The need for graphic processing power has increased exponentially in recent years, with programs and games as demanding, which have raised the threshold on what is possible and brought us a standard of loyalty that we could not predict 20 years ago.
But the problem arising with these huge progress in the graphics is the struggle the hardware producers give to keep up. (Okay, now that it is artificially held in the brake or not and that the game developers are a little more freedom with the optimization in the idea that it leaves that it comes out better and it will work well … This is completely other rabbit holes in which we will not enter today)
Path Thracing is a great example of lighting technique that torments all the video cards on the market. Not long ago, in Cyberpunk 2077, the strongest existing video cards were running at only 25 frames per second in 4K, native, with active Path Thracing. There were upscaling techniques like DLSS that earned you some frames to approach more playful values, a 40 honest with DLSS on Quality. But even so, the results were not enough for the most demanding of the gamers and these figures were valid on the PC, in the case of laptops the numbers reached were slightly smaller. This is where the AI part enters the equation, where Nvidia has invested amounts of the order of GDPs of smaller countries to the averages. This benefit to “drain” to ordinary mortals with its video consumer cards, similar as the Cutting-Edge technologies developed on billions of dollars for Formula 1 have also arrived in your uncle’s Toyota Price hybrid engines.
Such a technology removed from Dospit in recent years is also Frame Generation, introduced with the 4000 NVIDIA video card series. This new rendering technique involves, with the help of tensor nuclei, the insertion of new frames, fully generated by AI, between normally ordained frames. The combination of upscaling through DLSS, along with the new Frame Generation, seems to be a successful recipe for NVIDIA, especially if you consider the context of single player games.
However, there are Downsides in all these new techniques introduced. The first would be that both upscaling, Ray Reconstruction and Frame Generation techniques were based on a CNN (Neural Network) model that analyzes the pieces or elements of the image and rebuilds them more faithfully or helps generate completely new frames. This technique was quite resourceful, mainly the power of processing the tensor nuclei but also some RAM and introduced a little latency in the equation. In a short time it seems to have reached certain design limits and NVIDIA, in the desire for the maximum stake in this area, decided to move on a new model.
Thus we arrive at the moment, with the launch of the new video card series, ie the RTX 5000 Blackwell series, for both the desktop and mobile/laptop versions, Nvidia also introduced the new model, the Transformer.
The Transformer model can see “The Whole Picture”, analyzes the importance of each pixel both played and over time, stretching on several frames with a double number of parameters compared to the CNN model. Why is he doing this? To “better understand each scene”, thus reducing the effects of ghosting, blur or the number of artifacts randomly.
Thus, using less vram, the video card can move to much more complex tasks than already “simple” insertion of a frame generated with AI between other normally rated frames. Such a new benefit is Multi Frame Generationm which, as you have already intuited, generates with the help of 3 new frames for each normal frame.
In addition to Multi Frame Generation, the new 5000 series boards from Nvidia come and with other updates on the processing side with AI. This is where the 5th generation tensor nuclei intervene. AI Tops means trillion or thera per second, operations that will be used for both DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) but also for various other shades (RTX SHADERS) but also faces (Neural Faces). All this may not have an immediate impact on graphic performance but their role is to release from the memory used by compressing textures or faces
The job of inserting the frames generated by AI between normal frames falls in the case of DLSS 3 on CPU. It affects the fluidity of the scenes because it is not always synchronized ok. Blackwell uses Flip Metering that moves the weight of addressing the cadence of the GPU shoulders, which is much more able to correct any errors and to provide much better transitions between non-AI and AI.
But enough theory, let’s see together what a laptop can do with the new RTX 5080, and on the operating table today we have the fresh Pro 7i tested tested that we have taken out of the box for a little more, for you, but also for my personal pleasure.
The first test of the capabilities of the video card but also the laptop itself you will find it in the article above, we will not resume all the tests because this is not interested. Today we will play with the DLSS and AI capabilities, so we will enter less common tests for laptop reviews in the area.
We start Procyon together and let’s see what results await us. These are very good and indicate a very capable hardware in the deraishes per second of processing.
So we continue with a freshly released game but which is already very dear to me, DOOM: The Dark Ages, a game that recently had an important update, because ID software has not only with Path Thracing, a delicious visual upgrade, but also with one of the best benchmarks encountered as a reviewer, and this small case study is the perfect time to enjoy the new benchmark.
It is always good to get a baseline, and for Legion Pro 7i with its RTX 5080 laptop, this Full HD baseline, with all the details at Ultra Nightmare, is 115 FPS without Path Thracing, 62 with Active Path Thracing, and if we resort to one DLSS on Quality we will reach 75.14 frames per second on average.
Now, if you are like me and you prefer more FPS in your life, you can confidently call Frame Generation, with the little asterisk that I personally reserve it for single player titles, because in many player there are times when I can get more artifacts that can occur when the AI cannot correctly predict my cursor movement, etc.
Returning, with Single Frame Generation you reach a comfortable 127.5 FPS, but if you want even more, then you also have the option of Multi generation 4X that removes a 226fps scent. We must not forget that we are talking about a laptop, however, that seems to me the most interesting aspect. Yes, I, who know how to look and how to challenge the small mistakes of the algorithm may be a little of the nose, but objectively speaking, compared to the old CNN, the transformer is considerably cleaner, all while occupying even less, which is applauded.
The only remarkable minus of the multi-fragment generation is the increased lag, but for this there is Nvidia Reflex that optimizes the Randolor of your PC so as to dramatically reduce the number of milliseconds between the frames.
As for the rest of the advantages, besides those related to performance and image quality I talked about earlier, another important aspect is the weekly launches of DLSS games. NVIDIA collaborates with the game studios to add DLSS support to more and more titles, and they manage to keep the pace with the requirements of the community and with the new games. Thus, almost every week there are new titles that integrate a DLSS version, whether it is a fast shooter, a bush RPG or an adventure game.
This constant expansion of the DLSS ecosystem offers players more options to benefit from increased performance, without sacrificing too much of the visual quality. And as more and more launches include in the day-one support for this, it becomes clear that DLSS is already playing an essential role in the way we experience modern games. Ray tracing in real time, combined with intelligent upscaling and generating frames you offer an almost photographic experience, which transforms every game session into a visual show.
Somehow the importance of those listed above is increased in the world of portable devices, because power, even if there are models in the Blackwell series, is still more limited by the much more compact factor and the necessary cooling to keep the components under control. So you can call with confidence, especially for your adventures in your favorite Singleplayer game, at the DLSS 4 to enjoy the most fluid visual experience on the laptop.
