NVIDIA says its updated DLSS 5 model uses 20% less VRAM at 4K and can raise NBA 2K27 frame rates by up to 1.4x from October 16. Hogwarts Legacy gets the technology November 5; Where Winds Meet follows later that month.
NBA 2K27 is NVIDIA's clearest performance example for the latest DLSS 5 update. The company says frame rates in 4K rise from 65 FPS to 90 FPS, alongside a 20% reduction in VRAM use. The update arrives with the game's Season 2 update on October 16, with gains of up to 1.4x, NVIDIA says. It is intended for GeForce RTX 50-series GPUs and RTX Spark laptops. NVIDIA also lists GeForce NOW.
A leaner DLSS model
NVIDIA says the October model runs roughly twice as fast as the version first unveiled at GTC in March. The September release had already improved on that original. Now, the model is 24% smaller at 118 million parameters. NVIDIA also says it is 10 times faster overall than the March version. In NBA 2K27, the company reports a further performance gain of more than 30% compared with the September launch.
Those are NVIDIA's claims, not independently verified results. The company cautions that gains vary by game, so the NBA 2K27 increase should not be treated as a forecast for every DLSS 5 title. Its 65-to-90 FPS comparison applies to 4K scenarios. The announcement does not identify test hardware or graphics settings. Nor does it describe the test area, leaving players without enough detail to judge how widely the result applies.
DLSS 5 first appeared in NBA 2K27 in September 2026. NVIDIA developed the integration with Visual Concepts and 2K. The company says the technology sharpens texture detail and renders subsurface scattering on skin. It also improves contact shadows and hair rendering.
The memory claim is specific too: NVIDIA reports 20% less VRAM use at 4K with the newer model. It gives no breakdown by graphics card or game. The announcement also does not say how much memory DLSS 5 uses at other resolutions.
On October 7, Sina Technology reported a separate RTX 5080 test in NBA 2K27 at 4K and maximum quality. The test measured about 120 FPS with DLSS 5 off and about 45 FPS with it on. NGB has covered community work adapting an earlier DLSS version in its report on HelixSR's DLSS port. That separate project does not verify NVIDIA's DLSS 5 figures.
Two games join the line-up
Hogwarts Legacy is scheduled to receive DLSS 5 with 3D-Guided Neural Rendering on November 5, 2026. The same update will bring the game's other DLSS technologies to their newest versions. According to NVIDIA's announcement, Avalanche Software used DLSS 5's SDK controls to tune the integration around the game's artistic style.
Where Winds Meet is due to receive official DLSS 5 support in late November 2026. It already supports DLSS Multi Frame Generation and Super Resolution. NVIDIA says DLSS 3D-Guided Neural Rendering will arrive in a future update to enhance the game's world and characters. The announcement gives no specific date for that feature beyond the late-November timing for the DLSS 5 update.
NBA 2K27 remains the only officially released DLSS 5 title identified in the announcement. NVIDIA says the technology is officially aimed at GeForce RTX 50-series graphics cards at launch. Modders and community members have also applied it to other games and media, but those experiments are separate from official integrations. The two announced additions are not yet evidence of support already being available in either game.
Claims and what comes next
The headline performance figure comes from NVIDIA. The announcement includes no independent testing or detailed system specifications. It also offers no results across a wider range of titles. That leaves players without enough information to compare performance across different PCs or settings.
NVIDIA says it will keep refining DLSS 5 and plans to bring the technology to RTX 40 GPUs. The company has not provided a release date for that support.
DLSS 5's model parameters are learned values the system uses to process visual information. NVIDIA presents the smaller parameter count alongside lower 4K VRAM use, but has not shown that both reductions hold at the same rate across every game or configuration. VRAM is a graphics card's dedicated memory. The reported 20% saving applies specifically to NVIDIA's 4K comparison.
