Think Nvidia’s new feature that slaps an AI filter onto your favorite games looks like garbage? Well, the company’s CEO Jensen Huang says you’re “completely wrong,” Tom’s Hardware reports.
On Monday, the multitrillion dollar gaming hardware and AI chipmaker announced a new AI-powered software feature called DLSS 5, which immediately drew widespread criticism. A dramatic step-up from previous iterations of DLSS which focused on upscaling graphics, the latest version used a generative AI model “to infuse the scene with photoreal lighting and materials that are anchored to source 3D content.”
Gamers blasted a demo video shared by Nvidia, which showed snippets from games like the Resident Evil franchise being overlaid with a familiar AI sheen. There was an offputting element of Facetuning, with characters like Resident Evil’s Grace Ashcroft, a blonde woman, looking like they were straight-up yassified with trendily hollower cheeks and poutier lips.
Many argued that the AI feature undermined artistic intent and was yet another example of AI slop. Some even called it “sloptracing,” a play on Nvidia’s ray tracing tech.
Huang emphatically disagrees with these characterizations.
“Well, first of all, they’re completely wrong,” Huang told Tom’s at the publication’s GTC 2026 event.
“The reason for that is because, as I have explained very carefully, DLSS 5 fuses controllability of the geometry and textures and everything about the game with generative AI.”
In the initial announcement, Huang called DLSS 5 the “GPT moment for graphics,” and insisted its use would still be “preserving the control artists need for creative expression.” Given the striking changes to some character’s faces and even the scenery, many had a hard time buying that promise.
Yet in his response to the backlash, Huang has doubled down by emphasizing that DLSS 5 “doesn’t change the artistic control,” saying developers can still “fine-tune the generative AI” to match their style.
“It’s not post-processing, it’s not post-processing at the frame level, it’s generative control at the geometry level,” he insisted, in a jargon-filled rant.
And should developers want to, he says, they could make even more dramatic changes to their games’ aesthetic with the AI feature like seeing if they can create a “toon shader” or make a game look like it was “made of glass.”
“All of that is in the control — direct control — of the game developer,” Haung said. “This is very different than generative AI; it’s content-control generative AI. That’s why we call it neural rendering.”
In sum: it’s not generative AI. It’s… generative AI?
We’re not convinced that it’s an argument that will sway gamers, and calling your customers “wrong” is certainly a choice. Still, it’s merely the latest example of Huang’s perfervid zeal for AI (it didn’t become the most valuable company the in the world just by selling graphics cards to gamers, after all). Late last year, he reportedly torched his managers who told employees to hold back on using AI, because in his view, you’re “insane” if you don’t use AI for literally every possible task.
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