DLSS frame gen could come to older Nvidia GeForce RTX gaming GPU lineups

Nvidia has hinted that its DLSS Frame Generation technology could in fact work on its older graphics cards, potentially bringing huge leaps in frame rates to aging hardware. However, if and when that support comes is for “the future” to decide.

Nvidia launched its latest version of DLSS Frame Generation alongside the reveal of its latest RTX 5000 series of graphics cards, led by the RTX 5090. The new version, DLSS 4, incorporates a range of updates to existing DLSS technologies but the primary addition is DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation, which allows a graphics card to generate up to three frames for each conventionally rendered frame with AI, resulting in huge boosts to frame rates.

However, DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation is restricted to only working on RTX 5000 GPUs. This follows DLSS 3 Frame Generation being restricted to only working on RTX 4000 series GPUs, leaving owners of RTX 3000 and RTX 2000 series cards unable to access frame generation. That’s despite both those older series of cards including Tensor cores that can in theory perform most of the calculations needed for the technique.

It was this lack of backward compatibility that led the tech testers at Digital Foundry to ask Nvidia’s VP of applied deep learning research, Bryan Catanzaro, about possible eventual support for DLSS Frame Generation in the 3000 series. He replied: “I think this is primarily a question of optimization and also engineering, and then the ultimate user experience. We’re launching this Frame Generation, the best Multi Frame Generation technology, with the 50 series, and we’ll see what we’re able to squeeze out of older technology in the future.”

Technically, this does hint at Nvidia possibly thinking about adding frame generation support to older cards at some point. Catanzaro didn’t specifically say the company wouldn’t ever add Frame Generation support or deny that it’s possible to add support. However, the company has had several years to work on backward compatibility without any hint of it arriving, so we wouldn’t hold out much hope of RTX 3000 or RTX 2000 DLSS frame-gen support.

It’s also likely that Nvidia does have good reason not to implement the technology, in terms of it potentially providing a poor user experience. Tensor cores in its RTX cards have grown considerably in capability with each generation, so while they could support the techniques used in frame generation, older Tensor cores could be too slow to perform it well.

For more on what else Nvidia’s upcoming new GPUs can do, check out our first-hand experience of the RTX 5070 vs 4090 thanks to DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation.