NVIDIA showed off DLSS 5 recently, and the reaction they received was not good. The tech demo used ‘Resident Evil Requiem’ to show off what the new version of DLSS can do, and a lot of gamers immediately started calling the results “AI slop.” Players pointed out that the altered images looked too much like existing AI-generated content and that character faces were getting changed in ways nobody asked for.
One of the biggest complaints was about Grace from ‘Resident Evil Requiem,’ who looked like she had a beauty filter applied to her face with different makeup and hair that suddenly had dark roots. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang responded to all of it in an interview with Tom’s Hardware. His opening line was “Well, first of all, they’re completely wrong.” He went on to explain that DLSS 5 is not the same as regular generative AI and that players are misunderstanding what the technology actually does.
Huang Says DLSS 5 Works At The Geometry Level And That Developers Have Full Control Over How The AI Is Used’
Huang explained that DLSS 5 “fuses controllability of the geometry and textures and everything about the game with generative AI.” According to him, it is not doing post-processing on top of the image. It is what he called “generative control at the geometry level,” which means it is working directly with the game’s mesh geometry rather than just slapping effects on after the fact. He also said developers are able to fine-tune everything about how the AI behaves in their game.
Related: Take-Two CEO Claims He Is Not Worried About GTA 6 Players Being Too Old To Enjoy The Game
He then went further and said developers could use DLSS 5 for things beyond just lighting and visuals. His examples were that a developer could create a toon shader with it or make an entire game look like it is made “of glass.” He called the whole thing “content-control generative AI” and said it is “very different than generative AI.” DLSS 5 is not expected to be released until sometime in the fall, so Nvidia still has time to show better examples of what it can do before it actually ships.
The Backlash Is Not Just About How DLSS 5 Looks, And A Lot Of It Comes From How Expensive AI Has Made Gaming Hardware
The complaints are not only about how the tech looks. AI has been a sore point for gamers because the demand for hardware to power AI datacenters has driven up prices for things like RAM and SSDs. Some manufacturers have stopped selling to consumers entirely and are only making parts for AI companies now. That has led to shortages that are already affecting things like Steam Machine pre-orders and could push the price of the Nintendo Switch 2 higher than expected.
And then there is the cost of actually running DLSS 5. The tech demo used two Nvidia 5090 GPUs, which have an MSRP of $1,999 each but have been selling for even more than that. So even if DLSS 5 turns out to be as good as Huang says it is, most people are not going to be able to try it anytime soon.
In Case You Missed: Overwatch Bans Over 18,000 Accounts In Latest Ban Wave But Some Players Say They Got Caught Up In It For No Reason
A future GPU might handle it better, but nobody knows if the price will come down or go up from here. As of now, a lot of gamers are just not in the mood to hear about AI-powered features when the cost of building a PC keeps climbing.
