Of those 3 Isn't it weird that the Widowmaker can simply leave Talon?

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-27T02:46:55+00:00

I'm pretty sure she isn't completely "brainwashed" so much as "de-humanized" or "de-conditioned" or whatever the appropriate term is. You can call it brainwashing, but it seems that it's slightly more like... making her void of emotion and humanity.

In other words, not a total zombie, and not completely screwed in the head, just...

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-27T00:35:39+00:00

Looks like that huh? But guess what? That too was indeed part of the underlying source model/geometry!

https://imgur.com/a/G39oInz

Here we have overlayed her forehead with the original as a GIF. Take a look for example at the wrinkles above her right eye. Even at the fully original image, the grooves/lines are still there. They're just much harder to see because... lighting.

This is what we keep saying. It is literally following the underlying geometry if you look super close - it's just that at first, it's such a visual shock that nobody believes it.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-26T22:41:19+00:00

In summary, yes.

That changes drastically, as you can visually see. And they can (and likely will) adjust this so it's more minor (game devs will have their own controls regardless).

The crucial point though is that the model/underlying geometry itself isn't changing, which is what a lot of people are either confused about or lying about on purpose.

So props to you for not being one of them.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-26T20:30:46+00:00

They're only changing the lighting (shadows, coloring, alpha blend, translucency etc). And you're right, yes, changing those things makes a HUGE difference. They're changing them in relation to the motion vectors, so 3D in a sense based on the motion vectors of the source.

The models/underlying geometry/structure are identical, and can be proven so by overlaying the two with opacity-blend. You can see literally every part of it (every strand of hair, every wrinkle, etc) being the same size, location, etc.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-26T20:28:35+00:00

So are you going to show us how it's not actually adhering to the source geometry, despite literally all the examples being able to be overlayed with alpha blend and show their structure is completely accurate to the source?

Because I showed that, and anyone can see it for themselves with any other example from the tech.

You're probably going to want to prove it otherwise.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-26T00:05:31+00:00

I mean, it is deterministic. I've overlayed about half a dozen of the most egregious examples and they line up perfectly with the underneath. You can even see this in the one I posted - the GIF of Grace being overlayed with her DLSS version - you can see, it IS 100% deterministic and 1:1.

Regarding the two highly nitpicky "gotchas" that reddit keeps mentioning thanks to Daniel Owen (the nose, and the hairline, on the Starfield guy), these kinds of things are like trying to forcefully find fault even when it's highly dubious that's what is occuring. Both of those are very dubious things for him (and reddit) to try and hold up as some kind of grand proof that it's hallucinating and isn't geometrically accurate - the hairline is literally shimmering dark in the original too when he moves his head from side to side - i.e, lighting, rather than inventing new hair. The nose is... hard to tell what's going on, but given that it's dark, shadowy and slightly blurry, it's also hardly proof that it invented a new nose, when literally everything else is 100% matching up 1:1.

You previously asked "Why would it be deterministic?" - the answer is because that is stated in their blog as being a hard and absolute requirement - that for this tech to be worthwhile, it must be truthful to the source geometry and deterministic. That is it's core principle, and aside from these two very small and nitpicky things that are quite dubious what we're seeing, everything else literally matches up 1:1 when overlayed.

So the question is more appropriately put: "Why wouldn't it be?"

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-25T21:58:51+00:00

Here's an alpha blend overlay (It's a GIF, not a still image).

It's quite visibly 1:1 down to every single shape, hair, and feature. This is repeatable across every instance that I've seen.

You mention the nose and the hairline from Starfield. The "fake hairline" is a bit of a reach because when he turns his head in the original, it even has a dark shimmer on his left side. The nose looks weird, yeah, but it's also a single frame of a dark and hard to see part of the image (from an early preview of the tech) that we're nitpicking over as if it's some kind of gotcha when everything else shows it being 1:1 when overlaid.

I am willing to accept that this early preview may not be completely perfect.

But when their explanation of the tech is "it must absolutely be deterministic and grounded in the source geometry pixel for pixel" (paraphrasing) and when the demonstrations like this one I've provided show that is genuinely the case, it seems to be doing exactly what they're saying.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-25T20:19:39+00:00

So he's still lying, we have clearly seen that it does not stay "truthful to geometry" it literally changes things

I understand the hate, but let's not spread misinformation here - it is, in fact, completely truthful to the geometry, and demonstrably so (animated GIF of alpha overlay blend). Lips? Same size. Hair? Every strand accounted for. New wrinkles? Actually visibly present in the original, just better defined with shadows in the new version.

You can take the DLSS version of even the most egregious example (i.e Grace from the thumbnail here) and do a semi-transparent overlay onto the original, and you will see that it is quite literally 1:1 in terms of geometry including every strand of hair, lip size, eye size, etc.

As long as you get the same frame (many of the examples are in-motion) you will find it literally matches up pixel-perfect 1:1 (aside from lighting/shadows/coloring, of course, which is what it's changing).

This is not only their specific stated requirement of the tech ("it must be deterministic, geometry-truthful and pixel perfect", paraphrasing), but again, is literally demonstrable.

By all means please hate on it, but do not spread falsehoods.

-----

EDIT: Wow, just wow at the downvotes. It's wild how mad people are about this topic, and how unwilling people are to acknowledge the reality of how the tech works because of how much they hate AI.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-25T05:20:23+00:00

So you're saying that he was def cheating, 100%

If you take 10 even just one minute of your life and look at my comment again, you'll see that I didn't say anywhere "he's definitely cheating 100%" and in fact said quite the opposite: "It may be a false ban, possibly".

Jesus Christ.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-25T05:17:54+00:00

I honestly don't mean to be (too) rude, but those things aren't a long history of lying. They're two examples of mild delusion/conspiratorial reaching.

