Game dev reacts to NVIDIA’s DLSS 5 Resident Evil comparison

If you’re even somewhat keeping up with what’s new in the gaming world, than I’m sure you’ve seen NVIDIA’s new DLSS 5 tech — and how its getting absolutely roasted online. Indeed, the latest iteration of the firm’s Super Resolution software hasn’t been received well at all, with the way it uses generative AI to transform scenes with simulated photorealistic lighting being called uncanny “AI slop” all over social media.

I think DLSS 5’s effects actually look good in environment shots, though in some of the comparisons we’ve been able to see, I do believe it goes too far and starts to infringe on the intended look of a scene. In shots with characters, though, it straight up makes them look like they got hit with a “yassification” filter you’d find in a smartphone app. The before and afters shocked the community, and even shocked the developers that agreed to let NVIDIA present DLSS 5 using their games.

In general, DLSS 5 has proven extremely controversial with developers as well as fans. Notably, one veteran dev, senior animator Mike York — known for his work on GTA 5, Red Dead Redemption 2, God of War Ragnarök, and others — has now reacted to it in a stream of him watching Digital Foundry’s analysis of it that’s been posted to his York Street Gaming YouTube channel. He’s not a fan.

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“Whoa, hold on. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,” he began, his deep concern apparent the moment he saw Grace in Resident Evil Requiem with DLSS 5 on. “No. This isn’t just some lighting, dude. What the f… I’m telling you, this is like a complete AI re-render. That’s what this is doing. This is actually re-rendering this.”

NVIDIA asserts that DLSS 5 strictly changes the lighting of a scene, and isn’t touching things like model geometry or texture detail whatsoever. As CEO Jensen Huang puts it, it “introduces a real-time neural rendering model that infuses pixels with photoreal lighting and materials.” However, many — York included — believe there’s more going on with the software.

Lets look at the new DLSS from NVIDIA – YouTube

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“Who even is that? It’s a different girl, like, she looks different,” he continued, dumbfounded. “You know why I can tell? Look, her eyes are no longer looking, like, correctly. That one eye is looking over here, and one eye is looking there.”

“It has, somehow, put wrinkles into her lips that weren’t there before. See that? It’s added all kinds of details that weren’t there before,” he added. York then went on to point out several apparent differences with things like the shape of Grace’s ear and her nose. “You’re no longer looking at the game anymore, does that make sense? This is scary.”

While I hesitate to say anything definitive without DLSS 5 actually being in anyone’s hands other than NVIDIA’s, I have to admit that I’m very suspicious of the claim that the software is only affecting lighting. Lighting can have a huge impact on the way an image looks, true, but I still can’t help but feel doubt after seeing how much fuller and sharper Grace’s lips are with DLSS 5 on, or the way where she’s looking seems to subtly change.

NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang can say “They’re completely wrong” all he wants, but the fact of the matter is that regardless of the nitty-gritty specifics of what’s going on with DLSS 5 under the hood, it just looks off when applied to in-game characters, and has triggered feelings of uncanny valley in countless players.

The silver lining in all of this is that DLSS 5 isn’t scheduled to come to NVIDIA’s RTX 50-series GPUs until fall later this year, so the company can still improve it ahead of its release. NVIDIA also says developers will be able to fine tune how DLSS 5 looks with their games if they choose to support it, which hopefully means we’ll never have to deal with characters that look like Grace does here.

🗨️ How do you feel about DLSS 5?

Gamers and developers alike have been reacting to DLSS 5 all week long, and it’s pretty interesting to hear what a senior animator that’s worked on some of the biggest games in the industry has to say.

His negative comments echo most sentiments, but I’m curious: how do you feel about DLSS 5? Share your thoughts below, and vote in our poll:

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