After teasing it as "the future of real-time rendering", Nvidia has finally announced DLSS 5, an AI-led model for photorealistic visuals…that mostly looks like an AI filter slapped over Resident Evil Requiem. However, it's game developers, with their honed art direction and style, who will care the most about DLSS 5, and that reaction has been mostly mixed to put it lightly.

Over on X, New Blood co-founder Dave Oshry shares a meme calling the tech "Pure Slopium", a reference to AI slop. 'Is this a 3D model?', an account dedicated to teaching X users about 3D models, similarly, labels DLSS 5 a "slop filter" and calls Nvidia "an absolute joke".

The word slop is used a lot in regard to Nvidia's announcement. Indie developer Guselect says, "bad ending: now every game is AI slop."

Over on BlueSky, Karla Ortiz, a Puerto Rican artist who worked for Ubisoft, Blizzard, Marvel and more, says:

"This is so disrespectful to the intentional art direction of devs. If devs wanted to lean in to hyper realism they would," she says. "This also drastically changes key aspects of visuals like character features, focal points, lighting and so on. What a terrible invention. Nvidia should shelve this one."

This is so disrespectful to the intentional art direction of devs. If devs wanted to lean in to hyper realism they would. This also drastically changes key aspects of visuals like character features, focal points, lighting and so on. What a terrible invention. Nvidia should shelve this one