NVIDIA DLSS 5 Could Eventually Become a Driver-Level Toggle

The NVIDIA DLSS 5 reveal at GTC 2026 is now over ten days past, but footage and impressions are still trickling in from attendees. Earlier this week, PC World did a livestream where they showed footage captured off-screen (with a DJI Osmo Pocket 3 in D-Log, with Rec.709 LUT applied) after checking the various DLSS 5 demos available, including Avalanche Software’s Hogwarts Legacy, Bethesda’s Starfield and Oblivion Remastered, Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and NVIDIA‘s own Zorah Tech demo crafted in Unreal Engine 5.

PC World’s Adam said he was able to freely toggle the technology on and off during the demos, as NVIDIA was comfortable leaving them in the hands of journalists. He spent the most time checking out Starfield, noting immediately that the lighting changed when looking at the same character indoors and outdoors, thus proving DLSS 5 does not simply apply the same lighting regardless of actual scene context.

When dissecting the captured footage, he felt that in some cases, such as when analyzing the plants located in the Spaceport district of New Atlantis, the inferred bounce lighting might be too aggressive. On the flip side, he found that reflective metallic surfaces inside the starship responded well to DLSS 5, providing more realistic backlighting, better rim lighting on the chair, and shadows filling in under the desk.

Overall, he preferred off versus on at this stage, though he mentioned that it felt a bit like comparing camera lens (DLSS 5 off) to human eyes (DLSS 5 on):

I look at the DLSS 5 on and it looks like what I imagined the scene would look like to me if I was standing there outside. And the DLSS 5 off looks like what I would look at through a camera that has a more limited range and stuff like that, right? Like you crank in the aperture closed.

Perhaps the most interesting tidbit, and the one mentioned in the headline, came from his questions posed to NVIDIA engineers. When asked whether it could eventually become a driver-level toggle, similar to the override in the NVIDIA app, they said:

It’s possible, but that’s not what we’re showing here.

That would be quite interesting and ensure that any users interested in turning on DLSS 5 can do it without any developer work. On the other hand, an optimal implementation will inevitably require some tweaking by developers. For now, the following games have been confirmed to be using the technology (currently slated for Fall 2026): AION 2, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Black State, CINDER CITY, Delta Force, Hogwarts Legacy, Justice, NARAKA: BLADEPOINT, NTE: Neverness to Everness, Phantom Blade Zero, Resident Evil Requiem, Sea of Remnants, Starfield, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, and Where Winds Meet.

Meanwhile, take a look at our broader DLSS 5 coverage:

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