NVIDIA DLSS 5 will launch on September 3, introducing its new 3D Guided Neural Rendering technology in NBA 2K27. The feature will be available to all GeForce RTX 50 Series desktop and laptop GPUs, as well as GeForce NOW, marking the first game to use the technology.
NVIDIA says DLSS 5 is designed to improve visual fidelity rather than simply increase performance. The new system uses the game’s rendered frame, including its geometry, textures, lighting data and motion vectors, as the foundation for generating more realistic lighting and material detail.
Unlike conventional generative AI systems, DLSS 5 is designed to produce consistent results from frame to frame. NVIDIA says the technology analyses objects, materials, spatial relationships and light sources within the game scene while maintaining the underlying structure created by developers.
The technology can enhance effects such as subsurface scattering on skin, light passing through hair and foliage, global illumination and contact shadows. NVIDIA also says DLSS 5 operates on a one-frame-in, one-frame-out basis and is designed to avoid issues such as visual shimmering, swimming and temporal drift.
DLSS 5 runs locally on a single GeForce RTX 50 Series GPU using its Tensor Cores, with support for resolutions up to 4K. Developers can integrate the feature through NVIDIA Streamline or an Unreal Engine 5 plugin, and it can be enabled independently of other DLSS technologies such as Super Resolution, Multi Frame Generation and Ray Reconstruction.
Developers will also have control over how DLSS 5 affects their games. The SDK provides multiple models and allows different models to be used in different scenes, while Structure Intensity and Tone Intensity controls determine how strongly details and broader lighting changes are applied.
Semantic masking can further limit enhancements to specific parts of a scene. Developers can, for example, apply neural rendering to environmental elements while reducing its effect on characters, or target individual assets such as glass, water and foliage.
NBA 2K27 will be the first game to showcase these capabilities when DLSS 5 becomes available on September 3 at 9:00pm Pacific Time. Visual Concepts is using the technology to improve the appearance of player skin, hair and clothing while retaining the facial geometry captured from real athletes.
NVIDIA has provided comparisons featuring players including Cade Cunningham, Tyrese Haliburton and Jayson Tatum, highlighting improvements to skin lighting, facial detail and contact shadows. The company says spectators and staff models will also benefit from enhanced lighting and material responses.
Performance can also increase when DLSS 5 is combined with the rest of NVIDIA’s DLSS suite. At 4K resolution with the Ultra preset and ray tracing enabled, NVIDIA claims NBA 2K27 can reach up to 370 frames per second on a GeForce RTX 5090.
At 1440p under the same settings, NVIDIA reports up to 590fps on the RTX 5090, 410fps on the RTX 5080, 350fps on the RTX 5070 Ti and 260fps on the RTX 5070. At 1080p, NVIDIA says virtually all GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs can run the game with ray tracing and the Ultra preset alongside DLSS 5.
Players will need the new GeForce Game Ready Driver arriving on September 3 at 9:00pm Pacific Time to use DLSS 5 in NBA 2K27. Once installed, the DLSS Neural Rendering option can be enabled through the game’s Video Settings, while the feature can also be toggled during gameplay and replays using the F9 key.
NVIDIA says DLSS 5 has undergone significant optimisation since its initial announcement in March. The company reports achieving a 5x performance improvement over the past 6 months, allowing the technology to move from requiring 2 GeForce RTX 5090 GPUs to running on a single GPU.
NVIDIA also expects further performance improvements through model updates planned for the autumn. The company says additional games integrating DLSS 5 will be announced in the coming weeks and months.
