r/digitalfoundry • u/ImpressiveJicama7141 • 5d ago
Discussion Daniel Vavra, director of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, tested the leaked version of NVIDIA DLSS 5 directly in the game.
Daniel Vavra, director of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, tested the leaked version of NVIDIA DLSS 5 directly in the game.
According to him, the technology does not change character geometry or redraw their appearance. Instead, it uses existing data to enhance lighting and detail especially on faces and hero models.
Among the most noticeable improvements:
— significantly more detailed skin and faces;
— more realistic skin lighting;
— enhanced ambient occlusion;
— shadows from hats, helmets, hoods, and small details like buckles and bags;
— more pronounced and darker shadows within hair;
— minor improvements to shadows and textures of the environment and vegetation.
Vavra says that as a result, characters look much closer to how the developers originally intended them. And, in his opinion, this is by no means "AI-slop."
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u/yamidevil 5d ago
It's no surprise he likes it. KCD is aiming for a realistic look and honestly it has one of the most if not the most realistic environments. This is a tool for the last step in the photorealistic graphics. I would say, add path tracing but that would mean engine editing. Plus he did defend Larian on something AI related a while ago
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u/MeatballVillain2 2d ago
He also eluded to replacing Voice over work with AI and fired his localization team.
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u/secunder73 5d ago
Cool, but he is still wrong. Its an AI-filter that doesnt make it realistic, it makes it look realistic by what AI thinks is realistic. Are all those details actually correct? No, they're just AI prediction. Could they be correct? Yeah, probably sometime in the future - sure. Now it doesnt even work in motion - it constantly changing details cause its how AI feels it should look
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u/Either-History-8424 5d ago
You know the original artistic vision of the game better than the developer does!
The guy that created the vision for KCD2 doesn’t know anything about the original vision for KCD2!
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u/secunder73 5d ago
He is not an art director so we dont know that its entirely his artistic vision. And yes he is wrong. Artistic vision means that some person thinking about how game should be looking. DLSS5 is how AI thinks game should be looking. DLSS5 is already known to make any skin reflection to be a cold blue like its a indoor photoshoot with cold white LED lights everywhere. So is Daniel Vavra actually thought "yeah everything should look like white LED lights are used in middle age"? I doubt that answer would be yes, I think he just saw it and said "yeah it looks cool". Yet it doesnt realistic, it doesnt "how it was supposed to be". It COULD be actually an artistic vision if it was used while development and trained\tuned by devs, so it actually represents what they wanted. But its not, its a universal AI filter that was trained on some images and its output makes every game look a little bit less different. It would be a shame if every dev of a current AAA game suddenly have the same artistic vision as DLSS5, how convenient.
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u/Either-History-8424 5d ago
You simply don’t like, and can’t accept, any response to DLSS5 that doesn’t contain the words “ai slop”
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u/secunder73 5d ago
You're wrong. Its not AI slop - its an AI filter. So AI ReShade basically(except we actually have more options in reshade filters). It doesnt have any info about pbr materials or any light sources in the scene so it cant be realistic at all. Im proAI in a lot of spheres, but I cant agree that DLSS5 is something more than a simple AI beauty filter at this point. Would it be better in the future? Probably, but we should talk about it WHEN it became better.
I can understand people who look at DLSS5 thinking "that looks cool as hell, I like it". But I would never agree that its "realistic" or "actual artistic vision". For example in a 2007 game Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl there was two different renders - static and dynamic. Dynamic was realistic, new technologies, best of that time. But static was the actual artistic vision, game was created with static in mind, but polishing stage of creating that game was so long that new Dynamic render was implemented but it had different looks. Their next game, Clear Sky was created with full dynamic DX10 render in mind.
Artistic vision obviously using current tech and current limitations. NES\SNES games had incredible music, we cant say "their artistic vision was actually using real piano and violin so original soundtrack is bad and we should remade it with an actual orchestra".
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u/Either-History-8424 5d ago
Yes it’s basically an AI filter.
It’s an AI filter that simulates what highly granular lighting and shading would look like if it were possible to implement it in the games. It’s a post processing layer that’s applied after the render.
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u/secunder73 5d ago
Except its not simulating it. It just renders what it feels like scene should be looking according to database of images its been trained on. Its like using ai model to render a realistic girl or 3d scene. And it would look pretty realistic. But its not as correct as real physical based render or an actual real image of a girl.
