presented a sample<\/a> of what games will look like with the new technology earlier this week.<\/p>\nBut across YouTube, Reddit and X, the conversation has focused less on realism and more on how different the images look, especially when it comes to faces.<\/p>\n
Clips comparing \u201cDLSS 5 off vs. on\u201d began circulating within hours of the announcement. <\/p>\n
While backgrounds and textures appear sharper, many users pointed out that characters themselves look altered and AI-generated.<\/p>\n
In a \u201cbefore and after\u201d post on X by Nvidia, facial features of a popular game character, Grace Ashcroft from Resident Evil Requiem, appeared smoother, with brighter skin, and details like eye bags or imperfections were heavily reduced.<\/p>\n
From realism to \u2018yassification\u2019<\/p>\n
A large part of the criticism centres on how characters are presented.<\/p>\n
In several demo clips, characters appear to be noticeably changed with near-perfect lighting and skin. <\/p>\n
Some users said the results resemble beauty filters rather than graphical improvements.<\/p>\n
On YouTube, one commenter wrote: \u201cWhy does every character look like they walked out of a beauty filter app?\u201d<\/p>\n
The term \u201cyassified\u201d quickly became a common way to describe the effect. Online, it usually refers to images that have been edited to look more polished or conventionally attractive, often at the cost of realism.<\/p>\n
Memes take over<\/p>\n
Memes soon became the main form of criticism.<\/p>\n
Users began posting side-by-side images labelled \u201cDLSS 5 off vs. on,\u201d often exaggerating the effect for comedic impact. <\/p>\n
One widely shared example used Kratos, a character from God of War, showing a side-by-side where the original model is placed next to a version with exaggerated makeup and softened features, labelled \u201cDLSS 5 on\u201d.<\/p>\n
Other posts used actors, game characters, or even animated figures, placing stylised originals next to hyper-realistic or overly polished versions.<\/p>\n
One Reddit user captioned a comparison: \u201cDLSS 5 when it forgets the game has an art style\u201d.<\/p>\n
Artistic Control and the Uncanny Affect<\/p>\n
Behind the humour, many players are raising concerns about how far the technology can go.<\/p>\n
DLSS originally focused on improving performance and upscaling resolution but transformed into generating frames. Some users argue that this shifts the role of the technology from enhancement to modification.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe obsession with fidelity over art direction is reaching terminal levels,\u201d one commenter wrote on YouTube.<\/p>\n
Others on Reddit pointed out that the feel of hyper realistic graphics is not right for video games, “At some point it doesn’t feel like a “game” anymore. It just looks like an IRL video or movie with characters you can control… It feels off somehow.”<\/p>\n
Another user also said on Reddit that the new look felt like fan art: more \u201creal\u201d on paper, but wrong in spirit.<\/p>\n
This feeling is what social media refers to as the uncanny effect the filter creates.<\/p>\n
One YouTube comment described it as: \u201cEverything looks high quality, but nothing feels right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tech Concerns<\/p>\n
Some Reddit users mocked the fact that Digital Foundry\u2019s hands-on demo used two RTX 5090s, one to run the game and one to apply the effect.<\/p>\n
On Nvidia\u2019s own subreddit, posters questioned how far the tech can really spread if most GPUs cannot run it well, and whether studios will want to spend extra time implementing a feature for a relatively small number of players. <\/p>\n
That has fed a wider suspicion that DLSS 5 is being marketed as a shiny future while ordinary PC gamers are still dealing with expensive hardware in the present.<\/p>\n
Nvidia and Companies respond<\/p>\n
Nvidia has pushed back against the criticism.<\/p>\n
CEO Jensen Huang said critics are \u201ccompletely wrong,\u201d arguing that developers still have full control over how DLSS 5 is used. According to the company, studios can fine-tune the AI to match their intended visual style.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason for that is because, as I have explained very carefully, DLSS 5 fuses controllability of the geometry and textures and everything about the game with generative AI,\u201d Huang told media platform Tom\u2019s Hardware.<\/a><\/p>\nIn a pinned comment on its YouTube demo, Nvidia also said developers retain \u201cfull, detailed artistic control\u201d over the final look.<\/p>\n
Bethesda was one of the first game studios to address the reaction.<\/p>\n
The studio said the footage shown was only a \u201cvery early look\u201d and stressed that any final implementation would remain \u201cunder our artists\u2019 control\u201d and be \u201ctotally optional for players\u201d.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Bethesda director Todd Howard took a more positive view. Speaking during Nvidia\u2019s showcase, he said the company had already tested the technology in Starfield and that it was \u201camazing how it brought it to life\u201d.<\/p>\n
A divided reaction<\/p>\n
For Nvidia, it represents a shift towards combining traditional rendering with generative AI. <\/p>\n
But for many players, it raises questions about how much control should remain in the hands of developers and creates concerns about the increasing demand to use more expensive gaming tech to run such features.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What Nvidia presented as a major step forward in gaming graphics has quickly sparked backlash online, with critics…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[276,49,48,874,6494,61],"class_list":["post-546827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-gaming","tag-nvidia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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