#reshade installation

Patch notes today say that finally (finally!) The Sims 4 is moving over to use the DirectX 11 rendering api. Until now TS4 has used DirectX 9, which has given us some limitations when using ReShade.

They're bringing the official rollout sometime in the future, but for now you can opt in to switching to DirectX 11 on a voluntary basis.

You don't need to uninstall your game or install a new version. To switch to using DirectX 11, update your game with today's patch, and then click on Manage > View Properties from the The Sims 4 game page on EA App and enter -dx11 in the advanced launch options box. You can remove this at any time to go back to using DirectX 9.

Note: the game developers have warned in the patch notes that some mods may have visual glitches until they are updated to accommodate dx11, so it may be advisable to wait until your mod authors have confirmed everything works okay

If you have ReShade installed currently for DirectX 9 you can make it start using DirectX 11 instead by finding the d3d9.dll inside your Bin folder and changing its name to dxgi.dll. No need to uninstall and reinstall ReShade, that's all you need to do. If you want to go back to using dx9, just revert the name back to d3d9.dll.

Cant find the old MXAO.fx shader any more?

It’s here. Copy the code and paste it into a new text document and save it as MXAO.fx

It was removed from the Legacy shader pack on 2nd June 2022. You can still find anything that has been removed if you spend time going through the commits on github.

Please, please, please get into the habit of making backups of all your ReShade installations each time you update. You never know when a shader is going to be rewritten or removed completely. I’ve got backups stretching back to ReShade 0.12. It means you’ll always have whatever you need right at your fingertips.

To backup your current ReShade installation:

make a new folder and name it with your current ReShade version (e.g. ReShade 4.9.1)

in your TS4 Bin folder, copy the following: reshade-shaders (folder), d3d9.dll, reshade.ini

place those copied files into the backup folder you just made

do the same with any preset inis if you’re worried about losing them

Eventually you’ll have a nice collection of old installations that you can go to for old shaders, or if you ever want to revert to a previous version.

Hi! It's best to remove the old version first so you're not left with any old files or shaders.

It's really easy to remove ReShade.

In your Bin folder remove the following (I recommend keeping them somewhere safe in a folder called ReShade 3.0.8 in case you want to use it again):

d3d9.dll

d3d9.log

reshade.ini

reshadeui.ini (you may or may not have this, don't worry if you don't)

reshade-shaders folder

That's it, you've removed ReShade!

Now you can go ahead and install the latest version knowing there's nothing pesky left behind of the old one.

Newer versions of ReShade let you uninstall by running the installer again and checking uninstall instead of install, but I prefer to do it manually so I can keep the files backed up safe rather than just having them be deleted.

Obviously using ReShade in any of The Sims games doesn’t result in EA banning anyone, so you don’t need to worry about that, but ReShade doesn’t understand that TS3 isn’t an online competitive game, and so disconnects the depth buffer just like it would if you were using it in any other game, because the TS3 store is always online and makes those constant calls to the server.

One solution is to disconnect from the internet while you’re playing TS3.

I mentioned there was an alternative version of ReShade 5 that disables this anti-cheat protection, but I wasn’t sure if it was still available. I’ve checked, and I believe what you want is the version that says ‘Full Add-on Support’ from the official download here. 

Hi! Crashing can mean you're missing something that's required for ReShade to run. This can sometimes happen when you get a new PC if you don't have the required Windows runtimes installed.

Depending on what version of ReShade you're using, you'll need the correct .NET framework. For ReShade 4.4 onwards that's .NET Framework 4.8.

You may also need to install this DirectX runtime (I know it doesn't come as standard with Windows 10, I'm not sure about Windows 11).

It's super simple.

Install ReShade 4.9.1 and select all the shader packs EXCEPT the Legacy shader pack.

NOTE: DO NOT install the Legacy shader pack if you ever install any of the other packs, because you'll end up with older duplicates of things that can cause you lots of problems if you don't know how to troubleshoot things.

Then open my Clear Bloom Reshade folder, go into the reshade-shaders folder, go into the Shaders folder, and select everything in there EXCEPT for qUINT_MXAO. Copy those shaders, and paste them into your Shaders folder inside the reshade-shaders folder in your Bin folder.