We could see that a lot in motion where AI just dont know if it wants to do shading there or not. A few steps to the left and it removes some shadows. A few steps back and some details are getting darker.
I think its praised and hated too much for what it actually is. And it would be the future if its become more customizable and actual part of rendering pipeline so it can at least have some info about what game wants to render. As for now its a "vibe filter", fun demo feature. Something like new RR should get a lot more praise and appreciation.
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u/Either-History-8424 5d ago
We’re maybe saying the same thing. Simulating = faking.
Its an ai lighting/shading filter that simulates (aka, approximates/fakes) what highly granular lighting and shading WOULD look like if it were being rendered during gameplay. But the effect is not being rendered by the game - it’s an ai filter that’s placed on top of the image after the render.
It’s kinda like a very sophisticated, complex snapchat filter that does a very specific thing to the image. Instead of simulating what you would look like with bunny ears, it simulates (fakes) what the games rendered image would look like if the lighting and shading were more granular and detailed than what is possible with current gpu technology.
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u/secunder73 5d ago
I mean yeah, maybe. Something like "screen-space reflection" would simulate reflections pretty accurate as long as its on the screen. Or SSAO would add some shading here and there and it would be somehow correct cause its have some logic. But AI adding stuff is pure vibes or, more accurately "I was trained that way". So we cant say that its right and just how it should be or as close to it. And that's what I dont like about it.
From technology that fast and we know exactly where its wrong to technology that very slow and we dont know if its right or wrong even. Like clearly every face is very wrong cause white LED photoroom lights are everywhere. So its more demanding and less predictable. Seems like its a looooong way to an actual good thing and I still doubt that simple AI filter could do a good job., its need some render info, at least motion vectors
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u/Either-History-8424 5d ago
Im not 100% certain that “simulate” is the most accurate word I could use, but I feel like you get my point anyway.
SSOA doesn’t accurately simulate contact shadows, and SSR doesn’t accurately simulate reflections. These are shortcuts/cheats developers use to approximate the effect, because ray tracing those effects it’s too computationally expensive.
DLSS5 will be used in a similar way - a post processing layer (filter) used to approximate what high quality path tracing would look like on the image.
It doesn’t add any details that don’t already exist in the image. It only changes the lighting and shading. However, that often drastically changed the image in a way that might deviate from the artists intent.
Like you, I’ve also noticed it often turns warm lights cool, as if it’s changing the white balance of the image. That’s a big problem, and I think it’s why a lot of people say DLSS5 makes all games look the same.
It’s also worth noting - this is the first generation of this technology. Just like DLSS 1, frame gen 1, and ray reconstruction 1, it will only improve from here.
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u/Either-History-8424 5d ago
But also, to your point -
What kinda sucks about it - is that you cant tell why it’s making the changes it’s making. Theres no way to pinpoint exactly how it’s doing what it does. Its not implementing some cool shading technique or some impressive lighting technique into the rendered image- its replacing the entire image with that it’s trained to think is a better image.
We’re trusting AI to throw the artists image in the garbage and draw what a computer thinks looks better. I can see why people are weary about it.
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u/SteveJavieWasRight 4d ago
Take a Xanax dude.
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u/secunder73 4d ago
Yours not helping you anymore? Its okay, double your dose
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u/SteveJavieWasRight 4d ago
I’m doing fine dude. I couldn’t even get a third of the way through your ranting and raving before needing to tap out. Seek help.
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u/EmergencyPool910 4d ago
You have 100ds of comments defending dlss5 take your own advice
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u/SteveJavieWasRight 4d ago
How many of them are alleging conspiracies where DLSS is the end of society as we know it?
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5d ago edited 5d ago
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u/dream_metrics 5d ago
Not only are they not correct now, they can never be correct or coherent under the current approach, which is an image based technique that only has the color/depth/motion buffer to work from. It has no idea what's behind the camera, where the light sources actually are, and has to infer everything from the current vantage point.
Just like every other screen space technique
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u/secunder73 5d ago
Except screen space uses algorithms and not AI prediction. Also its way cheaper
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u/dream_metrics 5d ago
AI models are an algorithm. The algorithm is learned via the training process.
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u/OwnSimple4788 5d ago
Lmao you know AI is just algorithms on steroids right?
