DLSS 5 has been the hot topic lately, and the initial reception of Nvidia’s latest upscaling technology (even though it’s not really upscaling anymore) has been far from positive. It ruins the game’s original art style, does more than just repaint lighting, and makes characters look noticeably different in a way that feels worse.

However, DLSS 5 works in certain places, and when it does, the output looks great. For older titles, DLSS 5 is a free remaster button that improves textures and lighting and completely overhauls the visuals, making decades-old titles feel like newer releases.

DLSS 5 is not even about upscaling at this point

A generative filter that is applied to the end of the rendering pipeline

It’s confusing; I get it. Over the course of eight years, DLSS has become a name for too many things, and DLSS 5 is the first of its kind not to bring new upscaling features and instead works as an image filter.

Now, Nvidia claims DLSS 5 uses 3D-guided neural rendering to dynamically repaint lighting, contact shadows, and material details onto assets the game engine itself doesn’t handle, ultimately delivering better image quality. It’s not a new rendering pipeline, but a filtering/computation process that runs after the image is generated, not before.

However, the results seem to do far more than adjust lighting and textures. The generative AI used in the process has a strong effect that works detrimentally in certain games, where it completely alters the intended art style and hurts performance because the neural rendering model is so demanding.

Modders are forcing DLSS 5 into games Nvidia never targeted

NBA 2K27 accidentally leaked the library to modders

DLSS 5 is only available in one game so far, and whatever you’re seeing applied to other games is a leaked version of the library from NBA 2K27’s early access build. Thanks to this leak, modders have now developed multiple third-party apps that can force-inject DLSS 5 into older games.

For older titles with dated textures, DLSS 5 works remarkably well by lifting the visuals into something entirely new. One notable example is 2014’s Watch Dogs, which looked so good at its initial reveal that it might be one of gaming’s biggest lies.

Even though I adore Watch Dogs, the final build was a massive visual letdown. Thanks to DLSS 5, we might finally have the game Ubisoft promised us over a decade ago. Watch Dogs already has this noir, dark-themed art style that DLSS 5 works best with: dynamic lighting, shadows, and textures.

Another example of DLSS 5 I loved in an older game was 2015’s Rise of the Tomb Raider; DLSS 5 barely changed the game’s art style but elevated the lighting and made the environment pop.

Which games look good with DLSS 5 comes down to the art style. Titles that don’t aim for photorealistic visuals should skip it, because it seems like DLSS 5 will only make them worse, much like HDR overdid images when it first debuted.

Emulated classics see the biggest jump

God of War II and Infamous 2 look closer to a native remaster than a mod

Ever since Sony announced it’s remaking the original God of War trilogy, I’ve been itching to see a modern take on these games. Fortunately, I won’t have to wait long because DLSS 5 works with emulators too, and the results are amazing.

Emulating God of War 2 on PCSX2, DLSS 5 closes the aliasing gap caused by a game released over two decades ago, originally rendered at 480p, plus its poor lighting.

While you can clean up some aliasing and upscale the resolution in PCSX2, it can’t fix the outdated lighting techniques and poor textures; DLSS 5 does a good job of cleaning that up.

For PlayStation 3-emulated games, Infamous 2 with DLSS 5 looks like what the developers at Sucker Punch Productions should make in 2026, and calling the visuals staggering would be an understatement. Nvidia’s new technology makes this PS3-era title with its sepia tint pop out the colors even more, and this might be the closest thing we’ll ever get to a new Infamous game.

Similarly, other examples, like the Killzone games or Uncharted games, haven’t been ported to PC and rely on emulation.

Still, you can breathe new life into them via DLSS 5 injection, and they’d look passable as remasters — not in the remake kind of way, but more like remasters, as in The Last of Us Part II Remastered, where developers just made a polished version of the existing game.

Remastering old games is about to get a lot easier

Paired with RTX Remix, DLSS 5 could automate remasters

Nvidia launched a tool a couple of years ago called RTX Remix, intended to change the rendering pipeline of existing games by adding Ray/Path Tracing, newer textures, and updated lighting and materials.

We’ve already seen some pretty cool stuff from the modding community, like Need for Speed: Underground 2 RTX via RTX Remix, but DLSS 5 basically completes the remastering process. You get a new rendering pipeline and the DLSS 5 filter, which applies at the end of the rendered frame to deliver a vastly improved image that holds up to today’s standards.

However, the remastering process might become much more convenient for developers in the future, with minimal work required. I see major publishers using RTX Remix and DLSS 5 in their rendering pipeline for older games built on DX8/9, fine-tuning how strong the DLSS 5 filter is for their titles to make the games look better and not homogeneous with every other DLSS 5-filtered game.

Then again, the specific DLSS 5 library leak was from NBA 2K27, and that’s a photorealistic game. The application for other games could be vastly different, which is why some other games look uncanny with DLSS 5, because it might not be intended for them.

What this means for your backlog

DLSS 5 is still in its early stages, and while early reception is mixed, I foresee a brighter future as the technology evolves. There’s no denying how well it works for older titles, especially those already aiming for photorealistic visuals.

AMD is also reportedly working on a similar tech to DLSS 5, so we might see a similar yet slightly different approach from Team Red as well.

You can use this open-source tool called NeuralScreen to apply DLSS 5 to almost anything, even beyond your games, to the desktop or online video calls, with intensity control, and this is the best way to revisit older games in your library with the click of a button. For newer games, the results are mixed, and personally, I wouldn’t really opt for it because the performance cost is too high to ignore.