By Chris Harper
Publication Date: 2026-03-22 14:46:00
NVIDIA’s DLSS 5 has proven to be one of the more controversial announcements so far this year. When initially announced, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said it was using new “neural rendering” techniques and “generative control at the geometry level”. As we mentioned when covering Jensen’s rejection of all criticism to DLSS 5, these claims seem to be in conflict with statements from some NVIDIA engineers who have been working on DLSS 5, with NVIDIA’s own official slides confirming that DLSS 5 works from the same data as previous DLSS iterations, rather than being more deeply built into the engine.
Further statements from NVIDIA’s Jacob Freeman made to YouTuber Daniel Owen also point toward this being the case. Freeman confirms that “Yes, DLSS 5 takes a 2D frame plus motion vectors as input”, that all of its lighting calculations are made based on a single frame (i.e. screen space lighting/reflection calculations), and that “materials are inferred from the rendered frame”. In response to criticism pointing out how DLSS 5 sometimes seems to add unintended facial features, like makeup, Freeman re-asserted that “The underlying geometry is unchanged” and that “this is a very early preview of the tech.”
He also asserts that “Developers will have detailed controls such as intensity and color grading. Artists can use these controls to adjust blending, contrast, saturation and gamma, and determine where and how enhancements are applied to maintain the games’ unique…
