Nvidia DLSS 5 leak sparks major turnaround among PC gamers as some brand it an 'insanely huge graphical update' that means 'there's no going back'

Date:
Sat, 29 Aug 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Description:
'Remarkable difference in tone of the reactions': the negativity around DLSS
5 is melting away, it seems.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Nvidia 's DLSS 5 has been nothing short of a bubbling cauldron of controversy ever since the next-gen gaming tech was first aired. That initial reception shocked Nvidia as what seemed like a legion of PC gamers took up arms and vowed, well, all sorts of colorful things most of them involving the term 'AI slop' in some fashion .

However, there are signs that this overwhelmingly negative tide of opinion is turning courtesy of a fresh revelation this week. This comes in the form of a leak rather than anything official from Nvidia, with Team Green's only DLSS revelations at Gamescom 2026 pertaining to the current incarnation of the feature (namely DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction for better quality ray-traced graphics, alongside some interesting GeForce Now announcements ). To refresh your memory and recap in a nutshell, as there's a lot more to it than this Nvidia has billed DLSS 5 as a 'real-time neural rendering model' that
polishes up a game's visuals using AI (without altering the game assets, and with the developer being given a decent level of control over the exact implementation ). Latest Videos From TechRadar Watch full video here:

What actually happened here was that on Friday, VideoCardz spotted that following NBA 2K27's early access going live, a DLSS 'neural rendering' DLL was discovered in the build. It didn't take long at all before modders (in
the RenoDX community) fudged things to get this working in games
('SpeedLemur' being the principal modder who "made this happen").

So, in theory this is effectively our first glimpse at DLSS 5 in the wild, with those modders demonstrating what it looks like by using the third-person fling-stuff-about action-adventure Control as seen on Reddit . However, do note that the tech is only working for application to character models for
now (not the environment or objects). You may like Nvidia tries again to get gamers to like DLSS 5, but doesn't quite succeed AI-powered upscaling is the future, whether we like it or not Control Resonant's ray tracing is a feast for the eyes on an RTX 5090 Nuts and bolts (Image credit: Future / John Loeffler) There have been some very interesting revelations from those experimenting with this apparent leak of DLSS 5 in terms of how it works, how it runs and perhaps most telling is the broad reaction to this spillage, which I'll return to shortly.

First, the nitty-gritty. In this leaked form so add a whole heap of seasoning, because nothing here is remotely official DLSS 5 seems to have a small set of adjustable parameters, including seven different 'styles' and various sliders to play with intensity, tone and structure. We're told that neural rendering doesn't need much in the way of data to do its stuff, and works off much the same inputs as regular DLSS (basic upscaling where all this started, remember?). Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from
us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

It's also for Nvidia RTX 5000 GPUs only (although that's still not fully confirmed, it was always likely to be the case anyway). The news on the performance front goes a bit awry, though, with the discovery that in Control the frame rate is cut in half by the AI polishing up the visuals. With an Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti running Control at 4K with ray tracing on high and DLSS (Quality), the frame rate was 71 fps and it dropped to 35 fps with neural rendering.

That is, of course, a nasty hit indeed. However, this is a piece of leaked code in an unknown state as far as the stage of development is concerned ( one clue suggests that the model may date back to the start of July) extracted and fudged to work on an old game. Given all that, we can't take this as anything like an indication of what the finished version of DLSS 5 might be like performance-wise.

Although it's at least comforting that it works in a playable (enough) manner on a single RTX 5070 Ti graphics card, because if you recall, Nvidia's demos used not one, but two, RTX 5090 GPUs. Clearly a 50% frame rate drop won't
fly, granted, but Nvidia wouldn't release this neural rendering trick if the hit was anything like that, because no gamer would use it in that state. What to read next I pitted my dream PC from 2017 against an RTX 5090 monster in 2026 in a fight to the death - here's what happened Nvidia RTX 5000 Super GPU refreshes could arrive in 2026 after all Nvidia brings AI teammates to PUBG and many gamers are highly skeptical Change in tone (Image credit: WholeIndividual0 on Reddit) What we can really take from this leak and the modding efforts thereafter is quite limited, then. But what's clear is that
as mentioned, there's been a marked turnaround in the commentary and debate
on the image quality on offer with neural rendering.

As one Redditor observes : "Remarkable difference in tone of the reactions compared to when the [initial] Resident Evil footage was released."

Someone replying to that says: "People freaked out about what was obviously just a bad demo, and failed to see what was actually going on with the underlying tech.

"There were a few talking about how different tone mapping fixed the issue with minimal effort, or how it wasn't actually adding/changing details, and
it turns out they were correct. People freaked out over nothing imo."

Another gamer notes : "This looks like legit magic. I was saying this when the reveal happened and people wanted to burn Nvidia down: the tech is amazing, the demo might be off because it's too heavy handed, but the tech itself is incredibly impressive."

And a further Redditor enthuses : "Insanely huge graphical update. There's no going back."

You get the idea, then, and it's quite an eye-opener how many comments there are along these lines. Quite a lot of gamers are impressed by this leaked
spin on DLSS 5 and I can see why, frankly, at least with the Control
material presented here.

And remember, this is with DLSS 5 working on character models, with the
facial tinkering and tweaking being one of the main causes of concern with Nvidia's initial demos. The likes of Flight Simulator addicts are positively drooling about what this might mean for the graphics of the landscapes
beneath their virtual wings.

And there's a lot of excitement about how the tech might be applied to older games like Control to make them look a good deal better. Skeptics remain (Image credit: Shutterstock) Naturally, not everyone is convinced. The detractors remain and are unswayed by the material which has popped up around this leak so far. They argue that the AI-enhanced Jesse ( Control's protagonist) is still all too 'uncanny valley' in appearance, and that DLSS 5 is still very much a visual downgrade.

Others also worry that there aren't enough fine-grained controls for the developer in what we see here. Although again, we can't take this leak as evidence of what DLSS 5 will turn out to be eventually, whether that's the
end result of the graphics themselves or the suite of dev controls under the hood.

The performance hit has been seized on, too as noted, though we can't judge on that yet, not with an early leak and some feel that while screenshots might look good, this doesn't hold up in motion.

Simply put: it is still too early to judge, and we need to grab large
handfuls of seasoning with all this. But the general sentiment on DLSS 5 appears to be turning around in quite a sizable shift of opinion and Nvidia may yet convert PC gamers to its AI-enhanced vision of the future (providing any performance hurdles are cleared, of course). Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. The best graphics cards for all budgets Our top picks, based on real-world testing and comparisons

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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/computing/gpu/nvidia-dlss-5-leak-sparks-major-turnar ound-among-pc-gamers-as-some-brand-it-an-insanely-huge-graphical-update-that-m eans-theres-no-going-back


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