The very bad news is, Nvidia says turning DLSS 5 on will currently reduce performance by 50-60%. And that’s across the board—no matter the game.
The very bad news is, Nvidia says turning DLSS 5 on will currently reduce performance by 50-60%. And that’s across the board—no matter the game.
I’ve been a fan of the most cutting edge videogame graphics since that Half Life 2 E3 demonstration in 2002. Didn’t hear anyone complaining about better graphics for less performance at that time. The ragdoll physics, the water reflections, the smart new NPC AI, got people hyped to buy the latest 256mb or 512mb GPUs that were expensive at the time. Hell I remember when the PS2 showcase knocked everyones socks off.
Know what I didn’t hear? “Ragdoll physics is destroying gaming. The real way would be to pay a village of animators to do keyframe animations of every possible way a character can fall over, instead they use this tool as an excuse to cut back on animators. This is an affront to devs artistic vision and a slap in the face to animators who are now out of potential work.” I didn’t see these complaints when Nvidia release DX9, DX10, or DX11, that all required the latest GPUs of the time and slowed down framerates on the “more affordable” GPUs. Doom 3 ran like shit on my 128mb Geforce 3. Except now that this has an association to AI, people are being prejudiced. That 128mb Geforce 3? I bought that from money I saved shoveling driveways in the winter when I was 13. Once upon a time, GPUs were that affordable.
I think the only reason people are pissed at this fancy new graphics technology, which once upon a time would have us excited, is because the economy is so shit and nobody can afford the GPUs anymore (thanks Trumps economy.) That and the association of AI not being used on our general QoL but at our expense so that a few people can make a buck. You’d have to be a very special moron to say “AI is the reason the economy is bad” and say all this is the fault of AI. It seems that everybody is still looking past the dominant religion of “capitalism” to blame our current problems on. AI implies fancy new tech that everyone could have access to. Capitalism limits that access, and then weaponizes it against us. And yet the current bandwagon is the “AI Hate Train” meanwhile turning a blind eye to Trumps economy and capitalism. Makes sense tho considering most gamers are pro-Trump, right-leaning, economically and politically illiterate incels.
Taking this bait, I think the problem is that these features are doing multiple things, and almost all of them are bad in the name of “better” graphics (which is subjective)
You used half life 2 as an example, that was arguably one of the greater games out there at the time, tech and story wise, when it released. People bought better equipment because they wanted to, and even then, the game was still really good. Not so much with these new releases.
You can blame the complaints on people hating AI, they do. But it’s not like everyone who doesn’t like these games and their requirements is hating it just because of DLSS. The problem is people are complaining about performance along side other issues and DLSS is being presented as “the solution to performance issues” when it’s not even close.
In many cases that’s true, but not in all cases. Makes sense considering that no games have had this technology to be used in their art direction, no wonder it looks like ass. If your only citation for this take is that one Resident Evil screenshot that made headlines then I suggest you look at the world deeper than just headlines and clickbait engagement farming articles.
I guess all these mods that revamp textures or do ENB shaders or lighting adjustments are “bastardizing” the creative vision too. I would argue that even running a game on low-medium settings for the sake of framerate is bastardizing the creative vision, as artists worked very hard to produce high quality assets meant to be seen in it’s highest fidelity. Do you consider running games on lower graphics settings a bastardization? Didn’t think so.
Again, same with every new generation of graphics tech. It’s always a higher entry for performance, it’s always in the hands of the few first, and poor performance is also, again, not the fault of AI but bad optimization.
