Potential DLSS 5 references have been found in the latest Nvidia driver, but it's all gone quiet on the AI image enhancement front

A DLSS 5 demonstration showing Grace Ashcroft's AI-altered face.
(Image credit: Capcom)

I think it's fair to say that Nvidia's DLSS 5 reveal earlier this year didn't go entirely to plan. Or, to put it in stronger terms, it caused a huge amount of internet debate, with voices across the industry weighing in on whether this kind of image-altering AI generation tech had a place in our games.

Hell, it even split the PC Gamer team in half. Anyway, it's all gone quiet on the DLSS 5 front since then, but the latest GeForce Game Ready Driver (610.47) has a few new profile entries that appear to make reference to it (via Videocardz).

The new entries were spotted by Warkratos on the Guru3D forums, and come in the form of three additions: "Enable DLSS NR override", "Enable DLSS NR SL override", and "Override DLSS NR presets."

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The presumption here is that the NR designation is a reference to Nvidia's neural rendering tech, and therefore comes in preparation for DLSS 5's eventual release. And no, before you ask, enabling the new entries via Nvidia Profile Inspector does not turn on DLSS 5 in your games. A shame, but thems the breaks.

Other than those aforementioned image quality reveals (and some clarification from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang after the response), we know relatively little about DLSS 5—beyond the fact that it may not be as clever as we initially thought.

Nvidia's Jensen Huang showing off DLSS 5 at GTC 2026.

(Image credit: Nvidia)

Still, it certainly seems like a potential game-changer in the most literal sense of the term, but I suppose it makes sense that the company would want to keep any further developments under its hat until it's more ready for primetime.

I'd wager that the next time we see something from Nvidia regarding the controversial tech, it'll be a lot more watered down than the version we saw earlier this year. The company has been keen to point out that developers will have creative control over how far the AI enhancements are allowed to go, so perhaps we might have a tamer demo in store sometime in the future.

Computex 2026 begins next week, and Nvidia will be hosting one of the keynotes. While no mention has been made of a DLSS 5 appearance, perhaps we might see something more then. Or, given the version just a few months ago was said to require two RTX 5090s to run, perhaps any further reveal is still a long way off while Nvidia works out the finer details.

DLSS 5 was initially said to be coming in the autumn of this year, but that may have changed in the months since, especially given the hubbub around its initial reception.

All we have is speculation for now, but these entries seem to show that Nvidia is working away in the background on its neural rendering tech, with an eye towards future releases. Fingers crossed it all works out in the end, ey?

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Andy Edser
Hardware Writer

Andy built his first gaming PC at the tender age of 12, when IDE cables were a thing and high resolution wasn't. 26 years later (yes he's getting old), he now spends his days writing about and reviewing graphics cards, CPUs, keyboards, mice, gaming headsets and much, much more. You name it, if it's PC gaming hardware he'll write words about it, with opinions and everything.

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