-trained AI network that generates higher-quality pixels in between sampled rays.”
A path of remarkable progress
In the video demo, quality improvements to reflection sharpness and colour bounce are shown off to great effect, as well as some significant frame rate improvements in specific scenarios due to the streamlined pipeline of the AI model.
Check out the video below for an eye-opening example of how DLSS has evolved over the past several years:
Nvidia isn’t limiting DLSS 3.5 to games, as it will be available in popular 3D rendering apps such as D5 Render, Chaos Vantage and Nvidia’s own Omniverse. The tech will provide much higher quality render previews, streamlining intensive 3D workflows.
It’s yet another example of Nvidida’s boss-like dominance of the PC graphics sector, with continuing strides in path tracing and super-sampling that must be causing a lot of sleepiness nights at AMD headquarters.
If only the current-gen consoles had Nvidia graphics! But that’s a discussion for another day…