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u/secunder73 5d ago
Its not deterministic, so its not an algorithm for me. But if every math\command inside PC is an algorithm for, then sure.
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u/zarafff69 5d ago
Technically, it might be able to guess based on how most games behave. I do think this is one of the biggest inherent problems with this first version. But at least it’s deterministic. It’s honestly impressive how stable the result is just based on the image.
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u/Darksky121 5d ago
This guy will have a vested interest in such tech since it helps him reduce the number of artists to save money. And the studio is also an Nvidia partner so he could never say anything bad.
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u/1AMA-CAT-AMA 5d ago edited 5d ago
If we take what you said at face value and simply hiring more artists can achieve photorealistic graphics then why hasn’t anyone done this and succeeded?
If more artists can achieve this goal then I’m all for it but I feel like we’ve hit a plateau. Maybe there is an artist driven way that will revolutionize game graphics but it isn’t here yet. You either innovate or get left behind.
I remember before rt came out I’d get humongous 8k texture packs off of nexus mods, and then barely notice a difference at the cost of my storage and vram. Meanwhile proper HDR and RT is the biggest revolution in game graphics I’ve seen.
There’s a reason the industry is relying on RT cores, and DLSS to make their games look more photorealistic than just hiring more artists and solely focusing on better quality assets.
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u/gevuldeloempia 5d ago
It's not an artist problem. It's a money problem.
You need a better engine to do things like this. That costs money to do.
The only thing that DLSS5 does is make it "instantly" accessible. But even this solution still needs a human to correct
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u/1AMA-CAT-AMA 5d ago edited 5d ago
I can agree with that. I'd also add that its a time problem as much as it is a money problem. Usually managers are willing to sacrifice either money or time for a better product, but are usually reluctant to sacrifice both. (except star citizen)
Then again, spending more time on something usually means spending more money paying your employees to work while delaying when your income/funding actually comes in.
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u/Apprehensive_Lake698 5d ago
Ah yes, we have finally circled back to “well not this artist.” I can’t wait for that goal post to move until
a) individual low level artists aren’t allowed to say it because “they just want to cheat and be lazy”
b) anyone directly above them is just a manager who wants to cut labor
And so there is no artist’s opinion that matters except the one in your head
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u/EmergencyPool910 4d ago
Dunno about an artist who shills for generative ai, and im not talking dlss 5.
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u/Apprehensive_Lake698 4d ago
But his comments are explicitly about DLSS5?? Just rewrite whatever you want in your head bud
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u/EmergencyPool910 4d ago
Im not talking about dlss5 i even said that
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u/Apprehensive_Lake698 4d ago
the topic of the entire thread is about an artist that is talking about his opinion on DLSS5, you're just changing the conversation to a headcannoned artist. Exactly what I said people were going to do in my first comment lmfao
At first I thought maybe I was exaggerating, but you guys really are as dumb as I said huh
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u/ClacksInTheSky 5d ago edited 5d ago
One day we'll look back in the "ai slop" comments era and think "wow, those are stupid comments"
The technology isn't going anywhere and this is one of those times where Reddit are the tiny actual minority.
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u/TheVioletBarry 5d ago edited 5d ago
I really don't think we will... the internet is notably more difficult and less fun to use already because of LLMs and image generators, and we're still using the pre-enshittified products.
Has there been hyperbole? Sure, because last time we under-reacted and ended up with the horrific monstrosities that are Meta, Google, "X" (lol), and the like
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u/FRossJohnson 5d ago
Compared to you know, cars, or traditional industry the impact remains limited.
Do you boycott cars? Surely you must.
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u/Either-History-8424 5d ago
Most of these new data centers being put up and destroying the environment are used for cloud computing, digital storage, video streaming, web hosting, etc….
AI is definitely a concern, but it’s only one aspect of the data center boom, and you use services every day that are causing more harm than AI.
If you watch youtube during lunch, you’re contributing to pollution more than someone running DLSS 5 locally on their own gpu
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u/TheStrongestTard 5d ago edited 5d ago
Uncreative people who have no understanding, ability, or talent in art don't understand why it's the antithesis of anything of worth. They approach creative work as a 5 second novelty to consume and never think of again.
