Nvidia’s DLSS 5 generative AI graphics reveal has… not gone nicely

Nvidia, the world’s largest firm and the artist previously generally known as ‘that graphics card lot’, has revealed a brand new know-how which it calls an “AI-Powered breakthrough in visual fidelity for games”. And which we name “a nightmarish AI effect that makes characters in your games look like they were designed by a Google Gemini prompt”.

DLSS 5 is an impressive technical feat in many ways, as is detailed over at Nvidia’s newswire. It uses compatible Nvidia graphics cards to “infuse” onscreen pixels with photoreal lighting and supplies. You can see it at work in Nvidia’s instance clips. It seems so as to add a whole lot of new element to sport characters.

The problem with that is that the technology appears to be quite literally painting over the work of the creators who designed those characters. And the effect? Utterly homogenous. Resident Evil Requiem’s Grace Ashcroft looks like an AI girlfriend with an ozempic prescription. And Marika Boros takes on a remarkably similar complexion when DLSS 5 is applied to Starfield.

Context matters here, too. We’re all well aware of the AI bubble now. If you weren’t, then reading the first line of this story and being reminded that somehow a PC graphics card company has become bigger than Apple and Meta is a pretty handy reminder. Companies like Nvidia have invested massively into AI tech, and are now looking for any and all opportunities to add it to our lives.

Prominent builders have praised the tech. Bethesda’s Todd Howard stated within the Nvidia announcement: “We’re excited to work with this new technology and look to bring DLSS 5 to Starfield and future Bethesda titles.”

Capcom’s Jun Takeuchi is similarly enthusiastic: “It represents another important step in pushing visual fidelity forward, helping players become even more immersed in the world of Resident Evil.“

That sentiment stands in stark contrast to the wider public reaction, which likens the effect to turning games into AI slop and raises the issue of the sanctity of a game’s original art direction.

However, Nvidia Jensen Huang has hit back at those critics. “First of all, they’re completely wrong,” he instructed Tom’s Hardware, responding to a query in regards to the destructive reception to DLSS 5.

“The reason for that is because, as I have explained very carefully, DLSS 5 fuses controllability of the geometry and textures and everything about the game with generative AI.”

Huang additionally added that “it doesn’t change artistic control” and that “it’s not post-processing on the body stage, it’s generative management on the geometry stage”.

But Huang’s response seems to be focusing on how the effect works, rather than what the end result looks like, which has been the focus of the criticism. If creators still retain artistic control, why do the sample clips look so homogenous?

Expect to see some very cautious technical explanations and, hopefully, some video games not trying like a Nano Banana immediate within the close to future as Nvidia makes an attempt to regain management over the DLSS 5 narrative.