DCS World and Reshade

[M0ltar]

 

 

 

I have seen numerous people mentioning or asking about Reshade lately and I want to clear the air of any misinformation and/or answer some questions that I see commonly along with an install guide. I have also included, should you want to use it, my custom Reshade profile. Reshade is a tool that when used correctly can really make a game shine and that is exactly what I have tried to get my DCS world Instance to due. If you have any questions about Reshade in general or about installation please do not hesitate to ask and I will try and do my best to help you out.

 

 

Common Questions

 

How good can Reshade make DCS World look? (Image Examples)

 

Reshade Off

 

 

 

 

Reshade On

 

 

 

What is Reshade?

Reshade is a generic post-processing injector for games and video software developed by crosire. Imagine your favorite game with ambient occlusion, real depth of field effects, color correction and more

How does Reshade work?

ReShade doesn't run in a process. It pretends to be the DirectX or OpenGL driver, so that games load ReShade instead of the actual driver and send all render commands to ReShade. ReShade then passes those commands on to the real driver while adding and modifying some commands to do its thing.

 

Post-processing under D3D11 happens when the game calls IDXGISwapChain::Present to mark a finished frame.

Will Reshade break integrity check?

No. Reshade will not break integrity check in any way and is 100% multiplayer safe in all servers.

How do I get Reshade?

Go to the Reshade websiteand hit the download button.

Why does Reshade look so bad sometimes?

Most people that use Reshade use the default out-of-the-box settings that come with each filter and shader. These are fine, but most of the time lead to an over saturated color pallet that is very unrealistic. Something else to keep in mind is that we as human beings are attracted to the color blue and color saturation in general. If you go to a big box electronics store take not to look at the TVs on the TV wall. You will see that the blue saturation is cranked. This makes the image look more vivid to an untrained eye providing the impression that the TV is displaying a better picture when in reality it is far from it.

 

Installation Instructions

 

1) Download Reshade from the Reshade website and launch the installer.

 

 

 

2) Launch the Reshade installer that you just downloaded.

 

 

 

3) Select the DCS.exe application from your DCS World install 'bin' directory.

 

 

 

 

 

4) Select the Direct3D 10/11/12 rendering engine from the installer window.

 

 

 

5) Allow the Reshade installer to install all default filters and shaders.

 

 

 

6) Close the Reshade installer.

 

 

 

This concludes the default Reshade installation. If you wish to install 'Moltar's Custom Profile and Shaders' please continue to step 7. If you wish to proceed with the default Reshade installation please proceed to step 9...

 

 

 

7) Download 'Moltar's Custom Profile and Shaders' from this link. This download will include custom filters and shaders not part of the default Reshade installation as well as Moltar's custom settings that he uses in his profile. Once downloaded, open the zip file using your favorite decompression tool such as WinRAR or 7zip.

 

 

 

8.) Copy both the folder 'reshade-shaders' and the profile 'Moltar_Reshade.ini' to your DCS World installation 'bin' directory. Allow files to overwrite when prompted.

 

 

 

 

9) After completing the Reshade instillation launch DCS World. If the installation was a success you will be greeted with this bar at the top of your loading screen after the game launches.

 

 

 

 

10) After DCS World has fully loaded hit the 'Home' key on your keyboard to bring up the Reshade menu. Reshade will initially greet you saying you should complete the tutorial. I strongly recommend that you do this. Once the tutorial has been completed click on the 'Settings' tab at the top.

 

 

 

11) It is very important that you remember the 'Overlay Key' and the 'Effect Toggle Key'. 'Overlay Key" is the key that allows you to bring up the Reshade overlay and can be set to any hotkey including modifiers. An example would be Shift+F2. The 'Effect Toggle Key' is the toggle switch that allows you to turn Reshade on and off. Please not that Reshade will default to on every time DCS is started. If you wish to remove Reshade please follow these instructions.

 

 

 

 

12) Now navigate to the 'Home' tab. Take note of all of the filters in the main column. These are the filters that can be enabled and disabled. Try turning a few on and note the changes that they make to your game visuals. If you have downloaded and installed my profile click on the top drop down menu and select 'Moltar_Reshade' from it. All of the filters and settings will be automatically applied.

 

Edited November 22, 2019 by M0ltar

[flanker1]

amazing. are you using default ED terrain textures?

[M0ltar]

I think for the screenshots I was using Mustangs terrain, but you are going to see similar results using the default terrain from ED.

[ineptaphid]

Now THAT is how you do a tutorial! Amazing job.

[Lenux]

I'm using ReShade 0.1.1 with SweetFX 2.0

Would you recommend to install this and remove the older one ?

Thank you

[Wikkus]

If I may ask what could be a staggeringly dumb question?

 

Are these intended to augment the in-game settings or replace them?

Should I, for instance, turn off SSAO altogether? And should my game's gamma slider be backed off?

 

I ask because right now, with your presets (and I very much appreciate this is about personal preference), on, for example, Nevada, I have a very, very bright image with extremeley gaudy colouration.

 

Again, apologies if this is kid's stuff, but I'm seeking to get the sort of clarity I see in vids and screenies, whereas my defaults always look a tad washed-out and subdued.

 

FYI, this is on a stock-clocked 1080Ti with a 6700K with 32GB RAM running at 1920x1080.

 

Cheers,

Rik.

[M0ltar]

If I may ask what could be a staggeringly dumb question?

 

Are these intended to augment the in-game settings or replace them?

Should I, for instance, turn off SSAO altogether? And should my game's gamma slider be backed off?