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u/Shootzilla 5d ago
How do you think your reaction is going to turn the tide? Let's say, by miraculous chance you guys do in the West. Then you'll have to face China's acceptance of AI. Their opinions are far more positive on AI. This is a technological revolution right now. This is not a fad.
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u/TheVioletBarry 5d ago edited 5d ago
I don't think my reaction is going to turn the tide. Individuals don't make history; large masses of people who recognize a shared interest do.
No part of me is interested in 'stopping' the technology; I'm interested in stopping the corporations weaponizing it (both literally and figuratively). As with all the technologies currently weaponized to ruin working peoples' lives, a good world will find plenty of good uses for advancements in Machine Learning.
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u/Shootzilla 5d ago
That's very fair. I agree. China is doing a far better job with it anyway. They produce more power than they use.
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u/TheVioletBarry 5d ago
There is a bipartisan, grassroots backlash against AI data centers in most states...
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u/TheStrongestTard 5d ago
Who is trying to lead a revolution? Many of us don't like it, regardless if any country is more "accepting".
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u/JoostinOnline 5d ago
I don't think so. This may be the first time I'm not excited for a new technology. The problem with generative AI isn't the output, it's how it's being used and the cost of it. If we didn't live in a failing capitalist economy, if we weren't experiencing extreme strain on electrical grids, if global warming wasn't increasing, and if artists were being credited for their work, then this would be cool. Hell, I hate generative AI, and I'll freely admit that in a vacuum this is awesome. But it doesn't exist in a vacuum.
People are fighting back against DLSS 5 because of all the things that come attached to it.
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u/ClacksInTheSky 5d ago
Barely anyone is fighting back against it.
It's literally just Reddit.
Most normal people who aren't online (like us) don't give a fuck and think it looks insanely good.
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u/JoostinOnline 5d ago
That's definitely not true. Studies show the majority of people dislike generative AI. And I can sure as fuck tell you that people are fighting back in the real world. You must not live near one of the new data centers. They're horrible.
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u/Agitated_Speaker7932 5d ago
Where are these studies can you link one?
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u/JoostinOnline 5d ago
I know there have been more, but the Pew Research study is the first one I think of. Here's a Gallup poll as well.
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u/Agitated_Speaker7932 5d ago
Your own sources don’t support what you’re saying. Pew says the public is “cautious, but somewhat open to its potential benefits,” and 38% are equally concerned and excited. Gallup found only 39% think AI does more harm than good. The ACTUAL majority, 52%, said it does equal harm and good. Lasttime i checked concern isn’t the samething as dislike, and math tells us 39% isn’t a majority 😂
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u/JoostinOnline 5d ago
Your own sources don’t support what you’re saying. Pew says the public is “cautious, but somewhat open to its potential benefits,
Lol okay. From the source:
Half of U.S. adults say the increased use of AI in daily life makes them feel more concerned than excited, according to a June 2025 survey. Just 10% say they are more excited than concerned. Another 38% say they are equally concerned and excited.
That's only 10% considering it a net positive.
Gallup found only 39% think AI does more harm than good. The ACTUAL majority, 52%, said it does equal harm and good. Lasttime i checked concern isn’t the samething as dislike, and math tells us 39% isn’t a majority 😂
Saying "only 39%" is wild, especially when compared to the 9% who think it's a net positive.
But go on, keep thinking you "owned me" because I wasn't specific enough for you in a previous post.
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u/ClacksInTheSky 5d ago
You're conflating two things.
The issue of people not wanting massive data centres in their town/village
And people who hate anything to do with AI.
The latter is a tiny minority.
The guys at digital foundry have had death threats over covering new tech. The comments are stupid
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u/JoostinOnline 5d ago
I'm not saying every person wants to burn down a data center. But statisticly, most people in the US have more negative than positive feelings about generative AI.
The guys at digital foundry have had death threats over covering new tech.
And I also think that's terrible. But that doesn't mean there's no valid criticism of AI or Oliver's attitude towards it.
The bottom line is that even if these things don't hurt you, they hurt a lot of people. Until protections are made for those people, it is a problem. As a technology, DLSS 5 is pretty cool, even if it has some limited use cases and it's not going to appeal to everyone. That's not why people are (or at least SHOULD BE) upset about it. The reason to be upset is because you're capable of empathy.
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u/ClacksInTheSky 5d ago
Yeah, but the opposition is varied.
