Quick Summary
Should you turn on DLSS, FSR or XeSS? Yes, for almost everyone.
- Nvidia RTX card: use DLSS. It usually gives the cleanest image.
- AMD, Intel, older GPUs or handhelds: use FSR or XeSS. Try both and keep the one that looks sharper in your game.
- Start on Quality mode. Drop to Balanced or Performance only if you still need more frames.
- Frame generation makes motion smoother but adds a little input lag. Use it only when you already get about 60 fps without it.
Modern GPUs lean on AI upscaling to hit high frame rates at high resolutions. If you’ve seen “DLSS,” “FSR,” or “XeSS” in a settings menu and wondered whether to turn them on, here is the plain-language version, with the technical detail tucked into Deep Dive sections you can open if you want it.
What upscaling actually does
Instead of rendering every pixel at your full display resolution, which is expensive, the GPU renders the game at a lower internal resolution and then rebuilds a full-resolution image to fill your screen. Done well, you get most of the visual quality of native resolution at a much higher frame rate. It is a shortcut that trades a small amount of sharpness for a big performance gain.
How the image is rebuilt
Old-style upscaling just stretched each frame, which looks blurry. Modern upscalers are temporal: the game feeds them motion vectors (where every pixel is moving) and depth, and the upscaler combines detail from several previous frames into the current one. Because each frame is rendered with a tiny camera offset, those frames together contain more detail than any single one, which is why a good upscaler can sometimes look as sharp as native resolution with temporal anti-aliasing.
The weak spots are the same across all of them: thin moving detail (fences, wires, hair), particles and transparent effects, and fast camera cuts, where there is no history to borrow from. That is where you will notice shimmering or ghosting if you look for it.
Go deeper: How to Play Retro Games on Modern TVs Without the Blurry Mess
The three big ones
DLSS (Nvidia) runs on the Tensor cores of RTX cards and generally produces the cleanest result, but only works on Nvidia GPUs. FSR (AMD) runs on almost any GPU, including older cards and consoles. It is the most universal option, though older versions look a little softer. XeSS (Intel) works on most modern GPUs and looks best on Intel’s own Arc cards. All three keep improving, and newer versions are often a noticeable step up from the one a game originally shipped with.
Which version you are actually running
The newest versions are increasingly hardware-specific. Recent DLSS releases use a transformer-based model that looks noticeably more stable than earlier versions, and the newest frame-generation modes need recent RTX generations. AMD’s ML-based FSR 4 needs a recent Radeon card, while older GPUs fall back to the non-AI FSR 3 path. XeSS runs a faster, simplified path on non-Intel cards and its full-quality path on Arc.
The version is often set by the game, not your driver. Many games still ship an older upscaler file, which is why tools that let you swap in a newer DLSS version can clean up a game’s image without any other change. If a game looks smeary with upscaling on, an outdated upscaler version is a common reason.
Quality modes
Each upscaler offers modes like Quality, Balanced, Performance and Ultra Performance. Quality renders at a higher internal resolution: best image, smaller frame-rate gain. Performance renders lower: biggest frame-rate gain, softer image. Quality or Balanced is the sweet spot for most people at 1440p and 4K.
Internal resolution for each mode
DLSS and FSR use roughly the same scale factors per axis. This is what the GPU actually renders before upscaling:
| Mode | Scale | At 1080p | At 1440p | At 4K |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quality | ~67% | 720p | 960p | 1440p |
| Balanced | ~58% | ~626p | ~835p | ~1253p |
| Performance | 50% | 540p | 720p | 1080p |
| Ultra Performance | ~33% | 360p | 480p | 720p |
This table explains the most common advice. 4K in Performance mode still starts from a full 1080p image, so it holds up well. 1080p in Performance mode starts from 540p, so there is much less detail to rebuild from. XeSS uses slightly different ratios in some versions, but the pattern is the same.
Frame generation: related, but different
Newer versions add frame generation, which creates whole in-between frames to raise the frame-rate counter. It can make motion look much smoother, but because those frames are generated rather than rendered, it adds a little input latency and the occasional visual artifact. It shines when your base frame rate is already decent (about 60 fps or more). It feels worse when used to rescue a very low frame rate.
Why generated frames do not make the game feel faster
Responsiveness comes from frames the game actually simulates, because only those react to your mouse or stick. To create a frame between A and B, the GPU must already have B, so the displayed image runs slightly behind. Vendors pair frame generation with latency reducers (Nvidia Reflex, AMD Anti-Lag), which recover part of that delay.
Rule of thumb: a game that shows 120 fps with frame generation from a 60 fps base looks like 120 but feels close to 60. From a 30 fps base it looks smoother but still feels like 30, with more visible artifacts. For competitive shooters, most players leave it off.
Related guide: How to Actually Reduce Input Lag on PC and Console (Without Buying New Gear)
When to use it
Turn on upscaling whenever you need more performance and can accept a slight softness, which is most of the time at 1440p or 4K. At 1080p the internal resolution gets low enough that quality suffers more, so use the higher-quality modes there. Try it with and without and trust your own eyes. The right setting is the one where the game looks good and runs smoothly on your screen.
Next level: Best PC Game Settings to Boost FPS Without a New GPU
Community Challenge
Run the blind test. Pick one game and take two screenshots of the same scene: one native, one with your upscaler on Quality. Show them to a friend without saying which is which. Could they tell? Post your game, GPU, upscaler and result in the comments, and say whether you would leave it on.
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