Plugin How-To: Reshade V3

Reshade is the must-have external plugin that works with X-Plane 11 to adjust lighting, bloom effects, brightness and much more, that makes the sim extremely realistic.

Introduction

Reshade is an external plugin that can enhance the look of X-Plane 11 by a significant proportion. It allows you to choose from 49 effects that can adjust brightness, contrast, colour, etc. When combined, Reshade has the potential to make your screenshots many more times realistic (Shift + Space doesn't seem to save the Reshade version), and even works as you are flying around (why wouldn't we want this?!).

Reshade is currently on version 3.0.4, and works with the current version of X-Plane 11. It only works on Windows, so Mac and Linux users will have to cry. It requires a slightly more extensive installation that many users may find confusing, which is the reason why I made this guide.

You have been warned.

Installation

First of all, head over to http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/36509-reshade-version-304-xp11/. If you haven't done so already, create an account at http://forums.x-plane.org, which will allow you to download stuff from the website.

Click on 'Download this file' on the right, which will automatically start downloading the file and ask you where to save it (at least in Google Chrome it does anyway). For now, save this file in the root directory of X-Plane 11 - that is, the folder that contains X-Plane.exe.

Once downloaded, extract the contents of the zipped folder into the root directory, and you may as well go ahead and delete the zipped file once complete.

Inside this folder, there is another, called "Plz Open" (W/O quotes). Inside this, there is yet another folder, and also a heap of .ini files and a .dll file. Select everything, including the "reshade-shaders" folder, right-click and click Cut (or just Ctrl + X). Go back to your X-Plane 11 root folder - that is, the folder that contains X-Plane.exe. Simply right-click anywhere, and click Paste (or Ctrl + V).

The installation is now complete. You can delete the unused folder if you wish. If you already have X-Plane 11 running, close it down, and restart. You'll notice a box has appeared at the top, telling you that Reshade is loading. The quicker your PC is, the faster it will load. The screen will go black as it initiates, but give the process some time, and the main menu of X-Plane 11 will appear.

A Note on Updating X-Plane 11

When X-Plane 11 needs updating, be sure to temporarily remove the file "opengl32.dll" file from the root X-Plane 11 folder. Then just whack it back in after updating.

Editing Presets

To bring up the Reshade menu in-game, press Shift + F2. The first thing you need to do is go to the Settings tab, and check that the folder paths for the shaders and textures is correct. Mine looks like this:

C:\Your_Name_Here\Program Files (X86)\Steam\steamApps\common\X-Plane 11\reshade-shaders\Shaders 
C:\Your_Name_Here\Program Files (X86)\Steam\steamApps\common\X-Plane 11\reshade-shaders\Textures

I'd then recommend clicking Reload at the bottom-left. It doesn't take as long as it does when starting up X-Plane 11 initially.

Once this is done, click on the tab Home, and then it's time to start messing! You can select from an array of different presets, or you can create your own by clicking + at the top-right, which I would recommend.

Then all you need is a lot of time, patience and experimentation to get the effects you'd like. Enable or disable the effects in the upper list, and customise each effect in the lower list. The number of possibilities is only limited by how much effort and patience you want to put into the plugin.

You can turn Reshade on and off by using the Shift + Scroll Lock shortcut.

Before and Afters

After extensive tweaking and modification, here is what my Reshade looks like. The before is the dull, boring image, located mostly on the left. The exciting, more realistic image is towards the right:




I know, I hate the sky colours at sunrise/sunset too

I hope this guide has been of great use in making your X-Plane 11 experience a lot more exciting. If you found it useful, please rate this guide positively!

[Jackaroo]

Crashes me on startup. Any help?

[IYOOO]

is there any chance that one of my addons cause this?

[🐉 Ðŗąçø 🐉]

@Rent4ro Definitely works. Possibly something dodgy on your end if the files are installed exactly as above.

[IYOOO]

i had tried it over over again still same error happen...
what i thought is that steam version of X plane 11 is not compatible

[🐉 Ðŗąçø 🐉]

@Rent4ro That's usually caused by a bad installation of Reshade. Try to install it again.

[IYOOO]

whenever i try to run X plane 11 with Reshade, it does not work at all
i can tno even reach to main menu
what should i do?

[🐉 Ðŗąçø 🐉]

@Motivation Copyright reasons.

[76561197977267103]

If it makes such a difference (for the better), `Why` do the Devs not include it as stock (variable settings) for the game?

[•´`·.•Barry B•.·´`•]

any good presets ppl like?