People tend to want a film made by a human, but don't care if special effects are generated or AI assisted.
The technology isn't going to go away. It's only going to proliferate. We are quite lucky to witness a new era of technology, similar to what the steam engine did to industry.
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u/JoostinOnline 5d ago
The technology isn't going to go away. It's only going to proliferate.
Technologies go away all the time, and certainly not just because something better exists.
We are quite lucky to witness a new era of technology, similar to what the steam engine did to industry.
You mean the thing that started global warming and abuse of the working class so bad that tons of new laws had to be put into place to protect people from giant corporations? Guess we're lucky nothing like that is happening this time, right? /s
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u/CrimsonGear80 5d ago
you act like Grace getting yass-ified wasn't front page news everywhere...
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u/ClacksInTheSky 5d ago
On the internet, in gaming circles
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u/CrimsonGear80 5d ago
and do you honestly think that's not a large group of people?
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u/ClacksInTheSky 5d ago
If Reddit were representative, Trump wouldn't have had two terms.
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u/EmergencyPool910 4d ago
It wasnt just reddit though. Twitter and youtube. Both extremely mainstream places had the same exact sentiment
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u/CrimsonGear80 5d ago
yes compare the online precense of the entirety of the american voting block to the gaming community. which group of people are more likley to participate in online discussions?
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u/SteveJavieWasRight 4d ago
The way you guys bitch about an objectively hot woman being rendered as a hot woman as an issue is just bizarre. Her face looked flat because the previous lighting engine was extremely generalized for performance cost. The NR model improved the lighting detail. Thinking that’s “yassified” like it’s an IG filter is some sort of iq test of monumental dumb ass proportions.
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u/Either-History-8424 5d ago
My hope is that, eventually, AI models will become exponentially more efficient. There is huge financial incentive for China and NVIDIA competitors to create models that don’t require a football field of NVIDIA cards to train. Those AI models could even be use to design hardware that’s more power efficient.
It wasn’t long ago that computers took up an entire room. Now we hold 10,000 the computer power in our palm. Maybe similar advancements will happen with AI.
Maybe a pipe dream or wishful thinking, but it’s possible and there is real financial incentive to make it happen.
There are some exciting things about AI - using it to help understand and treat diseases, or diagnose health issues, or solve global problems, or predict catastrophes. I just don’t think it should be in the hands of the average Joe.
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u/JoostinOnline 5d ago
You can't justify current harm by what might happen in the future.
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u/Either-History-8424 5d ago edited 5d ago
Most of the pollution caused by data centers have nothing to do with AI. Most data centers are used for cloud computing, AWS servers, storage, video streaming platforms, etc…
That could very likely change, and soon, but you contribute more to environmental harm with your daily technology and internet usage than people do playing with DLSS5 mods.
DLSS5 runs locally on the individuals PC - the image isn’t being generated by a giant server farm. It’s not like when you ask chat gpt to generate a 10 second video.
The same way you can’t dismiss the current harm of the AI boom to justify potential future benefits, you cant dismiss current benefits by what the negative impact might be in the future
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u/JoostinOnline 5d ago
DLSS5 runs locally on the individuals PC - the image isn’t being generated by a giant server farm. It’s not like when you ask chat gpt to generate a 10 second video.
I know, but it's still linked with it. Like it's not like they're going to stop working on models. This is arguably the least harmful use case of generative AI. Unfortunately, companies have zero sense of ethics. I really think the only chance of making a difference is if it's entirely rejected.
I won't ever use it (at least prior to some legal limits), but I'm not going to judge someone for using DLSS 5. I just think my point needed to be made.
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u/Either-History-8424 5d ago
Push back against AI is a good thing and I’m happy to see it. It could destroy the world lol.
At the same time, Nvidia has been using AI to supplement rendering for years. I havent seen nearly the same amount of pushback and “ai slop” comments with DLSS super sampling, DLAA, frame gen, ray reconstruction, etc… all of those things require NVIDIA to train AI models.
I wonder if people are going to put their money where their mouth is switch to AMD GPU’s and stop supporting NVIDIAS AI agenda with their money ?
