The first demo for Nvidia's new AI rendering technique doesn't do much to combat the perception that generative AI homogenizes artwork.

User Image

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.

You are now subscribed

Your newsletter sign-up was successful

Want to add more newsletters?

Every Friday

GamesRadar+

Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you're going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them.

Every Thursday

GTA 6 O'clock

Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.

Every Friday

Knowledge

From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.

Every Thursday

The Setup

User Image

Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.

Every Wednesday

Switch 2 Spotlight

Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.

Every Saturday

The Watchlist

Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.

Once a month

SFX

Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!

Nvidia's DLSS has been a boon for those of us who hang onto old GPUs for longer than game developers want to support them, but a problem with AI upscaling is that its inferences subtly alter the look of games. With DLSS 5, Nvidia has removed the subtlety and made overwriting the original graphics the point, using "3D-guided neural rendering" to enhance traditionally-rendered graphics—or ruin them, depending on your perspective.

DLSS 5 was introduced at Nvidia GTC today with a video showing how it can transform real-time graphics on the fly, putting a photoreal sheen on games like Resident Evil: Requiem and Hogwarts Legacy. Digital Foundry also has a deeper dive into the tech.

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said that the generative AI is "controlled perfectly" by the structured data provided by the 3D renderer, and according to Nvidia's Jacob Freeman, developers "have artistic control over DLSS 5's effects to ensure they maintain their game's aesthetic." But even in Nvidia's demonstration, the source material is altered in ways don't seem in keeping with the designs of the underlying 3D models.

Grace Ashcroft's face, for instance, doesn't just look like it's lit more realistically: She's given fuller lips and sharper cheek bones in the transformation, demonstrating an apparent bias for a certain beauty standard trained into the AI model.

I've watched the video several times to try to determine if I'm just misinterpreting a lighting change as a structural change to the character, but every time I rewatch the transition, I see a substantially altered face. We've seen this 'yassification' effect—to use the modern parlance—from other AI models.

As with everything AI, DLSS 5 has instantly been controversial, with the term "AI slop filter" showing up on social media within minutes of the announcement.

Exactly how much control game developers will really have over DLSS 5 is to be seen—and they can choose not to support it—but that seems like a small detail against the bigger trend here. As Dave predicted in 2024, we're heading toward a world where players and tech companies have the final say in what videogames look like, not their creators.

User Image

Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked ...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com

What do you think about this?