IO Interactive's 007 First Light is definitely one of those games that will push your PC to the very limit. It's fast-paced, full of lighting effects and detailed scenes, and designed to almost look better than real life. Honestly, from where I sit, it certainly does look better, especially those Malta scenes.
But those visuals do put a strain on your hardware, which needs to be capable of handling the various lighting effects, textures, and still putting out a solid frame rate. To see how GPUs across a variety of generations hold up with this AAA title, I tested 007 First Light across three different generations of Nvidia GPUs, and I can now confidently say that the upgrade to the GeForce RTX 50-series makes sense when you're playing a game as demanding as Bond's latest adventure that supports the entire roster of Nvidia’s software acceleration.
With the combination of upscaling and frame generation features, including DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution and Dynamic Multi Frame Generation, the game was elevated far beyond what previous generation cards were displaying.
007 First Light needs a GPU that can keep up with it
In 007 First Light, you're thrown right into it by surviving a helicopter crash and needing to navigate your way through countless enemies, defying 1% odds of survival. With a lot of action, and therefore a lot of environmental effects, the GPU is constantly rebuilding scenes full of fast motion: ricochets, shattering glass, explosions, fight scenes, you name it. Unless you turn the settings right down, running at rasterised 1440p or 4K at more than 60 fps isn't really on the table for most cards.
007 First Light supports all the latest Nvidia GeForce RTX tech
Nvidia's GeForce RTX tech isn't just one feature; it's a whole stack of them, and they don't all do the same job. For anyone not in the know, here’s a rundown of what’s supported in 007 First Light, and what exactly it does.
DLSS Super Resolution is the upscaler, and it's the foundation. When you toggle it on in 007 First Light, your GPU renders the game at a lower internal resolution, then an AI model reconstructs it up to your display's actual resolution. You get the frame rate of a lighter workload that holds up close to native.
With DLSS 4.5, Nvidia moved to a second-generation transformer model. This sharpens fine edges and cleans up motion, and the best part for anyone on older hardware is that it runs on every RTX card, going all the way back to the RTX 20-series.
DLSS Frame Generation is where the upgrade to a newer generation of cards really shines. Instead of upscaling a frame, DLSS FG insert a brand new generated frame between two rendered ones, roughly doubling your frame rate on its lowest setting. The catch is that it needs dedicated hardware in the RTX 40 and RTX 50-series, so it's a non-starter on the older cards.
If you think we're done, think again. Nvidia's latest RTX 50-series includes Multi Frame Generation, generating up to five extra frames per rendered frame instead of one. Pair it with the upscaler, and Nvidia can multiply 4K frame rates by an average of six times on a 50-series card. Dynamic Multi Frame Generation, another 50-series exclusive, really takes it up a notch. Rather than locking you to a fixed multiplier, it adjusts how many frames it generates on the fly, scene by scene, to hit a target frame rate while keeping the game responsive.
And, to top it all off, Nvidia Reflex cuts back on latency so that all these AI-powered enhancements don't take away from your game feeling snappy. These features combine to increase the smoothness of your game, while preserving as much image quality as possible and reducing the impact of any added latency.
How Nvidia's latest graphics cards can transform 007 First Light
I was aching to play 007 First Light, but as a GPU reviewer, I was even more excited to see Nvidia tackle such a resource-heavy game.
GeForce RTX 50-series was made for games like 007 First Light
I tested 007 First Light on a GeForce RTX 5080, RTX 4080 Super, and RTX 3060 Ti. Although the RTX 5080 and the RTX 4080 Super are both fit to run games at 4K, you'll find it a challenge to hit over 60 fps at Ultra settings at that resolution, which in itself is telling of the computational power required for the latest AAA titles. The game averaged 54 fps at 4K with all settings cranked up to the max and without upscaling and frame generation.
Some scenes were easier to render. Bond's first hour or so is spent largely in the dark, but there, the lighting effects shine with realism. The RTX 5080 made quick work of it, hitting 100 fps on the Quality preset, and 113 fps on the Balanced preset, followed by 117 fps on Performance, and 128 fps on Ultra Performance. That's all without Multi Frame Generation, with only Nvidia's DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution turned on.
Previously, on the older transformer model, those Ultra Performance presets would've resulted in a drop in image quality as a tradeoff for performance. But if you flick through the screenshots, you'll see that's just not the case for the newer model. Nvidia was able to achieve the fine balance of performance and quality, to the point where you're getting respectable frame rates without sacrificing visuals, and those are important in 007 First Light.
Turning on MFG and making the most of Dynamic MFG reveals that you can easily play at 4K and hit well above 165 fps. That's on the GeForce RTX 5080, but the numbers make it easy to tell that even the rest of Nvidia's RTX 50-series will manage 007 First Light, including cards like the RTX 5060 and the RTX 5070.
Nvidia's RTX 40-series holds up well, but it misses the key upgrades of the RTX 50-series
Meanwhile, my GeForce RTX 4080 Super rig playing at 1440p fared well from the get-go, thanks to the lower resolution. Still, I couldn't make the most of my 165Hz monitor. The frame rates hovered around 90 fps to 100 fps, which is respectable, but not ideal when you want to play at higher refresh rates. The night-time scenes aren't as demanding on the GPU, so at times, I was able to hit 117-120 fps with no enhancements.
Trying out DLSS was a great idea, though. Not only did the Quality preset bump up my frame rates, but the game also looked better in some scenes, with less graininess and superb lighting. Turning on 2x Frame Generation let me hit 165 fps and beyond, getting me to where I wanted to be to make the most of my monitor.
Dropping down to older gens surprised me
Then, I tested the game on an RTX 3060 Ti. A solid card then and now, the RTX 3060 Ti was happy to accept me playing 007 First Light at medium settings, but it was less thrilled when I used every last bit of its VRAM by switching to ultra.
At 1080p, I was getting 60-70 fps on medium settings with no DLSS, and closer to 50 fps on ultra. But switching to DLSS Super Resolution was an immediate fix that put me over 100 fps without a drop in quality. Not bad for a card that's far from new, but not quite as impressive as what we were hitting on the RTX 5080.
This is about as far as it goes. With no frame generation, the RTX 20-series and the RTX 30-series are long overdue for an upgrade.
007 First Light is worth upgrading your GPU for
I had a blast playing my way through 007 First Light. But I won't lie to you, my enjoyment shot up considerably when I turned on DLSS.
Not only did DLSS alone improve my frame rates across all three GPUs, but adding Dynamic Multi Frame Generation into the mix on the RTX 5080 meant that those frames were adjusted based on every single frame. The "dynamic" nature of this iteration of MFG meant that I never had to worry about stuttering or latency; everything was silky smooth.
Now is a decent time to upgrade to the RTX 50-series and try all of this out for yourself in 007 First Light. With many Nvidia GPU discounts available online, let your older GPU finally retire with an RTX 50-series graphics card to experience every game exactly the way it was meant to be played. Overclockers UK has a great selection of sales for RTX 50 series GPUs, whether you want to go upper range like the RTX 5080 or hit a reasonable mid-range card like the RTX 5060 Ti.