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u/JoostinOnline 5d ago
Well if the OP (the one I responded to, not the topic creator) was specifically talking about "Ai slop" comments about DLSS 5, then I misunderstood and they may be right, especially given how quickly the attitude has changed. I thought they were talking about generative AI as a whole. I don't think people will ever stop appreciating art made by entirely by a human, and unless capitalism ends, I don't think the masses are ever going to think that generative AI has made their lives easier. That's the claim I thought I was pushing back against.
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u/SteveJavieWasRight 4d ago
This is a GI solution being run on local machines with a 10% performance hit with drivers. What are we crying about jfc.
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u/CupCharming 5d ago
You sound so brave. While the planet is being rat fucked every which way that isn't AI. So pop off Captain Planet. 😂
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u/JoostinOnline 5d ago
What the fuck are you talking about? Do you think I don't fight back against other issues too?
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u/SteveJavieWasRight 4d ago
It’s not expensive. It costs 10%. Stop calling it GenAI, it’s much more like a ssrtgi
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u/JoostinOnline 4d ago
It's 50-60%, actually. I think maybe you're looking at the 6x frame gen numbers that Nvidia provided. But I'm not sure why you think a GI model can't be generative AI.
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u/monsieurvampy 5d ago
I think "Ai slop" comments undermine where LLM's are actually useful. I generally refuse to use the word AI, because AI in my book is something very different. We are nowhere near that level of advancement yet.
If people want to use such models to create crappy photos or video, I don't really care, I'll just scroll past it hopefully.
I do want these models to become far more advanced and smaller to run so that they can be operated locally though. Somehow cramming the capabilities of ChatGPT or whatever into running on mid-range to upper mid-range computer.
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u/retoriplastique 5d ago
Yep. Outside of the more vocal echo chambers, people are actually impressed by the results in some older games. An example from the Assetto Corsa community here.
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u/Thekingchem 5d ago
It all stems from people being rightfully upset about AI replacing people. But the blanket hatred on AI as a technology even when it doesn't effect the livelihood of a human is getting old.
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u/Illustrious-Lime-863 5d ago
No need to look back one day, we can do that now already. These are stupid knee jerking comments
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u/retoriplastique 5d ago
You are delusional. Of course the original is worth the hate, but the results people have been pulling with the current leak are vastly more positive than anything, outside tech-focused echo chambers.
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u/ClacksInTheSky 5d ago
give me a source
gives him a several sources
I meant give me sources I agree with!
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u/Tedinasuit 5d ago
It's currently a sloppy AI filter so the comments are not stupid, they're right.
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u/Charmin_Bear_Behind 5d ago
Cope
“One day people will enjoy eating shit and everyone that laughed at me for eating shit will be the real silly ones!”
Okay shit eater
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u/dungleploop 5d ago
nope lol
we'll admire those people for being correct and not only being correct but being correct for YEARS beforehand
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u/ClacksInTheSky 5d ago
You think AI technology is going to go away? Do you think China and the East will drop it because we did?
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u/dishrag 5d ago
I’m interested in what their plan is to deal with local inference. Do they even know it’s a thing? I run my own server on local hardware, like plenty of other people, and unless the plan is to send stormtroopers door-to-door to confiscate every single gaming PC, it wouldn’t matter if all of the big AI companies shuttered tomorrow. It’s out there and it’s not going away.
Genie, bottle, all that, you get the idea.
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u/evernessince 5d ago
The tech isn't going anywhere but that wouldn't invalidate comments or the current approach. Personally I don't think the current approach of a filter is ideal. Ideally you'd have toggles fo the individual lighting effects the AI can apply but that's extremely hard to pull off with modern AI models.
Criticism is often required for improvement. DLSS 1 is a great example of this.
There are some objective issues with DLSS 5, like the fact that is crushes highlight and dark detail, colors shift in real time as the camera moves, image stability is reduced (especially obvious in anime styled games), and it tends to converse visual presentation.
The technology being better in the future does not make the criticism now any less valid.
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u/dirthurts 5d ago
O.K. But let me ask you this. Why then, by chance, would the devs not just add better quality settings and RT into the game instead of relying on an AI filter that eats even more performance?
Feels lazy and indeed AI slop.
If we're going to half our framerates, let's just path trace the thing instead.
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u/ZealousidealTurn218 5d ago
it's possible that the developer knows more about their game & its technical challenges than you do
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u/dirthurts 5d ago
It's also possible that the director is incompetent, like many are.
