Dazaster's Reshade 4 Install Guide With Pictures

[Dazaster]

Hello and welcome to my blah blah blah about How To Install Reshade 4, with pictures.

 

Many people seem to be having difficulty installing a Reshade preset for their games for the first time, I know I did, so

hopefully this will help someone else.

 

Firstly, this guide is for the latest version, which, as of March 2019, is 4.2.0

 

Let's start.

 

What is Reshade exactly?

Reshade is a graphic tool for changing the generic look of many video games. It works by injecting a shader library into memory which users can then edit to make their game look better, worse or even weird.

It's been designed by Crosire with input from many different people and is derived from what used to be known as SweetFX.

But don't confuse SweetFX with Reshade.

Huh?

SweetFX is dead. Happily it's fetid corpse gave rise to a New! Improved! version. But presets and shaders made for SweetFX are

incompatible with Reshade, i.e. they won't work.

 

Isn't it just ENB?

No. Yes. No.

ENB is a graphic tool for changing the generic look of many video games. It works by injecting a shader library into memory which users can then edit to make their game look better, worse or even weird.

 

See? Totally different. But the same.

Huh?

ENB is made by Boris Vorontsov. It IS similar to Reshade and does practically the same thing.

But the way the 2 programs do the same thing is slightly different and too much to go into here. Also I don't know what they are anyway.

ENB also supports fewer games than Reshade and although there are many user written shaders for it, they're not bundled together like Reshades are, so you have to hunt high and low for what you want.

 

OK?

 

Right let's crack on then.

 

First you need to know if Reshade supports the game you want it for and to download it.

Go to https://reshade.me/

On that screen is a download button and a few Tabs at the top.

One of the Tabs is Games. Clicking on that will show you a list of all compatible games. Clicking on a game will bring up some presets, though they tend to be a bit dated and include stuff for SweetFX and early Reshades like 1,2 and 3.

DON'T TRY OUTDATED PRESETS FOR ANYTHING BEFORE RESHADE 3 THEY WON'T WORK AT ALL AND MANY FOR 3 WON'T EITHER.

 

Go back to the main page and click Download, the screen will scroll and you have to click Download again. Yeah I know.

 

So now you have Reshade. But unless you know how to make your own preset(in which case what are you doing here)

you're going to need one.

 

Now, where to get a decent preset? Hmm, lets think...

Where on this disease ridden intanetty can I find stuff for games...?

Charles' Cockroach Den?

Laticia's Luscious Lair?

Robin's Nest? (See what I did there? No? For shame)

 

OK, guess we could try that wretched hive of scum and villainy, Nexusmods.

 

A quick look at any number of games on the Nexus will usually turn up a load of presets available. Have a good look at the description, because

as stated earlier many older presets for older Reshade versions won't work either properly or at all.

 

Ah, you've picked one. Well done! Now, download it, and install(extract it) to your games main directory.

That's the directory where the games executable file is, for example Fallout4.exe is the executable for Fallout 4 and is found in the Fallout 4 directory. Other games may be different, for example witcher3.exe is in the x64 directory which is in the bin directory. No seriously, it is.

And of course the games may be held under something else, like SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\, so...hunt around, or google "where is xxx game exe"

 

Now, pay attention here.

 

There are 2(two) ways of getting Reshade to use a preset. The first is to select one when running Reshade's installer. The other is to run Reshade's installer, then run the game and select one using Reshade's GUI.

GUI means Graphical User Interface, probably, and basically is an in-game means of messing about with various doodads till it breaks and you start crying again.

 

And finally, here's where we actually start this here guide(with pictures, coz' i'm nice like that)

===========================================================================================================

Locate ReShade_Setup_4.2.0.exe, probably in your downloads directory and double click it.

If this is the first time you're running Reshade, or even just a new version, Windows may step in here and stop the file from running.

The pop-up should give you an option to run the file anyway. Do so and see this:

r9

 

Now hit Run Anyway again and the Reshade installer will start. Don't worry about it, Windows and antivirus software often mistake new Reshade versions

for other stuff, but it's harmless. Probably. (heehee)

 

Here's what you'll see:

r1

 

Move your mouse over the grey box in the middle where it says Select game and click it.

