Frame Generation is an AI tool that insert "fake frames" between "real frames" in order to boost FPS in games.

Those frames are generated in order so you can get more smooth gameplay without having to upgrade your machine. But is that the right thing to do?

Frame Gen is usually bashed around the gamers, since it's AI generated, and not "real frames".

What do you think? Have you ever used Frame Generation? What is your opinion on it?

I haven't used it in a ton of games yet, but in the games I have, it's worked out pretty well so far. As long as it doesn't add too much input lag, why wouldn't I want to use it, since it generally seems to look OK? Besides, as far as I know, it's really just a particularly good interpolation method. We could probably have had frame generation way before AI, only it would have looked worse.

The part I don't love about frame generation is that it enables developers to cheap out on optimization. I don't know much of that actually happens, but on some time scale, it undeniably does or will lessen the pressure to optimize games further. But since frame generation is here, for better or worse, I might as well utilize it. I guess if I hit the refresh rate of my monitor, I could skip using frame generation, but that doesn't really happen a lot, at least not without significant sacrifices in other areas.

I don’t see what meaningful labor is lost from allowing frames to be more easily generated (or rather, I don’t see how it would be unethical). Seems like an appropriate use of technology. Can’t just blindly be opposed to any use of the “new and scary” innovation. There has to be some shades of grey in there.

Though I am all ears to hearing how such could be problematic. It’s not something I’ve looked into extensively so I’ll happily be informed by somebody looking to explain.

I was initially sceptical of it due to the input latency impact but now that I've tried it I think the tech is so incredible that it feels like magic. Said latency impact is actually small and for that slight sacrifice you get a massive boost to visual smoothness so it's perfect for playing a demanding game on a display that is 240hz or higher.

I tried it properly for the first time in Forza Horizon 6 and thought it worked super well there though was still unsure how well it'd work with something like a fast paced FPS but 4x frame gen let me play Doom: The Dark Ages at 240fps max settings aside from path tracing with basically no issue aside from the input latency which was hard to notice so I am now a massive believer in it.

It'll be how super high refresh rate displays like 1000hz ones will be able to show that many frames for games that are even remotely demanding. DLSS upscaling is also incredible for letting you get close to 4K image quality from native 1080p but frame gen might be even more impressive and magic like to me. It'll be how the next gen consoles will be able to consistently offer 120fps modes and in the coming years it'll be possible to use it to go from 100fps to 1000fps with little drawback. It is kinda a rich gets richer feature though since the higher the base frame rate is the better, for example 60 to 240 will work way better than 30 to 120 so its biggest flaw is not being that good for lower end hardware yet.