Tech Focus - Can Reshade Make Your PC Games Look Better? 

I choked on my drink when I saw my effect getting casually advertised. Also, props for spelling my name correctly on first try xD

PRO TIP. Once you're settled on the shaders you know you'll be using, delete all the ones you aren't using from the reshade-shaders folder. It'll speed up ReShade's initial start up and make the process of fine-tuning your settings go much faster. Also, be sure to turn Performance Mode on once you're finished with your preset.

Yea, used reshade for MGSV and made the nights actually night, so night vision was a must. It was really immersive and fun.

Ahah, debanding looks like it does nothing via RU-vid compression :D

Lmao, RU-vid completely un-does that de-banding shader. It looked exactly 0% better in this video. I know it works in-game and no it's not my monitor (true 8bit VA panel), but that was funny as hell.

Been using Reshade for over a year now thanks to this. Really encouraged me to play more games.

Lmao at the debanding bit. It really doesn't work with compressed video. -

DigitalFoundry should do a video on all the different types of software that can be added to improve gaming experiences. It would make a really interesting video I think.

I had used a reshade on MGSV and it legit made my game look a thousand times better. It felt amazing!

>Wolfenstein with external post processing "looks okay" >Me while playing this game last month on PS4: "Wow this looks amazing!" My standards are obviously set lower than yours.

Excellent review. I feel confident in trying Reshade after watching this

Alex, I had difficulty hearing your voice on other videos, but in this one is way better and clearer, keep it up!

DEUS EX MENU THEME WRYYYYYYYYY

Please, more PC videos like this. I love it!

That Deus Ex theme at the beginning made me shed a tear

Pro tip : MSI Afterburner will tell you the graphics API it detects next to its frame-rate counter.

Excellent work on the Jensen Dance.

There have been a number of new features, changes, and simplified installation. Yall should do an update video. Glamarye fast effects are worth a mention as well.

Reshade Debanding Shader does not make a difference on my screen in this video. Is this a RU-vid limitation?

Love how in depth the video is.

I use Reshade on Pro Evo Soccer 2018. Took down the saturation a bit, added film grain and tweaked the exposure a tad to get that slightly low-contrast TV broadcast look and I have to say that PES looks fucking amazing now. Highly recommended.

His pronunciation of Wolfenstein is gold. :)

love the deus dx music playing in the back round!

Tech Focus has become my favorite series on RU-vid. Keep it up, Alex! I find ReShade almost essential as the vast majority of games released nowadays look extremely washed out with no way to fix it using the arbitrary in-game brightness/gamma sliders or have weird piss filters, for some reason (I'm looking at you, Dark Souls 3). It's also a great way to spice up the look of old games as you said. It often gets a bad rap because a lot of the presets shared online are made by people who pretty much abuse the sharpening and contrast filters, thinking they can make games more "photorealistic!!1!" and "cinematic!1!!1" that way. When used in moderation, though, ReShade is a godsend.

Only time a sweetfx or reshader mod is worth a damn is far cry 2. That game looks horrible without sweetfx

It's great to see some PC focused content outside of the standard CPU/GPU performance tests etc. DF Retro and Tech Focus have been great. I'd love to see what other unique series such as these that you all can bring to the table, they are a breath of fresh air outside of the main performance checks of games.

I just started using reshade but I like to add Bloom, Fake HDR, tonemapping and SMAA. Nice vid!

I've used Reshade on all my games for a few years now, there's only a few that wont work every now and then, but it's been known for older versions to work for a specific game though, I love it, even when you think a game look amazing, something as simple as injecting Reshade can make it look even better, I went through and chose my favorite settings, and i always end up with the same 5 settings, Clarity, Colorfulness, FakeHDR, HighPassSharpen, LumaSharpen, they help to clear up a lot of blur in certain games, and overall just make it make so much more clear and colorful. But with the settings i've chose to use it can take about a 10-20 FPS hit to performance though, and i play on 2k Ultrawide, with a GTX 1070.

Gg DF on hiring this guy. He's excellent.

You couldn't make the video 2 seconds longer?

*REINSTALLS DEUS EX*

Adjusting: -Levels -AA -Sharpening -DOF -Ambient occlusion (mxao) -Saturation levels With these changes games can look fantastic and perfects a lot of games that wars close to perfection

I'd like to see a comparison between the ENB, Reshade and Sweet FX tool sets: What features do each posses/share; which is better for what purpose; which is more expensive on resources and why; those kind of things.

