I thought DLSS Frame Generation made Smooth Motion irrelevant – I was wrong

A year after Nvidia’s Smooth Motion officially arrived in the RTX 40 series, I’ve done little more than take a look at its past in the Nvidia App. After all, almost every new game now ships with native DLSS Frame Generation support. So I did what any self-respecting PC gamer would do with unfamiliar settings: I ignored it.

But a year later, it only took a few minutes to completely change my mind. Smooth Motion got a new lease of life by going into my old games, I give them a patch of smoothness that they would never get otherwise. After trying it on four a lot various PC games, I don’t think I’ll be turning it off anytime soon.

Smooth Motion does not attempt to replace Frame Generation

This solves a problem that native apps never could

On paper, Nvidia Smooth Motion tends to look like an inferior version of Frame Generation. Unlike DLSS Frame Generation, it operates entirely at the driver level, meaning it cannot access engine data or motion vectors—tools that native frame generation can use. Therefore, it is actually meaningless to compare the two.

As I thought about it, I realized I was asking the wrong question. Native Frame Generation is available only where developers choose to implement it, but that leaves a large library of PC games that are still stuck with outdated or obsolete rendering methods. This includes those with arbitrary framerate caps or even disappointing framerates with abandoned support. Getting around such limitations usually requires hunting down community mods and hoping they don’t break the game’s physics or have any other weird side effects.

This is where Smooth Motion makes the most sense. Instead DLSS competes with Frame GenerationSmooth Motion primarily targets games that were never invited to the party. It doesn’t stifle performance any more than the not-so-modern blockbusters, as it makes old PC experiences feel like they belong on our modern hardware.

Nvidia Smooth Motion is specially designed for a certain group of games

Frame-lid classics stretch their legs with this feature

it happened Elden Ring Smooth Motion is enabled which really amazes me. I have spent over a hundred hours Explores the Lands in between as high as 60 FPS which I never complained about. The game was always stable, but I ran it at what felt like 120 FPS at every graphics setting at 4K, including ray tracing Raised to High level. Changing a single switch in the Nvidia App changed how the game felt and suddenly made me feel like I was playing a sequel or improved version.

After clicking this, I went directly into, downloaded and played other frame-locked games Crew 2 to see if its legacy engine limitation can be bypassed by my GPU’s software stack. The result was exactly what I expected: this overlooked 2018 racer suddenly felt right at home. It looked like 120 FPS. Wolfenstein: The New Order was next, and each time I came to the same conclusion: these games just needed an official way to feel smoother and more at home on modern hardware.

Without framebuilding or developer updates, this would be a job for modders, but the Nvidia App skipped all my busy work and allowed me to play all the old, frame-covered games with a significantly better experience.

Of course, I made the occasional compromise, like a small screen tear Elden Ringunderground areasand several HUD elements Crew 2but they were so fleeting that I ceased to see them almost immediately. These were easy compromises for camera movement, transitions, and combat that felt more fluid than ever. I’d make that trade in a heartbeat any day of the week for games that were never meant to have a modern smoothness upgrade.

I tried combining Smooth Motion with DLSS Frame Generation

The results varied, but the frustration was consistent

In theory, it is not recommended to run Smooth Motion and DLSS Frame Generation side by side. After all, they are competing technologies, and one will try to interpolate frameworks the other has already developed. When the Nvidia App knows that the game’s native FG is available and active, it expects you to select a lane and stick to it. However, I tried running Smooth Motion In tandem with DLSS Frame Generation and the results were truly amazing.

For starters, the games I’ve tested already boast a fairly robust Frame Generation implementation. Cyberpunk 2077, Star Bladeand Backrooms: Escape together is built on three different enginesand that helped me run this little test. In each case, applying Smooth Motion over DLSS Frame Generation resulted in a significant increase in latency, despite the higher number of frames. But what good is a high frame rate if lag actively breaks immersion every moment?

I noticed lighting artifacts when both Frame Generation and Smooth Motion were running together, especially in REDengine. Cyberpunk 2077 and Unreal Engine 5 Backrooms: Escape together. The latter was particularly badly affected, as was average PC lag when I stacked Smooth Motion on top of DLSS FG. increased almost five timesand while the frame counter showed me three-digit FPS, it felt nothing but stuttering and uncomfortable due to input lag.

Although Star Blade differed with little or no latency or lag, the numbers don’t lie – the game still saw a 152% increase in latency from around 40ms to 100ms. Interestingly, the lowest lag and input lag was seen in the game with the highest frame rate at 4K with native Frame Generation, while other games struggled to overcome lag and input lag.

Turn it on selectively and you’ll wonder why you waited so long

Smooth Motion isn’t a setting I leave enabled globally, and it’s not something I’d go out of my way to do in a modern release. If the game already supports DLSS Frame Generation, this will always be a cleaner and superior solution. However, due to older engines and lack of DLSS support, it’s unwise to immediately enable Smooth Motion every time you come across a game with arbitrary frame capping.

But it is unnecessary to use them together. Nothing beats a good frame rate and some solid native frame generation. When you try to render more frames than 2D images that the engine never actually renders, it lowers the graphics settings and real Instead, frame rate is the option to stay. Of course, there’s always a chance you won’t see input lag and artifacts when combining Smooth Motion with FG, but those cases will be rare.