NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction Is Now Available, Bringing a New AI Rendering Upgrade to 30 Games

NVIDIA's Latest DLSS Upgrade Targets Cleaner Ray Tracing and Better Image Quality Across RTX Gaming PCs

Unlike a conventional graphics setting that simply increases or decreases visual quality, Ray Reconstruction uses an AI model to rebuild parts of a rendered image where traditional ray-tracing techniques have not generated enough information.

NVIDIA says the new model improves lighting accuracy, temporal stability and motion clarity while maintaining performance characteristics similar to the previous version.

The update is particularly interesting because it is not limited to a single upcoming game.

NVIDIA says the new Ray Reconstruction model can currently be applied to 30 games through the NVIDIA App.

That includes major PC titles such as Cyberpunk 2077, Alan Wake 2, DOOM: The Dark Ages, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and Resident Evil Requiem.

What Is DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction?

Ray Reconstruction is part of NVIDIA's DLSS technology family.

Traditional ray tracing can create highly realistic lighting, reflections and shadows, but calculating enough rays for every pixel would be extremely demanding.

Games therefore use denoising techniques to reconstruct missing visual information.

NVIDIA's approach replaces traditional hand-tuned denoisers with an AI-powered neural rendering system.

The model analyzes information from the game engine, including spatial and temporal data, and uses that information to reconstruct a cleaner final image.

DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction takes that idea further with a second-generation transformer model.

The goal is not simply to increase frame rates.

Instead, NVIDIA is targeting the quality of the image produced by ray tracing and path tracing.

The Second-Generation Transformer Is the Main Upgrade

The biggest technical change is the new transformer model.

NVIDIA says the updated model has 35% more compute capability and processes 20% more parameters while maintaining similar performance to the previous model.

That gives the model more information to work with when reconstructing complex scenes.

The practical benefit should be most noticeable in scenes where ray tracing creates difficult visual situations.

These can include:

Reflections
Shadows
Particles
Fine geometry
Moving objects
Detailed lighting
Path-traced environments

The aim is to reduce visual instability and produce a cleaner result without requiring developers to dramatically increase the number of rays being calculated.

Better Lighting Accuracy

One of NVIDIA's main claims for the new system is improved lighting accuracy.

The updated model has deeper spatial awareness and can make better use of pixel sampling and motion information supplied by the game engine.

This matters because ray-traced lighting can sometimes produce unstable details when the camera or objects move.

A reflection may shimmer.

A shadow may change unexpectedly.

Small particles can become noisy.

Ray Reconstruction attempts to reconstruct those details more intelligently.

The result NVIDIA is targeting is a more stable image that maintains its detail during movement rather than looking sharp only when the camera is completely still.

NVIDIA Is Also Expanding the Training Dataset

The new transformer model was trained using a larger dataset.

According to NVIDIA, this gives the system greater awareness when deciding which engine data should be used to reconstruct a scene.

This is an important part of modern AI rendering.

The quality of a reconstruction system depends not only on the model itself but also on what it has learned to recognize.

A larger training dataset can potentially improve the model's ability to distinguish useful information from visual noise.

That should be especially valuable in complicated environments containing large amounts of geometry, lighting and movement.

30 Games Can Already Use the New Model

NVIDIA says the updated Ray Reconstruction model can currently be applied to 30 games through the NVIDIA App.

The supported list includes:

Alan Wake 2
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
Cyberpunk 2077
DOOM: The Dark Ages
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Marvel's Spider-Man 2
Resident Evil Requiem
Star Wars Outlaws
War Thunder
Hogwarts Legacy
Black Ops 7
Crimson Desert
F1 25
Portal with RTX
The First Descendant

and several other supported titles.

That makes the update immediately more relevant than a technology announced for games that are years away.

Players with supported RTX hardware can already begin experimenting with the new model.

There Is a Driver Requirement

The update is accessed through the NVIDIA App.

NVIDIA currently requires GeForce Game Ready Driver 580.88 WHQL or newer for the new Ray Reconstruction model.

NVIDIA's current rollout is also described as an Early Access release through the NVIDIA App, with an official release planned for September.

To access it, users need to enable Early Access releases through the NVIDIA App's Settings > About section.

After installing the update, users can select a supported game and adjust the Ray Reconstruction model under the DLSS override settings.

That means PC players do not necessarily need to wait for every individual developer to publish a game update before testing the new model.

NVIDIA Gives Players More Control

The NVIDIA App update also introduces additional graphics controls.

NVIDIA says the update adds:

Per-game Resizable BAR controls
G-SYNC Pulsar settings
Borderless Windowed support for Optimal Playable Settings
Additional driver-setting controls

The company describes these as quality-of-life improvements based partly on user requests.

This makes the announcement broader than Ray Reconstruction alone.

NVIDIA is effectively using the Gamescom update to expand the NVIDIA App's role as a central control panel for PC gaming features.