Here is some tips for ya all: Make sure to look at the individual settings for each effect, as the deafult settings often are not that good Not all games support depthbuffer access!!! This means you can't use effects that depend on it, including: DOF, ambient Occlusion, Fog and so on You can adjust depth of field strength, for first person game its a great idea to disable near blur, so only far away objects blur when looking at things up close Use the "infinite focus" option to make it so after a certain distance, no far blur appears There are many dof shaders, with different quality levels, settings and performance hit, Magic DOF is the cheapest, so use that if you don't have a powerful GPU You can adjust DOF to either focus on the center (FPS etc) or at your mouse cursor (great for strategy games etc) If you don't like DOF there is a shader called "Depthhaze" which only slightly blurs distant terrain, and has an opstion to add fog as well, this is similar to newer open world games. The bloom shader alex showed in the video is the worst IMO and the better one is called "MagicBloom" this gives a subtle bloom effect to light objects, and is like an ENB for skyrim for example A more heavy version is "Ambient Light" which gives the illusion of Global illumination as well optionable as Lens effects such dirt and light bleed MXAO can be tuned to different quality levels so you can lower the detail to save performance. There is a neat greenscreen shader, that allows you to record/screenshot stuff in game and then crop it in an editing program

I've been using ReShade for Sharpening + SMAA years now. The DOF setting is also getting better.

where's DF retro at????

Reshade's lumasharpen is really crucial for FFXV, since the TAA is very aggressive yet there's no sharpening added at all to offset the blur. It helps immensely.

Using ReShade for every game on my PC. Sometimes it doesn't look like same game after some filters

I've been using Sweetfx or Reshade for years now. Pretty much ever since Diablo 3 was too colorful for my tastes. I just tweaked sweetfx to make it darker. Turning up the saturation on games like Bayonetta really give it new life as well, makes it pop like it never could normally.

Psychonauts with filmic bloom ,and HBAO via Nvidia inspector ( at HIGH QUALITY) is mindblowing good.

It's amazing that it has UI tweaking now. I should try it again on Driver: San Francisco, the PC version shipped without the colour filter and such and doesn't look at all like it should.

Alex you rock. You single handedly made me love motion blur if used correctly and now this. I always found reshade clunky to use and have totally fogotten about it. Man thank you. Please keep on your awesome work! Much appreciated!

I mostly use Reshade for sharpen effect, and some SMAA if there is no anti-aliasing built in. *After I tried it (when it was called sweetfx), now I just put it everywhere when I can.

Another Deus Ex fan! Always nice to see fans of the series, it's a personal favourite of mine. Great video - I use ReShade for replaying a lot of my games, from Halo to OutRun 2006 to even just messing with newer games like Payday 2.

I could listen to you saying "Wolfenstein" for hours...

"What if you want max settings at 4k 30fps? Or what if you want 120fps on very low settings?" Bruh, I want 120fps maxed settings, what are you talking about?

Marty McFly's MXAO shader (now part of his qUINT shader library) vastly improves AO in both GTA V and COD Infinite Warfare. Also with the CEMU emulator also to enhance Wii-U titles. Many modern games still have poor AO implementations, both in terms of AO accuracy and performance hit. In most cases MXAO is superior to the developer's AO, although rarely there are some minor artefacts. My rule is if the AO looks poor, switch it off in-game and add MXAO via reshade, it's truly Reshade's most powerful addition.

Swapping dlss sharpening with CAS is amazing!

i don't even have a gaming PC but i really like Alex's pc tech videos!

That safety Adam dance :D

I'm aware of the tools available for modding games, that is why I love PC gaming there's always something new to learn and occupy your time with great focus.

Per object motionblur and depth of field effect is really nice.

My go to filters: Clarity, Magic Bloom, Fake HDR, Debanding, SMAA and Vibrance.

Where can I get that motion blur shader? I can't find it anywhere.

I've never believed in reshaders, but if anyone can convince me, it's DF

This is so cool. I really want to try upping the saturation in some games. Remember back in the 2010s when a bunch of games decided to look *SERIOUS* they needed to desaturate all the colors? Black Ops might actually look GOOD now.

I mostly find re-shade useful for last gen games and older, slapping effects on top of modern games where they designers knew what they were doing usually only makes it worse. One feature i wish it had would be removing tone-mapping from games that doesn't give you the option, just so i could create my own set of post-process effects from a blank canvas, but i doubt that would be possible through post-processing. With that said, a proper monitor calibration would probably yield a more pronounced difference for most gamers out there.

I should've known about this when I started playing The Witcher 2.

God, Deus Ex has a brilliant soundtrack! Interesting video as always.

yo i really dont recommend installing every singer shader in that list. uncheck all and select only the ones you want for the game youre installing into. when you have 60+ shaders installed it can take forever to launch a game and it becomes tedious scrolling through them all while configuring.

To be honest, I can't imagine playing games without reshade anymore, especially older games look almost modern when you play with the shaders.....

i use rehade in every game, but dont load almost any shaders on it, i only end up using lumasharpen (on games that tend to get a bit blurry, specially with TAA) and Fxaa/smaa in some cases, also use it to get really highquality screenshots (thnks to reshade saving them in png or bpm). 99% of my usage with it is super simple, i really like it even wen im only using 5% of its potential

I saw the RE4 image and thought it was a Retro episode based on that game. Man, that would be a dream…

Hi Alex! Just one suggestion, could you upload your videos in 4k too?

