Great, but not perfect – Nvidia DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction Review

Conclusion – Great technology, but it isn’t perfect

DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction is not perfect, but it will transform ray tracing’s impact on games

Just look at our DLSS Ray Reconstruction image comparison. It is clear that Nvidia’s newest DLSS tech has a huge impact on the image quality of Cyberpunk 2077. That said, DLSS Ray Reconstruction is not without its downsides,. We noticed more ghosting and other visual artifacts when the feature is enabled in Cyberpunk 2077 2.0. Perhaps these issues will be addressed with new updates to DLSS or to Cyberpunk 2077, but so far, DLSS RR appears to be a mixed bag visually. That said, the positives do outweigh the negatives.

Cyberpunk 2077 – DLSS 3.5 could have been implemented better

Currently, Nvidia’s Ray Reconstruction tech is only usable with Cyberpunk 2o77’s Ray Tracing Overdrive mode. This means that Ray Reconstruction cannot be used with any of Cyberpunk 2077’s ray tracing features outside of this ultra taxing full ray tracing mode. It is also not usable with DLAA, which is a huge oversight. DLSS Ray Reconstruction is not a useful addition for most RTX GPU users, at least in Cyberpunk 2077. Not many GPUs are powerful enough to run Cyberpunk 2077 with its Ray Tracing overdrive mode enabled at high framerates.

Having DLSS Ray Reconstruction outside of this mode would have been a great addition for all owners of RTX GPUs. As it stands, DLSS Ray Reconstruction is only a useful add-on for owners of RTX 40 series GPUs that are powerful enough to run Cyberpunk 2077 in Ray Tracing Overdrive mode with high framerates.

DLSS Ray Reconstruction is transformative for ray tracing effects

Nvidia’s DLSS Ray Reconstruction technology is transformative. Yes, better looking ray tracing effects does not sound huge on paper, but think of the other ways that you could increase the quality of these effects. Instead of casting more rays and increasing the hardware requirements of games, Nvidia’s neural render is doing more with less.

By using data more intelligently, Nvidia giving RT effects a larger visual impact without a major drop in game performance. This is huge. If DLSS RR can increase the image quality of ray tracing effects, gamers who desire more system performance could dial some ray tracing settings back give games a performance and use DLSS RR to regain any losses in image quality.

While DLSS RR is exclusive to Nvidia’s RTX GPUs, it’s only a matter of time before an alternative is created. Just imagine how this tech can change how ray tracing is used on consoles, or on mobile gaming systems. If Nintendo indeed as a Switch 2 in the works, DLSS Ray Reconstruction could make ray tracing very viable on Nintendo’s next-gen mobile gaming system.

Nvidia’s DLSS Ray Reconstruction technology is a great addition to Nvidia’s DLSS family of AI technologies. It offers gamers an image quality boost with no real performance downsides, and if Nvidia can get Cyberpunk 2077’s visual artifacts fixed, it would be a perfect upgrade for all games with ray tracing.

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