Now Reshade will bring up a directory box. Under Reshade 4, it automatically assumes that you

a) have Steam and

b) have all your Steam games on the C: drive.

 

Yes, this is annoying to those of us who have Steam elsewhere. Just find your game and it's executable already.

r2

 

Like that, see? No, don't go looking for your Fallout4.exe in D:\Reshade\ directory like the picture. That's for illustrative purposes only.

 

OK, after that rigmarole, click on the .exe file once.

 

Reshade will then ask you:

r3

 

Huh? What?

Depending on the game, Reshade will try to match it to one of the 3(three) rendering options, i.e. dx9, dx10/11 or opengl.

Mostly, it gets it right, but occasionally you may want to change it, if say for example you have a game in which you can choose whether to run under directx or opengl.

 

See the little red arrow I've drawn? That's because you need to

ACTUALLY CLICK ON THE WORDS!!!

Huh?

Yeah, I know. You'd think there would be an OK button on that screen somewhere, but there isn't. You have to click somewhere on the actual words themselves to go forward in the install.

Don't know what your game is? Stick with the installer's guess. The installer hasn't picked one? Uh-Oh.

That means it either doesn't know, doesn't support that game, or the game could be run in either dx or opengl, so you need to check your own games settings in that case. Or, you know, google it.

 

After clicking on the words, Reshade will ask if you want to install it(or if you want to overwrite the present install if you've got one already:

r4

 

Click Yes.

 

Now...

 

Reshade will ask you this:

r5

 

There are 2(two) things you can do here. You can click Yes. You can click No.

What does that even mean???

Reshade by itself does nothing. It requires shader files to make changes to what you see on screen. Reshade's website retains a complete repository of all currently accepted working shaders and it's these which will be downloaded if you click Yes.

If you intend trying to make your own preset, then you need these, so click Yes.

If the preset you're going to use doesn't say not to get them, then also click Yes.

If however the presets description page claims to provide all the shaders needed, and you don't intend making your own, then click No.

 

What's the real difference though, Dazaster?

Tiny Amounts of Time.

When your game loads, Reshade will load as well and will load ALL the shaders it finds. Loading 50 shaders takes longer than loading 5 shaders.

Now, preset authors have the option with Reshade to set it so only the shaders the preset uses will load, but sometimes they forget.

I did on the last preset I uploaded to the Nexus, and I've only remembered that now, so I'll need to change that sometime...

But the time taken for a full shader load isn't that long anyway, unless you have a potato, maybe. And, even if you have a potato, some of 'em are still alright, remember what that potato little Chell used in the Portal 2 science fair was capable of...Er, what you didn't know she...um, nevermind.

 

Right then, so you've clicked Yes or No and next up is:

r6

 

See the Succeeded top left. That means you're done. Well no. Yes you are done. But you haven't yet told Reshade which preset to use.

Reshade lets you have any number of presets in the main directory, so you can pick and choose when using the GUI in-game.

 

But that also means it doen't automatically pick one and use it. You have to tell it which first.

 

You can try leaning in close to the screen and yelling "Engage", or "Preset 5", but Reshade will just ignore you.

 

Instead, it's choice time again. Either click the large X on top right, which will end the install, and then run the game and choose from the in-game GUI, or..

Choose now by clicking on the gray box where I've drawn another informative arrow. That will bring up either:

r7

or

r8

 

In these boxes, you can select a preset, define where Reshade looks for shaders and textures and some important stuff at the bottom.

So, select a preset.

Don't mess with locations of the shaders and textures unless you have to. Leave them alone I said. If the effects are not loading in-game, then it's time to look at the locations again(by simply re-running the installer), but otherwise they should be OK

 

Now the bottom row.

Performance mode: - checking this will ensure ONLY the shaders needed by the preset will load, BUT be aware that you will be unable to edit the preset in-game until you take Performance mode off(also do-able in-game)

Show FPS - when ticked a small FPS counter will appear in the top right corner in-game. Be aware this WILL be shown in any Steam(F12) screenshots.

