NVIDIA reveals a surprise: Smooth Motion frame gen for all games, but it's RTX 5000 GPUs only

NVIDIA App update packs DLSS 4 and support for 75 games and apps, alongside a new feature: Smooth Motion driver-level frame gen, similar to AFMF from AMD.

 NVIDIA reveals a surprise: Smooth Motion frame gen for all games, but it's RTX 5000 GPUs only
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Tech Reporter
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TL;DR: The NVIDIA App has been updated, and there's a new graphics driver for RTX 5090 and 5080 GPUs, plus DLSS 4 has been officially introduced for 75 games and apps. An unexpected addition is the Smooth Motion feature which is driver-level frame generation in the same vein as AFMF from AMD, but this is exclusive to RTX 5000 GPUs (another surprise - and not a pleasant one for some gamers).

NVIDIA has released a new graphics driver for its RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 GPUs which came out today - well, which sold out today - alongside a big update for the NVIDIA App that packs an interesting surprise.

Turn on Smooth Motion under 'Driver Settings' (see the full instructions below) (Image Credit: NVIDIA)

Turn on Smooth Motion under 'Driver Settings' (see the full instructions below) (Image Credit: NVIDIA)

Team Green announced support for its Blackwell graphics cards in the new driver, which is a given - those who were lucky enough to get one would be a bit stuck without that - and DLSS 4 officially came into play.

To begin with, there are 75 games (and apps) which support DLSS 4, and all RTX graphics cards can benefit from this - except for the MFG component, the new Multi Frame Generation feature, which is for RTX 5000 GPUs only.

Interestingly, MFG isn't the only exclusive power for Blackwell graphics cards, as NVIDIA has introduced something called Smooth Motion (the surprise we mentioned at the outset - well, it's new to us).

Team Green tells us:

"GeForce RTX 50 Series gamers can now also enable NVIDIA Smooth Motion, a new driver-based AI model that delivers smoother gameplay by inferring an additional frame between two rendered frames."

In other words, any games that don't support frame generation with DLSS can now use this Smooth Motion driver-level tech (with RTX 5000 GPUs).

The question is: how good is Smooth Motion? We wouldn't get our hopes up, but on the other hand, the other tricks NVIDIA has pulled on the software side with this new generation of graphics cards have been seriously impressive.

So, you never know, and there are already a bunch of gamers who aren't best pleased that this has been reserved for RTX 5000 only. There may be a good reason for that, of course, in terms of the hardware (though cynics will argue NVIDIA needs more selling points for Blackwell, no doubt).

If Smooth Motion sounds familiar in its concept, that because AMD already does this driver-level, system-wide frame gen, and it's called AMD Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF).

Any extra options to get additional frames are always welcome, of course, and even if this kind of tech is wobbly in its initial implementation, it may well get better in time. And if you don't like it, you don't have to use it.

For those who have an RTX 5000 graphics card (yes, you fortunate few out there, we'll say it again), you can enable NVIDIA Smooth Motion if you head to Graphics > Program settings, then you can select any compatible DX11 or DX12 game. In the options on the right you need 'Driver Settings' and then you can turn on Smooth Motion, it's as easy as that.

NVIDIA notes that the feature can be applied to games running at the PC's native resolution, or with super resolution tech applied (or other upscaling). We can expect a doubling of the frame rate, apparently, in a typical scenario.

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NEWS SOURCES:nvidia.com, gigabyte.com

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Darren has written for numerous magazines and websites in the technology world for almost 30 years, including TechRadar, PC Gamer, Eurogamer, Computeractive, and many more. He worked on his first magazine (PC Home) long before Google and most of the rest of the web existed. In his spare time, he can be found gaming, going to the gym, and writing books (his debut novel – ‘I Know What You Did Last Supper’ – was published by Hachette UK in 2013).

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