Gamers might hate AI and the GPU pricing crisis it has caused — but some are now hooked on DLSS 5, and maybe that shows what Nvidia is angling at here
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Things are happening real fast in the gaming world ever since AI began advancing at a rapid pace throughout this year. Emulation is taking huge strides for one thing, and on the PC front, DLSS 5 has made a big splash. Although as you may recall, when Nvidia debuted the feature, it was almost universally shot down.
But from the flames of what appeared to be a complete PR wreckage with that initial reveal, DLSS 5 has emerged as a graphical phoenix. The turnaround in opinion was slow at first, but sentiment has shifted notably since NBA 2K27 showcased the tech to great effect, and now there are comments appearing on Reddit indicating that ‘wow’ moments are happening. ‘I can’t live without this’ moments, in fact.
A new normal
This thread illustrates what I mean, in which the original poster wrote: “I’m getting too used to DLSS 5 graphics. WOW factor is fading out. Turning it off looks flat like low graphics settings. It’s just my new normal. How spoiled am I?”
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Okay, so the Redditor is also observing that said ‘wow’ factor is fading, but in the respect that it’s a new normal — and going back to non-DLSS 5 visuals now feels horrible.
A replying Redditor agreed: “Spoiled. Every game feels like a remaster and indeed ultra settings with DLSS 5 off feel like the new low settings. It’s a new world and I’m loving it.”
Someone else chipped in: “It really feels that way and especially NPC faces. With DLSS 5 they get very natural looking skin and shadows in the right places and with it off, the face returns to a pale, shadowless, clay sculpture. It’s jarring”.
Want another? This gamer said: “Cyberpunk 2077 was the real eye opener for me. I crashed my game by installing a couple hundred mods. When I got it back again, I spent an hour frustrated trying to figure out why everybody looked so fake and plastic and cartoony. Turns out, ReShade had just stopped running in the background, and DLSS 5 had turned off.”
There are lots of observations like this, including that playing with DLSS 5 for a while and then going back to normal graphics is equivalent to getting used to 60fps (frames per second) gaming, and then having to return to 30fps. Some people feel that strongly about what they’re getting here.
In case of any confusion, I should make it clear that these are gamers who are fudging DLSS 5 to work with unsupported games using various tools (and running it with older-gen Nvidia GPUs for that matter — it’s only officially supported by RTX 5000 models). And yes, there’s a definite caveat with this approach in that you need to be careful about how you’re implementing the tech (there are various settings to adjust, and it’s quite possible to go too over-the-top).
Even the most obvious drawback — the performance hit with DLSS 5 — is not ruining the graphical glow-up for gamers here, although admittedly it helps that the most pronounced benefits are being witnessed in older games (where base frame rates are a lot higher in general, with more headroom to take a hit, especially with a decent contemporary GPU). Nvidia is improving performance at a rate of knots, too, and the early honing work on DLSS 5 has been impressive indeed.
GPU misery
It’s interesting to see just how much DLSS 5 is now swaying gamers who are experimenting with the tech, and I’ll bet that while all this is an unofficial use of Nvidia’s neural rendering trickery, Team Green is pleased to see this feedback in the midst of GPU price hikes rapidly reaching fresh and frightening peaks. (Not to mention that any good news will be welcome given the blow the company has suffered this week with the resignation of CEO Jensen Huang, but that’s another story — albeit one I think gamers should very much take note of).
Lately, we’ve seen the RTX 5080 and RTX 5070 Ti spiral upwards in cost (along with other unpleasant increases down the GeForce range), and with further price rises pretty much inevitable — which are predicted to be potentially huge — the mentioned GPUs could end up something like triple their MSRPs in some countries by the end of the year. It really isn’t a pleasant thought, and apparently Nvidia has cancelled the rumored RTX 5080 Super according to fresh gossip this week.
That leaves the top-end of the GeForce GPU range as very much a high-and-dry place, with the RTX 5090 having more or less disappeared, the RTX 5080 now priced out of reach of everyone but the rich PC enthusiast, and the theorized additional graphics card not coming anymore. (If it ever was, although there have been plenty of rumors about the Super refresh that it’s believable enough this was in Nvidia’s plans at some point).
I don’t think the GPU world has looked as bleak for a long time (AMD’s Radeon graphics cards are afflicted by their own nasty hikes, too, with the company now thinking very much like Nvidia). So, what am I driving at here? A theory that Nvidia is pushing so hard with DLSS 5 because the company knows that it’s vital given the RAM crisis and GPU price spikes, which I feel are going to become even more ludicrous next year.
To go back to the Reddit thread I linked to above, another gamer observed: “We are all spoiled now. Just in time for all the hardware to evaporate.”
That’s the hammer hitting the nail square-on as far as I’m concerned, but I think that Nvidia feels able to let the consumer side of its GPU hardware business slide more (with all those AI data center profits to be reaped), because it expects the software side to pick up the slack to an extent.
If the performance tuning of DLSS 5 continues — which, of course, it will, and we’ll surely see more big leaps in performance next year — the tech should be able to pep up lower-tier RTX 5000 GPUs quite nicely. In other words, the graphics cards which should remain in stock without a price tag that blows a ridiculous hole in your wallet (although I expect further pricing pain even at the budget-friendly end of the spectrum, make no mistake).
Okay, so it’s true enough that diminishing returns are bound to kick in when the lower-hanging fruit for the honing and optimization of DLSS 5 is all picked, but I don’t think that’ll start to happen for some time yet. And don’t forget that Nvidia is bringing support to RTX 4000 GPUs next year (I’m guessing sooner rather than later) to broaden the scope and effect of this technology considerably (though as noted, gamers are already doing this via workarounds).
An ironic escape route
With DLSS 5 quickly gaining more acceptance — and some gamers seemingly not able to play without it, even at this stage (with others going to great lengths to get it working with a PS5 for GTA 6, even) — it makes some sense that Nvidia is putting a lot of eggs in the neural rendering basket. Given how all this is unfolding, DLSS 5 might be Team Green’s contingency plan if the GPU crisis becomes even more unbearable next year, tiding things over with software until the hardware situation improves.
Which ironically would mean that AI could be Nvidia’s savior for the graphics card supply problems that were caused by AI in the first place (when it vacuumed up data center GPUs).
Remember that the original DLSS, when it was just upscaling, was not well-received when it first launched — and now look at it. I think DLSS 5 will likely go the same way, and indeed arguably it already has in the PC modding scene — at a breakneck pace — and I don’t think it’s a stretch to say it’s likely going to be critical for Nvidia in the future, and especially next year.
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