When DLSS 5 first launched, the general reaction was lukewarm at best and highly polarized—critics complained that it slopified every game's art direction and left everything looking conspicuously generic.Of course, that didn't stop modders from attempting to get DLSS 5 running on every single game ever released, even ones that shouldn't support it.I took DLSS 5 for a spin in the original Half-Life 2—one of the most graphically striking games of its era—to see how well it worked.
Getting DLSS 5 working in 20-year-old games DLSS 5 shouldn't run on old games at all Close On paper, DLSS 5 has pretty strict requirements.To use it in a game, the game needs to use DirectX 12, and it must support DLSS Frame Generation and DLSS Upscaling.Needless to say, a game from 2009 isn't going to have any of that—depending on the game, it might have DirectX 10 if you're lucky.
So, to get it working, I used a tool called DLSS 5 Swapper, which handles all the tedious details itself—adding ReShade, RenoDX add-ons, the DLSS 5 neural rendering DLLs, any relevant graphics API bridges, and everything else you don't want to mess with manually.It works with DX9, DX11, Vulkan, and OpenGL games.If you're patching a game that uses DX8 or DX9, Windows Security is probably going to give you a false positive on dgVoodoo2.
Download and install the app it should automatically detect the games you have installed.Pick the game you want, scroll down, then click Install DLSS 5.Related These are the cheapest GPUs that can run DLSS 5 (you probably own one already) Despite its performance cost, you can run DLSS 5 on surprisingly affordable graphics cards.
Posts By Goran Damnjanovic Testing DLSS 5 on games that predate it Original releases only To test DLSS 5 in some older games, I decided to try out a game that really impressed me when it was released: Half-Life 2 (2004).For its time, it had very intricate facial animations, reflections, and detailed environments, and it was the first game on my list.I also fired up a few other games that were more average, like Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (2004) and Mount and Blade, just to see what those were like too.
To maximize the amount of work DLSS 5 has to do, and to test its limitations, I stuck to the original releases rather than remasters.Environments and lighting improved all around The most surprising result was just how well DLSS 5 worked for environments in older games.Half-Life 2's environment is dominated by artificial structures rather than trees and natural light, but DLSS 5 did a decent job with it.
Hard surfaces still look pixelated in the way that 2004 textures do, but the way light plays across stone, concrete, or metal is significantly better.Light streaming sideways in one scene was noticeably more diffuse and strikes me as more realistic.Take note of the character with the broom in the background too.
With the default lighting, his torso and limbs are quite bright, despite being almost exclusively backlit.With DLSS5 enabled, the shadows are much more realistic.Interestingly, I didn't encounter too many situations where DLSS 5 created anything worse than a realistic-but-low-poly item.
Even Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, a game that I never considered to be a visual stunner, had a noticeably nicer environment with DLSS 5 on.Faces were a very mixed bag A bit to my surprise, Half-Life 2's faces actually look pretty good.The intro famously puts a human face front-and-center, and considering that Half-Life 2 and DLSS 5 were in no way designed to work together, the result looks pretty good.
The shadows and lines on G-Man's face are better, and I think the change to his stubble and eyes are improvements too.Pretty much every NPC in Half-Life 2 benefited from DLSS 5, even if it is just a relatively minor lighting improvement.In the default game, the passenger sitting with a briefcase is weirdly bright.
DLSS 5 makes the lighting on his hands, clothes, and face darker and more appropriate for the actual light in the scene.At worst, some of the Half-Life 2 characters look a bit generic, which is a recurring problem with DLSS 5 even in modern games.Unfortunately, a low poly barrel with a photorealistic texture is one thing, but a human face with the same properties is quite another.
The combination of low-poly models and low-resolution textures occasionally produces jarring results.Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy faces look okay in screenshots, but they look terrible in the game.Temporal issues were also prevalent.
Because the motion vectors are estimated in the games using workarounds, fast movement creates noticeable ghosting.The interface doesn't work correctly The model also doesn't understand what a HUD is, so it tries to "redraw" the UI.The result is often messy and a bit garbled, especially if there is text involved.
Still, I can't reasonably complain too much.I'm running an AI technology designed for DX12 games with DLSS support on an OpenGL game that is 23 years old using a framework patched together by motivated amateurs and artificial intelligence.DLSS 5 is good even on unsupported games DLSS 5 is new and not nearly as mature as "regular" DLSS, but that doesn't mean it is bad.
Far from it, DLSS 5 is actually great in many scenarios.The results in most older games are less terrible than I initially feared because tend to benefit even when characters don't.If you own a card that supports DLSS 5 and don't mind a bit of tinkering, I'd recommend trying it.
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