Nvidia debuted DLSS 5 back in March 2026, promising to bring neural rendering to games in order to make them look more realistic. While pretty much everyone hated it, it seems like Nvidia has continued to work on it behind the scenes: It’s leaked in a build of the NBA 2K27 beta.
Twitter user @renan_maniero spotted the new DLSS file in the NBA 2K27 early access, called nvngx_dlssnr.dll. The ‘nr’ at the end there appears to stand for neural rendering. Just finding the file in the game’s directory would be one thing, but it looks like some enterprising modders have been able to build it into some other existing games.
Eita, o acesso antecipado do jogo NBA 2K27 veio com uma DLL nova do DLSS.
DLSS-NR (Neural Rendering) 👀 pic.twitter.com/X15fYO92RU
— Renan Maniero (@renan_maniero) August 26, 2026
Some modders built a DLSS 5 mod and integrated it into Control, which was spotted by Gizmodo. In the initial post on X, you can see the modders manipulating some sliders to change the degree by which the neural renderer is changing the image. Things like auto skin mask, intensity and style are all customizable, which is something Nvidia said would be possible when it announced the technology earlier this year.
A YouTube video shows the mod in action, and from the moment neural rendering is enabled, the frame rate is cut nearly in half – from 95fps to 53. Keep in mind that right now the mod is limited to character models, and it really only has the effect of making Jessie look like she needs a nap.
Over on the Nvidia subreddit, some modders were able to work the tech into The Last of Us Part 2, and while most of the images with the tech enabled make the characters look downright weird, the response seems to be split down the middle. One user says the DLSS 5 “looks deep fried, I am not going to lie,” which is probably where I’m sitting. Someone else says, “There’s more detail and the characters look more photo realistic and less like Pixar characters.”
Obviously, this technology is in its very early stages, and once game developers are able to actually work it into the game naturally and optimize it, there probably won’t be such a pronounced performance impact. But it’s hard to imagine that turning on DLSS 5 will in any way improve your frame rate, which makes it one of the first pieces of Nvidia’s AI software suite that makes performance worse.
Either way, now that the DLL file that enables the technology is clearly out in the wild, it’s only a matter of time before it actually makes its way to market. But if the RTX 5090 gets its performance cut in half, I don’t know if I’d recommend anyone enable it until some future graphics card hits the market.
Because while the visual effect the tech has will probably be debated until the end of time, the performance impact is where PC gamers tend to decide whether or not tech is worth using. It took a few years for people to start actually turning ray tracing on, as it was a surefire way to halve your performance in its early days. I’ll be testing the technology one way or another as soon as Nvidia actually releases it.
Jackie Thomas is the Senior Tech Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra
