--- title: "Nvidia Ridiculed for “Sloptracing” Feature That Uses AI to Yassify Video Games in Real Time" description: "Gamers ridiculed Nvidia for its new DLSS 5 feature that uses generative AI to supposedly improve the appearance of video games." date: "2026-03-17" modified: "2026-03-17" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/nvidia-ridiculed-yassify-video-games" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" --- # Nvidia Ridiculed for “Sloptracing” Feature That Uses AI to Yassify Video Games in Real Time ![Side-by-side comparison showing Nvidia's "DLSS 5" AI feature changing a frame in a videogame.]() *NVIDIA via X* Nvidia? The gaming GPU company? On Monday, the multi-trillion dollar AI chipmaker unveiled its latest effort at weaving advances in AI into video games, and it immediately backfired. The feature, DLSS 5, is supposed to be a souped-up version of the deep-learning upscaling tech Nvidia has offered since 2018. The company called it its "most significant breakthrough in computer graphics since the debut of real-time ray tracing" in that same year. But the reactions to demo footage shared has been overwhelmingly negative. Gamers and developers fumed against the announcement, calling it "slop" and a "betrayal" of games' artistic intent. Memes [spread]() [parodying]() the AI feature's garish aesthetic, in which an original character or person is contrasted with a "DLSS 5" image that shows the subject in an unrecognizable style. Some even [gave it a harsh nickname](): "sloptracing," a play on Nvidia's ray tracing tech. The reactions are warranted. Rather than just providing a little clarity to a fuzzy image, the feature looks more like a glorified Snapchat filter, varnishing the art style of your favorite games with an overwrought, generative AI finish. The effect is most noticeable when applied to faces. Iconic characters in the demo like Leon Kennedy from the Resident Evil franchise are, it's no exaggeration to say, literally [yassified](). https://twitter.com/NVIDIAGeForce/status/2033617732147810782 According to Nvidia's [announcement](), DLSS 5 "introduces a real-time neural rendering model that infuses pixels with photoreal lighting and materials." It takes a "game's color and motion vectors for each frame as input, and uses an AI model to infuse the scene with photoreal lighting and materials that are anchored to source 3D content." This AI model, it says, "is trained end to end to understand complex scene semantics such as characters, hair, fabric and translucent skin." Nvidia chief Jensen Huang was effusive about the tech's implications, calling it gaming's "GPT moment." "DLSS 5 is the GPT moment for graphics — blending hand-crafted rendering with generative AI to deliver a dramatic leap in visual realism while preserving the control artists need for creative expression," he said in the announcement. It's a little hard to buy Huang's promise of preserving creative expression, however, when in all of the examples shared, DLSS 5 dramatically alters the aesthetic of the games. More than that, it exemplifies how generative AI uniformly reinforces bland aesthetic norms and defaults to gooner beauty standards. (Grace Ashcroft from the upcoming Resident Evil game gets hollower cheeks, stronger cheekbones, and poutier lips.) The games no longer look like games, but like any other clip spat out by a video generating model that gets shared in AI circles with a caption like "Hollywood is cooked." Nvidia says DLSS 5 is arriving this fall — but, it seems, only to participating games that will include Resident Evil Requiem, Starfield, Hogwarts Legacy, and Assassin's Creed Shadows. These are major titles, though, a show of how Nvidia says its feature is being supported by the industry's biggest publishers and developers, like Capcom, Bethesda, Ubisoft, and Warner Bros Games. **More on AI:** [*Unity Says It Has a New Product That Cooks Up Entire Games Using AI*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()