NVIDIA’s latest DLSS 5 technology has faced a significant community backlash, with its approval rating dropping considerably. On the published YouTube video, NVIDIA’s official DLSS 5 announcement has received an overwhelming 83.7% dislikes, with only 16.3% likes. This is a substantial negative rating, with 16,107 likes and 82,515 dislikes (and counting) on a video with 1,527,915 views at the time of writing. Other videos published by the NVIDIA GeForce YouTube channel have also recorded surprisingly low approval from the community. The Resident Evil Requiem video only scored a 14.9% positive rating, while Starfield had an 18.2% positive ratio of likes to dislikes. Other demos such as Hogwarts Legacy and EA Sports FC saw positive ratings of 18.7% and 14.5%, respectively. The best rating is now exclusive to a tech demo, not even a real game, which is the Zorah Unreal Tech Demo with a 37% positive ratio.
Gamers’ reactions are shifting negatively towards the technology, while NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang famously noted that gamers are “completely wrong” because these games offer massive programmability and controllability in how DLSS 5 is applied, keeping the artistic intent intact. However, according to game developers from both Capcom and Ubisoft who spoke to Insider Gaming, while the individual studios may have been involved in marketing DLSS 5, the teams who worked on them were just as surprised by the results as the rest of the gaming community. A Ubisoft developer is quoted as saying, “We found out at the same time as the public,” while developers at Capcom expressed similar sentiments, stating that it was surprising to see Capcom, which has generally been protective of its IPs when it comes to AI involvement, getting involved in the marketing for DLSS 5. Furthermore, the Capcom developers expressed concern about how DLSS 5 might change Capcom’s approach to generative AI and its role in game development.
We are still waiting to see how NVIDIA handles the rollout of DLSS 5, which is expected to happen later this year. Gamers will have the freedom to choose how they want to experience scenes with photorealistic lighting and materials. DLSS 5 can be completely turned off for a regular gaming session, or it can be set to the maximum for enhanced visual fidelity. Since NVIDIA positions DLSS 5 as a supplement to traditional technologies, no process or technology is dependent on it.
