Nvidia DLSS 5
GPU upscaler in Games & consoles
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.
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.
73 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 27
- criticize it
- 46
- approval share
- 37%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 27 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Improves realism and graphics detail
“For me, still find it impressive, and think the level detail in the faces and clothing is a full step up in capability.”
Comment from 18 Mar 2026 in “Nvidia's DLSS 5 uses generative AI to boost photorealism in video games” “I was particularly impressed by the Starfield footage, I like the more realistic look.”
Comment from 16 Mar 2026 in “Nvidia DLSS 5 Delivers AI-Powered Breakthrough in Visual Fidelity for Games” “DLSS 5 clearly improves the graphics most of the time.”
Comment from 18 Mar 2026 in “Nvidia's DLSS 5 uses generative AI to boost photorealism in video games” - Comment from 18 Mar 2026 in “Nvidia's DLSS 5 uses generative AI to boost photorealism in video games”
Boosts frame rates with little quality loss
“I get 2x perf without visual degradation or any notable latency at all”
Comment from 18 Mar 2026 in “Nvidia's DLSS 5 uses generative AI to boost photorealism in video games” “DLSS can greatly reduce the bandwidth requirements for 4K gaming.”
Comment from 7 Jun 2026 in “Nvidia is proposing a beast of a CPU system for Windows PCs” “Not sure why anyone would want this, either on the consumer or producer side.”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Nvidia DLSS 5 Delivers AI-Powered Breakthrough in Visual Fidelity for Games” Makes older games and machines better
“I like neural rendering ideas in the sense DLSS can make certain things happen on older machines”
Comment from 1 Oct 2026 in “OpenDLSS: A Vulkan Reimplementation of Nvidia's DLSS 5 Neural Rendering Network” “It's really good at making older gen games look remade/remastered.”
Comment from 1 Oct 2026 in “OpenDLSS: A Vulkan Reimplementation of Nvidia's DLSS 5 Neural Rendering Network” “It's an excellent option to have, especially with older titles”
Comment from 9 Sep 2026 in “PS1 Games with DLSS 5 [video]” Optional, users can turn it off
“almost all new games support it and despite the widespread complaints, very few people actually disable these features.”
Comment from 8 Apr 2026 in “Every GPU That Mattered” “its really good, but it does have its _requirements_ which you can avoid”
Comment from 1 Oct 2026 in “John Carmack on Aliasing (2016)” “Seems like an easy win, use it or dont use it.”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Nvidia's DLSS 5 uses generative AI to boost photorealism in video games”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Alters lighting, shadows and contrast
“it completely upends and ruins the dynamic lighting that the developers spend a huge amount of time perfecting”
Comment from 16 Mar 2026 in “Nvidia DLSS 5 Delivers AI-Powered Breakthrough in Visual Fidelity for Games” “Look at how it completely deletes the shadow of the steeple on the right hand side”
Comment from 18 Mar 2026 in “Nvidia's DLSS 5 uses generative AI to boost photorealism in video games” “They all have unfitting high contrast lighting that doesn't match the environment”
Comment from 16 Mar 2026 in “Nvidia DLSS 5 Delivers AI-Powered Breakthrough in Visual Fidelity for Games” - Comment from 18 Mar 2026 in “Nvidia DLSS 5 – AI-Powered Breakthrough in Visual Fidelity for Games [video]”
Faces and skin look artificial
“how are they going to keep the randomly generated sexy new AI face for the characters consistent between shots?”
Comment from 18 Mar 2026 in “Nvidia's DLSS 5 uses generative AI to boost photorealism in video games” “For faces, skin, and hair (so everything human) I personally dislike the direction.”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Nvidia DLSS 5 Delivers AI-Powered Breakthrough in Visual Fidelity for Games” “I imagine in the future devs wont bother creating detailed faces anymore”
Comment from 18 Mar 2026 in “Nvidia DLSS 5 Delivers AI-Powered Breakthrough in Visual Fidelity for Games” Artificial, overprocessed filter look
“This prnified AI filter "touch-up" is not the upgrade you AI evangelists think it is.”
