RTX 20 Series Gets DLSS Frame Generation Through Community Mod

Older NVIDIA RTX graphics cards may have just received an unexpected upgrade, as a community mod has reportedly managed to get DLSS Frame Generation running on an RTX 20-series GPU.

Modder Coldwood1026 has demonstrated NVIDIA’s native DLSS Frame Generation running on an RTX 2060 Max-Q, after previously getting the technology working on RTX 30-series hardware.

That’s particularly interesting because NVIDIA originally introduced DLSS Frame Generation as a feature exclusive to its RTX 40-series GPUs.

Frame Generation on an RTX 2060?

DLSS Frame Generation works by generating additional frames between traditionally rendered frames to increase perceived frame rates and make games appear smoother.

Until now, owners of RTX 20 and RTX 30 cards have largely been excluded from NVIDIA’s native implementation of the technology. The company has attributed the RTX 40-series requirement to newer hardware capabilities, particularly improvements introduced with the Ada Lovelace architecture.

However, the community mod suggests that getting at least some form of native DLSS Frame Generation running on older hardware is technically possible.

Getting it to launch and function, though, doesn’t necessarily mean an RTX 2060 can deliver the same experience as an RTX 40-series card. Performance, latency, image quality, stability and game compatibility could all be significantly different.

It Raises an Interesting Question

The development will inevitably raise questions about how much of DLSS Frame Generation’s original RTX 40-series exclusivity was dictated by absolute hardware requirements and how much was related to NVIDIA’s desired performance standards and product segmentation.

It would be premature to conclude that NVIDIA deliberately disabled a perfectly equivalent feature simply to sell newer GPUs. A community workaround running Frame Generation on older hardware doesn’t prove that the experience meets NVIDIA’s performance or quality requirements.

Still, seeing the technology running on an RTX 2060 Max-Q is impressive.

For gamers still using RTX 20 or RTX 30-series cards, projects like this could potentially extend the useful life of their hardware and provide another reason to hold onto an older GPU rather than immediately upgrading.

Old GPUs Aren’t Finished Yet

GPU prices have made upgrading an increasingly expensive proposition, especially at the high end. Community projects that unlock additional functionality on older cards could therefore become increasingly attractive.

An RTX 2060 obviously isn’t suddenly going to perform like a modern flagship GPU because of Frame Generation, but extracting additional performance from hardware people already own is always welcome.

For now, this remains an unofficial community solution rather than something supported by NVIDIA, so users should expect potential bugs, compatibility problems and inconsistent performance.

But if developers continue improving it, RTX 20 and RTX 30 owners may have gained another interesting way of keeping their GPUs alive for a little longer.

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