Maximum PC - USA (2019-07)

completely unusable. You may (may) have some success porting

these over to ReShade using TransMod (https://bit.ly/30T14dJ)—

really, it’s just a case of relabeling a few things in the config file,

as many of the shaders in ReShade expect the same parameters

and values, it’s just the layout of the preset file that’s changed.

E

10

shady annoyances

ReShade, it’s fair to say, often doesn’t play nice.

Depth of field effects, in particular, rarely work

as well as they should; we’d have brought you a guide

to applying the seemingly excellent MartyMcFlyDOF

shader, or its more developed successor qUINT_ADOF,

had we not spent nearly a full day fighting with both, and

eventually throwing in the towel. You, like us, will either

need to put in a lot of time and effort getting things just

so, or (when you’re tired of banging your head against

your keyboard) stick to lower-level effects that don’t rely

on the z-axis to function properly. Improve the color of

your games, add beautiful bloom, sharpen those edges,

and call it a day—often your games’ built-in effects are

far better than you would be able to achieve through

ReShade anyway.

>> Specific documentation for ReShade is sparse at

best, but the forums at http://reshade.me/forum are

a good place to head if you’re having any particular

problems, want to learn more about its workings, or

are on the lookout for the latest shaders. It might also

help to read up a little about techniques such as ambient

occlusion, antialiasing, and so on, so you know what

you’re really doing when you drag those sliders.

ReShade is not the only shader injector

on the street, though it is perhaps the

most user-friendly. You could, if you

can find it, use predecessor SweetFX

(and many do), though this needs to

be fully set up and configured before

playing, a process that is much more

tricky than that of ReShade. A better

option, if you have an Nvidia card, is

to use GeForce Experience; it has its

own shader engine, Nvidia Freestyle,

which can be used in much the same

way as ReShade. It’s limited to a shorter

list of compatible games, as opposed

to ReShade’s throw-it-at-it-and-see-

if-it-sticks approach, and there’s

less complexity in terms of the reach

of its shaders, but you get a much

more professional presentation. Run

GeForce Experience, make sure you’re

up to date on the latest Game Ready

Driver, then use its interface to launch

a compatible game (the list is at https://

bit.ly/2MeHO73). Hit Alt-F3 to jump into

the game filters menu, and you can

quickly set up one of three different

filter layouts by using the “Add Filter”

button. Ever wanted to play GTA: San

Andreas as an animated watercolor

painting? The time has come.

Other OPti Ons

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Ckstar

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