Upscaling renders a game at a lower internal resolution and reconstructs a higher-resolution image; frame generation inserts synthesized frames between rendered frames to increase displayed frame rate.
1. Key points
NVIDIA DLSS runs on GeForce RTX GPUs; AMD FSR is AMD's upscaling technology.
Frame generation can increase latency, so it is often paired with latency-reduction technology such as NVIDIA Reflex.
Quality is generally better at higher output resolutions and higher base frame rates.
Upscaling reduces GPU and VRAM load.
2. Upscaling
The GPU renders fewer pixels per frame and uses temporal data or AI models to reconstruct detail.
3. Frame generation
Generated frames improve motion smoothness but are not based on new game input.
See also
CPU–GPU Bottleneck — A CPU–GPU bottleneck is a condition in which one component limits overall frame rate beca…
Thermal Throttling — Thermal throttling is a protective behavior in which a processor or graphics chip lowers…
Memory Profiles (XMP and EXPO) — XMP (Intel Extreme Memory Profile) and EXPO (AMD Extended Profiles for Overclocking) are…
