# Nvidia DLSS 5

27 Hacker News commenters recommended Nvidia DLSS 5 and 46 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended for boosting frame rates and image quality, especially older games. Most common caveat: DLSS 5's changes to faces and lighting look overprocessed and demand heavy GPU resources.

## Why people recommend it

- Improves realism and graphics detail (4 comments): "For me, still find it impressive, and think the level detail in the faces and clothing is a full step up in capability." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47431317)) "I was particularly impressed by the Starfield footage, I like the more realistic look." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47406699)) "DLSS 5 clearly improves the graphics most of the time." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47421829))
- Boosts frame rates with little quality loss (3 comments): "I get 2x perf without visual degradation or any notable latency at all" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47422027)) "DLSS can greatly reduce the bandwidth requirements for 4K gaming." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48431931)) "Not sure why anyone would want this, either on the consumer or producer side." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47407176))
- Makes older games and machines better (3 comments): "I like neural rendering ideas in the sense DLSS can make certain things happen on older machines" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49920747)) "It's really good at making older gen games look remade/remastered." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49923723)) "It's an excellent option to have, especially with older titles" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49624740))
- Optional, users can turn it off (3 comments): "almost all new games support it and despite the widespread complaints, very few people actually disable these features." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47691960)) "its really good, but it does have its _requirements_ which you can avoid" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49922906)) "Seems like an easy win, use it or dont use it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47419295))

## What people warn about

- Alters lighting, shadows and contrast (4 comments): "it completely upends and ruins the dynamic lighting that the developers spend a huge amount of time perfecting" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47405563)) "Look at how it completely deletes the shadow of the steeple on the right hand side" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47430682)) "They all have unfitting high contrast lighting that doesn't match the environment" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47405132))
- Faces and skin look artificial (3 comments): "how are they going to keep the randomly generated sexy new AI face for the characters consistent between shots?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47420066)) "For faces, skin, and hair (so everything human) I personally dislike the direction." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47409816)) "I imagine in the future devs wont bother creating detailed faces anymore" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47423557))
- Artificial, overprocessed filter look (3 comments): "This prnified AI filter "touch-up" is not the upgrade you AI evangelists think it is." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47422825)) "Artificially changing graphics to make them 'look better' is similar to my feelings" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47419746)) "I don't like the Netflix CGI slop movie style filter look it gives everything" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47418083))
- Heavy compute and GPU cost (3 comments): "I question the feasibility of fixing the issues while running the model on a consumer GPU in realtime" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47432776)) "it makes sense to me that it would increase compute demand instead of reduce it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48259860)) "it looks bad and uses an unreasonable amount of resources to do its thing" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47419918))

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Nvidia DLSS 5", https://hackerapproved.com/p/nvidia-dlss-5/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).