DLSS 5 has made quite a stir recently, which is surprising since it hasn’t even been “officially” released yet. Now, I have been doing my fair share of testing with the leaked version of the DLSS 5 code, and so far, I’ve had mixed results. Some titles benefit from the improved lighting engine, while others fall completely flat, looking straight out of an AI filter, to put it lightly. With the recent remaster release of The Witcher 3, I just had to test DLSS 5 on it.
While I wasn’t expecting much, DLSS 5 did wonders for this decade-old title, and in some cases, the modded version looked way better than the official remaster — though with some noticeable downsides.
The RED Engine benefits from DLSS 5’s lighting
But only in very specific scenarios
As my past tests with the DLSS Swapper mod have shown, DLSS 5 mostly affects a game’s general lighting without changing textures or character meshes. In The Witcher 3, the mod works similarly to how I found it in Cyberpunk 2077. In both RED Engine titles, DLSS 5’s impact mostly boils down to global illumination. In most modern games, global illumination or GI is the key component that handles all external lighting-related calculations.
However, The Witcher 3 uses an older iteration of the RED Engine as its base, derived from RED Engine 3, which was first used in the development of The Witcher 2.
>As a result, the shift in lighting in The Witcher games is far more impactful than in games like Cyberpunk 2077 or Onimusha. That being said, the DLSS 5 version of The Witcher 3 doesn’t look particularly good in motion. Much like in the old PS2 games I tested DLSS 5 on, the mod introduces a ton of ghosting in The Witcher 3.
DLSS 5 is a double-edged sword when it comes to graphical overhaul.
Still, in specific scenarios, the modded version looks slightly better than the official remaster. For instance, the Skellige Islands or the busy streets of Novigrad look exceptional with DLSS 5.
At the same time, more vibrant locales like Toussaint look washed out with the DLSS mod, even on an HDR display. There are also instances where NPC models look incredibly uncanny and AI-generated. The last thing I want in my Witcher “experience” is taking quests from an NPC that looks like it’s created using Grok.
I do like some aspects of the lighting overhaul from the DLSS mod, and I even prefer it to the remastered’s flatter lighting. For instance, HDR works way better with the mod than in the vanilla remastered version.
Installing DLSS 5 in The Witcher 3 is quite easy
But there is a limitation
First things first, I did try installing and running the DLSS Swapper mod with DLSS 5’s library enabled on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered. Unfortunately, that version of the game never worked with the mod installed. Yes, I tried all the basic troubleshooting methods, but to no avail. Instead, all my testing here is done on the next-gen version of the game, which can be selected manually within Steam. The mod also works on the original version of the game.
I had the remaster installed on a separate drive, which let me quickly swap between the two versions without downloading more than 60GB of game data multiple times.
As for installing the mod, it’s actually fairly straightforward. The goal here is to inject the nvngx_dlssnr.dll within the game’s existing DLSS library. To do so, we’re using the good ol’ DLSS Swapper by Rakanki911, which lets you run DLSS 5 on almost any RTX GPU. Also, I highly recommend backing up your save files ahead of installing the mod.
With the mod extracted and installed, you can easily toggle DLSS 5 on and off from the game itself. I also highly recommend not installing any re-shade mods on top of DLSS Swapper, as it might result in crashes.
I still prefer the remaster over the DLSS 5 mod
Although I’m not a big fan of all the changes DLSS 5 tries to implement, I do like how it offers a lighting model much closer to the original Xbox 360 version of the game in some instances. This is perhaps partly due to the mod being installed over the next-gen version, instead of the remastered version. Regardless, I prefer the original lighting in The Witcher 3 over the remaster. I also like how HDR looks way better with the mod enabled.
That said, apart from the HDR implementation, I still prefer the remaster over the DLSS 5 modded versions. This is primarily due to two reasons: ghosting and uncanny NPC models. Try as I might, I’ll never get used to how DLSS 5 handles character models.
That said, I think DLSS 5 can deliver an incredible uplift to The Witcher 3’s visuals, provided CDPR can tweak aspects of it manually. I would really like to see what the official DLSS 5 implementation will look like in The Witcher 3. And no, this isn’t another excuse for me to start another playthrough of the game. I promise!