detected normal map and depth map on screen [image b]. If this
is blank, it’s likely that access to the depth buffer is blocked—see
the “Multiplayer Madness” boxout for clues as to why that might
be. Alternatively, you may need to let ReShade know exactly
which layer is the correct depth buffer to use. With DisplayDepth
activated, head over to the “DX11” tab (or “DX9/DX10”) and change
which buffer is used; if you see a multicolored, untextured
approximation of your game pop up, you can now safely disable
DisplayDepth and work with whatever shaders you like.7
a sampLe seLecTion
Let’s quickly compare a game with and without ReShade
effects by gussying up Grid 2, which is impressive-
looking but, given its age, not the most demanding game on
modern hardware. We’ve turned everything up to maximum, butswitched off antialiasing and ambient occlusion in its
in-game settings panel, in order to let ReShade do that
work for us—Grid 2 has a tendency to look a little soft
even without its built-in filters [image c], so it’s a good
choice for tweaking.
>> The first thing to enable is MXAO, ensuring the
correct depth buffer is used by enabling the debug view,
and selecting the appropriate one on the “DX11” tab.
Dragging the amount slider gives us the option to select
just how gloomy we want our dusky image to become.
Next, a little sharpening: Drag the LumaSharpen shader
below MXAO, and use its “Show sharpening pattern”
setting to see its results. Adjust it until the game is
suitably crispy—this gives the SMAA filter, which you
should put next in the list, some good edges to smooth
out. Next, we’d add the excellent MagicBloom filter,
followed by Vibrance, and FilmGrain2, just for a little
class. The effect ups the realism of the image [image d],
but it’s not without its drawbacks: It dropped the frame
rate of our sample location from 112 to 56, mainly
thanks to the numerous frame passes required by
MagicBloom, SMAA, and MXAO. Unless you’re running
some prodigious hardware, the same will happen to you.8
saVing seTTings
You’ve tinkered and tweaked. You’ve dragged
sliders and set things just so. Helpfully, ReShade
includes a preset system, which enables you to back up
your settings and reload them at a later time—or even
grab presets from folks online who’ve already done the
tinkering for you. To save your current settings, open up
the ReShade menu with Home, and click the plus sign
at the top—give a name to your new preset, and you’re
saved. You can switch between different presets by
clicking the arrows to the left of the preset name.
>> And so to precompiled presets. Before we start
playing with these, head over to http://github.com/
martymcmodding/qUINT and download Pascal Gilcher’s
quintessential shader pack, a selection of highly refined
shaders. Find the shader folder in whatever game you’re
going to use it on, and drop the six files from qUINT’s
shader folder in there—alternatively, you can put them
in their own folder, and add them to ReShade’s list via
“Settings/Effect Search Paths.” If you do the latter, hit
“Reload” at the bottom of the ReShade menu to add them
to the list.9
beTTer preseTs
With all the prerequisites lined up, head to http://
stormshade.otakumouse.com/preset/photo-
realism-v3-0 and download the preset there, just as
an example. It’s a shader specifically built for Final
Fantasy 14, and one that’s not specifically geared toward
gaming, meaning it might look a little awful to start
with—disable Mode1 and Mode2, and switch off ADOF,
however, and you should end up with a pretty vibrant
picture [image e].
>> Each game behaves differently—so you’ll probably
want to pull in a preset designed for the game you’re
trying to play, rather than cludging one through. Head to
http://reshade.me/presets to see the database. Bear in
mind that, if the dumpster fire of classic web coding on
show here didn’t previously clue you in, many of these
are old. They’re predominantly suited for ReShade’s
predecessor SweetFX, though that doesn’t mean they’reThere are some dedicated ReShade fans out there who have used its
internal programming language to create not just preset packs, but
brand new shaders, too—and some of them outshine the default set
by a huge degree. We’ve talked about the Quintessential Shader Pack,
but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Why not try Loadus’s PandaFX
shader (https://pastebin.com/L8tv3R4j), which applies a whole host
of cinematic effects (including a whole lot of blur, if that’s your thing)
in one handy easy-to-use package? Perhaps you’re desperate for
your games to look as though they’re recorded on a VHS tape—then
https://bit.ly/2HKdYTK is for you.
If you’re not lucky enough to have a monitor that updates at
144Hz, but you’re playing games with frame rates way above 60Hz,
you may be cursing those lost frames. So, do try using ReShade
to blend them together, putting all that frame data on screen at a
rate your monitor can handle. Madness, yes, but possible if you use
ShoterXX’s experimental High-Framerate Frame-Blending shader.
Grab the code from https://bit.ly/2WAoDZm and save it as a .fx file in
your shader directory. It’ll make things much blurrier, but a whole
lot smoother.Better shAders
©^
frontier development58 MAXIMUMPC aug 2019 maximumpc.com
R&D