DLSS 5 Leaks Via NBA 2K27 Early Access Ahead of September Release
The pre-release leak let players test DLSS 5 outside its launch title, and the frame rate cost in Cyberpunk 2077 contrasts with the 370 FPS NVIDIA claims in NBA 2K27 on an RTX 5090.
Key Facts
- DLSS 5 was discovered in the NBA 2K27 early access build, released August 26, 2026, through the nvngx_dlssnr.dll library.
- NVIDIA will release DLSS 5 on September 3, 2026 at 9 PM Pacific time, with NBA 2K27 as the first title to include it.
- The leaked DLSS 5 build runs only on RTX 5000 series Blackwell GPUs, and modders adapted it to work on RTX 4000 Ada Lovelace cards.
- Testing Cyberpunk 2077 on an RTX 5070 with the leaked DLSS 5 dropped the frame rate from 138 FPS to 68 FPS.
- NVIDIA reports DLSS 5 reaches up to 370 FPS in NBA 2K27 at 4K Ultra settings with ray tracing on an RTX 5090.
Reporting from 2 sources: Game Spark, GIGAZINE.
NVIDIA's DLSS 5, announced at GTC on March 16, surfaced ahead of its official release inside the early access build of NBA 2K27, which launched August 26. A user found a new library, nvngx_dlssnr.dll, in the game, and modders began applying the unreleased upscaler to other titles, including Control, Skyrim, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Cyberpunk 2077, Grand Theft Auto V, The Last of Us Part 2, and Neverness to Everness. Testers report the leaked version offers seven styles but applies only to character models. It runs only on RTX 5000 series Blackwell GPUs, though some users have modified it to work on RTX 4000 Ada Lovelace cards. In one test, Cyberpunk 2077 on an RTX 5070 dropped from 138 FPS to 68 FPS with DLSS 5 active. NVIDIA detailed the technology at a gamescom 2026 press briefing and will release DLSS 5 on September 3 at 9 PM Pacific, with NBA 2K27, developed by Visual Concepts and published by 2K, as the first title to ship with it. The feature works across the RTX 50 series.
At the gamescom 2026 press briefing, NVIDIA described DLSS 5 as 3D-Guided Neural Rendering built on a Pixel Space Diffusion Transformer Model. Unlike text-prompted generators, it takes the rendered frame itself as input, using motion vectors from the game engine to track pixels across frames and preserve character identity, scene meaning, lighting, and camera composition. NVIDIA positions it as a layer on top of the rendering stack, not a replacement for ray tracing or path tracing.
Developers get two global sliders, Structure Intensity for high-frequency detail and Tone Intensity for color response, plus auto-masking that segments faces, backgrounds, clothing, and plants, with optional per-asset custom masks. Visual Concepts senior producer Peter Kavic said the control level lets the team match existing art direction and fine-tune character detail with per-pixel masks, respecting player likenesses. NVIDIA said the technology improved fivefold in six months, moving from a dual RTX 5090 demo in March to a single GPU in August.
Official NBA 2K27 numbers show up to 370 FPS at 4K Ultra with ray tracing on an RTX 5090, and 260 FPS on an RTX 5070 at 1440p. The leaked build, by contrast, cut Cyberpunk 2077 from 138 to 68 FPS on an RTX 5070, and the pre-release version only affects character models.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 2 cited sources below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.