Nvidia has indicated it plans to work on expanding official DLSS 5 support to the GeForce RTX 40 Series, according to an update posted to the company’s DLSS 5 FAQ on Reddit this week. That’s a notably softer claim than outright confirmation – Nvidia is describing a future intention, not an available feature, and DLSS 5 currently remains officially limited to RTX 50 hardware running the newly launched NBA 2K27.
DLSS has come a long way since Nvidia introduced it back in 2018 as a resolution-upscaling tool, later adding frame generation in subsequent versions. DLSS 5 pushes further still, using what Nvidia calls 3D-guided neural rendering to layer in lighting and material effects that weren’t present in a game’s original build. Nvidia says the enhancements are tuned by developers so they don’t clash with a title’s original artistic direction, though the approach is already drawing pushback online amid broader frustration with AI-driven visual changes in games – a debate that echoes discussions around how upscaling tech gets deployed across ports like the recently detailed Oblivion Remastered Switch 2 version.
Anyone running Nvidia hardware older than the RTX 40 series still appears to be excluded from Nvidia’s stated plans, at least for now. That’s not surprising given how demanding the feature already looks in testing. Nvidia has not published a compatibility matrix confirming which RTX 40 cards would qualify, and separate unofficial modding efforts that got a pre-release DLSS 5 library running on RTX 40 and RTX 30-series hardware remain experimental only – they don’t reflect Nvidia’s eventual support decision, safety, or performance.
The current state of play breaks down cleanly:
- Official hardware support – RTX 50-series GPUs only, at present
- Planned expansion – some RTX 40-series support, with no compatibility matrix confirmed yet
- Official game support – NBA 2K27, the only title shipping DLSS 5 today
- Reported RTX 5090 performance – Hardware Unboxed measured 4K max settings falling from 192fps to 76fps with DLSS 5 enabled and frame generation off
- Upcoming titles named by Nvidia – Assassin’s Creed Shadows and Hogwarts Legacy are expected to add support in the future
For RTX 40 owners, the practical move right now is to wait. Nvidia hasn’t attached a release date, driver path, or supported-GPU list to its RTX 40 plans, and until it does, official DLSS 5 access simply isn’t on the table for that hardware – a pattern that mirrors how Nvidia has gradually widened access to other features like GeForce Now’s expanding platform support over time.
Does Nvidia’s phrasing change how you’re thinking about upgrading, or are you holding off until RTX 40 support actually ships? And with performance already taking a heavy hit on flagship RTX 50 hardware, how much headroom do you think Ada Lovelace cards will realistically have left?
