NVIDIA Freestyle for Valheim

A short guide about enabling NVIDIA Freestyle (Custom Filters) on Valheim (or any game). When NVIDIA adds support for Valheim, this guide will effectively be outdated, but till then, you can use this method instead!

Screenshots

These are examples to some of my personal preferences. Filters are highly customizable. Even the splitscreen comparison is a filter, by the way. I have a filter to make the game more lively, another to assist me at night (and the real reason why I dug deep to make this thing work with Valheim!), and another for funsies.

Step 0: "I agree"

This method works for pretty much any game that use DirectX3D, I'm not sure about OpenGL or Vulkan. However, changing the name of the executable might cause some unforeseen issues.

By utilizing this method, you agree that the creator of this guide isn't liable and cannot be held responsible for any damage that might happen to your PC, account, pet, etc...

Step 1: Find Valheim on your PC

Right click on Valheim in your Steam Library, then "Manage", then "Browse Local Files"

Step 2: Copy the Valheim executable and the data folder

Normally, the data folder isn't necessary, but apparently the executable looks for a data folder after its own name, so we need to copy it as well

Step 3: Rename what you've copied to "anselintegrationtestapp"

The executable "valheim - Copy" to "anselintegrationtestapp"
The folder "valheim_Data - Copy" to "anselintegrationtestapp_Data"

Step 4: ALT+F3

From now on, whenever you try to open up NVIDIA Freestyle (custom game filters) while playing Valheim, you can. By default, the shortcut is ALT+F3. Customize the look in any way you want.

Why is this necessary? It isn't, really, but I have a custom filter that I apply to pretty much any game to make the game look a bit more vivid, and I had to get it over here somehow as I feel the colors are a bit washed up on Valheim for me. If you have some sort of color blindness, you can give the color blindness filters a go as well.

You don't need older drivers with NVIDIA Inspector or anything. Just that simple renaming trick works. I hope they'll add Valheim to the official list someday, but for now this will have to do. Anyway, stay safe, and have fun!

Notes

• The Steam Overlay won't work; it doesn't on my end, at the very least.

• When there is an update, you'll have to do the same stuff again. Otherwise, you'll be playing on an older client, without the updates.

• Some mods require "valheim.exe", and won't work with a renamed executable... -insert sad noises- (however, I contacted an author of my favourite mods, and this requirement will be removed from some of the mods I've been using, so yay!)

[lyravega]

None that I could tell. From my general experience with Freestyle, it is pretty lightweight, near zero impact even, but on low end computers, might be a noticable difference - no idea unfortunately =/

[ν]

Thanks, any notes on performance impact as well?

[lyravega]

Added a few comparison screenshots for day, night, storm, "enhanced" night and two more. Last two are just an example to show how far the filters can be taken, even the splitscreen is done through the NVIDIA Freestyle.

[ν]

Can you add a screenshot of what it looks like with your filter?