Here’s a glimpse at DLSS 5 neural rendering in action ahead of official release

Back in March, Nvidia showed off the controversial DLSS version upgrade that quickly became the talk of the town due to its heavy reliance on AI. DLSS 5 brings with it a real-time neural rendering model, the first instance of which was spotted in the early access build of NBA 2K27 (via Renan Maniero on X). One of the modder groups has now been able to use DLSS 5 neural rendering and give us a glimpse of how it would look in a real game, at least on the character model.

Using the original Control as an example, one of the modders behind RenoDX – a tool for modding games – was able to pull the DLSS 5 NR (neural rendering) .dll file from the NBA 2K27 build and implement it into Control. The short video shared by SwurvGaming on X (linked below) shows the mod at work with an assortment of adjustable sliders.

In the clip, though not very clear, you can see the face of Control’s Jesse Faden changing as the “NR skin structure strength” slider is adjusted. Some of the facial features become more prominent as the slider goes from -1 (default) to 1. This makes Jesse’s face look skinnier, possibly due to how light reflects off the features.

The X user has also shared a link to RenoDX’s Discord where the modder apparently provided more information and instructions, but it didn’t load for us. At the time of publishing, the mod has not been uploaded to Nexusmods.

Notably, the DLSS 5 neural rendering mod for Control is only for the character and not the game environment. With the .dll file’s appearance in NBA 2K27, Nvidia could be inching closer to officially launching the latest upscaling tech.