DLSS 5 leaked and modders are putting Nvidia’s AI effects on everything

Modders are trying out an unofficial version of Nvidia’s DLSS 5 on Skyrim, Cyberpunk 2077, GTA V, and a bunch of other games after code for the AI upscaling tech appeared in an early-access build of NBA 2K27. Members of the RenoDX modding channel on Discord reportedly found a way to extract the DLSS “Neural Rendering” file and apply it to Control before it expanded to other games, as reported earlier by Notebook Check and VideoCardz.

In one video, a person shows how Control protagonist Jesse Faden’s facial features become more and less defined as they tweak various DLSS 5 settings enabled by the RenoDX modders. With the “Neural Uplift” setting disabled within the mod, Jesse’s face has a smooth, uniform look. But as soon as the modder turns this feature on with one of the presets, her face becomes paler, with more visible laugh lines and what looks like more makeup smudged beneath her eyes.

Another modder appears to have gotten the DLSS 5 tech working in GTA: San Andreas, where it seems to apply a filter effect to CJ’s face and enhances textures across the city. It also makes shadows on CJ’s face and his surrounding environment more pronounced, while the city’s lighting changes from a warm to a cool tone as the modder adjusts one of the sliders. Several other videos are floating around the web as well, with the DLSS 5 mod bringing more definition to the cartoony look of a Palworld character and altering the intensity of shadows. There are countless other videos floating around on the web (with more likely to come).

The modders trying out the mod say that it impacts game performance. One person trying out the mod with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth says it “halves” their frames per second (FPS) and that “swapping between presets eats a TON of vram.” You can see the frames drop from 90 to 29 FPS as another modder adjusts the sliders in GTA V. Modders had the unofficial version of DLSS 5 running on RTX 50-series chips, but now some have gotten it working on RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 chips, too, according to VideoCardz.

Much like the reveal of DLSS 5, reactions to the unofficial version of the tech are mixed. While some players think the filters improve the appearance of games, others call them AI slop and say they look too much like an “AI-enhanced” filter you’d apply to images.

Nvidia first announced DLSS 5 in March, which uses AI to bring “photoreal lighting and materials” to game graphics in real-time. Demos showing DLSS 5 across Resident Evil Requiem, Starfield, and Hogwarts Legacy sparked immediate backlash, with many players complaining about characters’ “yassified” or generic looks. Others raised concerns that it could alter a developer’s vision for their characters, to which Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang responded by saying the tool “doesn’t change the artistic control.” DLSS 5 is set to officially launch this fall.