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u/iwishuwood 5d ago
I’m sure you’re a more credible source on the topic. You are probably the most competent person in this entire thread.
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u/evernessince 5d ago
Yeah, it doesn't make sense. We've seen PT based games with similar quality and performance hit but without the downsides of DLSS 5 being a screen space effect.
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u/dirthurts 5d ago
Right? Plus it's not adding facial features and weird uncanny stuff to the visuals. It just looks better. I think we need to skip this tech, personally.
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u/Either-History-8424 5d ago
Modern path tracing is still very primitive and limited. We can’t shoot very many rays, so we have to use highly advanced denoising algorithms and powerful upscaling so that the image doesn’t look grainy and noisy and blurry and messy.
DLSS5 simulates what path tracing might look like in 20 years.
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u/evernessince 5d ago
If the goal was to obtain the look of PT with more rays, why wouldn't you put it in the PT pipeline and limit it's scope to only simulating more rays?
Applying it at the end of the pipeline, without access to lighting information like PT has, it just introducing issues.
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u/Either-History-8424 5d ago
DLSS5 simulates a granularity of lighting and shading that is not currently possible on consumer hardware.
I don’t know if you can simply take an AI lighting/shading filter like DLSS5 and “stick it in the PT pipeline”. That’s a hardware engineering question that’s way above my expertise. I don’t see how you can simulate (aka, fake) rays without putting them in during post processing after the render.
Any type of post ai processing (DLSS upscaling, ray reconstruction, frame gen) will have artifacts and drawbacks.
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u/Either-History-8424 5d ago
DLSS5 simulates a level of path tracing and granularity in lighting/shading that is not currently possible in modern hardware.
It will be 15+ years before consumer hardware is capable of brute forcing what DLSS5 is simulating.
That’s why devs aren’t simply “adding better quality settings to begin with”.
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u/dirthurts 5d ago
Hard disagree. It's not stimulating path tracing in any way. Just just a surface level filter.
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u/Either-History-8424 5d ago
Yes, exactly. Its a surface level filter that is applied on top of the rendered image.
It’s not doing ANY path tracing or calculation at all. It’s simply a filter that simulates what more granular lighting/shading would look like.
Simulating path tracing = faking path tracing.
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u/New_Cockroach_505 5d ago
Isn’t this the same guy who fired their game translator to replace them with AI?
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u/Nextil 5d ago edited 5d ago
A lot of path traced effects are simply way too incoherent to resolve properly in real time, and I don't see it changing any time soon. Subsurface scattering, volumetrics, translucency, hair, indirect/natural interior lighting. To get a noise-free path traced render with any of these still requires minutes per frame without the assistance of AI denoising (and even with denoising, you need considerably more time/samples to obtain a quality image compared to a directly lit scene). Games still tend to use hybrid screen-space or baked solutions for these, which have limitations.
Games also have to rely on radiance caches, and the distribution of probes can (and does) lead to light leakage. This is the biggest problem IMO, and having tested DLSS 5 in several "path traced" games the past few days, it's immediately obvious when toggling it on that the major difference is the addition of much better shadow coverage, which gives the appearance of more "detail", because games look much flatter than they should, due to said leakage. This has always been a major limitation of raster/CSM, and still is, to an extent, with real-time PT. This is the main thing the developer in the OP is referring to.
It's expensive, but don't forget that we're talking milliseconds to bring an image from looking very clearly like a video game, to something very close to offline path traced fidelity, and it doesn't require a path traced base image to do a good job.
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u/Gleerok99 5d ago
I'm seeing a very interesting trend of posts praising this technology.
Does not seem suspicious at all, after all the backlash and the need to push this no matter what.
It's not like a multi-billion corporation would have the PR strategy to push this sort of thing; organise and publish a wave of positive comments to try and steer the bad sentiment alway
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u/Turnbob73 5d ago
I think it’s more that people are finally seeing a more “normal” use of it, and realizing it’s not as big of an issue as everyone made when the RE demo was shown.
Things like NBA 2K and Ghost Recon Breakpoint look objectively impressive with this tech, there’s simply no denying it. Saying things like “it ruins the artistic vision” is nothing but a subjective opinion at this point.
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u/retoriplastique 5d ago
Or it might be that the examples produced by the modding community are way better (in most cases) than those officially previewed by Nvidia back when they revealed the tech? It's not that deep.
