Light from arena lights naturally spreads across the skin of a basketball player in the game, and light filters through their hair. NVIDIA announced on the 2nd that it will launch its next-generation graphics technology 'DLSS 5' on the 4th, which uses AI (artificial intelligence) to enhance the realism of characters and objects in games.
NVIDIA stated that DLSS 5 will be first applied to the basketball game 'NBA 2K27,' launching at 1 p.m. Korean time on the 4th. It is supported on GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs (graphics processing units) and laptops, and can also be used via the cloud gaming service GeForce Now.
The biggest change in DLSS 5 lies in the role of AI. Since its debut in 2018, DLSS has evolved to improve performance by upscaling low-resolution screens to high resolution or generating intermediate frames using AI. Starting with DLSS 5, AI directly generates and enhances fine details of graphics such as lighting, skin, and hair.
The core technology is '3D Guided Neural Rendering.' Instead of creating images via text commands like typical generative AI, it utilizes information from frames rendered by the game engine, including color, motion, geometry, texture, and lighting. Based on this, AI adds effects that were previously difficult to achieve in real-time graphics, such as light passing through skin, lighting reflected on hair, and shadows where objects meet.
It also addresses the consistency issue, a weakness of generative AI. While typical image generation AI may produce different results even with the same command, game characters' faces must remain consistent across frames. DLSS 5 ensures that the same input yields the same output and suppresses screen shaking or distortion during motion by utilizing the game engine's motion vectors.
Developers can also adjust the level of AI intervention. For example, they can maintain the original form created from scanning real players' faces while enhancing only the lighting expressions on skin, hair, and uniforms. In 'NBA 2K27,' light spreading across player skin, light passing through hair, and shadows around the neck and uniforms are rendered with greater detail.
Performance has also been improved. According to NVIDIA, using DLSS 5 alongside existing DLSS technology on an RTX 5090 allows 'NBA 2K27' to run at up to 370 FPS (frames per second) in a 4K resolution, Ultra settings, and ray tracing environment.
When DLSS 5 was first revealed in March, it required two RTX 5090 GPUs to operate, but NVIDIA optimized the technology within six months to run on a single GPU while boosting performance fivefold. Consequently, it is now available across the entire RTX 50 series. NVIDIA also added that it plans to expand the lineup of DLSS 5-supported games with additional updates this fall.
in TECH