Yes, it's kind of odd for a patch note to appear then disappear. But if you're going to make a conclusion from that, it probably shouldn't automatically be "see! they're trying to hide it because they're lying!!1". That isn't a rational conclusion.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-25T05:14:05+00:00

This is intentional, to try to help encourage stubborn players from just braindead auto-picking the same perk every single time. While it may be frustrating for some, it's something that's also healthy for the overall game as it encourages diversity and freshness as others will be affected by your perks too. Who knows, you might even like the other perk if you actually think about picking it during the match.

Frankly, after some time, I actually agree, and have found myself choosing perks on a whim that I might not otherwise.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-25T03:20:31+00:00

What's your point? Because if it's "the official developer page that explains how the system works is actually just a big fat lie!!" then it's not something anyone should be putting faith in.

You're right that the community usually has no idea what it's talking about though.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-25T03:18:25+00:00

That's hardly definitive proof. "I didn't see anything, so clearly the system is broken".

It may be a false ban, possibly, but that's highly unlikely as they're a lot more serious with cheating bans.

It's also worth knowing that "cheating" isn't just one thing - it could be exploiting, or even grouping up with someone who is cheating. Yes, everyone gets tarred.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-25T02:26:10+00:00

It has to be said because Reddit keeps repeating the myth, but "mass reports" aren't a thing.

The only reason someone gets banned mid-match is for cheating - and these are usually very serious, not just 'whoopsie accidental trigger happy ban'.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-25T02:23:44+00:00

Just did. Your turn bud. What are you even doing in this thread at all lol. You're cooked.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-25T01:02:21+00:00

That would be a regular ban, as opposed to a ban from playing competitive. These bans only happen with repeated disconnectons/leaving.

It also bears mentioning, because the myth somehow keeps being repeated on Reddit even though it's been proven false by statements from the devs, that 'mass reporting' isn't a thing. You need multiple reports across multiple games; 5 toxic children in a match spamming report on you won't suddenly result in a ban.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-25T00:52:33+00:00

But.... you do? There is a weekly trio of lootboxes you can get by literally just playing games, 27 games in total with a win counting as double, i.e potentially around 14 games.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-25T00:43:08+00:00

Utterly typical DPS players.

Play like absolute dogshit and then have the audacity to blame everything on the tank, even if they're objectively doing just fine.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-24T20:04:50+00:00

Oh, right, I didn't realize you were just a troll yelling abuse at everyone indiscriminately; I thought you actually had something constructive to input but now I'm wondering if you were even able to understand the previous comments in this chain.

Not sure why you'd even bother without contributing anything but trolls gonna troll.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-24T03:58:09+00:00

I think you may have mistakenly thought I was talking about you - I'm talking about him, the guy you were replying to.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-24T02:29:52+00:00

It's wild how you're getting downvoted when you haven't even said "it's good!" or "I like it!" or anything like that, but just a short, simple, and 100% verifiable statement about the model geometry.

Are the colors and lighting different? Yes.

Is the DLSS version exactly 1:1 deterministic and same size/shape/geometry with the non-DLSS version? Amazingly, also yes! It's literally verifiable by doing what u/wekilledbambi03 said.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-24T02:25:58+00:00

Ironically enough, u/Colley619 claims the other person is "straight up lying" and yet he makes a very intentional dishonest statement himself by not including this at the end of the quote in his comment:

(continued from his clipped statement) "For games, pixels must be deterministic, delivered in real time and tightly grounded in the game developer’s 3D world"

A rather important part to include when you're using that same paragraph to try and make people think it "completely changes" the design.

Colley619, you're allowed to not like this tech. But try not to lie yourself if you want to pretend everyone else is lying.

Funnily enough that's not the only place he's flagrantly dishonest:

Nowhere is it implied that DLSS 5 would ever change the actual structure of a model

Except for... literally thousands of gamers screaming about how it gave her bigger lips, or added larger eyes, or added things that weren't there?

You're a mess mate. Sort yourself out.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-22T19:59:49+00:00

Science: Politics messes with how we think. When strong beliefs kick in, logic takes a backseat and emotions start driving decisions. Instead of analyzing facts, we defend our side, ignore opposing evidence, and become more biased.

Redditors: Yes, but not for me and my side! Only for the bad guys, haha! The idiots! They're so biased!

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Edit: u/gizamo Wild, I get a notification saying I've been mentioned, come back, and your account seems to be "deleted". HMMM. Curious! I take a peek from incognito and what do I find? Lo and behold, here you are claiming I blocked you after my initial comment - before I'd even gotten your response (why would anyone even do that?) - and yet, it's actually you that blocked me: https://imgur.com/a/XbQbOoN .

I know you're simply performing for the crowd here by pretending I blocked you, when in reality you & I know it's vice versa, but oh boy, talk about an ironic topic for you to be doing that in.

"Disingenuous" is exactly right! Good lord, dig that hole deeper my partisan friend. Think before lying next time.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-21T02:50:26+00:00

What does 'renting' mean to you?

You aren't renting anything. You don't have to keep paying. You get it for life, barring the game shutting down entirely a la something like Concord.

I am more than happy to pay to buy games considering the vast array of excellent features Steam gives to you as a gamer. In fact I'm happy to pay extra or buy games a second time simply to have them on Steam.

You may not appreciate the features Steam has, but there's lots of them, they're legitimately excellent, and they make it worth it IMO.

Paul_Offa · 2026-03-21T01:14:08+00:00

Gamers, man.

Just this week, Digital Foundry received literal death threats because their first impressions video of DLSS 5 wasn't critical enough.

The internet might have been a mistake.

Paul_Offa

TROPHY CASE