Comment from 18 Mar 2026 in “Nvidia DLSS 5 Delivers AI-Powered Breakthrough in Visual Fidelity for Games” “Artificially changing graphics to make them 'look better' is similar to my feelings”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Nvidia's DLSS 5 uses generative AI to boost photorealism in video games” “I don't like the Netflix CGI slop movie style filter look it gives everything”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Nvidia's DLSS 5 uses generative AI to boost photorealism in video games” Heavy compute and GPU cost
“I question the feasibility of fixing the issues while running the model on a consumer GPU in realtime”
Comment from 18 Mar 2026 in “Nvidia's DLSS 5 uses generative AI to boost photorealism in video games” “it makes sense to me that it would increase compute demand instead of reduce it”
Comment from 24 May 2026 in “Memory has grown to nearly two-thirds of AI chip component costs” “it looks bad and uses an unreasonable amount of resources to do its thing”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Nvidia's DLSS 5 uses generative AI to boost photorealism in video games”
What people said
40 of the 87 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“they provide a far superior way of native AA”
“This sounds like a legit use case for DLSS 5.”
“It's really good at making older gen games look remade/remastered.”
“its really good, but it does have its _requirements_ which you can avoid”
“I like neural rendering ideas in the sense DLSS can make certain things happen on older machines”
“It's an excellent option to have, especially with older titles”
“this one is perhaps a bit over-the-top though”
“DLSS 4 Balanced looks excellent and renders at less than 720p for 1080p output.”
“DLSS can greatly reduce the bandwidth requirements for 4K gaming.”
“if you look at the improved quality of upscalers (DLLS 4.5 for example), gaming is now more affordable than ever”
“it makes sense to me that it would increase compute demand instead of reduce it”
“almost all new games support it and despite the widespread complaints, very few people actually disable these features.”
“directionally interesting but executed poorly”
“I question the feasibility of fixing the issues while running the model on a consumer GPU in realtime”
“For me, still find it impressive, and think the level detail in the faces and clothing is a full step up in capability.”
“there's nothing intrinsically expensive about DLSS to cause such a latency”
“Look at how it completely deletes the shadow of the steeple on the right hand side”
“they look more realistic than with dlss 5 turned off”
“it absolutely blasts contrast and crushes shadows to reduce dynamic range”
“I imagine in the future devs wont bother creating detailed faces anymore”
“This prnified AI filter "touch-up" is not the upgrade you AI evangelists think it is.”
“I get 2x perf without visual degradation or any notable latency at all”
“DLSS 5 clearly improves the graphics most of the time.”
“They are literally upgrading graphics by a generation with software.”
“how are they going to keep the randomly generated sexy new AI face for the characters consistent between shots?”
“it looks bad and uses an unreasonable amount of resources to do its thing”
“Artificially changing graphics to make them 'look better' is similar to my feelings”
“Seems like an easy win, use it or dont use it.”
“It is really tragic because DLSS has been pretty great so far.”
“I don't like the Netflix CGI slop movie style filter look it gives everything”
“For faces, skin, and hair (so everything human) I personally dislike the direction.”
“which magically doubles perf while maintaining visual quality”
“Not sure why anyone would want this, either on the consumer or producer side.”
“As it stands, it's horrible and the reaction has been rightly negative.”
“I was particularly impressed by the Starfield footage, I like the more realistic look.”
“It will, and everyone's pipelines will end up adjusted and optimized to having this stuff bolted on the end of the rendering.”
“it completely upends and ruins the dynamic lighting that the developers spend a huge amount of time perfecting”
“They all have unfitting high contrast lighting that doesn't match the environment”
“If RTX and DLSS are accomplishing that, who cares how it is done?”
“The existence of Nvidia DLSS (upscaling and frame generation) alone is a huge advantage over the Steam Deck”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.