 

I ask because right now, with your presets (and I very much appreciate this is about personal preference), on, for example, Nevada, I have a very, very bright image with extremeley gaudy colouration.

 

Again, apologies if this is kid's stuff, but I'm seeking to get the sort of clarity I see in vids and screenies, whereas my defaults always look a tad washed-out and subdued.

 

FYI, this is on a stock-clocked 1080Ti with a 6700K with 32GB RAM running at 1920x1080.

 

Cheers,

Rik.

 

 

They're meant to augment to an extent. However, you do NOT want to use in game aliasing while using Reshade. If you have Reshade running you should use aliasing from inside Reshade, but in the end its up to you. Just keep trying different configurations of in game and Reshade settings and see what works best for you in the end.

[petsild]

Really :thumbup: useful tutorial, great work.

[Lenux]

M0ltar, could you please help me with my question above?

Thank you

[Wikkus]

They're meant to augment to an extent. However, you do NOT want to use in game aliasing while using Reshade. If you have Reshade running you should use aliasing from inside Reshade, but in the end its up to you. Just keep trying different configurations of in game and Reshade settings and see what works best for you in the end.

 

 

Thanks, man! I turned the anti-aliasing off in game and dialled the gamma to about 1.5 and it *did* look a whole lot better. :thumbup:

 

 

 

The only issue that remains is that all the text in menus, briefings, etc. looks slightly weird now, kind of indistinct, fuzzy, a tad flickery. Can't quite pinpoint what causes it.

 

Cheers,

Rik.

[M0ltar]

Really :thumbup: useful tutorial, great work.

 

I'm using ReShade 0.1.1 with SweetFX 2.0

Would you recommend to install this and remove the older one ?

Thank you

 

I would recommend updating your install as the new versions have been drastically increased in efficiency.

 

Thanks, man! I turned the anti-aliasing off in game and dialled the gamma to about 1.5 and it *did* look a whole lot better. :thumbup:

 

 

 

The only issue that remains is that all the text in menus, briefings, etc. looks slightly weird now, kind of indistinct, fuzzy, a tad flickery. Can't quite pinpoint what causes it.

 

Cheers,

Rik.

 

Try turning off Reshade filters until you isolate the culprits. If you still need further help let me know.

[GIGA_HORSE]

So I used previous version of ReShade and it worked ok, but did lag and crash occasionally. But after I tried to install 4.4.2 but the game crashes on launch, any thoughts on why this is happening?

 

dcs.log-20191128-014035.zip

 

 

edit: figured it out, had to manually delete files from previous version prior installing current one.

Edited November 28, 2019 by GIGA_HORSE

[mosqui]

So I used previous version of ReShade and it worked ok, but did lag and crash occasionally. But after I tried to install 4.4.2 but the game crashes on launch, any thoughts on why this is happening?

 

[ATTACH]221874[/ATTACH]

 

 

edit: figured it out, had to manually delete files from previous version prior installing current one.

Good morning But reshade kills the fps strongly in my case.

Is this a problem for you or not?

Thanks in advance2

[M0ltar]

Good morning But reshade kills the fps strongly in my case.

Is this a problem for you or not?

Thanks in advance2

 

 

Reshade is going to cause some FPS loss. The FPS loss amount is going to great depend on how many filters you're running simultaneously.

[Chump]

I find that the newer ReShade causes only a few FPS to be lost, as opposed to the older versions where it was noticable. The newer DLL is optimized much more for DX11/12, even rewriting most of the plugins. Give it a try and see. If it hinders you too much, let him know. I would recommend ReShade vs. oppose it.

[petsild]

Once upon a time used to use SMAA filter, but at the termination of the DCS there was always the game crash.

[Ddaddy]

Looks Great

 

I was gonna say good but they are great actually, TY.

I added adaptive sharpness.

Where I was 90fps (1080p) I'm now 70 but stay above 60 all the time so far.

Real improvement.

Merry Christmas:pilotfly:

[Nightstorm]

Based on what I've read, there is currently no way to get Reshade to work with VR headsets correct?

[M0ltar]

Based on what I've read, there is currently no way to get Reshade to work with VR headsets correct?

 

 

That is correct.

[mosqui]

I was gonna say good but they are great actually, TY.

I added adaptive sharpness.

Where I was 90fps (1080p) I'm now 70 but stay above 60 all the time so far.

Real improvement.

Merry Christmas:pilotfly:

 

You lose almost 22% of fps. Does that seem like a good business? I think rhesade consumes a lot of resources and gives a nice view only. This is my opinion as a user to this program.

Cheers

[M0ltar]

It depends. A lot of us just fly at 60 FPS and use vsync so it makes sense for us.

[YSIAD_RIP]

ReShade is excellent.

I am using it now for extra sharpening and SMAA, as I disabled DCS MSAA 2x

It is fun playing with the plethora of FX shader/filters.

 

Thanks!

[Hunter Joker]

Hi, from the splash screen Reshade tell me that there's un update.

How can I update reshade without creating problems to DCS and also without losing my actual preset? Simply donwload it and launch the installer will work or I need to do something other?

Thx.

 

[M0ltar]

Hi, from the splash screen Reshade tell me that there's un update.

How can I update reshade without creating problems to DCS and also without losing my actual preset? Simply donwload it and launch the installer will work or I need to do something other?

Thx.

 

You just redownload reshade and go through the reinstall process. It will ask about the update during that process.

[Hunter Joker]

 

You just redownload reshade and go through the reinstall process. It will ask about the update during that process.

 

Thx mate, so a simple update/overwrite is all i need to do :thumbup: