Grand Theft Auto 5 graphics with AI enhancement tool looks closer to a dull reality
Grand Theft Auto 5, or GTA 5, has been around for almost eight years and it is obvious that its graphics quality has started to age. Los Santos no more looks like the modern worlds you see in titles such as Watch Dogs Legion and Assasins Creed Valhalla. That said, a research team at Intel has developed an AI tool that has transformed the GTA 5 graphics quality into a dull reality.
Called the “Enhancing Photorealism Enhancement” project, this AI-reliant tool has managed to work on GTA 5 and tried to modernize its graphics. The result is a graphics quality that is reminiscent of the real world, although a bit dull. The new graphics enhancement smoothen road textures and improves reflection but at the cost of a suppressed colour science.
GTA 5 gets AI graphics enhancement
Researchers Stephan R. Richter, Hassan Abu Alhaija, and Vladlen Kolten say that their team has managed to feed the system with real-world pictures. The tool uses the Cityscapes Dataset that involves taking photographs of several German streets and filling in details. Given that it’s mostly cloudy in those parts of the world, the end result looks dull when compared to the original GTA 5 graphics.
GTA 5 AI tool after post process
The tool also involves GTA 5’s geometry information that can include data like the distance between objects within the game and the camera, and the quality of several textures. For example, the glossiness of the cars is one example of the many.
The screenshots you see here may make the game look worse than the default graphics on Grand Theft Auto 5. However, when you look at the real-time application of the tool on real-time gameplay, the enhancements are visible. The small clip of a car speeding along the outskirts of Los Santos looks not much different than what you would see from your car’s dashboard on a cloudy day.
Will this make it to GTA 5 as a downloadable tool? Probably not. But it gives us an idea as to how game developers can improve their graphics to be photorealistic using a simple AI tool. Add features like ray tracing to this and you go be fooled for experiencing a real-world on your PC or console.
Grand Theft Auto 5 is due for a makeover for the current-gen Xbox Series X and Sony PlayStation 5 consoles later this year. Players can expect to see higher resolution gameplay and improved graphics quality.
