Getting DLSS to work on my PS5 has been one of my weirdest fever dreams ever, but thanks to modders and DLSS Swapper, it’s now a reality. Well, sort of. You see, the PS5 was never supposed to get access to DLSS libraries, let alone use it as an upscaler in its own exclusives. It’s an AMD system at heart, so it mostly relies on FSR or Sony’s proprietary PSSR upscalers. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean you cannot get DLSS working in PlayStation games.
Thanks to modern PC decompilers and mods like DLSS Swapper and OptiScaler, you can get DLSS 5 working in games like Demon’s Souls and, yes, Bloodborne.
That said, the results of that experiment are rather interesting, but not in a good way.
How to get DLSS 5 working in PS5 games?
OptiScaler makes the process fairly simple
Getting DLSS 5 running on games like Bloodborne and Demon’s Souls is one thing, and sourcing the game’s files is another. Thankfully, if you have discs for both these titles, you can easily source your own files and get them working on your PC. Now, for Bloodborne, you can just use the ShadPS4 emulator. However, in my experience, using the PS4 emulator does restrict additional mods, which we will need to rely on for DLSS 5.
Instead, I opted to use Supermedo’s native Bloodborne PC port from GitHub. It’s essentially the native Linux port of Bloodborne running on the ShadPS4 renderer, albeit with its own executable.
Since it runs through the ShadPS4 emulator’s translation layer, it’s not technically a native port, but it’s closer to one. And yes, we can use mods like OptiScaler with this version of the game. As for how to get DLSS 5 working in a game like Bloodborne, which was never engineered to use technologies like DLSS, you just need to follow these steps:
- Download OptiScaler from GitHub and extract the files.
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Run setup_windows.bat and choose BloodbornePC as the destination folder.
- You can choose a different destination to install OptiScaler, but keeping all the files within the game’s directory makes it easy to maintain and tweak.
- Launch the game and hit Insert to pull up the OptiScaler menu, where you can select DLSS 5 as the upscaler.
The same process applies for games like Demon’s Souls and even the PC port of Hideo Kojima’s P.T. from the canceled Silent Hills game. And yes, the mod also works on Linux by installing using the setup_linux.sh file. Even the Bloodborne PC port works flawlessly on Linux, which is to be expected since it’s technically a native Linux port.
Like the PS2 games I tested with the DLSS Swapper mod, Bloodborne looks quite uncanny with DLSS 5. It’s still Bloodborne, but it looks much closer to something made with earlier iterations of Unreal Engine 5.
DLSS 5 looks quite good in old PlayStation games
But there’s no point in using it for newer titles
Unlike its predecessors, DLSS 5 isn’t a traditional AI-powered upscaler. Nvidia’s neural rendering tech essentially uses scene data from the game and attempts to transform it, affecting not only the lighting engine, but also the character renderer. In most cases, this does result in quite a major improvement over the original visuals. I mean, just take a look at the original MS-DOS DOOM running on DLSS 5 or even the recently released The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered.
However, at the same time, it also feels like it’s taking a lot away from said game’s original art style and identity. And since DLSS 5, at the end of the day, is using its own model to “improve” the visuals of a game, it ends up homogenizing everything.
Be it The Witcher 3, Demon’s Souls, Prince of Persia, or Bloodborne. Everything looks almost the same using DLSS 5. This is what I meant with the Unreal Engine 5 comparison. Much like how most UE5 games end up looking the same, especially if they’re going for the photorealistic art style, DLSS 5 ends up making everything seem like an AI-generated asset.
While DLSS 5 certainly looks quite good in Bloodborne, it’s doing so at the cost of the game’s original art style.
That said, older titles like DOOM, Prince of Persia, and in this case, Bloodborne, certainly benefit from that visual uplift. The improved global illumination makes Yharnam more lively than ever (as lively as a city ravaged by bloodthirsty beasts go, that is).
However, I don’t really see a point in using the tech for games like Demon’s Souls or even P.T., where the original lighting already looks incredible. And not to mention the performance tax that DLSS 5 comes with. Now, I admit, I’m testing an unreleased version of the DLSS 5 tech, and that certainly comes with its caveats.
However, even Nvidia’s own official presentation confirmed that DLSS 5 incurs a significant performance penalty due to its neural rendering operations. That said, hopefully this is something that will get addressed to an extent with the official release of DLSS 5.
The best use of DLSS 5 mods that nobody talks about
While I’m not really sold on DLSS 5 as an upscaler or graphical enhancer, there’s one utility of this tech that no one seems to talk about: preserving old games. As I tested the DLSS 5 mods in games like Bloodborne and P.T., it dawned on me that it could be a great way to preserve games. Combined with the vibe-coding AI tools like Claude Code and community-made mods like OptiScaler, DLSS 5 can be a great way to preserve and experience classics like Bloodborne or DOOM.
Preserving an old game no longer means you have to keep your old consoles running. Instead, you can simply dump your old games into a decompiler (or an emulator) and play them on your PC, with DLSS 5 to give them the quintessential “remaster” treatment.