Nvidia's new DLSS 5 Brings Photo-Realistic Lighting To RTX 50-Series
www.digitalfoundry.net
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A massive technological leap for graphics - and we've been hands-on with four games.

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I’m completely speechless. This looks so terrible I thought it was a joke, but apparently Nvidia released these demos to impress people. DLSS 5 runs the entire game through an AI filter, making every character look like it’s running through an ultra realistic beauty filter.

The photo above is used as the promo image for the official blog post by the way. It completely ignores artistic intent and makes Grace’s face look “sexier” because apparently that’s what realism looks like now.

I wouldn’t be so baffled if this was some experimental setting they were testing, but they’re advertising this as the next gen DLSS. As in, this is their image of what the future of gaming should be. A massive F U to every artist in the industry. Well done, Nvidia.

Joelk111
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1d

Reading through the comments, this is definitely an unpopular opinion, but while I don’t love it, it does look more “realistic” to me, even though it definitely needs to look more like the source material.

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361d

The original image is bad because the game is rendered at a low resolution and upscaled likely using DLSS 4.5, I think this is intentionally deceptive. We know they have to be using DLSS 4.5 due to path tracing being enabled and running in real time which is extremely GPU intensive even for the 5090. That smoothes away every texture. Nvidia is trying to tie the gaming industry into being “AI default” instead of using normal rendering techniques, which, if done correctly look much better than this.

Joelk111
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31d

That’s a really good point. I’m not even sure what the game is, I had assumed it was something old based on the before image, which would be a sensical use case for this imo.

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61d

It’s the new Resident Evil 9 (Resident Evil Requiem)

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21d

Nah, total recall, the triple boobs scene, to be ignored cus it’s cool sci fi

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21d

Yeah, probably the main reason it’s getting the little bit of praise that it does is that they’re showing it off on games with fairly flat-looking skin shaders. Unfortunately a problem with this sort of thing is that getting that “2023” image is the result of giving a whole team a huge amount of time to model one man’s face. If you’re Bethesda and you just want to get NPCs into Starfield, it would be a similar amount of work. A bit less, since the first people already gave a talk on it, but still much more work then just getting a diffuse BRDF with some subsurface scattering and calling it good. But you also need a process that can be applied to every single NPC…

And looking at Striking Distance Studios, the company where that 2023 image is from:

In February 2025, it was reported that most of the studio’s developers had been laid off.

Yeah, I think it’s safe to say that the work those people put in will never be directly reused.

Another reason the DLSS version looks a bit more realistic there is because of the specular highlights on the eyes, for example. They probably aren’t reflecting anything real, or else they would be there in the original. But the AI knows that specular highlights add realism and are plausible in this scene, so it puts them there. That’s something that an artist could do if given a specific shot and camera angle, but in the general case they can’t really do that without causing problems.

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31d

There are specular highlights on the eyes in the original, they are just much more subdued.

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8h

Oh, yeah, I didn’t see those. I think my point still stands though, really those specular highlights shouldn’t be that bright, but the AI can figure out that it’s plausible for them to be brighter and that it would fit the target style better.

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21d

It looks “realistic” to you because your brain has already been fried by slop content. This is a feature for people with zero sense or taste. So I am sure some people will absolutely eat it up.

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114h

Not even true. People would think it looks more realistic 10 years ago too.

Joelk111
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21d

You make a good point in the second half of your comment, but I’m not sure why you had to call me an idiot first. I don’t watch short form content where AI is apparently rampant, and I haven’t ever intentionally seeked it out elsewhere. As far as people being fried by AI goes, I’ve gotta be near the lower end of the spectrum.

My take isn’t even gung-ho on the feature, and I only commented on a single screenshot.

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1d

Exactly. This is one of the few good uses for AI. It looks less like a beauty filter and more like a realism one. If it can make the rest of the game look as real, I’m all for this. I just hope it doesn’t require a GPU upgrade, because I was lucky enough to score a 4090 at launch for MSRP, and I plan on keeping it for at least another 6-8 years.

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161d

Brother, get your eyeballs checked. Nothing about that looks photoreal.

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10h

When did I say it looked photo real? All I said was that it looks like a realism filter

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1d

Given AI’s training data biases it’s not true reflection of reality but more of streotype projection. I don’t think its effect on PoC character, unconventional demihuman types, or any “semi-real” artstyle will accurately enhance artists’ original intent.

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121d

Brother leave the basement every now and then

Joelk111
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I’m not sure I’d go as far as saying it’s a good use of AI. Also, if you’d read the article (or even just the comments) you’d know that this required 2 5090s. Your 4090 is not going to cut it.

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21d

I guess I will just keep playing factorio. That’s a game which doesn’t involve any automatic generation involving intelligence … Wait… Fuck!

/s

To be clear I don’t think factorio has any Gen Ai. It does have a lot of automation, a lot of generation and requires a lot of intelligence. I thought it was just a clever bit of word play.

FACTORY MUST GROW!!

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11d

Yes on factorio, even though I am so bad

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21d

If you think you are bad, you are not. There is no wrong way to play and you may want to have different goals. Do you want fastest time? Smallest area? Most powerful against hoards of bugs? Conquer all planets? Science per minute? Self imposed limitations?

All are valid and all could be fun.

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-21d

The unoptimized demonstration requires two 5090s, yes. Final version might be less demanding. Let me believe.

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