I was an Nvidia DLSS 5 hater…until I used it myself

I don’t know about you, but I was pretty leery of Nvidia’s new DLSS 5 tech when we first started seeing samples of how it can change the appearance of games in real time. I didn’t like the idea of Nvidia algorithmically injecting new details into my games that change the way they look, and I was afraid of the “yassifying” effect we saw it apply in titles like Resident Evil Requiem.

…Then I tried it for myself this week. Now, I’m afraid I may be a reluctant believer.

Because while DLSS 5 is only officially supported in NBA 2K27 right now, entrepid modders have already ripped the DLSS files out of the game and made it fairly easy for anyone with an Nvidia GPU to start applying the new tech to whatever game(s) you like. And after throwing DLSS 5 on in the middle of my Star Wars Zero Company campaign, I’m not sure I’m ever going back.

Sure, going from DLSS 4 to DLSS 5 while playing Zero Company caused my framerate to drop off a cliff. But with Nvidia’s Frame Generation tech I was able to claw some of those frames per second back, and since Bit Reactor’s new Star Wars game is a turn-based tactics smorgasbord I’m not stressed about how heavy DLSS use might affect render quality or input latency. I just want my team of soldiers and scoundrels to look like they just stepped off a Volume set after a day of filming, and I’ll be damned if DLSS 5 doesn’t do exactly that.

Now look, I don’t exactly have a keen eye for fine details or framerates—I turn to an authority like Digital Foundry for that. Perhaps if I was more sensitive to those sorts of details my stomach would turn at how Nvidia’s burgeoning AI-powered image enhancement tech is changing the look of my game.

But to my eyes, going from DLSS 4 to DLSS 5 just made everything (and everyone) in my Zero Company game look a little bit better. Objects appear more elaborate and intricate, while faces look sharper and more detailed. Admittedly I do occasionally see textures take awhile to pop in, and now there’s a massive slowdown every time I enter a scene where DLSS is not running (typically just when I come back from missions and reload into the Den), but overall I feel like the game looks better (albeit runs worse) when DLSS 5 is switched on.

To show you what I mean, here’s a quick screenshot I captured of a Zero Company character under the effects of DLSS 5. While it’s not a perfect comparison, I think you can see the small changes in the way the character’s lips, chin and other facial features appear to be “yassified” compared to the original.

PCWorld

PCWorld

And this is just the beginning. If Nvidia puts in the work to fine-tune DLSS 5 and smooth out some of the performance issues over the coming months, it’s not hard for me to imagine this tech being treated like the next big step up for graphics in games. The fact that it’s basically just an AI filter being applied to your game after it’s rendered won’t matter to most people; what matters is that you can hit a button and make everyone in your game look a little more attractive.

But for me, the most exciting aspect of enabling DLSS 5 wasn’t the AI-fueled visual overhaul—it was figuring out how to get the tech running in Zero Company, then playing around with settings and sliders to see what it did to the game. It reminded me of that feeling I get when I upgrade the GPU in my gaming rig and start firing up old games (hello, Crysis and Cyberpunk) to see how they look with the new card. In that way, it sort of feels like just another PC gaming upgrade you can choose to adopt, abandon, or adapt to your tastes.

With that perspective it’s easier to see DLSS 5 not as a shot across the bow of artistic intent in game development, but rather as one more tool that performance-minded PC enthusiasts can play with to fine-tune the look and feel of their favorite games. However, that only applies if players have the option to mess around with DLSS 5 settings…and the problem is that I suspect Nvidia won’t expose a lot of the controls I’ve been futzing around with to the average player.

See, in order to mod Zero Company to play well with DLSS 5 I had to use some third-party programs that let me enable the new graphical tech and mess around with how and when it modifies game graphics. But when DLSS 5 support officially appears in games like NBA 2K27, it seems like you don’t have a lot of options for influencing how it affects the look of your game…just the choice to turn it on or off, as developers tune it for their specific artistic vision.

If that remains true for DLSS 5 in games going forward, then yes I think there’s still good reason to be leery of using it. It’s nice that Nvidia has committed to saying that game developers have full control over if and how DLSS 5 is implemented in their games, but I’m not sure I’d be comfortable using it unless I as a player had some control as well. Otherwise, it really does just feel like an AI is telling me what it thinks my character should look like, and that’s a bummer.

But after having so much fun modding my game and playing around with DLSS 5 settings this week, my eyes have been opened to the potential upsides of using this graphical enhancement tech. I think I was wrong to turn my nose up so quickly, and I’m excited to start messing around with it in more games. I just hope that when official DLSS 5 support starts rolling out for more titles, we see players given more control over how (not just if) it’s used.

In this week’s episode of The Full Nerd

This week your regular cohosts Adam Patrick Murray and Alaina Yee were joined by departing intern Glenn Mah and yours truly to dig into the launch of DLSS 5 and the rumors that Intel is gearing up to launch a monster 52-core CPU.

PCWorld

Later in the show longtime PCWorld model Mona joined us to take your questions from the chat as well as the Full Nerd Discord server. It was a lot of fun, and make sure you stick around to the end to hear all about how the show is changing now that Adam is leaving the Bay Area for beautiful North Carolina.

Don’t worry, the show will go on—and we’re going to have a new format to play around with!

Nerd news of the week

Tired of hearing about DLSS? No worries, there’s a smorgasbord of other intriguing tech news out there this week!

• Intel reportedly set to hike CPU prices by 10% ahead of ‘major annual product’ launch in March 2027: The bad news keeps coming, as a recent report citing sources in the supply chain claims that we can expect Intel CPU prices to climb a bit this year. Hopefully these price hikes are more targeted at enterprise and server-grade CPUs rather than desktop chips, but we’ll see!
• The remnants of a lost ‘supercontinent’ just rewrote the history of life on Earth: The folks at 404 Media helpfully summarize a recent study by a group of China-backed researchers and chat with them about the size and shape of Gondwana, which made up roughly 80% of the Earth’s landmass 500 million years ago.
• Nvidia’s free tool turns your idle home computers into a personal AI hub: I’m awfully leery of AI, but this new app from Nvidia might be interesting because it lets you run AI agents locally on your home network using the resources of whatever PCs you have. It supports not just Windows PCs but also Macs and Linux machines, which is pretty neat.
• Top chipmakers embrace ASML’s $400M machines, agree to crucial chipmaking change: I’m still wrapping my head around this, but it sounds like TSMC and Samsung are signing on to use extreme ultraviolet lithography machines from Dutch firm ASML (Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography) that use lasers to create smaller features in next-gen chips.
• Anthropic researcher quits with a warning: Self-improving AI could “kill us all”: …This seems fine!

That’s it for you Full Nerd newsletter this week! For more, be sure to bookmark PCWorld and subscribe to the PCWorld YouTube channel! Want this newsletter to come directly to your inbox? Sign up on our website!

This newsletter is dedicated to the memory of Gordon Mah Ung, founder and host of The Full Nerd, and executive editor of hardware at PCWorld.