DLSS 5 Leaks Early, Modders Turn It Into a Weird Slop Filter

Ever wondered what happens when cutting-edge AI upscaling tech falls into the hands of modders before it's even officially released? Spoiler: you get characters that look like they've been through a deep fryer. That's exactly what's happening with Nvidia's DLSS 5, which just leaked online.

Nvidia first teased DLSS 5 back in March 2026, promising neural rendering to make games look more realistic. But the reception was lukewarm at best. Now, it's popped up in the NBA 2K27 beta, and modders have already gotten their hands on it.

Twitter user @renan_maniero spotted a new DLL file called nvngx_dlssnr.dll in the NBA 2K27 early access. The 'nr' stands for neural rendering, and it's the key to this new tech. But finding the file is one thing; what modders did next is another.

Some clever modders managed to integrate DLSS 5 into Control, and the results are... interesting. They can tweak sliders for auto skin mask, intensity, and style, which Nvidia said would be possible. But here's the kicker: when they turned it on, the frame rate tanked from 95fps to 53fps. That's nearly half the performance gone, and it only affects character models.

Over on the Nvidia subreddit, modders also got it working in The Last of Us Part 2. The characters look weird, with some saying they look "deep fried." But others see potential, claiming more detail and photorealism. The community is split, but one thing's for sure: the performance hit is brutal.

Now, this is early tech, so developers will optimize it eventually. But it's hard to see DLSS 5 ever boosting your frame rate. It might be the first Nvidia AI feature that makes performance worse. And if it cuts an RTX 5090's performance in half, I wouldn't recommend enabling it until future hardware arrives.

Will you be trying out DLSS 5 when it officially launches, or are you sticking with DLSS 4? Let us know in the comments!