With upscaling technology improving with every iteration, it’s getting harder to tell upscaled material apart from traditional, native rendering. This point has been proven spectacularly by a series of blind tests run by German publication ComputerBase, which ran comparisons in six games earlier this month, turning to its readers to give their opinion between native 4K, DLSS 4.5, and FSR 4 (now simply known as FSR Upscaling as part of the FSR Redstone rebrand).

The ‘blind’ part of the test means readers had no previous idea of which rendering technique was being used, with these three techniques randomly assigned a number 1-3 to pick from. ComputerBase avoided using YouTube videos for this experiment, instead using an ICAT player to more accurately depict visuals and avoid YouTube’s heavy compression.

Readers agreed DLSS 4.5 offered better than native image quality

In the summary of results below, DLSS 4.5 easily comes out on top and even offers better perceived image quality than native 4K native. In all six games tested, upscaling was set to ‘Quality’ mode for DLSS and FSR, respectively; this is the top mode, meaning less aggressive upscaling than options lower down the tiers, such as Performance and Ultra Performance.

In DLSS’s case, ‘Quality’ mode typically renders at 67%, meaning gameplay is rendered at 1440p internally and upscaled to 4K. Native rendering in these tests is using the game’s own TAA (temporal anti-aliasing) solution.

Some results are close between DLSS 4.5 and native, particularly in the case of Cyberpunk 2077, where both share around two-thirds of votes, and nearly 23% of ‘Equivalent’ votes, meaning there is no discernable difference. Now, it may sound odd to think that upscaled visuals can look better than native 4K, but this isn’t a new concept. Nvidia has boasted beating native image quality before by replacing traditional TAA techniques (which may appear blurry) with a more intelligent solution, and these blind test results show it’s clearly possible – with no bias involved.

By leveraging the power of the 2nd generation transformer, Performance Mode is now comparable to, and can even beat, native image quality, while Ultra Performance has evolved into a truly viable mode for 4K gaming. Overall, DLSS 4.5 delivers a significant leap in image quality across the board, resulting in sharper anti-aliasing, reduced ghosting, and enhanced temporal stability.

Source: Nvidia, CES 2026 announcement

DLSS 4.5, with its new 2nd-generation Transformer model, has two presets: Model M and Model L. The latter is the more advanced of the two, but also more demanding on performance. Prior tests have shown that it works best on RTX 50 and RTX 40 series cards, which support the newer FP8 datatype, but performance drops significantly on older RTX cards belonging to the 30 and 20 series, as these two older generations lack FP8 support at a hardware level.

About the Author

Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.