NVIDIA DLSS 5 - The Next Big Thing In Gaming Graphics, Or, Just More AI Slop?

NVIDIA just announced DLSS 5 at GTC, calling it the single most significant advancement in computer graphics since ray tracing. Gamers immediately called it an AI slop filter. Oof. NVIDIA DLSS 5, coming this fall, is a new neural rendering layer that uses AI to relight and re-texture game visuals in real time - photorealistic skin, hair, fabric and lighting applied on top of what the game engine already rendered. Unlike DLSS 4 which fakes resolution, DLSS 5 generates the entire visual appearance. The GTC demo required two RTX 5090s - one to run the game, one solely for DLSS 5. Two GPUs at roughly two thousand dollars each. The community reactions were pretty blunt. Commenters saying that it destroys artistic design, and the carefully crafted visuals of a game. NVIDIA says this is the future of gaming. But the gamer audience is notoriously hard to please and they won't be praising this technology until it's proven in real play.