Same anon. This question is related to ReShade versions. From what I can understand, the changes that can render old presets useless are those in the shaders, right? So, there isn't really a way to "port" those presets made in older versions to the newest one, no? Apparently 3.0.8 is the most popular for some reason, but most presets that work on it should be fine in 3.1.x, right? Could them still be good on 3.3.x or 3.4.x? Do newer presets work fine on older versions of RS? Thanks and sorry. ;;
This is going to be long. I’m thorough.
I answered an ask about version compatibility not too long ago, you should find it useful to read through. It goes into the basics about the difference between ReShade the tool and shaders as individual things that work with ReShade the tool. It might answer all your questions, but in case it doesn’t…
The reason a lot of people favour 3.0.8 is because shortly after that version Marty McFly, the author of the MXAO shader, rewrote it a little and changed a few things about it, meaning any preset that used the old version would need its MXAO settings updating if using the new shader instead. Some people prefer the older version of MXAO, and some people don’t want to faff around editing the MXAO settings (I am neither of those people!).
As I explain in the link above, however, there is absolutely no reason why the version of MXAO that came with 3.0.8 can’t be used with 3.4.1 (which is another popular version, and the last version of 3.x before they brought out 4.x). Any shader that was made for any 3.x version of ReShade can be used with any other 3.x version of ReShade. There were several improvements to the interface in between 3.0.8 and 3.4.1 which make it worth the upgrade in my opinion, but you can do so while keeping the shaders that came with 3.0.8 if you prefer.
You’re right to say presets rely more on specific shaders than they do on a particular ReShade version (barring major rewrites of ReShade the tool between major releases like from 2.x to 3.x, although 3.x presets should work with 4.x taking into consideration the things I’m going to say next).
I wrote Hazy Days and Blueberryade with 3.0.8 but use it quite happily with 3.4.1, having edited the MXAO settings after Marty rewrote that shader (which could have happened at any time, it just happened to be after the release of 3.0.8), and I know @harrie-cc is using Hazy Days and my more recent Clear Bloom with 4.3, and only encountered a couple of issues relating to the DoF shader (which is no big problem anyway since that’s one of the shaders you change up to suit a scene yourself).
So, any 3.x preset should work with any other 3.x version, as long as you’re mindful that you may need to tweak the MXAO settings (or just use the shaders appropriate to the version that was used when creating that preset). And you’ll probably find a lot of 3.x presets work fine with 4.x versions too, but I’d recommend a fairly decent working knowledge of ReShade before trying it in case you encounter any issues. Because if there’s one thing about ReShade it’s that it requires some heavy duty troubleshooting sometimes, and while solutions are usually quite simple and straightforward, being armed with the knowledge of how ReShade and shaders work first is going to cut down that troubleshooting time considerably.
As for 4.x presets being used on 3.x versions, that gets slightly more tricky.
When 4.x came out they rewrote how ReShade deals with sliders (when you put your mouse inside a box that has numerical values in it you can pull your mouse from side to side to change the value up or down). In 3.x that functionality was called ‘drag’, and in 4.x it’s changed to a different system called ‘slider’.
Now, 4.x has the potential to use either ‘slider’ or ‘drag’, depending on which you specify in the shader code. But 3.x doesn’t have the ‘slider’ functionality at all. This means if you’re using a 3.x shader in 4.x it will recognise where it says ‘drag’ and work appropriately. But it means if you use a 4.x shader in 3.x it won’t recognise where it says ‘slider’, and some settings will be missing from the shaders. This can be remedied by editing the shader code so wherever it says ‘slider’ you change it to ‘drag’, but that’s time consuming and a pain. By all means go ahead and do it (I’m using three shaders that were written for 4.x in 3.4.1 at the moment and they work more or less fine now I’ve edited the shader code), but it’ll probably be tedious. If you do do it, make sure you back up those shaders afterwards so you never have to do it again.
So, your two options for using a 4.x preset in a 3.x version of ReShade would be to either use it with 3.x shaders or use it with 4.x shaders.
The former would be easier on the face of it because you wouldn’t have to edit the shaders to say ‘drag’ instead of ‘slider’, but you might find that some of the shaders were rewritten when 4.x came out (which is the most usual time for shader authors to make changes to their shaders – although some (as we see with Marty) will do so whenever they feel like it) and so using 3.x shaders might mean some settings just aren’t there and the preset doesn’t look as it should anymore. And there might be some entirely new shaders that were introduced in 4.x that aren’t there at all in the 3.x shader packs.
The latter is, therefore, preferable, but comes with its own issues, namely having to edit all the ‘slider’ instances to say ‘drag’ instead.
So really, when it comes down to it, if you desperately want to use a preset that was made in 4.x, I’d recommend just installing 4.x because it will be a lot easier.
And if you want to use a 3.x preset and have 4.x installed, you can probably do so, but be aware you may have to tweak a few settings here and there to accommodate any shader rewrites that have happened in the meantime (which shouldn’t be too big a task if you’re comfortable tweaking settings in the ReShade menu).
The great thing is, however, it’s ridiculously easy to switch between different versions of ReShade, although not as simple as when just switching between presets, because you need to close down the game to do it.
Let’s say you have 3.4.1 installed, and you want to use 4.3 but not have to go through all the set-up for 3.4.1 again if you want to switch back. What you’d do is take the d3d9.dll, d3d9.log, and reshade.ini files that are inside your Bin folder and just put them instead in your reshade-shaders folder and rename that folder to something like reshade-shaders-341 so you know it has everything you need for that version. Then you can go ahead and install 4.3 from scratch, and it will install a new d3d9.dll, reshade.ini and reshade-shaders folder.
Then, if you want to switch back to 3.4.1, take the d3d9.dll, d3d9.log and reshade.ini that you installed with 4.3 and put them in your new reshade-shaders folder and rename that to reshade-shaders-43, take the d3d9.dll, d3d9.log and reshade.ini files out of the reshade-shaders-341 folder and place them back in your Bin folder and rename reshade-shaders-341 to reshade-shaders and it’ll work as it used to.
The steps above are good to do anyway so you have backups of your ReShade installation should anything happen. I have copies of ReShade and shaders going back to version 0.12… because you never know!
Backup, backup, backup everything!
So, that was an incredibly long response, but I get a bit obsessed with making sure people know why and how, because that’s what I want to know when I’m trying to figure something out, so I assume everyone else does too. Knowledge is power. And even if it’s overkill for what you wanted to know, anon, hopefully there’s someone out there who will find the information useful!