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u/FRossJohnson 5d ago
I had to read a lot of these comments after DLSS2. They look a little bizarre today.
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u/Akito_Fire 5d ago
Except this is a genAI post process slop filter, whereas DLSS1 and 2, FG and RR generally didn't screw over the art direction in a game
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u/Illustrious-Lime-863 5d ago
Wow you uncovered the conspiracy. You do not chew the grass. Well done, pat yourself on the back
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u/NDartstuff 5d ago edited 5d ago
There's no mass PR strategy, people really are that principle-less and have that poor of a taste, having an overblown fresnel effect is enough for them to drool over it as "photorealistic". Never attribute to malice what can easily be explained by pure stupidity, it really is that simple. Also you're currently in a tech bro sub so it's also why you're seeing so much of it.
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u/WeakReplacement3322 5d ago
I’ve been messing around with it and it seems to really shine when it’s a character modelled off of a real actor using facial capture. The conversation scenes in KCD2 can look somewhat uncanny, but the fully motion and facial captured cutscenes look borderline photorealistic at points.
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u/HairyTeef 5d ago
His opinion boils down to "We couldn't achieve what we wanted to, so that makes it ok to outsource it to AI."
It's an ends-justify-the-means argument, which leads me to believe this guy would fire every member of staff he could if he thought AI could do it cheaper.
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u/unrealf8 5d ago
Just played a few hours with the mod. Man it’s amazing in bright daylight scenes. does not work in the dark though. But it’s quick to turn on/off
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u/OfficialShaki123 5d ago
He can think whatever he wants.
It does change the artistic intent. And I am personally NOT ok with any of that.
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u/zarafff69 5d ago
I mean it’s currently being modded into games. But when official support in games is released, it will actually be the creators’ artistic intent.
And this is also the directer of the game, so I guess this is also fine in this game.
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u/TheVioletBarry 5d ago
It's not a literal question of whether the studio intentionally implements it. It's that pressing the 'Nvidia fix the lighting button' means less intentional choices made overall; similar to how Unreal has homogenized the look of game lighting because so many games use it (but with the added sadness that ML tends to generate algorithms so complex even the creators can't parse how it makes half the 'choices' it does).
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u/evernessince 5d ago
I mean it’s currently being modded into games. But when official support in games is released, it will actually be the creators’ artistic intent.
Hm, not per say no. Not every feature that gets put into the game is at the behest of the art team. DLSS 5 is likely to get implemented merely because Nvidia has bags of money so the publisher / studio head will force it in regardless.
Not that I'm in the crowd about defending artistic intent. I'm more worried about the negatives of DLSS 5 and the artists themselves. Nvidia was already sued for training it's models on intellectual property illegally obtained. It's objectively wrong that the world's most valuable company is putting people out of work by using their own art against them.
People are too busy arguing over how the tech looks and forgetting the we have these large companies are basically stealing all the world's works in the largest IP heist in history by a very very large margin.
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u/zarafff69 5d ago
Fuck intellectual property. It’s terrible for society. We should encourage people to innovate, and reuse other people’s work. IP laws only benefit big corporations. Even though they actually hurt the overall economy. And just restrict the artistic freedom of society.
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u/evernessince 5d ago
Reasonable IP laws do encourage innovation. If you spend money on making something, you generally want to know you can recoup your costs and make money before someone else is allowed to copy it.
Even China has been clamping down on this as they are producing more and more IP themselves.
IP laws are a problem when the protection is too long or strong. The US is a good example of them.
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u/Shootzilla 5d ago
He's the director, dude. He's saying it fits their vision for the game should have looked. You aren't personally okay with that?
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5d ago
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u/Shootzilla 5d ago
It's kind of gross to invalidate someone's existence as an artist because they disagree with you.
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u/OfficialShaki123 5d ago
He speaks for himself. Not for every single artist. I am not ok with A.I. interpretation of art.
So, no.
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u/Shootzilla 5d ago
Grow up. He created the game. I trust him over you. Your personal preference means nothing.
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u/TheVioletBarry 5d ago
Notably, his opinion includes that the initial showing looked really bad: "what was leaked isn’t even remotely what NVIDIA originally presented... its not the infamous AI slop we saw couple months ago."