DLSS 5 Neural Rendering Causes Severe FPS Drop on RTX 3080, Users Report

Users have demonstrated that the upcoming DLSS 5 Neural Rendering feature can be activated on GeForce RTX 30 series cards, but the performance impact is extreme. In a video posted by a user identified as @flovreq, the RTX 3080 ran Deep Rock Galactic at roughly 138 frames per second in standard mode, but frame rates fell to about 4 FPS when DLSS 5 was enabled, increasing frame times from 7-8 ms to roughly 260 ms. The drop represents a 97% reduction in performance, making the game effectively unplayable on that hardware. By comparison, RTX 40 and RTX 50 series GPUs experience a 40-50% performance penalty with the same feature. NVIDIA has not confirmed whether DLSS 5 will be officially supported on RTX 30 or older GPUs, and the current implementation appears to be an unofficial, experimental build. The company has indicated that the DLSS 5 update will be rolled out to the RTX 50 series later this year, while support for RTX 20, 30, and 40 series remains uncertain, though DLSS 4.5 is slated for older models.