At its GTC 2026 event, Nvidia has revealed the next generation of DLSS. DLSS 5 isn't a frame-rate, frame generation or performance enhancing technology. Instead, it's Nvidia's attempt to use machine learning to leapfrog generations of GPU hardware evolution to deliver photo-realistic lighting using the hardware of today - and we saw it demonstrated in titles including Resident Evil Requiem, Hogwart's Legacy, Assassin's Creed Shadows, Oblivion Remastered and Starfield. The transformational lighting delivered by DLSS 5 is frankly astonishing and will be coming to RTX 50-series GPUs by "Fall 2026".

Plumbed into game engines in a similar way to DLSS super resolution and frame generation, the DLSS 5 lighting model uses just colour information and motion vectors to deliver photo-realistic imagery. Nvidia says the core goal is to enable developers to achieve the artistic vision desired by game creators limited by the technological limits of today's hardware. While lighting is radically revamped, all geometry, texture assets and materials remain as they were in the original game - but the effect can be astonishing.

The AI network powering DLSS is aware of the semantics of the scenes it processes. It "recognises" and processes elements like skin, hair, water and metal differently to apply photo-realistic lighting effects. While there could be some comparisons to generative AI, DLSS 5 is consistent and coherent in its rendering of the game world, the environments and the characters within it. It's capable of working with standard rasterised games, RT supported titles and path-traced experiences - the higher fidelity you give to the model, the better the end results you'll see from it in terms of material response, lighting and shading.

Character rendering is transformed. You'll see realistic subsurface scattering in skin and more realistic hair rendering. Games like Resident Evil Requiem, Hogwarts Legacy and especially Starfield show generational leaps in fidelity. Meanwhile, environments such as those seen in Assassin's Creed Shadows and Oblivion Remastered see a dramatic boost in the realism of subtle, realistic shadowing and ambient occlusion, grounding objects in a scene in a way the original renderer can't.

Handling of materials can be astonishing, with everything from metals, cloth and even the skin of fruits looking remarkably realistic. Particularly impressive is how DLSS 5 handles light and shadow around foliage - something that's very difficult for standard renderers to achieve, even with RT or path tracing. Right now, DLSS 5 is still a work-in-progress project - we did spot some screen-space errors, but Nvidia describes what we're seeing today as a "snapshot" of the technology as it stands, with further improvements and optimisations to come. It's set to be launched later in 2026 after three years of development at Nvidia.

From our perspective, it's important to see that Nvidia is showcasing DLSS 5 on actual shipping games (and its forward-looking Zorah demo) if only to demonstrate that the technology will only find use in cherry-picked scenarios. This is no Matrix Awakens demo - a tantalising glimpse of a future that still hasn't come to pass. DLSS 5 is the real deal.

There's much we don't know though. That starts with the computational cost of the ML algorithm. Nvidia actually used two RTX 5090s for its demos: one plays the game, the other exclusively runs the DLSS 5 technology. The use of two GPUs is required right now as DLSS 5 still has a long way to go in terms of optimisation - both in terms of performance and its VRAM footprint. However, DLSS 5 is designed for use on a single GPU and that's how it will ship later this year. Quite how scalable it is also remains to be seen, but in common with other DLSS technologies, Nvidia tells us that the computational cost scales with resolution.

Expect to see DLSS 5 as a further option with the graphics menus of PC games, alongside super resolution and frame generation, but the demos we saw were running with 2x frame-gen. In fact, DLSS 5 is integrated into frame-gen, which makes sense - after all, using this lighting technique, every frame is now generated. And yet, the quality is there, with few if any of the inconsistencies and mistakes typically seen within photo-realistic generated AI.

I'm fully anticipating a robust discussion around DLSS 5 and Nvidia's interpretation of photo-realism. In effect, the firm is using its advanced knowledge of machine learning to "bypass" the years of hardware evolution and software development required to deliver photo-realism by using ML to deliver its own vision for the future of graphics - but is Nvidia's interpretation of that future what gamers and developers actually want?

While DLSS 5 has its own model based on relatively limited game engine inputs, Nvidia says that there will be the means by which developers can interact with the technology to get the results they want. On top of that, DLSS 5 isn't a full replacement for current lighting - the algorithm requires game inputs to work and the higher the quality of those inputs (for example, path tracing over ray tracing) improves the end result of the DLSS 5 output.

And of course, if developers or indeed gamers don't like it, there's no compulsion for them to use it. Needless to say though, Nvidia says that feedback from developers has been positive and it already has a significant library of games with pledged support.

There's a lot to process here - and there's the sense that we're still not fully aware of the full implications of this technology - but the bottom line is that this is big. Bigger than the last big jump we saw in gaming graphics with the arrival of path tracing in triple-A games, kicking off with Cyberpunk 2077. And it highlights in the most dramatic way possible that innovation in graphics will come more and more from software rather than diminishing, generational leaps in pure hardware performance.

We'll have more on DLSS 5 soon, including a longer DF Direct on how we came to see the new technology, our immediate reaction to that Resident Evil Requiem comparison, and more detailed thoughts on each of the demos we saw. We're also looking forward to the reaction from our colleagues (in particular Alex!) and we'll be fielding questions about what we saw in the next Digital Foundry Q+A show. But in the meantime, I'd expect to see a range of DLSS 5 coverage from other outlets as Nvidia's GTC event progresses, and I'm very curious about the nature of the reaction the technology will receive from press, developers and gamers alike.