Hey there! Reshade question! I was just wondering if you could tell me what the big differences are between 3.0.8 and 3.4.1. that makes it so that 3.0.8. presets can't be used in 3.4.1? Is there a way to maybe tweak older presets to make them compatible to 3.4.1? I'm currently (happily) using your Clear Bloom preset by the way, it's absolutely wonderful and gorgeous. Thanks SO MUCH for making and sharing it. You are a true blessing to the community
Hi there! I’m so happy you like Clear Bloom!!!
The main difference is the MXAO shader was rewritten, so if your preset uses MXAO those values will need to be tweaked if you want it to look the same.
So warnings of ‘not compatible with’ are overblown, it just means ‘you’ll need to change some MXAO settings’.
I created Hazy Days and Blueberryade with 3.0.8 but I use it quite happily with 3.4.1 and have done since 3.4.1 came out.
A good rule of thumb is that any preset made in a 3.x version will be compatible with any other 3.x version (likewise those made within 2.x with any other 2.x, and any within 4.x with any other 4.x), but some individual shader values may need to be tweaked if there were rewrites of shaders by particular shader authors during that time.
But see, a shader author can rewrite their shader at any time, so it’s possible you could be using, let’s say 4.3 and Marty McFly goes and rewrites MXAO again and all of a sudden, even though you’re still using 4.3 it doesn’t look the same any more. That’s because shaders and ReShade are two separate things that work together, maintained by different people.
ReShade is the tool. It’s the thing that allows us to inject shaders into our game. Without ReShade the shaders don’t work. It sets out the language shaders can use, and the framework for letting them interact with our games.
Shaders are each written by different people who aren’t necessarily connected with the development of ReShade. Anyone can write a shader if they know the language. Because shaders are developed independently they are updated to a different timescale, whenever the authors want basically. New ones are developed all the time, and old ones updated and improved upon.
When using ReShade it’s important to understand how it works so you know what’s happening when you update ReShade. It’s important to keep bakcups too in case you want to revert to older versions.
Remember though, any shader written for 3.x can be used with any 3.x version. If you’re especially tied to the 3.0.8 version of MXAO you can use it in 3.4.1, just paste it over the new one.
One other thing you can run into when moving on from 3.0.8 is the depth buffer. In 3.1.1 they changed how it is calculated by default. It’s simple to change it back again if needed though, and I wrote a tutorial here.
