Beyond the ideological critiques of NVIDIA DLSS 5, which purportedly ruined the original artistic intent of a game, several gamers also pointed out “geometric anomalies” in the official DLSS 5 screenshots and footage released by NVIDIA following the controversial GTC 2026 reveal. The core criticism in this case is that DLSS 5, as an alleged AI filter, fabricated these issues in its clumsy attempt to improve the graphics. However, content creator WhizzDumbPlayz has just released a video analysis showing that most, if not all, of these visual issues were already present in the original games.
In the main Starfield comparison from the beginning of the game, featuring a dialogue scene with Heller and Supervisor Lin at the Argos Extractors Mining Outpost, commenters have pointed out that part of Heller’s nostril has grown and that he has some hair where it shouldn’t be. The content creator counters that there’s strange geometric meshing and lighting interactions even in the original, likely due to visual bugs caused by Bethesda’s Creation Engine, which make it look like hair is appearing and disappearing, as well as showing strange shadow interactions. In that regard, DLSS 5 is maybe slightly accentuating issues that were already there in the first place.
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When it comes to the nostril specifically, WhizzDumbPlayz argues that it might be just a limitation of the standard global illumination lighting techniques (rather than ray tracing) it uses, which don’t correctly shadow the closest part of the nose. Moreover, some of the motion artifacts are likely caused by DLSS Frame Generation rather than DLSS 5; PC World previously confirmed that the Starfield demo had DLSS FG enabled.
When it comes to the other Bethesda game shown by NVIDIA during its first demonstration, Oblivion Remastered, it was pointed out that during a dialogue with the character Heinrich Oaken-Hull, his eyelids show a clear anomaly, as if they had an extra set of eyes. However, the same thing appears to be happening even in the DLSS 5 off footage, suggesting it’s a game-related bug here, too, rather than AI hallucination.
Another game featured in the original DLSS 5 reveal was EA Sports FC, which showed Liverpool FC captain Virgil van Dijk in various poses during gameplay and a post-goal celebration. In this footage, there are some problems with a blurred ball after a kick and some weird shirt physics, but again, those are also noticeable without the new tech enabled. WhizzDumbPlayz adds that here, too, the existing artifacts could be exaggerated by frame generation.
However, in this instance, we must note that this cannot actually be the case with EA Sports FC 26, since the game doesn’t natively support any frame generation technique, and it’s unlikely NVIDIA enabled its driver-based Smooth Motion AI-powered frame gen model for the demo.
As I stressed in my op-ed on the DLSS 5 reveal, by far the most infamous DLSS 5 comparison is the one showing Grace Ashcroft from an early Resident Evil Requiem scene. Here, the content creator believes the off/on comparison isn’t properly lined up, which influenced the visual perception:
[…] The comparison shots were taken at very slightly different angles; the backgrounds don’t even line up exactly. They also didn’t match Grace’s idle animation. Throughout the off shot, her mouth is closed, but in the on shot, her mouth is slightly open. You can even see her teeth a bit when zoomed in. You can tell that her eyes are slightly more open, or perhaps her head being tilted back a tiny bit is making her eyes appear slightly larger. You can tell the tilt of her head is slightly different when you compare the nose in the on and off shots.
Additionally, WhizzDumbPlayz adds that the DLSS 5 off image shows weird lighting interaction with Grace’s character model for a game that’s supposed to be path traced, possibly contributing to the stark difference seen when NVIDIA’s tech is turned on.
All that said, the content creator does have two minor gripes with the current state of NVIDIA’s new technology. The first is that, in its current incarnation, DLSS 5 seemingly introduces a haloing effect around some characters’ heads. The bigger issue is that in some instances, such as in Oblivion Remastered, shadows occasionally disappeared in scenes where directional lighting was completely replaced.
NVIDIA now faces an uphill battle after some developers and modders have taken a negative stance on the technology. Fixing some of the most obvious DLSS 5 issues ahead of a subsequent re-reveal could certainly help win over more developers.
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