Reasons for using ReShade, attempt to use its shaders instead of some MSFS2020 effects

Very nice, congratulations. but for normal people or maybe dumb like me could you please tell me what to do with all these files.

Thnak you - spasivo

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Did these changes degrade the performance of the game? I ask because from what I can see in the video, the performance is poor. Low FPS and not smooth. I could not play like that.

The visual differences are great and would like to do this myself, but not at the cost of performance.

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No, these changes are not the reason for the poor performance. The reason is my computer’s lack of power. I have about 27-28 fps and stuttering on default graphics of the MSFS2020. When using ReShade, I get about 25 fps. The performance could be even lower on my video as I used the second overlay to record the video. So, the total performance drop is only a few fps when using my ReShade presets. I also didn’t notice an increase of the stuttering when using the Reshade. (In general, I noticed that the ReShade works much more stable on MSFS2020 than on other flight simulators.)

Looks good, do you know if it works in VR? With some headsets (quest 2 at least) we have no way to adjust even basic monitor settings like contrast so something like this would be nice

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Unfortunately, I don’t have any VR equipment, so I can’t test my presets on VR. But I would be happy if the presets worked correctly on it.

Let me now clarify the logical structure of my ReShade presets used on the video. Sorry if the structure was initially unclear.

List of ReShade shaders that I used for the presets.
“Cinetools”, “ColorMatrix”, “Tint”, “RetroTint”, “CAS”, “Curves”, “MXAO” and “Pantomorphic”. The more complete name of each shader and its developer listed in description of the video.

Three presets are the basis.
“Cinematic MSFS2020 v1”
“Cinematic MSFS2020 v2”
“Cinematic MSFS2020 v3”

Versions 1 and 3 are different color correction options. In turn, each of these presets has three variations of “CAS” shader tweaks.

“low sharp”
“mid sharp”
“much sharp”
The preset with the words “optical” contains “much sharp” variation of “CAS” shader tweaks and lens emulation through “Pantomorphic” shader. (It is better to turn off the default “Lens Correction” of MSFS2020 when you use the lens emulation through “Pantomorphic” shader).

A number of examples.
a) “Cinematic MSFS2020 v1 (much sharp)” and “Cinematic MSFS2020 v2 (much sharp)” presets contain a different variation of color correction, but the same settings of “CAS” shader.
b) “Cinematic MSFS2020 v2 (low sharp)” and “Cinematic MSFS2020 v2 (much sharp)” presets contain the same color correction variation, but different settings of “CAS” shader.
с) “Cinematic MSFS2020 v1 (much sharp)” and “Cinematic MSFS2020 v1 (optical)” presets contain the same color correction and the same settings of “CAS” shader, but the preset with the word “optical” also adds a lens effect emulation through “Pantomorphic” shader.

Each of these presets has been tested on the video. Each fragment of the video called “RESHADE” also contains the exact name of the preset that used in the fragment. This preset name is shown at the top of the screen, under the word “RESHADE”. But it is shown only at the beginning of the test fragment, for a few seconds. I did it to free up the screen space.

Also, I made a “light” version of the presets as an additional option. These presets have the same logical structure as the original one. The difference is almost only in contrast of image. Specifically, I reduced the “Contrast” parameter of the “Curves” shader from “0.082” to “0.040” and disabled “MXAO” in the “light” version. There are no other differences between this version and original one. (The “light” version of the presets is not tested on the video.)

Hi

I am new to using re-shade. I know that you mentioned that the shaders used are in the video description but would you be kind enough to provide the links to where I can get these from.

Hello, FijiPilot.
Sorry for the delay.
There is no need to search and download shaders specially. A window will appear where you can select the necessary shader packages during the installation of ReShade. Then Reshade will download, unpack and install the shaders automatically.

You need to select the following shader packages for correctly work of the presets.

  1. “Standart effects”.
  2. “SweetFX by CeeJay . dk”.
  3. “qUNIT by Marty McFly”.
  4. “Color effects by prod80”.
  5. “Reshade-shaders by Daodan”

I’m ready to describe the process of ReShade installing in more detail, if necessary.

How do you install reshade?

I’d like to use ReShade instead the nVidia Ansel but I purchased the simulator from the Microsoft store, and I can’t access the . exe file

Could you please post or upload the preset files along with the shader settings you are using? I did not see this info in the video.

Thanks

I’ve been using ReShade for years in all my games including MSFS and the results are amazing. The creator of this fantastic little program needs a medal!! I just cannot imagine games without it!