There have always been games that are shit but pushed for graphics, in damn near every console generation since PS2. It’s a unique selling point to have shiny graphics. The good games that last on good gameplay and good optimization for good performance are lauded, and for good reason. AI won’t change that, if anything make even cooler stuff like HL2 did with it’s latest tech. You know what does make shitty games? Situations such as “Studio with best selling game lays off 40% of its developers.” And before you say “But they’re doing that because AI,” again AAA studios have always been doing that since way before, in other industries too, since Thomas Edison. All the EA and Ubisoft controversy? Way before AI. The problem is capitalism, and execs at the top making a buck at the expense of good quality products with planned obsolescence and cheaping out their workers. This is a problem in every industry, AI or not. But these stupid companies that are investing entirely into AI at the expense of good art, writing, and gameplay (whether it uses AI or not) will always fail because it’s slop. It’s the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory “Machines stole my toothpaste job” stuff, old man yelling at cloud behaviour. It’s the exact same logic that blames immigrants for stealing our jobs, without even looking at the bosses who are firing workers and replacing them with exploited immigrants. Is the problem immigration or over exploitation? I view things more towards the latter.
I love AI for what it could be, but we’re not ready for it under capitalism. Cognitive offload is only a concern for people who don’t respect learning and understanding to begin with, which under capitalism most people don’t, being stupid and thoughtless gets you rich these days. I say get them out in the open, let them fail, they deserve it. Smart people don’t fall for it. Capitalism is using AI to destroy itself for short-term gains and it’s happening right before our eyes - “Capitalists will sell you the rope to hang them with,” and all that.
I mean look it might become a useful tool in the future, not denying that. But what we are seeing is DLSS5 being shoved into a lot of mainstream games as a replacement for polish. We can let the big studios drive themselves into the ground chasing profits and slapping on whatever new tech they think will give them a sales boost, no complaints here.
But as it stands it’s a capability that’s over hyped for what it is, like you said yourself, art teams aren’t using it as part of their art direction so it’s clashing with the designs, and the hardware level barrier for entry isn’t worth the money it costs to get there.
That’s all subject to change, it could become a staple of the industry, it could become the linchpin that lets smaller games perform while still letting the game have great design. But right now there’s too much opposition for too little benefit. It could be great, sure, but people playing games now don’t care what it “could” be. They care what it “is”, and right now for the most part what it “is” is an over hyped buzzword feature that jacks up the “cost” of a game for no real benefit to the player.
And to give a counter example, the same thing was said about Ray tracing when it initially came out. It was cool but it would practically set your PC on fire at the time, but even then, people liked it. It was overpriced and not really that different, but some people thought it was cool. DLSS5 doesn’t even have that.
I mean I’ve tried DLSS5 on a bunch of games in my library. On most of them, it tanks my framerates and sometimes looks like absolute ass. But in two of my games (Cyberpunk 2077 and Stellar Blade) it looks and runs incredibly, and it’s hard not to see the potential.
As far as everything else you’ve said I 100% agree. It’s just not there yet, I think one day it will be though. I’m lucky I got my 5070 right before the prices started getting jacked up, so I’m privileged to be able to experiment with what’s already out. And believe me when I say the results vary - at the moment. Even as a fan of the tech and I can confidently say it’s not ready. And yes, studios that cram it as a staple feature in place of good optimization and, quite simply, a good game, then they’re gonna fail because they released slop. But that’s not the destiny of every game that uses it. I’m telling you, one day this tech is gonna be in mass produced hand-held devices. At the current rate of Nvidia GPU prices, they’re not gonna be the ones mass producing it and winning. Only a matter of time till China comes out with a 32gb Vram, Blackwell tech x4 GPU for like $200, meanwhile the 16gb equivalents today will cost under $100. Because Nvidia (while I admit they do produce cool tech) are greedy capitalist bastards. All the AI slop companies are greedy capitalist bastards. And I continue to blame the capitalist bastardary more than I do the shortcuts AI unlocks. If the economy wasn’t so shit and things in general were more affordable, and one of these GPUs were affordable after a few months of saving like things were 20 years ago, we’d be much happier with this. However we’re overall unhappy with it because it’s not being developed for affordable entertainment, but instead being used for surveillance powered by datacenters that destroy our environment so a handful of lizards can make billions, while we’re literally struggling to afford groceries. I want to burn down those remote, gated billionaire communities and replace THEM with datacenters for OUR general use.
This is either excellent bait or really missing the point. You can hate two things. Fuck trump, but also fuck AI and everything it represents.
