How To Mod NVIDIA DLSS 5 Neural Rendering Into Unsupported Games For Up To 39% FPS Lift

If you read that headline and you thought "wait, I thought DLSS 5 tanked your FPS", you're on the right track. The idea here is that NBA 2K27 has been updated with the new DLSS 5 Neural Rendering that NVIDIA announced prior to the RTX Spark platform launch, and folks have been replacing the old library with the new one for a big performance lift with very minimal changes in image quality.

There are reports all over Xwitter about this; the most convincing is probably this one from Detro (@detro_official) where he compares Judy with the old DLSS 5, the new DLSS 5, and without DLSS 5 on an RTX 4080 SUPER. With the old version his upscale was taking 8.8ms; with the new version, just 5.4ms. His frame rate jumps from 108 FPS to 150 FPS, although we should note those numbers are with 4x multi-frame generation, so the actual frame rates are 27 FPS and 37.5 FPS. That's still a 39% uplift, which is massive for a DLL swap.

The two shots do look a bit different; that could be down to differences in the new model, but it could also potentially be down to a shift in the time of day. That's the reason given for the difference in looks between these two shots from Forza Horizon 6, by Gaming Optimized (@GamingOptimiz):

The performance is again, pretty weak—jumping from 27 FPS to 37 FPS—but it's only a GeForce RTX 4060 card. In that context, it's actually quite impressive that the GPU manages to pull out 37 FPS average with DLSS 5 enabled in Forza Horizon 6! That same user posted a comparison in Resident Evil 9, as well:

There's definitely some image quality difference between the older and newer model, as Resident Evil 9 does not have a dynamic time of day system like the others. However, the difference is decidedly minor, and that's incredibly impressive considering how much faster the new model is. If NVIDIA can continue making gains like this, it's possible that Neural Rendering might become mainstream.

Of course, that depends entirely upon the game you're using it with, and whether its art style suits the photorealistic look of DLSS 5 NR. For example, I personally don't particularly care for the effects of DLSS 5 NR on Judy's face in Cyberpunk 2077 (top). However, for games that are less stylized (like NBA 2K27), it definitely gives a wild uplift in the visuals, and this performance gain is absolutely welcome.

If you want to try this out for yourself, it's unfortunately not exactly a straightforward process. You're going to have to download ReShade (the Addons version, which makes it unsuitable for online games), and join the RenoDX Discord to grab the modified version that allows you to inject DLSS 5. You'll also need the new version of the DLL, currently hosted on Xwitter here, although who knows how long that will stay up. Once you have those, put everything into the same directory with the game executables, and then when in-game, press the "Home" button (by default) to customize the effect. There's a more detailed guide in the RenoDX Discord, so head over to their website if you want to join.