Go here: https://reshade.me

  1. Run the installer, it will auto detect all installed games. If it does not then browse and manually point it to MSFS.
  2. A window will appear, this is where you choose the filters.
  3. I recommend scrolling all the way down and selecting the Legacy Filters but you can choose to go with the others
  4. If you choose Legacy Filters a big list will appear. You can keep them all or use the check boxes to select which ones you want.

These are the shaders I use but you may want others:

AdaptiveSharpen.fx
AmbientLight.fx
Clarity.fx
Colourfulness.fx
Curves.fx
DPX.fx
FakeHDR.fx
FineSharp.fx
FXAA.fx
HighPassSharpen.fx
Layer.fx
Levels.fx
LumaSharpen.fx
MagicBloom.fx
ReShade.fxh
reshade.txt
ReShadeUI.fxh
SMAA.fx
SMAA.fxh
Vibrance.fx

Colorfulness, Vibrance, Sharpen, FXAA , Magic Bloom etc make a huge difference. Each shader has a slider so you can adjust the look of the game in real time and save the preset.

A tutorial runs at game launch to show you the basics. Have fun.

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Ok, what do I click? It asks:

I clicked the first one, but do not see fs2020 in the list!

How do I find FS2020 now??

From what I can find on Google, Reshade will not work on any MS Store game, because of how MS has them locked down

Oh too bad.

There is a “pack” in flightsim.to called pilots perspective uploaded by someone who gives shaders for use with nvidia ansel.

You just follow the instructions and voila, the shaders work very well.

I’m using these instead of reshade on the ms store version of the sim to great effect, it even has a guide of which values to set to to give you an idea of where to start.

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Dear participants of the discussion,
sorry I was not able to answer in time.

I’ve successfully installed ReShade on MS Store version of MSFS2020. My video with ReShade was also made with MS Store version of the simulator. It works. However, the method of installing ReShade on Store version is much more complicated than on the Steam version. Also, it may not work for all users. The reason of the difficulties is the “UWP” platform. However, there are chances of a successful installation ReShade this way. I can recommend a specific program to solve this problem. The program is located on the GitHub website and a YouTube guide has been created for it. Also, I’ve created my own manual for the program as it does not function well with the original manual. (I just need a little more time to translate the manual into English). However, I can’t publish this information here, because I don’t know if it violates forum rules or not. So, I ask the forum moderators for permission to publish the information here If possible.

In the meantime, I want to tell you the main thing. ReShade can work on MS Store version of the MSFS2020. This is not a myth!

About using NVIDIA Ancel/Freestyle.
I ask you not to rush to replace ReShade with Freestyle. It is not that simple.
I’ve been using Freestyle on the MSFS2020 for a few months. Then I switched to ReShade and will never go back to Freestyle again. Here are the reasons for this decision.

  1. Freestyle with ReShade shaders reduces graphics performance more than ReShade with the same shaders.
  2. Freestyle adds a significant input lag. This is a well-known question. As a result, the control of the aircraft becomes less natural. (In particular, the lag is higher if I use Freestyle with ReShade shaders. The lag is lower if I use Freestyle with its own shaders.) ReShade gives much less input lag.
  3. The basic shaders available in Freestyle are rather weak. Also, the quality of ReShade shaders is higher than the Freestyle shaders, in my opinion. You will understand why I say this when you work with ReShade and Freestyle for a long time.
  4. The number of settings for Freestyle shaders is much less than the number of settings for ReShade shaders.
  5. The number of ReShade shaders that can work on MSFS2020 through Freestyle is very small. 10-15 shaders in total. The reason is that Freestyle has restrictions on the use of ReShade shaders in games where these shaders can be used as cheat codes. At the time when I used Freestyle, the MSFS2020 was considered such type of games. (It is possible that nothing has changed now.) While I can use hundreds of shaders in ReShade.
  6. Freestyle has a poor preset storage system. You only have three compartments for saving presets. Also, the presets in these compartments are erased after each new update of the MSFS2020! While you can save dozens of presets and then copy them to backup folders in ReShade.

I’ve been setting up Freestyle with ReShade shaders for months, but I haven’t been able to get anything like what you saw in my video. Of course, certain results were achieved, but their quality and balance didn’t even come close to what I did in ReShade.

In general, Freestyle is a bit like a toy for me. There are no necessary settings, no set of shaders, no quality that I would like to get. This doesn’t look like a normal program for real-time post-processing graphics, in my opinion.

I’ve not tried the “Pilots perspective” shaders. Perhaps it gives good results. But I still don’t want return to Freestyle because of the above difficulties.

But this is just my subjective opinion based on my own experience. Of course, you may have a different look at this software.

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