NVIDIA's DLSS 5 neural rendering technology might be one of the most controversial announcements, as the gaming community has been quite vocal about their opinions on the new rendering technique. However, the launch of DLSS 5 is expected this fall, and we are already seeing the first DLSS 5 DLL files leaked through games, as confirmed by EA's NBA 2K27 early access, which includes the new DLSS-NR file. The game is now in early access and is already shipping with DLSS Neural Rendering, essentially DLSS 5.

This comes as a 158 MB package, which is substantially larger than any previous DLSS DLL file, indicating that NVIDIA has indeed packed a generative model inside the game, with only a tiny footprint considering that a whole generative AI model is running locally on the GPU. However, this is about twice the size of the current official DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction DLL file, which measures 72 MB. While size is not the only comparable quality of this DLL, we can assume that NVIDIA has included a massive feature set given the added storage space.

If users recall, NVIDIA once again showcased its DLSS 5 neural rendering at the SIGGRAPH 2026 event, highlighting that one of the challenges faced with DLSS 5 was maintaining visual identity, object semantics, and character poses, along with output lighting semantics, motion, and art direction. Within these strict parameters, DLSS 5 applies material photorealism to enhance visual appeal. There has been some progress recently, but the fall launch is expected to shed more light on the entire situation and integration.

Currently, it is not possible to run DLSS 5 in the NBA 2K27 game, as there are no controls or options to enable it. The file is present, but nothing is able to power it until an engine update is released with the game. Neither NVIDIA nor EA has confirmed whether NBA 2K27 will use DLSS 5, as it could be a leftover file from the game developers at EA's studios.

Until the feature becomes active, we have no way to test it for now.