Alex beside Richard are the best in DF

So glad you made a video on this. Been doing this few 2 years and I'm made i didnt sooner. Alot of people just dont know about this.

Please make an updated video on this. - Many new features - Easier to use for newcomers - Many sharpening options

Loving the pc focused content, keep up the good work DF. Ignore all the infuriated console peasants regretting buying a plastic toy to play games on.

Oh man, Deus Ex menu music. Must go back and play it noooooooow. Best series in my opinion. I miss being a kid and having time to play games for hours and hours.

This is PC Master Race only, console gamers shall not pass beyond this point. :D

I always use reshade. It's amazing, o can make nights in games looks like real nights, color saturation, bloom, sharpening.

I use lumasharpen on every single game. Taa + reshade lumasharpen solves all your AA needs.

Insane that I just discovered this I've been on PC since 2013. I knew Dolfin and emulators had it but any PC games Crazy

Great video as always, Alex!

Since finding conversions of retroarch CRT shaders, particularly Easymode-CRT & Lottes CRT, I can't play any retro or retro-styled games without them, and figuring out their exact native vertical resolution to properly emulate the correct look. Early 3d does not suit high resolution at all, but 320x200 with other quality of life improvements like (subtly applied) motion blur, fake HDR, godrays & ambient light can save many of them!

Excellent and informative video. Thanks Alex/Digital Foundry.

I have been using ReShade ever since it started. I have also been using SweetFX, Boulotaur's version with Gaussian effects, and of course ENB. Post process are fantastic. While it can create a custom mood for your favourite games, it can also "fix" things like the mentioned colour banding or extreme saturation. I've been coding and porting shaders for a few years and I wish these tools would one day be available on consoles. Cheers back! :)

I just used the most recent release only yesterday. I have used it off and on for years, but that latest version is amazing with that in game interface. Thanks for the vid. Since I have subscribed I have learned a lot about a lot of things that have made me rejigger what I thought about a bunch of things.

ReShade is a great tool, but most if not all presets available on the Net are abysmal. Not everyone is a computer artist, and you're better off creating your own settings.

playing wolfenstein in black&white + red was great experience.

Huh, I was always taught not to double up on anti-aliasing effects to prevent artifacting. Is that actually not a concern?

I know it's only for supported games but I love Nvidia Freestyles "Details" setting. The sharpening and clarity sliders are the best.

20 years in PC gaming and I've just learn something new!

I first used Reshade with Skyrim but more recently I’ve been using with FarCry 2 and holy shit! Is the remastered we will never get. It looks photorealistic with all the shades I could mess around with. It really gives a second wind to a 10 years old game.

I've used reshade to play a few games mirrored horizontally. It's very unsettling and cool to play a game you know really well that way.

Using this to get great CRT emulation for my 8bit and 16bit games. Fantastic

Wow really cool too see this from a big outlet. Reshade is amazing and so overlooked!

Wow, absolutely love the PC content Alex. And for you to be german aswell, it makes me so happy hearing some german sentences!

Hell yes it can. I used it to make The Sims 3 look good. Ambient occlusion, depth of field, god rays, screen space ambient lighting and reflections, film grain....and yet it looks totally natural.

You got me at ambient occlusion. I think I'm gonna have a shot with that when Black Mesa's last chapter releases this year

Many thanks for this vidéo ! I have always used reshade completly blind about how it works and often get crappy results... I'm going to test new stuff now 😘

there is an option that allows the "smaa" to not ruin the lettering ! you have to enable "display depth" on a compatible game and then put "depth" in the "smaa" options of the reshade, useful in games with smaa or fxaa as unique antialiasing ah and the "taa" is a good options

Fantastic video! I love Reshade... I use it for Red Faction: Guerrilla, meself. Oh, man, every time I see the RE4 intro, all I can think about is Deepercutt's Resident Evil 4 YTP...

Great music choices in this vid :D

tbh I prefer to play my games the way the developers intended it to be. These reshaders (and even retexture packs) often break the atmosphere the devs want to you experience.

Are you going to do a relook of reshade now that has RTGI It adds global illumination to any game.

Dragon's Dogma & Dark Souls games with reshades will truly enhanced the graphics. Witcher 3 with Reshade & graphics mods? That's another level amazing graphics.

Playing Tomb Raider The Last Revelation with Reshade and LOVING the effect!

I love motion blur it looks so great

I managed to create a great custom preset for The Witcher 3. I might upload it to the Nexus Mods for the fans out there who still play the game. It's made specifically for gameplay immersion, but it also looks beautiful for screenshots.