No Man's Sky Cosmos PC Graphics Update: DLSS 4.5, XeSS 3, and Rendering Changes

Hello Games released No Man's Sky Cosmos, Update 7.0, on September 9, 2026. The headline additions are deep-space exploration, station ownership, orbital construction and alliances, but the official patch notes also contain a substantial PC rendering update. They add Intel XeSS 3 and NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 support, overhaul planetary terrain detail, improve clouds viewed from space, add volumetric fog volumes and particles, and make several water and lighting changes.

Those additions should not be collapsed into a single performance claim. An upscaler or frame-generation option changes a different part of the rendering path from terrain tessellation, texture detail, fog, clouds or water. The patch notes establish which technologies and rendering changes exist; they do not provide a universal FPS delta for the complete Cosmos workload.

Hello Games' 7.0 notes explicitly add NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 and describe support for 5X and 6X Frame Generation modes. NVIDIA's September 15 update says Cosmos brings its latest Super Resolution model and up to 6X Multi Frame Generation to No Man's Sky, while NVIDIA app overrides can also expose Dynamic Multi Frame Generation on supported GeForce RTX 50 Series hardware.

The multiplier label is not the same thing as native rendering performance. Multi Frame Generation inserts generated frames around conventionally rendered work; it does not mean the game simulation, CPU workload or traditionally rendered base frame rate is multiplied by the same amount. This page therefore does not turn a 5X or 6X mode into an unsupported latency, responsiveness or native-FPS claim.

The Cosmos 7.0 patch notes also add Intel Xe Super Sampling 3. That makes XeSS 3 an officially documented option in the current No Man's Sky rendering stack rather than an inferred feature based on engine support or a driver-level workaround.

The patch notes do not publish a controlled image-quality or performance comparison between XeSS 3 and DLSS 4.5, and Core Tech Tips has not independently benchmarked the update. Which option is preferable on a particular PC therefore depends on supported hardware, the modes exposed by the game, resolution and measured behavior rather than the version number alone.

Cosmos overhauls planetary terrain detail with improved tessellation techniques, higher detail and enhanced textures. Hello Games also documents improved cloud rendering from space, new volumetric fog volumes and particles around deep-space hulks, improved water and foam appearance, and fixes to lighting and post-processing around the water line.

These changes matter when diagnosing a performance difference after updating. A heavier or simply different scene can change GPU, CPU, memory and streaming behavior independently of the selected upscaler. Conversely, seeing a new DLSS or XeSS option does not prove that an unrelated terrain or shader change caused a specific frame-time result.

Hello Games released Cosmos 7.03 on September 16, 2026. Its PC-relevant graphics notes include improved texture compression to reduce visual artifacts, improved texture shader performance, and fixes for multiple DLSS Frame Generation issues. The same patch also fixes crashes related to geometry streaming and physics-item memory management among other stability work.

That makes 7.03 important context for anyone comparing early Cosmos behavior with the current build. A result recorded on 7.0 is not automatically representative of 7.03. At the same time, a generic patch-note statement such as “fixed a number of issues” is not evidence that every possible Frame Generation artifact, crash or pacing problem has been eliminated.

When comparing settings, record whether Frame Generation is disabled, enabled at a fixed multiplier, or using a dynamic mode. Also record the Super Resolution or native-resolution mode separately. Otherwise two screenshots or FPS counters can describe fundamentally different rendering pipelines while appearing to be a simple performance comparison.

For the same reason, an output frame-rate counter with Multi Frame Generation enabled should not be used alone to infer input latency, simulation rate, CPU headroom or frame pacing. Those require their own measurements and test conditions. NVIDIA describes its technology as increasing displayed frame output, but vendor feature claims are not substitutes for independent game-specific latency or frame-time testing.

For practical testing, first update No Man's Sky to the current Cosmos patch available for the platform and note the exact version. On PC, record GPU, driver, resolution, graphics preset, upscaling mode, Frame Generation state and the location or workload being tested. Cosmos adds enough rendering and scene changes that an unlabeled before-and-after FPS number is difficult to interpret.

The defensible conclusion from the official evidence is narrower than a settings recommendation: Cosmos materially expands the PC rendering feature set, and 7.03 already changes some shader and Frame Generation behavior after the 7.0 launch. Choosing an ideal configuration still requires measurements on the actual hardware and current game build.