Blind test shows PC gamers prefer NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 image quality over FSR 4 and native rendering

NVIDIA's DLSS has been the gold standard for PC gaming upscaling for several years, improving performance while maintaining excellent image quality. At CES 2026 in January, NVIDIA announced and released DLSS 4.5, featuring a new, improved DLSS Super Resolution powered by an advanced AI Transformer model. The result is better-than-native image quality with lost detail restored, which was our impression after going hands-on with the new technology.

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Although most of the negative sentiment surrounding DLSS is around using AI for Frame Generation and the perception that the performance-enhancing technology has become a crutch for some developers, there are still a lot of PC gamers who refuse to enable any form of upscaling or DLSS-like tech in favor of maintaining a pure, natively rendered image. And with that, German publication ComputerBase decided to conduct a 'Blind Test' with over 1,000 participants.

The goal was to see which gamers preferred for image quality: Native rendering, NVIDIA DLSS 4.5, or AMD FSR Upscaling (ML) or FSR 4. With the test covering six games, the results delivered a clear winner - NVIDIA DLSS 4.5. With an average of 48.2% choosing DLSS, 24.0% choosing native rendering, and 15% choosing FSR 4, it's a strong case for DLSS upscaling as a key component of PC gaming in 2026.

Across all six games tested (Anno 117, ARC Raiders, Cyberpunk 2077, Horizon Forbidden West, Satisfactory, and The Last of Us Part II), participants evaluated DLSS and FSR using the highest Quality preset and compared them to native rendering with TAA anti-aliasing. The only title where the result was split fairly evenly between DLSS and native rendering was Cyberpunk 2077, where DLSS 4.5 got 34.4% of the votes compared to 32.4% for native rendering.