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Nvidia? The gaming GPU company?
On Monday, the multi-trillion dollar AI chipmaker unveiled its latest effort at weaving advances in AI into video games, and it immediately backfired.
The feature, DLSS 5, is supposed to be a souped-up version of the deep-learning upscaling tech Nvidia has offered since 2018. The company called it its “most significant breakthrough in computer graphics since the debut of real-time ray tracing” in that same year. But the reactions to demo footage shared has been overwhelmingly negative.
Gamers and developers fumed against the announcement, calling it “slop” and a “betrayal” of games’ artistic intent. Memes spread parodying the AI feature’s garish aesthetic, in which an original character or person is contrasted with a “DLSS 5” image that shows the subject in an unrecognizable style. Some even gave it a harsh nickname: “sloptracing,” a play on Nvidia’s ray tracing tech.
The reactions are warranted. Rather than just providing a little clarity to a fuzzy image, the feature looks more like a glorified Snapchat filter, varnishing the art style of your favorite games with an overwrought, generative AI finish.
The effect is most noticeable when applied to faces. Iconic characters in the demo like Leon Kennedy from the Resident Evil franchise are, it’s no exaggeration to say, literally yassified.
Announcing NVIDIA DLSS 5, an AI-powered breakthrough in visual fidelity for games, coming this fall.
DLSS 5 infuses pixels with photorealistic lighting and materials, bridging the gap between rendering and reality.
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