NVIDIA's DLSS Transformer Tech Slashes VRAM Usage By 20%

If you keep up with PC gaming news, you're almost assuredly aware that when NVIDIA unveiled the Blackwell-based GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs, it also released "DLSS 4", with Multi-Frame Generation (MFG) and a new Transformer-based model for Super Resolution and Ray Reconstruction. The part you may not have heard is that, aside from MFG, "DLSS 4" is actually available for all GeForce RTX GPUs, meaning that you can enjoy the visual benefits of the latest DLSS upscaling model even if you're rocking a GeForce RTX 20 Series (Turing) GPU.

The downside is that the Transformer-based DLSS models are considerably heavier than the previous-generation CNN-based models, and as a result, the performance gains you get from enabling DLSS upscaling can be markedly smaller than before. This effect is minimal on Blackwell, small on Ada Lovelace, more noticeable on Ampere, and quite large on Turing. What you might not expect, though, is that the Transformer-based DLSS model actually uses less video memory than the older, CNN-based model.


That factoid comes from the NVIDIA DLSS Super Resolution (version 310.3.0) Programming Guide, which lists GPU memory requirements and GPU time execution needs for DLSS upscaling. DLSS uses less video RAM than you might expect—about 86 MB at 1080p, and about 307 MB at 4K—but both of those figures are down around 20% from the last release of the DLSS programming guide, owing to the optimizations made in the move to the transformer model.

That's right—contrary to what you may have read, DLSS itself doesn't reduce the amount of video RAM your game actually needs, but rather, the DLSS model itself actually requires some video RAM to do its thing. However, a cut in memory used by DLSS is certainly a welcome respite for entry-level GPUs whose 8GB local memory is seriously crunched by recent releases like Monster Hunter Wilds and Doom: The Dark Ages.


If you haven't tried the new DLSS model yet and you have any GeForce RTX graphics card, it's definitely worth trying out, even on RTX 20 series GPUs. The Transformer model addresses many historical issues of DLSS upscaling, including the blurring of animated textures and motion trails on distant objects. Many users have found that they are comfortable using a lower input resolution preset (i.e. 'Performance' instead of 'Quality'), improving framerate while preserving a similar or even higher level of image quality.

To try out DLSS 4, open the NVIDIA App, go to "Graphics", select a Game Profile, and then select "Latest" under "DLSS Override - Model Presets". It's possible to enable DLSS 4 on almost all games that support any form of DLSS 2 or DLSS 3, but if you're having trouble, you could always check out the free and open source DLSS Swapper application.