When frame generation first became available, I often heard that it increased latency and made games feel "mushy." I tried it back then and had the same impression. Recently, though, I enabled it again and the experience feels noticeably better. According to the NVIDIA latency overlay, total system latency even drops slightly when frame generation is enabled. Could NVIDIA Reflex or newer drivers have improved how the two features work together, or does frame generation simply perform better in the particular game and settings I'm using? My base frame rate is around the mid-80s, and I'm not noticing an obvious downside besides occasional image-quality artifacts. Is there anything important I'm overlooking?
3 Answers
Reflex can make the game feel more responsive by reducing the render queue, but frame generation itself still adds some latency in many situations. Some games only enable Reflex alongside frame generation, while others let you use Reflex independently. If your base rate is already in the mid-80s and the game remains responsive, the smoother presentation may outweigh the small latency increase. Check the latency overlay consistently and watch for artifacts or uneven frame pacing rather than relying only on the displayed FPS.
Newer graphics drivers have included updates to the AI and frame-generation features, so driver improvements may contribute to the better experience. However, they probably won’t completely eliminate the normal latency tradeoff or visual artifacts associated with generated frames.
So the improvement is probably incremental rather than a major change to how frame generation works.
Frame generation tends to feel much worse when the underlying, or base, frame rate is low. If your base FPS is now high enough to drive the display comfortably, generated frames can make motion look smoother without feeling especially sluggish. It’s generally most effective when the base frame rate is around 100 FPS or higher.
That was my suspicion, but I wasn’t sure whether the difference was mainly the base frame rate. Thanks for clarifying.
I tested Reflex by itself and my latency was already lower with it enabled. Starting from the mid-80s FPS seems to make frame generation feel much better for me.