What does it represent to you? Once upon a time the idea of robots or machinery doing all our work for us, it was a dream. Only under capitalism is that a bad thing, because then people won’t be forced to work for unedible money. AI could be a great thing. Under capitalism though, it represents something potentially terrible.
Tell me something, if AI technology applied to protein folds helps us discover a cure for cancer or alzheimers, would you refuse the treatment “because it’s AI”? Then apply that to any other technological shortcut that created our modern medicine, like MRIs and CT scans or EKG’s. Are those great technologies, or “a ton of lost jobs that humans could have done”? “CT scans are bad because it requires less brain surgeons,” or “EKG’s are bad because a human could be doing those measurements but have been cheaped out by technology.” “What about the cognitive offloading from pocket calculators?” (A real argument made at the time, btw.) Did you know that in Victorian times it was someones job to walk down the streets ringing a bell to wake people up in the morning? People were paid to knock on peoples windows so that they could wake up at a certain time. Are you mad at alarm clocks for taking their jobs? How is AI any different but just on a bigger scale? What are the problems that AI implementation and shortcuts that DOESN’T have to do with relying on a paycheck to live? Is relying on a paycheck to live the only way a society can function? Or does capitalism depend on that, and anything that shakes that is potentially dangerous to our capitalist-centric society?
Capitalism can’t handle AI. That’s not AIs fault, that’s capitalisms shortcomings and inherent unsustainability. Everything wrong with AI is just capitalism, I have yet to see evidence prove me otherwise.
You whole argument seems to be “we didnt think it was bad in the past, so its not bad in the present and wont be in the future”
Its such a weak point of view. When we learn something is bad for us we should take steps to stop it. Regardless of whether or not we once thought it would be the best thing ever.
We grow. Priorities change. Fancy graphics got fancy enough that people stopped caring. Games got less fun so people took it upon themselves to fix that. A high number of indie games have done the rounds and made millions. Because they are actually fun.
You are right that we used to be happy when better gfx came along and we all would gladly shell out for the latest nvidia card. But those were different times. Back th3n we could afford it. Back then gfx were bad and every new generation actually made a tangeble and noticeable improvement.
These days there is barely a difference between a ps4 and ps5.
So stfu. Because you are just wrong.
Let me ask you something: would you use a trebuchet in lieu of an elevator to reach the 15th floor of a building?
But that’s my point, people are complaining about elevators because there’s perfectly good stairs. I bet people did say that about elevators, calling them death traps and such, when the early implementations were less safe or less quality. My point is it’s the same with AI, people are afraid of this new cutting edge technology that our current capitalist society can’t handle.
You missed my point, entirely. Both get you ‘up’. One was specifically designed to; the other incidentally does.
Feel free to keep taking the stairs, elevators will get there someday.
Are you so far up your own ass that you got lost in your own metaphor?
What a utterly stupid take.
What an utterly constructive addition to the conversation, cheers.
That sums it pretty much up perfectly.
The overwhelming majority loves DLSS. Until recently, the discussion of Nvidia vs. AMD boiled pretty much down to AMD’s FSR not being on par with DLSS. People legit didn’t buy AMD because AMD had worse AI upscaling.
I like that I can actually use FSR on my 9070 XT to get the notoriously performance-hungry 7 Days To Die to look good and run smooth at 2160p60.
I like that I can just download AI models from Hugging Face and run them locally (cloud AI helped me get the finicky tools installed properly).
My gripe with AI is that I can’t get more than 16 GiB VRAM on an affordable GPU with good AI inference performance. Without the artificial market segmentation, the 9070 XT would have 32 GiB VRAM. I bought mine in the summer dip last year - just before the RAMpocalypse started.
I would definitely slot a cheap Chinese 32 GiB inference accelerator with good FOSS support next to my gaming GPU if there was one. I probably will do so in a few years when China ramped up a massively overbuilt chip sector guaranteeing their independence from western markets fast - and then flooding the global market with the surplus after their own market is saturated.
I play on Gentoo btw.