Sebastian_Grimm 16 Posted July 6, 2020 Hello all! Today will show you how to add shaders to AW. I want to thank Haswell for telling me about the program. This is very simple to install and easy to use. Important notes: - Some shaders, once enabled in game, may not let the game start after shutting it down, getting an error from the launcher. I don't know if the same happens on steam, but assume the same will happen. So I recommend testing. Enable some shaders, and then try to restart the game. To be able to start the game again, you have to uninstall the shaders, with the same program, and turn the game on again. After you can reinstall the ReShade. Update: Still not a fix, but bypasses the uninstall/reinstall thingy. If aw crashes with reshade the second time you launch it, go to your aw installation folder, bin64, and move the following files out of there(DO NOT DELETE THEM, ONLY MOVE THEM ELSEWHERE): https://imgur.com/DwEZqYZhttps://imgur.com/DwEZqYZ After, launch aw and close it again. You can now place the files back in bin64 and launch aw with reshades. This saves all presets and saves time reinstalling. Not a total fix, but works for now. - You should expect some fps drop, but a few enabled should work just fine. - Shaders affect UI. I have not found a way to not to. There are shaders that seem to target UI , but haven't found a way to make them work. Any help is appreciated. 1 --) First, we need the ReShade program. Just scroll down and you should find a large button: https://reshade.me/ 2 --) After downloading, just double-click. You should see the following: Click on the large rectangle ( 1 -> ). If you dont see Armored Warfare in step2, the you have to Browse it ( 2 -> ). A new window should open. Go to your AW folder and find bin64/armoredwarfare.exe ( 3 -> ). Just double click the exe file. 3 --) After selecting the exe file, you should get this image: Directly click on "Direct3D 10/11/12". 4 --) After you can select the shader packs you want to use. Feel free to use whichever you want. Per pack selected, a new window will appear afterwards with specific shaders you want to install. After the shaders download and instal, you can start the game. The shaders will be stored in the same folder as the exe file. Also, after successfully installing, you can change the shader’s folder path, and a few other settings. Uninstal and Update: If you want to uninstal or update the shaders, open the ReShade program like normal. Follow previous step 1, 2 and 3. After step 3, you will be asked if you want to uninstal or update. Click "uninstal" to delete all shaders, or "update" to re-download more shaders. Congratulations! You can now start the game. If you did not uncheck the "tutorial" box, you will be presented with a very small tutorial. To open the ReShade menu, you use the "Home" button. You can change this in settings. Just backspace and press the new key, or combo of keys. I also recommend adding a key bind to turn off shaders, "Effect toggle key" option. First option is to open/close the shader menu, and second to enable/disable the shaders. The following is where most modding will happen. May look different depending on what packs you selected to download, but the fundamentals are the same: The shaders you enable and edit will be saved in a preset. Currently, they are in "DefaultPreset". If you want to create a new preset, click on the + sign, top-right, and write its name. To activate a shader, click on the small box left to the shader name. When you press it, new info pops in the bottom part: In this example, I activated the "Vibrance" shade, that makes the colours pop more. In the bottom, new setting specific to each shader will be visible. Each shader will have different settings. They enable you to change how they affect the game. After selecting all the shaders you want to use, click on "Performance Mode", bottom right. This will "unite" all shaders together, which should make them run more efficiently. If you want to edit/add/remove etc shaders, just uncheck "Performance Mode" and do whatever you want to, but check again after. All should be done by now. There are a few others things in the ReShader, but these are the fundamentals. If I forgot something, I will edit this post. The following images are just a small compilation of the capabilities of this, to either make the game better looking, or something unique and fun. Have fun modding. And a small note, careful with the amount of bloom. Keep switching "Performance Mode" on/off to see how it affects the graphics. Memes: Edges only: Borderland/Anime outline: Blur and DoF: Several graphic shades: 5 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LeoAegisMaximus 6 Posted July 7, 2020 nice is this allowed under the current modding situation? alot of games tend to flag injectors as cheats. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
