The future of graphics processing probably lies offline, in data centres.
It’s been around for long enough now that we take it for granted. A new game comes out, dripping in graphics, and occasionally when we run it at 4K it dips to an unplayable 58fps. So we go into the video options, turn the ‘DLSS’ option on, and get back on with walking through neon-lit streets in our game du jour.
But DLSS is worth paying closer attention to. This tech is indistinguishable from magic. It’s upscaling our games in real time, at the point that the frame is being rendered by the GPU. It’s able not just to take a 1080p image and produce a very convincing 4K version that doesn’t eat up resources, but also to interpolate between rendered frames for a smoother visual experience and a higher overall framerate. Without it, developers wouldn’t be able to push ray tracing as far, or Unreal Engine 5’s impressive features like Nanite and Lumen. And its pace of evolution is fearsome.