Nvidia’s DLSS 5 Significantly Reduces Frame Rates in NBA 2K27
- DLSS 5 technology impacts frame rates by 40-60% in NBA 2K27.
- The GeForce RTX 5090 drops from 128.4 FPS to 62.7 FPS when DLSS 5 is enabled.
- Experts suggest the lighting enhancements are a costly but subtle improvement.
Nvidia’s generative AI-driven DLSS 5 technology has been tested and confirmed to substantially impact gaming performance. Following suspicions before its debut in NBA 2K27, Digital Foundry confirmed that enabling DLSS 5 can lead to a frame-rate reduction of approximately 40-60 percent.
The analysis revealed that using a top-tier GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card with Ultra settings at native 4K resolution dropped the frame rate from 128.4 FPS to 62.7 FPS. Likewise, an RTX 5060 running Ultra settings at 1080p fell from 72.8 FPS to 42.3 FPS.
Richard Leadbetter, founder of Digital Foundry, remarked, “This is super, super heavy,” acknowledging that the performance hit occurs across the entire RTX 50 series, including laptops. He noted, “That’s couched by the fact that… this is a relatively light game by comparison, so that has an impact.”
Discussions also centered on the “frame-time cost” associated with DLSS 5, which ranges between 8.2ms to 13.7ms, depending on the graphics card and resolution. Leadbetter emphasized the significance of this timeframe, stating, “Eight milliseconds of processing time at 4K on a 5090: that’s mega expensive.”
DLSS 5 faced heavy criticism upon its announcement in March, primarily for its use of generative AI to alter the aesthetics of characters. However, Digital Foundry’s John Linneman later expressed a more favorable view of its implementation in NBA 2K27, highlighting the subtle enhancements like improved crowd lighting and depth effects on player jerseys without altering character textures.
Linneman remarked that the subtlety of these changes contrasted sharply with the drastic alterations noted in March: “I felt like this was pushing back against what we saw… which was just wholesale, massive changes to the way games were looking.” He concluded that while this implementation is effective, it raises concerns about the significant costs involved in adding such lighting details.
The footage displayed in Digital Foundry’s video included NBA 2K27 with DLSS 5 enabled and showcased the technology modulated into games like Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Monster Hunter Rise, and Starfield. The team believes this is an early iteration of a technology likely to see enhancements over time, aligning with Nvidia’s commitment to improve performance.
This iteration of DLSS represents a departure from its traditional method of enhancing performance by reducing native resolution and upscaling images. Currently, DLSS 5 is exclusive to the 50-series GeForce cards and officially available only in NBA 2K27.
News Courtesy of Eurogamer
