At GTC, NVIDIA unveiled their next version of DLSS with DLSS 5. This looks to be a big leap over what the previous DLSS versions do in terms of improving visual fidelity.
With DLSS 5, NVIDIA is using AI to, as they put it, "infuse the scene with photoreal lighting and materials that are anchored to source 3D content". DLSS 5 can drastically change the look of the original game and you can see the differences below in the video. In Resident Evil Requiem, Grace has a much more defined face with what looks to be more detailed hair. The background does look more realistic with more detail in things such as the post beside her and the items in the window.
Starfield's effect is pretty dramatic. The characters have a more realistic appearance and items in the background have a bigger pop to them. It does change the lighting of the example scenes though, which can be argued that that's not what the game truly depicts.
There are other interesting examples in the video, that I can see will cause some divisive opinions. It does beg the question if these features should be used as it can change the scene dramatically.
NVIDIA does say they will offer the tools for developers to mask out areas they don't want DLSS 5 to be used on. While I think that's a good option, it will add more work to someone's plate and game developers are already on tight deadlines with what they are tasked with.
Also, these changes do not reflect what the artists and developers of these games worked towards when creating it. I would be interested to hear how some of these folks feel about AI being used to change the aesthetic of their game. There's also many other unanswered questions such as how will this affect latency and what's the lowest tier of graphics card that can be used to run DLSS 5.
These effects were accomplished with another GeForce RTX 5090 in the system working in conjunction with the main GPU in the system so it's not an efficient setup to achieve these effects. NVIDIA has stated they will optimize it to work with one video card when it's released, so we'll have to see if you'll get the same visuals when they push this out to the public. I won't be surprised if they offer an option to run the AI features on a secondary video card.
