• 3 Posts
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Joined 6 years ago
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Cake day: June 30th, 2020

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  • I agree that the tech is very impressive. To paraphrase another comment I made in a post about the tech reveal video (which apparently was also unpopular based on the number of downvotes) I think many people are completely misunderstanding how it works. It doesn’t change textures or 3d models (what are often called game ‘assets’) at all. The only thing it changes is lighting and for that it does use AI (machine learning) to create a much more realistic lighting presentation. You may find this hard to believe but lighting can dramatically alter appearance. The notion that it sexifies or slopifies everything by making faces sexier etc is just not true except to the extent that the lighting changes have this perceived effect on the characters for you.

    That said, concerns about artistic intent vs these changes are definitely valid here for these demos since it’s a very different look to how the original devs intended and Nvidia have basically modded this into existing games which weren’t designed around it to show it off. This has the affect of some of it looking a bit off I agree. In the future, when devs can decide to create assets around it or not I think those concerns will become less relevant. That said, PC power users and modders will likely hack it into a game if they want to even if the devs don’t enable it as an option. Modding and hacks are just the nature of PC gaming though. I don’t see a bunch of people crying about artistic intent because someone modded Thomas the Tank Engine into a game etc.


  • DLSS of course does use machine learning (transformers or CNNs) which you can call AI if you want, but I think there may be a bit of a misunderstanding about what this new version is actually doing. If you watch the video or read the breakdown they note that DLSS 5 is NOT replacing or altering the original graphical assets in the game with generated ones. There’s no new textures or 3d models being changed here. It only alters the lighting of the game to add more realistic shadows and reflections etc. It’s just that it does that so extensively that it gives the impression of being an almost entirely different image. Kinda nuts that lighting can do that but that is apparently what is happening here.

    That said, arguments about artistic intent are still very relevant here since it’s a very different look to how the original devs may have intended.










  • Much of this reads like what the Democrats’ strategy has already been for the last 10 years or so with some additional calls towards a “moderate” “centrism” that has not proven to be as popular as left populist policies with most Americans. And a lot of it seems confused or just wrong. For example, Medicare for All is not an unpopular policy. Last I checked it it was polling at around a 60% approval.

    Even if your politics are more centrist, I don’t see how this represents a substantive shift in any way. It’s minor tinkering around the edges or slightly altering messaging. That’s what the moment calls for? That’s the key to success and the way to fight back against an increasingly overt and ascendant strain of fascism in the country? If that’s what the Democratic leadership thinks then one must honestly wonder if the party is institutionally incapable of the change that would need to happen to actually win elections and improve their godawful approval ratings. And based on their donor base, this shouldn’t actually be surprising. The leadership is still utterly captured by and beholden to wealthy interests that would rather jump off a bridge than acknowledge that what Americans want is a party that will fight for meaningful material benefits in their standard of living as this implies meaningfully raising taxes and imposing costs or regulations on their businesses to ensure benefits for regular working class people who are struggling mightily.

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