DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction looks fantastic, and it's the missing piece of DLSS 4.5

NVIDIA introduced DLSS 4.5 at the beginning of the year, with a new second-generation transformer model that delivered a notable improvement in image fidelity when using DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution upscaling or DLSS 4.5 Frame Generation to boost smoothness. More than an incremental update, it even restored details that were otherwise lost when using similar technologies or the already-impressive DLSS 4.0. In a way, it lived up to the DLSS promise of delivering 'better than native' image quality more so than anything we had seen to date.

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However, there was a missing piece. Without a new and improved DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction, the full benefits of DLSS 4.5 are absent in titles with heavy ray-tracing and path-tracing modes. Thankfully, that's about to change, as NVIDIA has confirmed that DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction is coming in August as part of a new GeForce Game Ready and NVIDIA App update, and will be immediately available in all of the 25 to 30 games with native DLSS Ray Reconstruction support.

At Computex 2026, we got to see DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction in action in Remedy's Alan Wake 2, Capcom's Pragmata, and Machine Games' Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, with NVIDIA providing several side-by-side examples to showcase the benefits compared to the existing Ray Reconstruction. But before we go through that, here's a quick primer of what exactly Ray Reconstruction is and what the new DLSS 4.5 version brings to the table.

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Ray Reconstruction is an AI-powered de-noiser designed specifically for ray-traced lighting effects. The technology exists to enhance the detail of ray-traced lighting effects such as reflections and shadows, and, compared to existing algorithms and denoisers, it's a game-changer. With NVIDIA upgrading Ray Reconstruction for DLSS 4.5, the second-generation transformer model is around 35% more powerful and can process 20% more data while maintaining 'similar performance' to the previous model.

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In Alan Wake 2, DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction restores detail to things like static patterns on TVs, enhancing the overall lighting presentation. That demo was running on one of NVIDIA's new RTX Spark laptops. In Pragmata, some prior ghosting and retention issues with fast-moving lasers have disappeared thanks to the new model. And in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, there's no longer a slight delay in ray-traced shadows interacting with various light sources. And on top of that, these enhanced shadows also restore detail in the game's sandy tomb-like environments where everything looks crisper and more lived in.

Being able to see both versions side-by-side really helped showcase the difference DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction brings to the table and how, when paired with the new DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution, it serves as the missing piece for taking path-traced and ray-traced visuals to the next level.