Gamer shows how to set up two DLSS 5 passes in The Witcher 3 so characters don't look older

Reddit user Kromatico posted a side-by-side video of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt with DLSS 5 on and off, running in dual-pass mode.

The test ran in the most demanding part of the game for hardware: Novigrad, with peak NPC density, during running and active combat. The video aims to debunk one of the main complaints about Nvidia neural rendering, that the technology adds extra years to characters.

Kromatico listed the test conditions separately:

• 1440p resolution and the Ultra+ preset

• ray tracing and path tracing enabled

• a community-tuned two-pass DLSS 5 setup

• the Younger Geralt mod, which removes some wrinkles and makes the witcher face look younger

Kromatico explained the video this way:

No, two-pass DLSS 5 doesn't age NPCs if you actually know how to set it up properly. The original vanilla textures in TW3 are pretty flat even at max settings. DLSS 5 adds real depth, micro-shadowing, and specular detail to textures, and some people mistake that for "aging" simply because they aren't used to seeing high-frequency detail on flat models. Check the ON/OFF comparison and judge for yourself.

Nvidia unveiled DLSS 5 at GTC in March 2026. The new version works as real-time neural rendering – the model takes the color and motion vectors of each frame and refines complex elements like translucent skin, hair, fabric, and the way light interacts with materials. The technology runs on all GeForce RTX 50 cards, and the "DLSS Neural Rendering" toggle in supported games is unlocked by the September 3 driver.

Faces have been the main point of contention around DLSS 5 since the announcement. After one test with Ellie from The Last of Us Part II, a commenter said the character looked around 40, while a model of a 15-year-old schoolboy came out of processing looking like an adult a good ten years older. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told critics they were "completely wrong," since DLSS 5 combines generative AI with control over geometry, textures, and the other elements of the game.

The Witcher 3 has no official DLSS 5 support. The Remastered update arrived on September 29 and brought path tracing, DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction, and dynamic multi frame generation to the PC version, while NBA 2K27 is the only game that officially supports DLSS 5. After the DLL files leaked, tools appeared that inject the technology into almost any game, and the ReShade HDR Installer (RHI) makes setup easier by adding DLSS 5 in one click.

Dual pass means running two different injectors at once: DLSS 5 Tool by modder ShortFuse and a mod by Lecram. According to user Standard_Substance22, it's enough to install one through RHI and simply drop the other into the same folder.

Gamer FoxTactics explained that the mods hook into different stages of the pipeline, one at the rendering stage and the other at frame output, which is why they produce different results.

Another user said the setup was devised by one enthusiast on Discord and everyone else copied it. According to him, the Lecram mod has extra settings that ShortFuse lacks, and the same result can be achieved with two passes of Lecram alone. On top of that, the ShortFuse tool doesn't support HDR natively, so a separate RenoDX add-on is needed for a correct image.

Not everyone is happy with the dual-pass method. User Ok_Dependent6889 said he had spent more than 60 hours in the remaster with a single DLSS 5 pass, and that Geralt face at 10:47 and 11:33 in the Kromatico video looks puffy and strange because of changes in lighting and contrast. In his view, the second pass is always worse, since it overdoes the effect and was never designed for this use.

The creator of the demo replied that the facial expression is built into the game itself:

Look at the image with and without DLSS 5. It's literally the same face, the same expression. DLSS 5 just removed the orange tint from the environment and softened the harsh shading on the face. If the skin texture looks smoother, that's because of the Younger Geralt mod, not DLSS 5. But apparently, in the haters' logic, mods are innocent little angels and DLSS 5 is the main villain.

He added that he deliberately enabled the passes one by one so viewers could see the contribution of each. The discussion then devolved into an exchange of insults, and user PonyMei briefly summed it up by saying dual pass still looks bad.

Another complaint concerns color. User 3XPS noted that the warm candlelight dissolves into a boring gray with DLSS 5. Then again, people near candles don't look orange in real life, and the DLSS 5 color tone intensity can be turned down to zero to keep the original palette.

Performance loss is one of the biggest topics around the technology. Many players don't want to lose 40–50% of their frame rate for a "realistic" look. According to the Lecram mod estimate, neural rendering adds about 8.7 ms to each frame at full 4K, and on a GeForce RTX 5090 with path tracing, the performance drop in The Witcher 3 was 26–30%, versus roughly 50% in NBA 2K27.