A modder known for pushing DLSS 5 into games it was never designed for has turned his attention to id Software's 1996 classic Quake. Valery Kryzhanovsky applied the leaked DLSS 5 build as a post-process using ReShade and RenoDX, running the game inside DOSBox and layering the AI upscaler's 4x Multipass mode over the rendered frame in real time.
The results are not flattering. The image darkens dramatically, likely because Quake's sparse torch lighting gives the upscaler little to work with. Kryzhanovsky notes the leaked build is undertrained, and the effect looks worse than the official Quake II RTX demo, which integrated ray tracing into the engine for realistic lighting. DLSS is an upscaling technology, not a lighting solution, and applying it on top of an emulated frame does not improve the game's visuals.
This experiment follows Kryzhanovsky's previous attempts with 2D titles like Duke Nukem and Pac-Man, which produced similarly distorted images. Nvidia recently announced that its DLSS 5 model is now twice as fast and 24% smaller, but that improved version is not what was used here. The leaked early build appears to be a work in progress, and the Quake mod shows how far the technology still has to go when applied outside its intended engine integration.