Then, go back to my Clear Bloom ReShade folder, into the reshade-shaders folder, and into the Textures folder. Select the 3 files in there, copy them, and then paste them into your Textures folder inside the reshade-shaders folder in your Bin folder.

Then place the Clear Bloom ini file in your Bin folder, and you're good to go.

Things to be aware of:

If you're asked if you want to replace any files when you're pasting them into your Shaders or Textures folder, say YES.

The reason you're not pasting the qUINT_MXAO file is because you'll already have the newest version of it if you did as I said and installed all the various shader packs (except Legacy).

There may still be one or two things missing - if you suspect something doesn't look correct, go to a fresh copy of Clear Bloom.ini (you should always keep a copy safe outside of your Bin folder in case you make changes you need to revert) and look in the Effects section. Make a note of the shader names. If you can't find them in your shader list, you may then have to get them from the Legacy pack, but you should NOT install the whole thing into your reshade-shaders folder - you should download it separately from github and only grab what you're missing.

Remember there will be lots of shaders in subfolders inside your Shaders folder - so if you're unsure whether you have a specific shader or not, check in each of those folders first.

When you install all the different shader packs (EXCEPT Legacy) you'll have a LOT of shaders to load every time you load the game. Once you know which ones you need, you can go ahead and delete any others (or move them somewhere safe) - BUT DON'T DELETE ANYTHING THAT ENDS WITH .FXH - .fxh files are core shader files that tell other shaders how to work - they don't show up in your shader list, they work in the background, and if you remove them they might stop other things working.

Always, and I mean ALWAYS, keep a backup of your presets (ini files) and of your full set of downloaded shaders.

And when you're in-game:

You will need to click on Edit Global Preprocessor Definitions and find this line: RESHADE_DEPTH_INPUT_IS_REVERSED and change the 1 after it to a 0

To properly use all the settings in MXAO, you need to click either on the Current Preset Preprocessor Definitions tab (it appears when you click on Edit Global Preprocessor Definitions) or, if present, open the Preprocessor Definitions section at the bottom of the individual MXAO settings - you'll want to set SMOOTH NORMALS to 1, ENABLE TWO-LAYER to 1, and ENABLE IL/INDIRECT LIGHTING to 1

To delete any version of ReShade you remove the following files and folders from your Bin folder:

d3d9.dll

d3d9.log

reshade.ini

reshadeui.ini (you might not always have this, so don’t worry if you don’t)

the reshade-shaders folder

With newer versions of ReShade you can alternatively run the installer again and select uninstall instead, but either way of doing it will have the same effect, and by doing it manually you can move those files to a backup folder in case you ever want them again.

You physically can’t have both 3.0.8 and 4.9.1 running at the same time (only one d3d9.dll binary - which is the ReShade program - will hook into the game at any time), but you can have a mishmash of shaders from different versions installed, which can cause conflicts if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Hi there!

Edge Smoothing is in the game’s graphics options menu. It’s a little check box on the right hand side. You want to uncheck it.

It turns off anti-aliasing. Aliasing is when you see jagged lines around the outlines of things. It’s caused when there aren’t enough pixels available on your monitor to ‘draw’ or ‘render’ all the information contained in the models on-screen. That information will then be left out and make it look jagged.

Anti-aliasing attempts to smooth out those jagged lines by interpolating what it thinks should be there. There are lots of different methods of anti-aliasing, some more successful than others. The type of anti-aliasing usually called MSAA breaks ReShade’s ability to communicate with most games’ depth buffer (the depth buffer is what allows shaders like MXAO and DoF to work). TS4′s Edge Smoothing seems to be a form of MSAA, because it breaks that access to the depth buffer. So, we have to turn it off.

Of course, turning it off means we have those jagged lines again. Luckily, there are two anti-aliasing shaders in ReShade: SMAA and FXAA. You can use either or both of them as you need. SMAA tends to work better than FXAA in a lot of games. FXAA will blur the screen more than SMAA. Whichever you use, you’ll probably want to also use one of the sharpening shaders (and place it after/below the SMAA/FXAA shader in the load order) to counteract some of that blurriness, but if you do make sure you don’t set it too high or it will reintroduce some of those jagged lines (and too much sharpening never looks good anyway).