Gamers recoil as Nvidia touts new graphics boost
2026-03-17 - 12:11
Nvidia has grown from a gaming graphics chipmaker to the world’s most valuable company, powering generative AI technologies. (EPA Images pic) PARIS: A new graphics-boosting AI technology touted by chip giant Nvidia Monday as a “GPT moment” for gaming has been blasted by players denouncing the “slopification” of favourite titles. Nvidia has surged in recent years from a creator of graphics chips for gaming to the world’s most valuable company, as its technology has proved crucial for powering generative artificial intelligence. That technology is set to be recycled into games in the upcoming generation of Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technology, which uses AI to improve graphics in real time, the company said at its annual developer conference in California’s San Jose. Originally used to upscale images to higher resolutions, current versions pump up the quality and realism of visual elements like reflections, shadows and highlights. “DLSS 5 empowers game developers to deliver a new level of photoreal computer graphics previously only achieved in Hollywood visual effects,” Nvidia said in a statement. It called the update set to arrive in autumn its “most significant breakthrough in computer graphics” since DLSS’ creation in 2018. “DLSS 5 is the GPT moment for graphics – blending hand-crafted rendering with generative AI to deliver a dramatic leap in visual realism,” chief executive Jensen Huang said. The resource-intensive tech will only work with Nvidia’s most powerful and expensive graphics cards. A minute-long video published by Nvidia showed before and after shots of several popular games that could benefit from the technology, including “Resident Evil Requiem”, “Starfield” and Harry Potter tie-in “Hogwarts Legacy”. The images showed characters modified with more dramatic lighting and intense colour to produce a near-photorealistic look but also with details changed, such as fuller lips and larger eyes on female faces. Many online commenters quickly recoiled, lumping the supposed graphics upgrade in with low-effort “AI slop” images that infest social networks. “Now your game can look like an AI-generated image, wow!” one viewer posted on Nvidia’s Youtube video, which accumulated almost 11,000 mostly negative comments in 14 hours. “Great, they turned DLSS into a TikTok filter,” another wrote. Posters on X and Bluesky were deeply divided, with many warning that adding more AI into graphics would keep players from experiencing the visual art of games as developers intended. “Artists are rightly going to be pissed about this,” gaming podcaster Will Smith wrote on Bluesky. “Yassifying (Resident Evil protagonist) Grace changes the tone and themes of this game,” he added, referring to modifying women’s images to make them stereotypically feminine or sexualised. In a response on Youtube, Nvidia said that “game developers have full, detailed artistic control over DLSS 5’s effects to ensure they maintain their game’s unique aesthetic”. “This is a very early look” at a technology that will be “under our artists’ control” and “totally optional” for players, “Starfield” developer Bethesda posted on X.