DLSS 5 is on its way: As Nvidia has announced, the new generation will be active in the first game later this week.
About half a year after the initial announcement, the time has come: DLSS 5 launches this week in the sports game NBA 2K27.
Just in time for the release of the virtual basketball game on September 4, 2026, Nvidia aims to deliver the “biggest graphics leap since path tracing” with the new generation—though it has been facing significant headwinds for quite some time.
DLSS 5 Aims to Leave “Artistic Vision” Untouched
With DLSS 5, Nvidia is relying on a neural rendering model that analyzes color and motion data and aims to generate a photorealistic image based on this information.
Nvidia emphasizes that DLSS 5 has been trained not to alter the frame’s original artistic vision; Developers can choose between different models and use sliders to adjust the intensity of texture and color tones.
On the performance front, a lot has also happened since the initial announcement of DLSS 5, according to Nvidia.While the first demos still required two RTX 5090s to deliver even playable frame rates,performance has since improved by a factor of 5.
According to the official performance figures provided by Nvidia, this makes DLSS 5 playable across the entire RTX 50 series; depending on the resolution, triple-digit FPS is achievable in NBA 2K27 every time.
- However, aside from a healthy dose of skepticism regarding manufacturer benchmarks, it remains to be seen how the new upscaling generation will perform in graphically demanding games—with all due respect to the basketball simulation, it’s not exactly a performance hog like Cyberpunk 2077.
- What stands out in this context is that Nvidia refrains from providing comparison figures under the specified settings without DLSS 5 in its slides.
In principle, DLSS 5 remains exclusive to the current RTX 50 series graphics cards.& nbsp;However, modders have already managed to port the new generation to older GPUs even before the actual launch.
DLSS 5: Still Facing a Lot of Community Criticism Over Appearance
It remains to be seen, however, whether the images shown and Nvidia’s statements will quell the sharp criticism of DLSS 5 that has been raining down on the developers since the announcement.
From the very beginning, the “AI-induced degradation” of the showcased games has been criticized: In the community’s view, the images look either exaggerated, overexposed, or even like they’re from a completely different game. GameStar editor Jan, however, warns against jumping to conclusions just yet:
- DLSS 5 is currently bringing to light one of gamers’ biggest concerns: it’s said to spell the end of good graphics as we know them
- Jan’s opinion: DLSS 5 is already being used in dozens of games, but the images you’re seeing now are misleading
An official list of compatible games that will feature DLSS 5 right from launch, alongside NBA 2K27, has not yet been released as of this article’s publication. What is clear is that Resident Evil: Requiem, Starfield, Hogwarts Legacy, and EA Sports FC 27 will support the new generation—after all, those were the titles that really sparked the discussion surrounding the changes.
