DLSS 5 arrives in Hogwarts Legacy this November after a major overhaul

The faces don't age anymore

When Nvidia unveiled DLSS 5 earlier this year, the technology was immediately branded "generative AI for games," and gamers disliked what they saw. Character faces underwent aggressive transformation: Hogwarts Legacy's 15-year-old student suddenly looked like a man in his 30s, while Grace from Resident Evil Requiem received a fully artificial "yassified" look. The reaction was cold, and Nvidia was forced back to the drawing board.

Artistic control in developers' hands

Now, more than six months later, a significantly softened DLSS 5 is set to appear in Hogwarts Legacy on November 5. New comparison screenshots published by Nvidia show only subtle changes, on par with what we saw in NBA 2K27. Teenagers no longer look like adults, and environmental alterations are more moderate. Nvidia insists developers have "detailed artistic control" over the technology and decide how to implement it in each title.

Smaller model, faster performance

An October update to the neural rendering system trims the model footprint by 24 percent to roughly 118 million parameters and cuts 4K VRAM consumption by 20 percent. Nvidia says the new model runs twice as fast on RTX 50-series cards and upcoming RTX Spark laptops. The debut arrives in NBA 2K27 on October 16, and the model will ship as the default in all future DLSS 5 titles. The figures come from Andrew Burnes at Nvidia.

Improved Performance Mode for Frame Generation

At the same time, a new beta update to the Nvidia app adds a faster Performance Mode for Frame Generation on RTX 40- and 50-series cards. The updated model uses a "faster, lighter algorithm for boosting frame rates" across Frame Gen, Multi Frame Gen, and Dynamic Multi Frame Gen. Nvidia acknowledges "slight image quality trade-offs" but states the performance mode is now up to 35 percent faster.

Where Winds Meet up next

The next launch in line is Where Winds Meet, which will receive DLSS 5 in late November. These two releases will be the technology's first real test since the overhaul — and this time, without faces aging halfway through.