NVIDIA has introduced DLSS 5, featuring 3D-Guided Neural Rendering. This significant technological leap aims to elevate real-time graphics closer to Hollywood-level photorealism. The feature debuts in the game NBA 2K27, becoming available on September 3rd for all GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs, laptops, and via GeForce NOW.
The Advancement of DLSS Technology
NVIDIA has a long history of advancing PC gaming graphics, pioneering technologies from real-time ray tracing to AI-powered solutions like DLSS Super Resolution, Frame Generation, and Ray Reconstruction. DLSS 5 represents a major evolution, moving beyond performance enhancement to actively transform visual fidelity.
Previously, DLSS technologies focused on reconstructing scene data—delivering higher resolution, additional frames, or cleaner lighting. DLSS 5, however, utilizes AI to generate rich material and lighting details that traditional rendering methods often forced developers to simplify or remove due to real-time performance constraints. Instead of generating images from text prompts, 3D-Guided Neural Rendering uses the game engine’s existing rendered frame, including its geometry, textures, and lighting buffers, as a stable foundation.
This new technology is designed to be the final rendering stage in the graphics pipeline. It analyzes the input frame’s color and motion vectors to infuse the scene with highly realistic, deterministic, and temporally stable lighting and materials. This approach ensures that while the AI enhances the visuals, the core structure remains defined by the game engine’s original content.
To achieve this, NVIDIA developed a new real-time AI model that addresses three core engineering challenges: preserving artistic intent, ensuring temporal stability, and meeting millisecond-level execution speeds.
- Deterministic Output: The model operates deterministically, meaning it provides consistent results when processing identical input frames. It anchors directly to the original frame, analyzing elements like color, surface albedo, spatial relationships, and light sources.
- Temporal Stability: Unlike batch video models, DLSS 5 uses a strict one-frame-in, one-frame-out process. By leveraging motion vectors from the game engine, it eliminates visual instabilities like shimmering or temporal drift, even during player movement.
- Efficiency: A specialized, compact AI network was invented for real-time 3D rendering pipelines. It interprets engine data directly from the rendered frame and utilizes the Tensor Cores of GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs to render complex lighting and materials in real time, maintaining smooth frame rates up to 4K resolution on a single GPU.
Artistic Control for Developers
DLSS 5 empowers developers with sophisticated artistic controls, allowing them to add photorealistic detail that might otherwise exceed the compute and VRAM limits of the game. The technology includes several features to help studios art-direct the final output:
- Model Selection: Developers can choose from multiple models within the DLSS 5 SDK, each having different parameters and weights to suit various game environments. These models can be applied globally or selectively, such as using one model for outdoor foliage and another for dramatic indoor scenes.
- Intensity Controls: Two main controls allow for fine-tuning: Structure Intensity, which manages high-frequency details (like ambient occlusion, reflections, and subsurface scattering); and Tone Intensity, which manages low-frequency details (like overall lighting and color response).
- Semantic Masking: The system features semantic AI masking, which automatically recognizes scene objects. This allows developers to enhance environmental elements without affecting characters, or vice versa. Furthermore, engine-level masking permits artists to target specific assets, such as water droplets or glassware, for customized neural lighting adjustments.
Regarding the preservation of artistic vision, Peter Kavic, Senior Producer at Visual Concepts, stated:
What’s great is the level of control that it gives us. We can set the overall tone and style to match our existing art direction and then really get precise where it matters most, using a per pixel uplift control mask to fine tune detail on characters. Given that we want to respect their likeness with the utmost care.
Debut in NBA 2K27
The technology debuts in NBA 2K27, a title developed by Visual Concepts and published by 2K. The feature rollout is scheduled for September 3rd at 9 p.m. Pacific Time. It is available for GeForce RTX 50 Series PCs and laptops, as well as GeForce NOW Ultimate members streaming from NVIDIA-powered cloud rigs.
Visual Concepts utilized DLSS 5 to enhance realism, focusing on subtle elements such as natural subsurface scattering in skin, realistic light transmission through hair and ears, and defined contact shadows. The improved fidelity was noted by Peter Kavic, Senior Producer at Visual Concepts:
DLSS 3D-guided neural rendering helped boost the visual quality of our materials and lighting, bringing a real jump to photorealism across the game.
The enhancement was showcased on multiple players, including All-Star guard Cade Cunningham and All-NBA point guard Tyrese Haliburton. For instance, improved subsurface scattering provided lifelike warmth to the skin, and refined ambient occlusion added crisp shadow definition across various parts of the bodies and uniforms.
Performance benchmarks demonstrate significant boosts across various resolutions and settings. When utilizing the full suite of DLSS technologies in NBA 2K27, players with a GeForce RTX 5090 can achieve up to 370 frames per second at 4K resolution with the Ultra Preset, ray tracing, and DLSS 5 activated.
At a resolution of 2560×1440, performance metrics include:
- GeForce RTX 5090: Up to 590 frames per second
- GeForce RTX 5080: Up to 410 frames per second
- GeForce RTX 5070 Ti: Up to 350 frames per second
- GeForce RTX 5070: Up to 260 frames per second
Availability and Future Development
To use DLSS 5 in NBA 2K27, users must download a new GeForce Game Ready Driver on September 3rd at 9 p.m. PT. The process involves installing the driver, selecting “Video Settings” in-game, and enabling “DLSS Neural Rendering.”
The company noted that the development of DLSS 5 achieved a fivefold performance gain in six months, improving from dual GeForce RTX 5090s to running on a single graphics card. The commitment to refinement continues, with further model updates expected in the Fall to boost performance and image quality.
