PC gaming in 2026 is increasingly becoming a matter of AI magnification and generation of frames. Assuming you’re comfortable with that, good for you. You’ll have a great time with smooth frames and higher frame rates than ever.
If you don’t agree with the “fake frames” movement largely spearheaded by NVIDIA, I have bad news. The use of AI by NVIDIA’s next-generation graphics cards, amdand Intel isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
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The other part of the DLSS 4.5 feature update, Dynamic generation of multiple frames with up to Multi-Frame Generation (MFG) 6Xfinally released in beta on March 31.
👉 NVIDIA DLSS, AMD FSR, Intel XeSS, and Microsoft DirectSR explained
NVIDIA’s frame multiplier was capped at 4X in DLSS 4, meaning that for every frame created “naturally” by the GPU, another three frames were pumped in by AI generation.
With 6X MFG, RTX 50-series graphics cards can now create five AI-generated frames for every natural frame generated using the “old-fashioned” method. To better balance display refresh rates and GPU output, NVIDIA’s new Dynamic MFG can step in to automatically change the frame rate multiplier.
NVIDIA compares this process to a car’s automatic transmission and it is surprisingly convenient. If your GPU is struggling to match your display’s refresh rate, increase the multiplier. If your GPU has no difficulty reaching the target frame rate, reduce the multiplier.
First impressions of NVIDIA’s Dynamic MFG 6X are very positive
All those false frames generated by NVIDIA’s RTX 50 series GPUs must surely have some drawbacks, right? It turns out that everyone who has tried the new features in DLSS 4.5 basically has the same positive outlook, with advantages far outweighing the disadvantages.
Perhaps the biggest news is that NVIDIA managed to boost MFG from 4X to 6X without really affecting input latency (the delay between mouse or keyboard inputs and actions appearing on the screen) in any serious way.
our friends at Tom Hardware tested MFG 6X with Cyberpunk 2077. The input latency without any MFG was 35 ms. In 2X MFG, it went up to 46.6 ms. It only increased to 53.2 ms in 4X MFG and actually dropped to 52.6 ms in 6X MFG.
Meanwhile, the average frame rate increased from 60 FPS to 247.7 FPS using the exact same hardware and game settings. All that for just 17.6 ms of additional input latency. It’s a compromise I know many PC gamers will gladly accept.
Colleagues in PC gamer They discovered largely the same results in their initial testing of the Dynamic MFG and MFG 6X, highlighting:
Well, it clearly works as intended, and any concerns you might have about how switching modes might affect gameplay doesn’t seem to be a problem – it’s practically instantaneous.
Nick Evanson (PC gamer)
This is just a small sample of practical reports, but the answer is basically the same wherever you look. DLSS 4.5’s Dynamic MFG and MFG 6X are valuable additions to NVIDIA’s RTX toolbox.
That’s not to say there aren’t some caveats. You still need to have a decent base frame rate to allow MFG to do its AI-assisted job, and competitive gamers will continue to look the other way while trying to reduce input latency as much as possible.
As PC Gamer points out after its testing, MFG 6X and Dynamic MFG are tools that are best considered capable of turning good performance into great performance, rather than turning bad performance into acceptable performance.
The future of PC gaming is AI all the time, whether you like it or not
There are many arguments against the use of AI in PC games. One I hear most often is that developers should optimize their games to enable reliable performance on raw hardware rather than relying on upscaling and frame rendering.
I don’t disagree, especially on behalf of PC gamers who don’t spend thousands of dollars on the latest hardware. Unfortunately, I don’t think the industry is going to change anytime soon. It is almost certain that the path of AI will be the one we follow in the coming years.
PC graphics continue to improve as the engines underlying games evolve, and even the most powerful consumer card, the NVIDIARTX 5090, has trouble reaching high frame rates without some form of AI assistance when it comes to path tracking and 4K resolutions.
While GPU hardware clearly has limitations in what it can achieve, software that leverages AI appears to have limitless capabilities. Would you rather spend a lot more on GPU hardware or take advantage of “free” AI tools that improve performance much more than expected?
I bet that in 10 years, the use of AI in PC gaming won’t be controversial at all. It will be the accepted norm. Today, every modern GPU company is pursuing some form of AI improvement and frame generation, and I don’t see those efforts going away.
There will certainly be some bumps in the road, as is the case with any emerging technology that we are unwilling to admit is the future.
For example, the The outcry against NVIDIA’s DLSS 5 reveal a couple of weeks ago was virtually unanimouscausing NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang to back down a bit when it became clear that gamers aren’t comfortable with a full AI-generated version of their favorite games.
I certainly don’t agree with changing the entire aspect of the games I enjoy, although I also don’t agree with MFG’s initial 4X cap until I tried it myself in DOOM: The Dark Ages. It will be interesting to see how the PC gaming community and their strong opinions shape DLSS 5.
What do you think about the future of AI and PC gaming?
It may seem like I’m charging for NVIDIA, but trust me; I’m not. It’s hard to imagine a future for PC gaming, if we follow the current trajectory, that doesn’t involve heavy use of AI to improve performance.
Do you agree that AI improvement will no longer be a controversial topic in the future? Or could there be enough of a backlash for the entire PC gaming industry’s momentum to change course?
Will it be a hardware innovation that allows us to return to “real” frames? Let me know in the comments section below!
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