Although GPUs are currently super expensive, we’re still constantly told that it’s definitely time to upgrade ours. And, in all fairness, Nvidia doesn’t make it easy to say no. The latest iterations of DLSS, including 4.5 and the upcoming 5, are extremely tempting … but does that mean you should be pulling out your wallet?
Not a chance. You most likely don’t need a new GPU, and a $7 app can largely replace a lot of the features that Nvidia uses as its main selling point.
DLSS 4.5 is impressive, but is that a good enough reason to buy a new GPU?
Great tech, narrower payoff
DLSS 4.5 is more than just Nvidia slapping a fresh number on the same old feature set. The tech marks the first time that we’re close to Nvidia living up to its promises of being able to match the performance of an RTX 4090 with an RTX 5070. We’re not quite there yet, but we’re on the way.
The big upgrade this time is a second-gen transformer model for Super Resolution, which improves image quality in ways that are actually easy to notice, especially in motion. Nvidia says it cuts down on ghosting, improves anti-aliasing, and makes the image more stable overall, with the biggest gains showing up in Performance and Ultra Performance modes where upscalers have the hardest job.
That is the part of DLSS 4.5 most people should actually care about. Compared to the previous DLSS 4 rollout, which introduced the transformer model and Multi Frame Generation, DLSS 4.5 adds that newer second-gen transformer model for Super Resolution and also introduces Dynamic Multi Frame Generation, which can automatically adjust the frame generation multiplier depending on the scene instead of sticking to one fixed setting.
All of that stuff is great, but perhaps the best bit for people with older GPUs is that DLSS 4.5 is available to anyone with an RTX GPU. RTX 20-series, 30-series, and 40-series owners can try it out for themselves, although the effects may be diminished (or even negative) prior to the RTX 40-series due to hardware limitations.
But the thing is, every one of these perks comes with a catch, and a lot of them can be addressed with an app that costs literally $7.
Lossless Scaling solves the real problem for a lot less money
Cheap, flexible, and good enough for most uses
I’ve been singing the praises of Lossless Scaling for a while now, and with good reason. This $7 Steam app fixes a lot of the things that are wrong with DLSS. In many ways, it can let you hold on to an older GPU for much longer than you would otherwise.
Lossless Scaling works by adding its own LSFG frame generation and optional upscaling on top of games, including titles that don’t have built-in DLSS, FSR, or frame gen support at all. Instead of being baked into each game, it works independently. It’s compatible with most games, vendor-agnostic (meaning it works with every GPU), and even supports older games and emulators.
That flexibility matters more than you might think. DLSS 4.5 is great when a game supports it properly and your GPU is the right generation for the features you want, but LS doesn’t care nearly as much about any of that. It’s easy to use and lets you upscale or use frame gen across countless titles.
It’s also not just a frame generation tool. It can be used to support a dual GPU setup, and it supports several scaling methods.
It’s not a fix-everything-right-now type of thing, but it’s good enough to be easy to recommend to just about anyone. I’m satisfied with my GPU’s performance in nearly every game, and yet, I still use LS to give certain titles an extra boost.
DLSS is still better, but there are caveats
Native support always wins
As much as I love LS, I’m not here to lie to you: DLSS is still the better option, provided both your hardware and the game support it properly. It’s built into the rendering pipeline instead of being layered on top afterward. Besides, Nvidia’s DLSS stack also ties into features like Reflex, which helps keep latency under control while frame generation is doing its thing. That kind of native integration is hard, if not impossible, for a third-party tool to truly match.
Nvidia’s current suite includes upscaling, frame gen, MFG (multi-frame gen), ray reconstruction, DLAA, and Reflex. That’s a lot of different features to turn your nose up at. A game with full DLSS support gets a cleaner and more complete solution than Lossless Scaling can offer, and when stars align, native DLSS should still deliver the best mix of performance, visual quality, and responsiveness.
But, (sorry for the flip-flopping) there’s more to this argument than meets the eye. Aside from the various compatibility-related caveats, which I’ve discussed, DLSS 4.5 still requires an alright base frame rate to work its magic. Otherwise, you might run into stuttering or visual artifacts.
Those issues can and do still happen with Lossless Scaling, but at least you don’t have to pay hundreds of dollars upfront to try it out.
The upgrade treadmill never stops
DLSS 5 will push even more people to spend money
And here comes DLSS 5, pushing the upgrades on even more people. Coming later in 2026, DLSS 5 is about more than just boosting frame rates or cleaning up an upscaled image. It introduces real-time rendering that takes a frame’s color and motion vectors as input and then adds photoreal lighting and materials on top. The goal is to achieve film-like visuals in games that didn’t originally have them.
That’s a major shift, and not everyone’s happy about it. Some people went as far as to call the results “AI slop” because of how DLSS 5 completely changes the visuals in games.
My advice? Save your money
There’s a lot of controversy around DLSS 5. Personally, I fully get the hype, but I still don’t think most people absolutely need to upgrade their GPU for DLSS 4.5 or DLSS 5. It comes down to preference, and more than anything, DLSS 5 will be hit by that “anti-fake frames” camp even harder than any of the previous iterations. Gaming purists are rallying against it. Do you like it? That should determine whether you upgrade or not. For pure frame generation, just stick to Lossless Scaling and save your money. At the very least, give it a try to make sure it’s not all you need.
Stephan is the sports journalist for the Maple Grove Report.
