Both at CES in Las Vegas and recently at a European event in London, we got the chance to stop by Nvidia’s showcase, where they had a lot of interesting tech on display. Some of the stuff, like the Nvidia DGC Spark, were perhaps a bit out of our budget and more workplace focused to be of real interest, but as PC gamers would expect, there was a lot out there to impress them, too. Whether you’re excited or disappointed by Nvidia’s AI focus, it is a lot of what the company’s future is revolving around, and that applies to much of its upcoming gaming software and hardware.
What will probably affect the most Nvidia users out there is the arrival of DLSS 4.5. Using a 2nd generation transformer model, this can improve a lot of our gaming visuals, from frame generation to seriously enhanced lighting and detail. In the demos we saw, it was quite clear to see some of the lighting upgrades in a title like Black Myth: Wukong, for example, and you can see immediately how this will impact someone who loves taking beautiful screenshots, for example. It removes crushed blacks, better understands how colours should work, and removes trails and smearing in distant objects.
It’s cool to see in action, and it’s nice that Nvidia has popped this update from the 20 series onwards, but it’s not the only focus of DLSS 4.5. The newly improved DLSS also allows up to 6x frame generation, but that tech is only available on the 50 series GPUs as it’s so demanding. Again, in the demo we saw it certainly looked like there were a lot of frames, but with both these updates it’s hard to really determine how much of an improvement you’ll notice as you’re playing a game, with all the stuff that can happen in an open-world RPG like The Outer Worlds 2.
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Where you might be able to make use of all those extra frames is on an Nvidia G-Sync Pulsar display. Nvidia is not a monitor company, but they’ve decided to fix a problem they saw with modern displays, as Pulsar effectively removes motion blur, giving you a clear image even as characters, maps, and more move quickly in front of your vision. Weirdly, at the London show this was only displayed on a strategy game, whereas with the Las Vegas showing we saw Overwatch on one of these monitors, and it was much easier to clarify the difference this monitor offers. It’s much more of a competitive-focused item, it seems, but the technology is seriously impressive to do what it does, and we wouldn’t be surprised if and when it becomes the new standard for anyone hoping to begin taking their gameplay seriously.
If you want to just be a casual player, though, so unencumbered by game knowledge that you want to just ask an assistant for help, then Nvidia ACE has you covered. This is an AI advisor or squad buddy, depending on the type of game you’re playing. In Total War: Pharaoh, ACE takes the form of an elderly scholar, whereas in PUBG it’s a friendly teammate who’ll keep an eye out for enemies and pick up items for you. There’s certainly an element of laziness and perhaps loneliness in utilising ACE, but it’s also quite fun at its core, with the potential to save you seconds, perhaps minutes of internet browsing for answers from forums that the AI will dig up for you. ACE is smarter than your average Google search or Reddit query, at least it’s meant to be, but it’s difficult to tell how much of a master strategist you’re likely to become with your scheming advisor always handy at your shoulder.
Probably the most interesting thing revealed, at least for gamers, is Nvidia’s Remix technology. It wasn’t present at London, but essentially this could be a massive boon for modders effectively looking to remaster older titles. We saw Half-Life 2 given new life, textures, lighting, and more with the simple press of a button, and while it doesn’t mean we can remaster anything we want at the snap of our fingers, it is an intriguing bit of tech that looks like it has a lot of potential for modding communities out there.
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Otherwise, it’s quite hard to pick apart key interests for gamers in Nvidia’s upcoming line-up. As mentioned, there is a heavy AI focus here, as that’s just the way the money and the PC business is flowing. There’s more frames, better lighting, new ideas made possible by AI, but if you’re not yet convinced by those fancy two letters everyone’s fussing over, Pulsar is probably going to be the thing worth keeping your eye on. There’s a lot of tech that needs to go into it still, and ideas that could be explored further, but it’s immediately impressive with its quality and the work that’s gone into making a display solution that solves a major gripe with ease.