The takeaway: Nvidia's controversial DLSS 5 is essentially just an AI filter. In the days since the technology leaked, modders have applied it to just about every PC game they could think of. Now, a new app proves that DLSS 5 can "enhance" almost anything, including live-action movies and pre-recorded game footage.
NeuralScreen, developed by DLSS 5 modder Perseval_BLR with help from Claude, overlays Nvidia's recently introduced neural rendering technology onto any app running in windowed mode. Although Nvidia designed the filter specifically to make PC games look more realistic, it can technically run on top of almost anything.
In the video demonstration above, Perseval applies NeuralScreen to a YouTube clip of Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay, recreating the effect of modding the actual game. He then switches to a scene from the film Interstellar, showing that DLSS 5 cannot distinguish between video game graphics and footage of real actors. Ironically, the technology attempts to generate more realistic shadows and skin tones in both. Finally, Perseval uses the app to run DLSS 5 on Doom 3 in windowed mode.
NeuralScreen can seamlessly switch between windows or apply DLSS 5 to the entire screen. By default, users control window switching, recording, screenshots, and the customization menu using the number keys, but they can also reassign the key bindings. Like other DLSS 5 mods, the app also lets users select visual presets and adjust several sliders to control the output. It can even display a screen-wipe comparison during runtime. However, the app does not support games running in exclusive full-screen mode.
Even in windowed mode, DLSS 5 carries a substantial performance cost. Perseval's demo shows that an RTX 5070 Ti struggles to maintain 60 fps even when applying the filter to Doom 3, a game originally released 22 years ago, at a resolution of 2,576 × 1,487.
NeuralScreen is just one of several DLSS 5 mods that have emerged since a DLL file containing Nvidia's AI model leaked through NBA 2K27 less than two weeks ago. Two such mods have uncovered novel methods for substantially reducing the filter's performance cost, though both come with clear caveats.
Normally, DLSS 5 can cut performance by 50% to 75%, but applying the filter before DLSS Super Resolution rather than afterward can reduce that penalty by more than half, at the cost of image quality. Meanwhile, simply dedicating a second GPU to the task can eliminate the performance burden almost entirely.
Although DLSS 5 currently supports only Nvidia's RTX 50-series graphics cards, modders have also extended its support to RTX 20-series cards.
This app applies Nvidia DLSS 5 to the entire Windows desktop
