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.
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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.
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.