007 First Light Is Getting a Major Ray-Tracing Upgrade

One of the upcoming games receiving an official DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction integration is 007 First Light.

NVIDIA says the game's path tracing and Ray Reconstruction update will launch on September 15.

The game already supports DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution and Dynamic Multi Frame Generation, meaning the September update will add another layer to its visual technology stack.

The addition of path tracing should make lighting, reflections and shadows more demanding, making Ray Reconstruction particularly relevant.

It also gives NVIDIA an opportunity to demonstrate how its latest rendering technology performs in a major upcoming release.

Gears of War: E-Day Gets RTX Mega Geometry

NVIDIA also announced another major graphics technology during Gamescom.

Gears of War: E-Day will support RTX Mega Geometry, a new technology designed to improve ray tracing of Unreal Engine 5's Nanite geometry.

NVIDIA says the technology addresses a limitation where Nanite objects could use simplified geometry for ray tracing.

RTX Mega Geometry is intended to allow more detailed Nanite geometry to participate in ray-traced effects.

According to NVIDIA, the technology will debut in Gears of War: E-Day on October 6, before later being adopted through Microsoft's DirectX Raytracing 2.0 standard.

That makes the announcement potentially important beyond a single game.

If the technology becomes part of a wider graphics standard, its impact could extend to future Unreal Engine titles.

What This Means for RTX Gamers

The biggest practical question is whether players will actually notice the difference.

DLSS improvements can be highly dependent on the game, resolution, ray-tracing settings and hardware.

The new Ray Reconstruction model is primarily focused on image reconstruction rather than simply increasing raw performance.

Players should therefore expect the biggest differences in visual stability and ray-traced image quality rather than assuming every supported game will suddenly run dramatically faster.

The technology can still contribute to better performance indirectly because more efficient reconstruction can allow developers to pursue demanding lighting techniques without calculating every ray at native resolution.

But image quality remains the headline improvement.

This Is More Important as Path Tracing Becomes Common

The timing of the update is significant.

More major PC games are adopting path tracing and increasingly advanced ray-traced lighting.

As those techniques become more demanding, reconstruction technologies become increasingly important.

Without them, fully path-traced scenes can require enormous GPU resources.

AI reconstruction allows developers to render fewer samples and use trained models to fill in missing visual information.

That is becoming one of the key strategies for making high-end ray tracing practical.

DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction therefore represents another step toward making advanced lighting techniques more usable in mainstream PC games.

Confirmed Information

NVIDIA has confirmed:

DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction is now available through the NVIDIA App's Early Access rollout.
It uses a second-generation transformer model.
The model has 35% more compute capability than the previous model.
It processes 20% more parameters.
NVIDIA says it maintains similar performance to the previous model.
The training dataset has been expanded.
The system targets better lighting accuracy and temporal stability.
30 games can currently use the model through NVIDIA App overrides.
GeForce Game Ready Driver 580.88 WHQL or newer is required.
An official release is planned for September.
007 First Light will receive path tracing and Ray Reconstruction on September 15.
Gears of War: E-Day will support RTX Mega Geometry.
RTX Mega Geometry will debut in Gears of War: E-Day on October 6.

Rumors and Speculation

The exact visual improvement will vary from game to game.

NVIDIA's technical demonstrations do not guarantee identical results across every supported title.

The company has also not provided a universal performance percentage for DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction because the technology primarily targets image reconstruction rather than being a simple frame-rate multiplier.

Players should therefore judge the technology on individual games and settings rather than expecting one universal performance improvement.

Why This Matters for PC Gaming

The bigger story here is not simply another DLSS version number.

NVIDIA is increasingly using AI as part of the rendering pipeline itself.

Earlier DLSS technologies became known primarily for upscaling and frame generation.

Ray Reconstruction goes deeper by changing how missing visual information from ray tracing is reconstructed.

That could become increasingly important as developers push toward more detailed lighting and larger, more complex environments.

If path tracing becomes more common in major releases, technologies like Ray Reconstruction could become as important to PC graphics as traditional upscaling.

Conclusion

DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction is now one of the most significant PC gaming technology announcements from Gamescom 2026.

NVIDIA's second-generation transformer model is designed to produce cleaner and more stable ray-traced and path-traced images while maintaining performance characteristics similar to the previous system.

More importantly, players do not have to wait for future games to experience it.

NVIDIA says 30 existing games can already use the new model through the NVIDIA App, including major titles such as Cyberpunk 2077, Alan Wake 2, DOOM: The Dark Ages and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

With upcoming games such as 007 First Light adding official support and Gears of War: E-Day introducing RTX Mega Geometry, NVIDIA is also pushing PC graphics toward increasingly advanced ray-traced environments.

The next few months should reveal whether these technologies produce a noticeable improvement in real-world games.

For RTX owners, however, the important part is simple: NVIDIA's latest AI-powered ray-tracing upgrade is already here.