DLSS 5, Nvidia’s upcoming neural rendering technology, appears to have leaked through a newly released game. This week, Renan Maniero found that NBA 2K27, now available in early access, includes a new Nvidia library file named nvngx_dlssnr.dll. The file, labeled Nvidia DLSSNR, is tied to Nvidia’s neural rendering pipeline, indicating that NBA 2K27 could be among the first titles to support the technology.
Nvidia first introduced DLSS 5 in March 2026 to a mixed reception from the gaming community. The company confirmed that the technology would arrive this fall, placing its official release close at hand.
Modders Get DLSS 5 Running in Control
Using the leaked library found in NBA 2K27, one of the developers behind RenoDX, a widely used game modding toolset, managed to get DLSS 5 working in Control. The implementation was applied to the game’s character models, with seven different styles available. Users can adjust parameters including style, intensity, tone, and structure strength through a set of on-screen sliders.
According to the developer posting on the RenoDX Discord server, DLSS 5 currently runs only on Blackwell GPUs. On an RTX 5070 Ti at 4K, enabling the feature reportedly cut performance from 71 FPS to 35 FPS. The developer did not disclose the DLSS 5 settings or the internal rendering resolution used during the test, so it remains unclear how representative that performance drop actually is.
Early Build, Not the Final Product
This is an early implementation injected into a game by modders, so it should not be read as confirmation that Blackwell hardware will be the only supported platform at launch. The performance shown here also should not be viewed as final. The heavy performance cost is not entirely surprising, however. When Nvidia first demonstrated DLSS 5 in March, the demo ran on two RTX 5090 cards.
Since that reveal, Nvidia has distilled the model into a smaller, more efficient version capable of running on a single GPU, according to the company’s presentation at SIGGRAPH 2026. Additional optimizations may still be in the works ahead of the official launch, though the technology is expected to remain demanding to run in practice.
On image quality, Nvidia’s original March reveal showcased notable improvements to effects such as subsurface scattering, contact shadows, light transmission through hair and foliage, and overall lighting. There were also occasional cases where the neural rendering model deviated significantly from the intended artistic direction. Nvidia confirmed that DLSS 5 is set to launch in fall 2026.
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Image: tomshardware.com
