Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says gamers calling DLSS 5 AI slop are "completely wrong"

[midian182]

A hot potato: Do you think DLSS 5 makes games resemble AI slop? That it's little more than an AI filter inserted into titles that neither wanted nor needed it? If you are one of these many people, Nvidia boss Jensen Huang wants you to know that you're "completely wrong."

Few technologies have faced as much criticism upon their reveals as DLSS 5. The vast majority of gamers are aghast at the way it gives characters a typical AI-generated uncanny valley appearance – especially Resident Evil Requiem's Grace Ashcroft and Leon Kennedy – as opposed to the "photorealistic" look Nvidia claims.

Tom's Hardware editor-in-chief Paul Alcorn asked Huang about the criticism in a recent Q&A session.

"Well, first of all, they're completely wrong," Huang said. "The reason for that is because, as I have explained very carefully, DLSS 5 fuses controllability of the of geometry and textures and everything about the game with generative AI."

Huang then repeated Nvidia's previous disclaimer: that developers have full, detailed artistic control over DLSS 5's effects to ensure they maintain their game's unique aesthetic, and that they can "fine tune the generative AI" to match the intended style.

"It's not post-processing, it's not post-processing at the frame level, it's generative control at the geometry level," he said.

Huang added that it's up to developers to use DLSS 5 however they like. "This is very different than generative AI; it's content-control generative AI. That's why we call it neural rendering," he concluded.

– Hardware Unboxed (@HardwareUnboxed) March 16, 2026

We recently published Ryan Shrout's take on DLSS 5. The analyst saw the technology running live and was very impressed, emphasizing that it's not just a face filter but a tool that amplifies good rendering.

Also read: I saw DLSS 5 running across multiple games. It's not a face filter.

Despite Huang's explanations, everyone has their own opinion on DLSS 5. An interesting Reddit post argues its biggest problem is not that it looks "too AI" or betrays artistic intent, but that its tone mapping is overly aggressive, creating an ugly, overcooked HDR effect that distorts lighting, color, and mood.

User Veedrac argues that the relighting underneath is often genuinely strong, but that DLSS 5's heavy-handed HDR-style processing muddies the result.

By blending DLSS 5 with elements of the original image – such as restoring some of the original saturation, lightness, and darker tones – the post says it is possible to keep the improved lighting while making scenes look more natural and faithful.

DLSS 5 – Fixing it in post
by u/Veedrac in hardware

After comparing several images, Veedrac concludes that many of DLSS 5's gains are real, but are being overshadowed by bad tone mapping that Nvidia should dial back.

This isn't the first time Huang has clapped back at critics of something his company is heavily invested in. In January, the CEO said the relentless negativity around AI is hurting society and has "done a lot of damage."

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says gamers calling DLSS 5 AI slop are "completely wrong"

 

[The Talking Tech]

A.I Slop ...What else can you call it?

 

[mbk34]

"It's not post-processing, it's not post-processing at the frame level, it's generative control at the geometry level
...
This is very different than generative AI; it's content-control generative AI. That's why we call it neural rendering,"

Is there such a thing as buzz-word soup?

 

[yRaz]

I look at DLSS5 and just get uncomfortable. I don't know what it is, they look hyper real while also looking fake. My brain registers that something is wrong but doesn't know what it is. I've seen creepy pictures and gory pictures. DLSS5 tickles that same part of my brain that I can best discribe as "being uncomfortable"

 

[winjer]

I look at DLSS5 and just get uncomfortable. I don't know what it is, they look hyper real while also looking fake. My brain registers that something is wrong but doesn't know what it is. I've seen creepy pictures and gory pictures. DLSS5 tickles that same part of my brain that I can best discribe as "being uncomfortable"

It's called the uncanny valley effect. And DLSS5 hits it like a truck.
This is the reason why a lot of people dislike AI generated images and videos.

 

[scavengerspc]

Jensen Huang says a lot of things that are complete bullshit.

Nvidia has become what Microsoft was in the late 90s.
They don't give us what we want, they tell us what we want.

 

[godrilla]

The disconnect from the ivory tower is real.
The response proves one thing though gamers still have the power to speak up and potentially make a difference on the direction this is going. As a minimum give the end user some control of how much of an impact they want. Make the experience more affordable. Make the current experience more efficient to run.
Can anyone guarantee that the facial neural enhancement will not pop in and out of vanilla and rtx faces breaking immersion. Can anyone guarantee that the neural network will not hallucinate? Even the content that was shown off has some imperfections like the soccer shirt and some eye animations.
I believe if they left off the facial enhancements the public would have been more perceptive. If they shown improved vram requirements which was originally promised for neural networking public would have been impressed imo, but instead they showed a brute forced approach on a quarter baked idea!

 

[Billybobjoey]

 

[Neutronbeam]

If DLSS5 can improve my appearance IRL then I may be all in on it. My wife supports that perspective.

 

[wiyosaya]

Jensen Huang says a lot of things that are complete bullshit.

Nvidia has become what Microsoft was in the late 90s.
They don't give us what we want, they tell us what we want.

And what else would Leatherman say?? If he leaves the criticism stand or agrees with it, it hurts Nvidia sales. He can't have Nvidia sales being hurt. So, Leatherman says "You're looking at it wrong" even though the vast majority of gamers think it looks like AI Slop.

IMO, Leatherman is in Steve Jobs clothing.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

While this does look like an AI beauty filter - it turns out that DLSS 5 blonde now looks more like the human model the company was mimicking which strongly suggests Capcom was doing some tweaking to "make the demo better".

There are also the instagram fitness before and after lighting/smiling tricks on these examples as well.

Finally, as with all new tools, it's fun to crank them to 11 and believe it's awesome. It's a common problem with new photographers trying out lightroom and maxing contrast, saturation, etc.

It will be interesting to see what the not-beta version in 6 months does at a moderate setting across a range of games rather than the cherry picked to "wow" gamers images (which really backfired lol). I have hope that it could be good, but if not I'll just turn it off.

 

[Rapob]

It is optional, so who cares. Most people that cry about this, don't even have a capable GPU.

 

[Nictron]

I am not as negative as the community.

If the DLLS 5 rendering engine is trained on the original artists' intent original imaging then this will be a game changer!

Getting us closer to the realism but with less resource utilization.

 

[Kirby1]

I'm not sure I believe Huang when he says "it's not a post process". If it weren't, I think they would have presented it differently and given some details about it, and it would look different. I guess we'll find out eventually.

 

[Alfonso Maruccia]

Is this CEO slop?

 

[Haaky]

Nvidia isn't slop, CEO Jensen Huang is SLOP!!!

 

[dmoros]

I look at DLSS5 and just get uncomfortable. I don't know what it is, they look hyper real while also looking fake. My brain registers that something is wrong but doesn't know what it is. I've seen creepy pictures and gory pictures. DLSS5 tickles that same part of my brain that I can best discribe as "being uncomfortable"

Thats what they call "Uncanny Valley"

 

[VaRmeNsI]

If we could have direct control over it rather than just developers (custom mode) then it might be alright.

 

[MasterAce]

I would be much more comfortable with this tech if it was done by the game devs and it ran on the new AI shaders and produced exact same output on all GPU brands.

Instead, this is just another stone in Nvidia's closed garden, and it jumps out as Nividia slapping a filter on a bunch of games to look good and sell another gpu.

 

[deathspeed]

JH is a joke. He is so out of touch with gamers and the general public that nothing he has to say is relevant any more. He is like Ubisoft wrapped up in an individual. Not that he cares about my $$$, but his hostile attitude drove me away from Nvidia after 25 years of using those exclusively in my builds.

 

[brucek]

It is optional, so who cares. Most people that cry about this, don't even have a capable GPU.

As always, the devil is in the details. If optional really means that every game that offers a DLSS5 mode will also offer a fully supported and continued to improve DLSS4 (upscaling without material changes to the substance of the image), then that's a real option.

But if the option is between a DLSS mode that makes fundamental alterations to the game image not in alignment with the original artistic intent, and no DLSS at all, at a time when games are increasingly designed to require DLSS to run on mainstream GPUs, that's a lot less of an option than it sounds like.

Anyway I agree too early to cry, although definitely not too early to mock horribly chosen demo images. I'm going to hope the raw technology they are working on turns out to have useful applications and also hope that whoever chose those demo images absorbs and acts on the market feedback on types of changes the DLSS layer should and should not be making.

Finally I want to congratulate Nvidia on continuing to push the bounds on what "fake frames" means. They are definitely the fake frame leader at this point.

 

[maxxcool7421]

Cartoon AI face filter slop ... 100% garbage ..

Also since Nvidia is leaving the consumer market completely at the end of 2026 or q1 2027 why even make this ???

 

[Rapob]

Cartoon AI face filter slop ... 100% garbage ..

Also since Nvidia is leaving the consumer market completely at the end of 2026 or q1 2027 why even make this ???

Nvidia sits at 85-90% marketshare, Intel and AMD fights over the last 10-15%

Clearly they are not abandoning free money and neither AMD or Intel want to chase GPU marketshare, as they both release mostly garbage and don't even try to gain marketshare, when possible.

RAM crisis will hit AMD and Intel much harder than Nvidia, as AMD/Intel mostly sells low-end GPUs with little profit and the added cost for RAM will make this segment close to pointless.

 

[Watzupken]

I cannot take Jensen's words seriously. Every time I listen, I kind of feel like I am listen to a kid talking. For example, RTX 5070 = RTX 4090.... Another one, "The more you buy, the more you save". I wonder he actually listens to what he says or he basically runs it by AI and just takes the output for his speech with no concerns of the AI hallucinating.

 

[BobHome]

I am not as negative as the community.

If the DLLS 5 rendering engine is trained on the original artists' intent original imaging then this will be a game changer!

Getting us closer to the realism but with less resource utilization.

Or... it can allow (some) artists to get lazy and just let the AI fill in the blanks as it deems fit. Especially someone on a tight schedule.