Cyberpunk 2077, Minecraft RTX and more get framerate boosts on PC thanks to DLSS

(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)

Nvidia has announced that its Deep Learning Super Sampling (known simply as DLSS) is coming to six new games this month, with Cyberpunk 2077's release on December 10 being the most notable addition to the roster.

With ray-tracing now becoming such a focus point for the games industry, technology like DLSS is providing a means to enjoy higher frame rates at impressive graphical levels, without your PC combusting due to overload stress.

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Dial up the framerates

With Cyberpunk 2077 having released on December 10, the required specifications to play the game are higher than what the average gamer has equipped in their PC.

If you own a Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics card, such as the RTX 2060 or RTX 2080 Ti, you can use DLSS to improve the average framerate of your game without sacrificing resolution or scaling down graphics.

Minecraft with RTX has also now left beta and has been officially released for Windows 10, and this game is another notable GPU thrasher that should see some immense benefit from Nvidias upscaling software. By enabling DLSS, players can expect to see their framerates double.

The six games announced to get DLSS are as follows:

Okay, but will it help?

The difference in FPS as seen above does seem almost miraculous, but having conducted our own tests into how much of a boost you can get, we can confirm that DLSS is effectively some kind of technical black magic – at least for those lucky enough to have a top-line Nvidia graphics card.

We ran Death Stranding with every setting on maximum and managed an average of 23.3fps, so whilst the game looked utterly stunning, it limped through actual gameplay. Switching DLSS to the 'Performance' setting saw the game hitting on average 39.8fps, with a maximum of 49fps, even despite abusing the graphics to perform at 8K. Achieving a jump in FPS that size without any physical intervention is a blessing for anyone attempting to play these graphically demanding AAA titles.

With these new entries, the library of games that support DLSS has been increased to 32. Despite this seemingly small number, this list is expected to expand and currently includes big titles such as Monster Hunter: World, Battlefield V and Control.

Nvidia has made the promise that "more are waiting in the wings to be announced and released in the coming weeks and months" so if you're hoping to see a specific game getting an FPS boost thanks to some AI magic, you may have to wait a little longer.

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Jess is a former TechRadar Computing writer, where she covered all aspects of Mac and PC hardware, including PC gaming and peripherals. She has been interviewed as an industry expert for the BBC, and while her educational background was in prosthetics and model-making, her true love is in tech and she has built numerous desktop computers over the last 10 years for gaming and content creation. Jess is now a journalist at The Verge.