Show Clock - shows the time top right in-game. Again, this will show up in a Steam screenshot. Both are toggle-able in-game from the GUI.

Skip Tutorial: Tick this if you're using a preset. You can run through it in the GUI later, if you feel like beginning to mess about with Reshade. It's very basic, so don't worry about it anyway.

 

Then it's just clicking OK.

 

And you're done. For real this time. Click the big X on the top right to close the installer.

 

Made a mistake? Just run the installer again, choose Yes to overwrite the present install and try again.

 

Now load up your game and see what happens.

Maybe everything will run great. Maybe your PC will explode. Nobody knows.

 

Oh, one last thing.

Reshade's GUI can be toggle in-game.

FIRSTLY THOUGH:

It depends on the game but...

You need to be paused, or in the menu or something.

In Bethesda games you can press the console key to freeze the game.

That's ` under Esc on american keyboards or @ on european boards.

Either way do that first.

 

Then press Shift+F2 to bring up the GUI.

Failure to pause the game with Esc or the console will bring about catastrophe whereby the mouse pointer won't move over the GUI.

Then you'll be crying again.

 

Hope this is understandable enough, and helpful. If not, blame that guy behind you.

 

===================================================================================================================

And now for your viewing pleasure, COMMON REASONS IT'S NOT WORKING:

 

1. You. You pressed thingamajig when you shoulda pressed thangamajog.

2. Old preset. Not(yet) compatible with Reshade 4. Try another one.

3. No preset selected. Select one.

4. The directory info for the shaders and textures is wrong. Edit using the installer or direct using Notepad on Reshade.ini

5. Programs interfering. Stuff like msi afterburner, antivirus, Steam itself. Needs googling to sort out.

6. Windows.

7. Another graphic adaptation already present. Previous Reshades, ENB's, etc still present in the main directory.

For example, Reshade 4 will normally use dxgi.dll but older versions may use d3d9.dll. ENB also often uses d3d9.dll or d3d11.dll. Or look for opengl32.dll

All of those .dll's are injectors, used to piggyback the code to the game. Clear 'em out and try again.

8. Windows again. To keep you safe from the childish, the greedy and the pathetic, Windows tries to block stuff it doesn't understand or know about.

Often when trying to run the installer, Windows(or your antivirus) will block it's execution. Click Run Anyway if possible, or check for a Windows or Reshade

update.

9. Game updates. They changed something. Now it broke. Wait for patch, either from game makers, modders or Reshade.

10. All of the above. Well, you tried. Nevermind.

Edited March 9, 2019 by Dazaster

[HadToRegister]

Excellent guide, well done.

I use Redshade as my go-to shader because it seems to get along better with my games and mods.
Plus I like the in-game editing and the hotkey to toggle the Fx on/off.

I just wish there was a way to move the FPS counter.

[Hallier]

I've been having an issue with the UBER Fidelity 2 stuff for FO4 where I can't get the preset to even show up in the GUI. I have all the files installed normally, and have done so multiple times with recurring installs. The one thing that's off is that it wants to replace the dxgi.dll file installed by Reshade with its own drastically smaller file. I've no clue what to do here, and no one will help. Considering the author's own installation instructions are flawed, I don't have much faith in his ability to tell me what's wrong.

[Dazaster]

I've been having an issue with the UBER Fidelity 2 stuff for FO4 where I can't get the preset to even show up in the GUI. I have all the files installed normally, and have done so multiple times with recurring installs. The one thing that's off is that it wants to replace the dxgi.dll file installed by Reshade with its own drastically smaller file. I've no clue what to do here, and no one will help. Considering the author's own installation instructions are flawed, I don't have much faith in his ability to tell me what's wrong.

Sorry for the late reply. The only uber fidelity suite I could find is for the Witcher 3. That preset uses a very old version of Reshade and Marty Mcfly's Mastereffect suite. They are incompatible with the latest Reshade build. You'll need to search the Reshade repository for a compatible old version, there's a link near the bottom of the description on the Witcher 3 uber fidelity page.