You’ve probably seen the marketing slides by now. Massive bars on a graph shooting upward, promising 2x or 3x performance just by toggling a single switch in your settings menu. It sounds like magic. Honestly, it kind of is. But if you’ve actually turned it on, you might have felt that something was... off. Even if the counter says 120 FPS, it can feel like 60. Or worse, it feels like your mouse is moving through literal molasses.
So, is frame generation bad, or are we just witnessing the awkward teenage years of a revolutionary technology?
The answer isn't a simple yes or no. It depends entirely on your hardware, the game you're playing, and how sensitive you are to visual "weirdness." If you’re rocking an RTX 40-series card or a modern Radeon GPU, you have access to DLSS 3 or FSR 3. These tools use AI or optical flow vectors to "guess" what a middle frame would look like between two real ones. It’s basically filling in the blanks. When it works, it’s smooth as silk. When it fails, you get ghosting, shimmering, and a disconnected feeling that can ruin a high-stakes shootout.
👉 See also: Last Seen Online Game: Why We Can’t Stop Chasing Digital Ghosts
The Latency Problem: The Elephant in the Room
Here is the thing most people don't realize: frame generation doesn't actually make your game run faster. It makes it look faster.
That distinction matters immensely for gameplay feel. When your GPU generates a "fake" frame, it has to wait for the next "real" frame to be rendered so it can interpolate the movement between them. This adds a delay. You move your mouse, the computer processes the movement, renders frame A, waits for frame B, creates frame X in the middle, and then finally shows it to you. By the time you see that generated frame, the world has already moved on.
NVIDIA tries to fix this with Reflex. AMD uses Anti-Lag+. These are mandatory because, without them, the input lag would be unbearable. Even with them, if your base frame rate is low—say, under 40 FPS—adding frame generation will likely make the game feel sluggish and unresponsive. You’ll see 80 FPS on the screen, but it will handle like 35. That's the primary reason many purists argue that frame generation is bad for competitive gaming. You simply cannot fake responsiveness.
Visual Artifacts and the "Soap Opera Effect"
Ever watched a movie on a TV with "Motion Smoothing" turned on? It looks weirdly cheap. Frame generation can occasionally trigger that same uncanny valley feeling.
Because the software is predicting pixels, it often struggles with high-contrast areas or fast-moving UI elements. Have you ever noticed your crosshair flickering in Cyberpunk 2077 or Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2? That’s the AI getting confused. It doesn't always know how to handle a static HUD over a moving background.
- Ghosting: You might see a faint trail behind a character’s head as they run.
- Shimmering: Thin lines like power cables or fences might dance and vibrate.
- Disjointed UI: Text or health bars might lag slightly behind the actual movement of the screen.
Digital Foundry has covered this extensively in their deep dives. They’ve noted that while DLSS 3.5 has improved things significantly, FSR 3 (which is open-source and works on more cards) still struggles with "fizzing" around the edges of objects. If you’re a visual perfectionist, these small glitches might be more distracting than a lower, more stable frame rate would be.
When It’s Actually a Lifesaver
Is frame generation bad in every scenario? Absolutely not. It’s a godsend for "CPU-limited" games.
Take Microsoft Flight Simulator. Even with the fastest processor on the planet, that game chugs in dense cities like New York or London because the CPU can't keep up with the simulation of physics and traffic. In this case, your GPU is sitting there with extra power to spare. Frame generation can take those CPU-bottlenecked 30 FPS and turn them into a fluid 60 FPS without putting more load on your processor.
In a slow-paced flight sim or a narrative-heavy game like Alan Wake 2, the slight increase in input lag is almost unnoticeable. The trade-off for incredible visual fluidity is usually worth it there. You aren't flick-shotting enemies; you're soaking in the atmosphere.
The VRAM Trap
There is a hidden cost to this "free" performance: Memory. Frame generation requires a chunk of your VRAM to store those buffer frames.
If you’re playing on a card with only 8GB of VRAM—like the base RTX 4060—and you’re trying to play at 1440p with High textures, you might run out of memory. When that happens, your performance doesn't just dip; it craters. You’ll get massive stuttering that makes the game unplayable. It’s a bit ironic. The tech meant to help lower-end cards can actually choke them if they don't have enough memory to handle the extra overhead.
Moving Past the Hype
The community is split. Some call it "fake frames" and refuse to touch it. Others won't buy a GPU without it.
The reality is that we are moving toward a future where "native resolution" and "native frame rates" are becoming relics of the past. Modern game engines like Unreal Engine 5 are so heavy that even a $1,600 RTX 4090 struggles to hit 4K/60 without some form of upscaling or generation. Frame generation isn't a "cheat"—it's a necessary evolution in how we process complex 3D environments.
But we have to be honest about its limits. Calling it "bad" is reductive. Calling it a "perfect replacement for raw power" is a lie.
Actionable Steps for the Best Experience
To get the most out of frame generation without the drawbacks, follow these rules of thumb:
- Monitor Your Base FPS: Never turn on frame generation if your base frame rate is below 50-60 FPS. If you start from a stuttery mess, you will end with a fluid-looking mess that feels like garbage to play.
- Always Enable Latency Reduction: Ensure NVIDIA Reflex or AMD Anti-Lag is set to "On" or "On + Boost." This is non-negotiable for mitigating the delay.
- Prioritize DLSS over FSR (If Possible): If you have an NVIDIA card, DLSS 3 is generally more stable and produces fewer visual artifacts than AMD's FSR 3 or Intel's XeSS.
- Use It for the Right Genres: Keep it on for RPGs, simulators, and third-person adventures. Turn it off for Counter-Strike, Valorant, or any game where your reaction time determines the winner.
- Check Your VRAM: If you experience sudden hitches or stutters after turning it on, drop your texture quality down one notch to free up space for the frame buffers.
Stop looking at the FPS counter as the only metric of "good" performance. How the game feels in your hands is infinitely more important than a number in the corner of your screen. If you toggle it on and the lag bothers you, turn it off. There's no shame in playing at a "real" 60 FPS instead of a "fake" 120.