DLSS 5: Has Nvidia’s AI graphics technology gone too far? – The Verge The Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts. 2026-03-21T15:58:51+00:00 https://www.theverge.com/rss/stream/896518 https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/verge-rss-large_80b47e.png?w=150&h=150&crop=1 Sean Hollister <![CDATA[Nvidia has lost the plot with gamers]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=895753 2026-03-19T11:37:34-04:00 2026-03-18T09:00:00-04:00

Nvidia surely thought it was doing a good thing for gamers by "upgrading" the faces of our favorite video game characters. But that just shows how much the company has lost the plot.

Nvidia could've marketed its new DLSS 5 real-time lighting technology as a way to make future, next-gen games look better. Instead, it told the world that games people already know and love look bad. It focused on retconning characters' faces. And now, confronted with the predictable backlash, Nvidia's CEO is telling critics that we're "completely wrong."

Regardless of how it works, the tech presents as an AI filter that tries to optimize everyone and everythi …

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]]> Andrew Webster <![CDATA[Nvidia’s DLSS 5 is like motion smoothing for video games, but worse]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=896213 2026-03-21T11:58:51-04:00 2026-03-17T14:00:00-04:00 A screenshot of Starfield with DLSS 5 on.

Yesterday Nvidia revealed its latest upscaling tech, called DLSS 5, which it described as "the company's most significant breakthrough in computer graphics since the debut of real-time ray tracing in 2018." Sounds good, until you actually see it. According to Nvidia, the tech "infuses pixels with photoreal lighting and materials," but all anyone seemed to notice was that it turned recognizable faces into something resembling AI slop. Resident Evil Requiem protagonist Grace got a makeover that would make her look at home in a Tilly Norwood video. The Hogwarts Legacy kids looked like they'd been wrung through an Instagram filter. Even Liverpoo …

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]]> Cameron Faulkner Richard Lawler <![CDATA[DLSS 5 looks like a real-time generative AI filter for video games]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=895472 2026-03-16T19:32:04-04:00 2026-03-16T17:56:05-04:00

Nvidia announced DLSS 5 on Monday during its GTC conference, and based on early reactions, it's going to be a divisive update, with some reactions calling it "slop" that unacceptably alters artistic intent. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is calling this the "GPT moment for graphics - blending hand-crafted rendering with generative AI to deliver a dramatic leap in visual realism while preserving the control artists need for creative expression."

In games that support DLSS 5, the tools can immediately provide noticeable boosts to lighting and shadows, but unlike previous versions of upscaling that used machine learning to close the gap between high …

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