#reshade tips

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.

[ ᴏʀᴅᴇʀ ɢᴏᴇꜱ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ʟᴇꜰᴛ ᴛᴏ ʀɪɢʜᴛ]

ɴᴏ ɢꜱʜᴀᴅᴇ | ᴀᴍᴇʟɪᴇ ᴘᴇᴀʀʟ | ᴡᴡᴏᴏ ᴀ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ꜱᴡᴇᴇᴛ ʟɪꜰᴇ | ᴇʟʟᴄʀᴢᴇ 2.0 | ʟᴇᴇꜱᴇᴏʙ'ꜱ ʟᴏᴠᴇ | ꜱᴇɴꜱʜɪ 4.0

[ʙᴀʀᴇ ɪɴ ᴍɪɴᴅ ᴀʟʟ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴛᴡᴇᴀᴋᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴍᴀᴛᴄʜ ᴍʏ ᴛᴀꜱᴛᴇ xx]

ɪ ʀᴇᴄᴏᴍᴍᴇɴᴅ ᴛᴡᴇᴀᴋɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜʀ ɢꜱʜᴀᴅᴇ ᴇꜱᴘᴇᴄɪᴀʟʟʏ ɪꜰ ɪᴛ ʟᴀɢꜱ ʏᴏᴜʀ ɢᴀᴍᴇ

ᴀʟꜱᴏ ɪ ʀᴇᴄᴏᴍᴍᴇɴᴅ ʜᴀᴠɪɴɢ ᴅɪꜰꜰᴇʀᴇɴᴛ ᴠᴇʀꜱɪᴏɴꜱ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴀ ᴠᴇʀꜱɪᴏɴ ꜰᴏʀ ᴄᴀꜱ, ɢᴀᴍᴇᴘʟᴀʏ ᴀɴᴅ ꜱᴄʀᴇᴇɴɪᴇꜱ

ʟɪᴋᴇ ꜰᴏʀ ᴄᴀꜱ ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴀɴ ᴇɴʙᴀʟᴇ ᴍxᴀᴏ ᴇᴛᴄ, ʙᴜᴛ ꜰᴏʀ ɢᴀᴍᴇᴘʟᴀʏ ʏᴏᴜ'ᴅ ᴇɪᴛʜᴇʀ ᴅɪꜱᴀʙʟᴇ ɪᴛ ᴏʀ ʟᴏᴡᴇʀ ɪᴛ

Something I've learned from getting a fancy-ass gaming PC: Reshade is a cheat code for video game photography. I rarely photoshop my images after I take them (except for the occasional clipping that I bother to fix, thanks CDPR).

You too can make these cool shots! Here's how...

hey!! I stayed aways from clayified hair for a while for the same reasons lol! But I discovered this amazing tutorial by @intramoon, here!  

Another couple of shots using the Nice Guy Lamps shader, just to show what's possible (they're not great shots lol), also the settings I was using in the earlier shots. I want to play around more with the depth options today.

Original Lighting: lower = darker background; higher = more of the original scene's lighting comes through

Position: left = moves the light from left to right; middle = moves the light up and down; right = not sure but I think it moves the light forward and back

Precise Position: same as above but different. The right-hand number at -0.002 was perfect for the strength of light and shadows I wanted. Any higher or lower had a huge impact on how it looked

Shadow Softness: anything higher than 0 causes noise/dither on the edges of shadows. I believe he wants to fix this one day but for now it means this is really only suited for anything where sharp shadows look good.

Quick example of how only using the ‘bells & whistles’ shaders can transform the game. L = vanilla (with Sunblind by @softerhaze), R = with ReShade.

There’s no colour correction here. I used 2 MXAO shaders, Rim Light, RadiantGI, 7 (yes, seven) bloom shaders (the heavy hitters in these images were BloomingHDR and Arcane Bloom), Levels, and Film Grain (and a sneaky little bit of Cinematic DoF in the background).

I transplant those shaders over to every preset I make because they work no matter what you’re doing with colour. Sometimes I might tweak the bloom shaders if the preset requires it (my Drift preset is an example of this, which relies heavily on very specific bloom settings), but for the most part I just have them each set up to do specific things and toggle the ones I need on and off. At night you can use lots of them all together. During the day you probably don’t want to do that if you value your sight and would likely just stick to one or two.

If you need to find a previous version of ReShade, for those from the last couple of large revisions (so 5.x and 6.x, I'm not sure if it works for earlier versions) you can just copy the download link for the most recent one and change the version number in the url.

So, the dl link on the front page of the ReShade website is currently for version 6.1.1, and the url for the addon version is https://reshade.me/downloads/ReShade_Setup_6.1.1_Addon.exe

You can manually change that link to get another version. For example, if I wanted 6.0.1 I would change the link to https://reshade.me/downloads/ReShade_Setup_6.0.1_Addon.exe

Someone also keeps an up-to-date repository on mediafire of all old versions going back years. This is linked to via the official ReShade forum, but it's up to you whether you want to take the risk downloading something from mediafire or not.

Remember, for both of these methods you will only be downloading the ReShade binary, not any of the shaders. When installing ReShade you'll be prompted to download shaders as usual, but they won't be shaders from old versions, they'll be the most recent shaders. If you've decided to use a particularly old version of ReShade you may run into problems. Try to stick to the most up-to-date version of ReShade that you can.

Knox Greenburg and Nikolai Graf have moved into Ruxpin Pet Foods, an old warehouse that has been taken over as a communal living/working/playing space.

Coming tomorrow, along with Clear POP! ReShade preset.