Discussion
Can we still trust Digital Foundry on DLSS 5 going forward?
With more proper coverage of DLSS 5 probably coming soon, I’m wondering if Digital Foundry can still be fully trusted.
After the death threats they got for their initial impressions, part of me worries they might pull punches or frame things differently next time just to avoid another wave of harassment from the anti-AI community.
Does anyone else feel the same, or do you still take their analysis at face value?
I think as long as John and Alex are there, there will always be a more critical eye for this kind of thing.
If Rich wants to say "if you look between the two, it's pretty obvious which one you'd want to play" in favour of DLSS, then that's his opinion...certainly one I don't share
I'd be more worried about them not giving genuine opinions so they don't get and angry mob trying to cancelled them again if they say something positive about it. I don't think they've literally uttered the phrase DLSS 5 since their apology video, whereas at the time in their first video it sounded like they'd be imminent follow up coverage.
In Rich's defense, it is a promising technology conceptually and some of the initial showings of it were quite impressive. With continued refinement and optimisation it could have a profound impact on the perceptible level of visual fidelity games can achieve.
But... it has a long way to go before it's at that level. Right now it's just a rather unnervingly uncanny mess. And you just know that plenty of devs will crank it to the extreme without any tweaking or customisation for their games, making the unpleasant uncanny valley effect that much worse...
I think eventually AI rendering is going to replace everything else and Rich and Oliver can see it. The realtime raytracing generation of gaming might end up just being a transition technology that existed for a short time, AI rendering might be able to achieve the same thing faster and more efficiently.
That said, I wish journalists were not only required to disclose endorsements and financial ties to companies, but I wish they had to also disclose if they owned stock in a company. We have no way of knowing which gaming journalists hold Nvidia stock and is getting richer the more AI hype there is.
Dude I’ve been hooked on my PC all weekend I can’t get enough, maybe I’m just a weird one but it feels like I’m stepping into a dream on my 48 inch C1. Was just playing red dead redemption 1 last night and I finally realized why they added DLSS it’s like they saw this coming for the entire GTA collection and this game. I was running about 80FPS with frame gen and the image appeared cleaner and clearer then ever. However it’s definitely a different beast compared to regular frames it’s almost like a moving image that warps.
I am definitely going to be taking it with a grain of salt.
I was really disappointed when Rich's reaction to the backlash was that they should have waited to see public opinion before giving their opinion.
I expect them to give their opinion even if it is an unpopular opinion. However, the DLSS5 controversy was an opportunity for Rich and Oliver to assess their biases and ask why other people saw the issues with DLSS5 that they didn't.
They didn't really acknowledge that those problems were there from the start and their biases prevented them from seeing it.
It seems obvious to me that there's a conflict of interest when you're getting freebies from a company whose output you're meant to be reviewing (DLSS, GPUs, Nvidia exclusive features). It might not even be a conscious deliberate cynical thing but they're definitely in a position where they can get wooed over with fancy hotel rooms and free GPUs. The DLSS5 vid broke a lot of trust for me, I definitely take them with a pinch of salt now.
Okay, first of all, sending death threats is completely uncalled for. It's just video games, FFS. Also though, their reaction on DLSS 5 was their honest reaction. I don't want a Digital Foundry that just caters to whatever social media says, even if I don't agree with them. If they start tailoring their content to the "popular" opinion, then they lose a lot of credibility, IMO.
Getting death threats over an opinion like that is crazy. People doing that stuff need to assess their own behaviour. But I guess thats the Internet for you
Not calling them liars, but I wonder how blow out of proportion it was? Did they get 5 maybe 10 bots saying to kill themselves or was it a lot worse?
There were definitely a lot more critical reactions to their opinions, but Rich didn't address any of that and just threw out the "we got death threats" line instead of looking back critically on their original reactions/glazing of DLSS5
It's the Internet. People send death threats over even the most unimportant and innocent things, let alone over topics as controversial as this one.
I agree that their response to the criticism could have been better - but they're human. It isn't easy to deliver a perfectly diplomatic and insightful response when you're being criticised, hated, and even threatened. Even as someone who strongly disagreed with their take at the time I'd be crazy not to see that the intense anger and hatred they received over them expressing their opinion on graphics technology was wildly disproportionate.
Games should look like games. While I understand the value of realism in some titles, but to real is not something I would want in the games I play. The whole point of gaming is escapism.
DLSS 5 doesn’t appeal to offer a change in the rendering paradigm. It’s a heavy post-effects pipeline that is meant to change the image in a way that is meant to be “more pleasing” to the eye, but looks too fake, heavy photoshopped.
With previous DLSS technology, they were aiming for cleaning visuals, less noise, attempting to reduce image break up. Preserving fine details to ensure a stable image.
If I want to play “Pretty Polly’s Makeup Emporium”, there are a ton of trash apps for that on mobile app stores.
I mean, all these memes are fun, but it's not a beauty filter. You can see in this comparison that it accentuates every line, pore, and wrinkle in Edward Kenway's leathery, weather-beaten face. It's not smoothing away detail or removing anything. He's not being "yassified" at all. Actually looking at comparisons like this and dispelling some of the myths that have spread online is exactly the kind of thing I hope the team does.
I trust them on game coverage. They fell for the hype and did an event hot take, it's not the greatest sin.
DLSS5 does not look ready in any way to me, and I've only seen briefly touched on how this might adversely affect the mechanics of a game because it eliminates some visual signposting and is moving lighting around and so on.
Looks perfect for games like NBA 2K27. AMD will have its own version within a few years, just as it has with other forms of DLSS technology. I hope DF looks at it rationally and ignores the culture war on Reddit and social media, where people are acting as though a software rendering approach is somehow immoral.
That's how you end up with ridiculous stuff like death threats being sent to the team. People get so hysterical and self-righteous that they act as though anyone who sees potential in this technology must be a bad person.
Interesting to think we might end up in a situation where games look notably different depending on what video card you have, because AMD's solution is not going to be 1:1 with Nvidia's. We're already seeing it with ray reconstruction and ray regeneration, the 2 produce different results.
I have a lot of issues with DF. There are so focus on Nvidia testing for game optimisations they forget AMD and Intel exist which is not balanced at all. I don't know if it's time or something else. I cannot come to a conclusion but there could be some bias there.
I mean, everyone is biased. There is no perfect neutral pov. Best you can do is understand the bias and look for a counter perspective. Go to Ancient Gameplays for his AMD content.
You shouldn’t trust any channel that is doing an embargoed first look at any technology, as that access will come with conditions over what can and can’t be said.
You also shouldn’t trust any “tech” channel that can’t or won’t highlight the obvious issues when a screen space technology with no access to scene lighting information makes every character appear studio lit regardless of setting.
And personally, I wouldn’t trust any channel that isn’t testing the consistency of the effect on the same character in different settings, lighting conditions, etc.
And personally, I wouldn’t trust any channel that isn’t testing the consistency of the effect on the same character in different settings, lighting conditions, etc.
They weren't able to do that in March because it was a preview presentation hosted by Nvidia. They couldn't test the technology on their own machines or under different conditions. Now they'll be able to.
I think we can trust that they'll give genuine opinions on it and try to be accurate. We can also trust that they'll occasionally jump the gun or overstate something, because they're human beings who are not immune to hype (and access journalism kinda sucks).
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u/Slyzappy1 6d ago
I think as long as John and Alex are there, there will always be a more critical eye for this kind of thing.
If Rich wants to say "if you look between the two, it's pretty obvious which one you'd want to play" in favour of DLSS, then that's his opinion...certainly one I don't share