di_duncan 24 Posted July 7, 2020 3 hours ago, LeoAegisMaximus said: nice is this allowed under the current modding situation? alot of games tend to flag injectors as cheats. ReShade is not exactly an injector, it merely modifies appearances/graphics. Nvidia Freestyle is based off the same concept. Shouldn't be an issue really, even most anti-cheats whitelist ReShade. Although I fail to see any potential advantage in using ReShade in AW TBH... An arcade game such as AW already presents friendlies, enemies and even objectives on a silver platter to players with numerous indicators and a minimap. This is far from a tactical shooter/simulator requiring rapid split-second visual identification and IFF for every target (eg: Tarkov), so I doubt such visual modifications can offer a gameplay advantage. I can understand the appeal for those seeking better colors, visuals and other cosmetic/aesthetic details for screenshots, content creation or simple enjoyment; but personally I would only find it distracting or even nauseating (in AW that is). Decent guide nonetheless @Sebastian_Grimm ;) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Haswell 295 Posted July 7, 2020 It is possible to use ReShade to implement a fairly seamless 3rd person zoom. This makes vehicles without native sniper view (ahem, arty) more pleasant to play, since it will be easier to hit distant targets with direct fire mode. Different vehicles also have different zoom levels in the game for whatever reason, this magnifying feature is a somewhat crude method to bring parity between low zoom and high zoom vehicles. Definitely has potential for good gameplay enhancements. Note that before ReShade the magnifying effect can already be done using nothing but Microsoft Magnifier (which comes with every single Windows installation since Win98), but it is clunky to use and suffers from input lag. ReShade has zero input lag, but the image quality suffers a bit. 1 Quote Spoiler Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
di_duncan 24 Posted July 7, 2020 1 hour ago, Haswell said: It is possible to use ReShade to implement a fairly seamless 3rd person zoom. This makes vehicles without native sniper view (ahem, arty) more pleasant to play, since it will be easier to hit distant targets with direct fire mode. This is certainly interesting and I can understand the appeal for such a feature. In fact, this would be rather useful with vehicles such as the Swingfire and/or AGDS with non-LoS missile guidance/targeting capability. However, like you mentioned: 1 hour ago, Haswell said: Definitely has potential for good gameplay enhancements. It is certainly an enhancement, but I'm ultimately doubtful that it can provide a significant/consistent advantage in AW, especially in PvP. I personally never play SPGs, so the PvE application isn't particularly appealing, at least to me. For the purposes of aiming ATGMs without LoS, the reticle and overall sight picture is still blurry, so I'm not sure if it would ultimately garner better results. ATGMs in general are all quite finicky, as their use is largely affected by external factors such as performance, ping, and packet loss. Furthermore, I'm curious as to how the increased zoom would affect control/sensitivity. The center picture would become magnified, but sensitivity would remain constant. I greatly appreciate similar well-executed "PIP" FOVs in FPS games with emphasis on realism, but most games of this genre implement adaptive sensitivities to compensate for different scope magnifications. While AW seems to cover this base with their native zoom/sniper view, I'm not sure if this zoomed third-person would cause difficulties in aiming/guiding. All in all, I just don't think ReShade for AW is worth my time. While ReShade is generally light on resources, running an additional instance on top of an already [relatively] unstable game is an undesirable risk for me. @Haswell's concept definitely has potential though. Those brave souls slogging through SPGs in PvE will most certainly find such an option rather useful. As for ATGMs, perhaps others with greater skill and/or better connections can evaluate this in practical use? I'll be waiting for a first-party implementation (which will never come). Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Haswell 295 Posted July 7, 2020 1 hour ago, di_duncan said: The center picture would become magnified, but sensitivity would remain constant This is true for ReShade but not other Magnifier programs, which is why I commented that ReShade is a lot less clunkier than other options. Overall it's a gimmick and likely useless for most people, but in the rare case that someone do want extra zoom levels it's an option for them. Not ideal, but better than nothing at least. Quote Spoiler Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TeyKey1 119 Posted July 8, 2020 That's quite cool actually. I always hated the flat and boring colors of AW. Now I can make them really pop. A bit of a downside that it affects the UI aswell but nothing is perfect I guess. Probably aswell a handy tool for some beautiful screenshots. Quote Spoiler Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ivo 3 Posted August 13, 2020 Dayum, good work! This is actually really freaking nice! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
leeke88 13 Posted May 18, 2021 (edited) can i translation this article for korean users? if ok. i will post that only in armoredlab with mention about this article with link and who write this. Edited May 18, 2021 by leeke88 (see edit history) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sebastian_Grimm 16 Posted May 18, 2021 8 hours ago, leeke88 said: can i translation this article for korean users? if ok. i will post that only in armoredlab with mention about this article with link and who write this. Sure, go ahead. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
leeke88 13 Posted May 19, 2021 16 hours ago, Sebastian_Grimm said: Sure, go ahead. ok thanks Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PetM 0 Posted February 16, 2023 It's not being installed normally right now.I don't know why. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites