IV Released Chunk's Graphics Booster for GTAIV [Reshade]

[Chunk Norris]

Greetings all,

I am proud to be a member of this mod community and the  authors on this forum are absolutely brilliant so for the longest time I wanted to contribute to GTA IV's modding effort.

This game is special to my heart and I never get tired of Liberty City so I wanted to honor it by  creating a bit of a "remaster" of sorts in the form of this reshade configuration.

The visuals of this game in my opinion still hold up very well in general but the color palette and the presentation is a bit bland by today's standards.

 

I think what I made respects the original vision of Rockstar but improves upon it. I did not go crazy with transforming the look and feel of GTAIV but it is more refined, more pronounced. It has more character and depth.

 

 

Now what I present to you today will hopefully give you a new perspective on  the city and will make you revisit your favorite places or take you to vistas that you might have overlooked in the past.

This Reshade config was created from scratch and I call it my graphics booster for a reason. A  picture is worth a thousand words so I want to present you with some.

 

 

Album with some image comparisons: Click

 

The screenshots  were captured using timecyc from Responsive Plus but I invite you to try with your favorite timecyc or even vanilla. Generally speaking I think you will see improvement, though results may vary.

 

 

Download: Google Drive

 

 

Installation:
    1. Choose one of the .ini files in the 'Choose' folder and drop it next to GTAIV.exe (for example E:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Grand Theft Auto IV\GTAIV)
    
    2. If you don't have Reshade installed yet, download from https://reshade.me/
    
    3. While installing Reshade  select GTAIV.exe and choose either Vulkan (recommended, only if you use DXVK) or Directx9
        - TESTED with DXVK ONLY
    
    4.

Option A

    -During the installation of reshade  if you put my config next to the game's .exe file already the installer will select it by default (if it does not you can just browse for the.ini file manually), you may press the next button here and also on the packages screen to let reshade download the necessary shaders for you.
    - keep in mind that reshade will download a lot more shaders this way than what's necessary but this is also a valid way to install the mod.

 

Option B

     - During the installation of reshade use the  SKIP  button on the select preset screen  but don't skip the select packages screen, just press next and  let reshade select and download any of the basic packages.
     - After the install is finished  delete the 'reshade-shaders' folder that is in the game's directory and use the one I provided instead.
   
    
    5. It is highly recommended you copy the visualsettings.dat file provided to GTAIV/common/data  overwriting the existing one.
        -or optionally if you love your visualsettings file for some reason open it and find this line: car.headlight.intensity x.xx and change it to: car.headlight.intensity    1.50
    
    6. DONE, start up the game, go through or skip the reshade tutorial and select the config file from the drop-down list.
        - You may also want to enable the 'performance mode' toggle on the bottom of the reshade window for a few additional frames.

 

-THE CONFIG WAS MADE FOR AND TESTED USING THE TIMECYC FROM RESPONSIVE PLUS (normal version, not the clean one) Download here: https://gtaforums.com/topic/931069-iveflc-responsive-plus
    -If you use it with any other timecyc I can't predict how good it will look, though generally  I think your graphics will be enhanced.

 

Happy gaming!

 

All the versions have the same general look and feel with more performance heavy techniques scaling down with each config,
made sure each of them offer great visuals with scalability. You will not miss out on too much even if you use Lite.
The performance scales evenly between the configs with Lite offering even double the performance of Max in some cases. (depends on how busy or optimized the location is where you are)

 

The difference  between the configurations:

1. Max
    - Most feature complete, recommended for screenshots or interiors
    - I opted to use two different types of ambient occlusion techniques, relatively performance heavy but not too bad.
    - I would generally recommend this only if you can get a stable 60fps with this turned on, otherwise choose Very High

2. Very High
    - I recommend this version to try first on a modern system.
    - Has all the features of Max except for MXAO, but you won't notice the difference during normal gameplay in the city.
    - Performance gain compared to MAX :  + 16-20% or around 7-10 FPS in most cases.

3. High
    - A nice performance friendly version with more jaggies
    - I  removed DLAA as anti aliasing and instead use NFAA, not as effective but more performance friendly
    - Gloom AO stays in so the only difference you will notice visually is more jaggies compared to Very High.
    - Performance gain compared to  Very High: ~20% or around 10 FPS.
    
4. Medium
    - An even  performance friendlier version than High if you prefer to have nice Anti Aliasing instead of Ambient occlusion
    - This time DLAA stays in and Gloom AO is out.
    - No more ambient occlusion from this point forward which may make the picture somewhat more flat.
    - Color palette is still the same and it will generally look and run very smooth with the AA intact.
    - Performance gain compared to High: another 22% so around 10-12fps.
    
5. Lite
    - This is not a low version, it's just Lite and super performance friendly
    - NFAA comes back in as a cheap alternative for AA
    - No ambient occlusion present.
    - The general colors and picture will still look very good, those effects are not being modified here either.
    - Performance gain is another whopping 25% over  Medium so around 14-16 FPS
    
    
    
Known Issues

            - The loading messages and some parts of the letters in the menu are overly bright, because of the eye adaptation feature of the mod I cannot do anything with this.

            - On the MAX preset the MXAO will pop through the default phone screen that Niko first gets, its a minor thing so I don't think it's too distracting you generally don't see this.

 

Credits go to
-the Reshade team and to each individual who worked on coding the effects so I can present it to you today.
-for the visualsettings file : iiCriminnaaL on gtaforums, who is responsible both for the excellent Responsive Plus and Sweet Autumn mods among others. I ever so slightly modified his work to fit this reshade.

A special thank you to Internet Rob who started me on my journey to start modding GTAIV and also to catsmackaroo and just Gesha. Check out their content on YouTube and GTA Forums.

Chunk

Edited Wednesday at 01:12 PM by Chunk Norris
updated install istructions

[Fattypoohbear]

Well damn... this is art. That's just insane how clean it looks, the picture at the gas station, the colour of the front car.. Great work! Were texture packs used on these photos?

As soon as i get my gta working again i am testing this out!

 

ps: Wanted to send a pm but my account doesn't allow it,

(Got invisible ped drivers, they only pop in when close, on a clean fresh untouched install, any ideas?)

[Chunk Norris]

6 hours ago, Fattypoohbear said:

(Got invisible ped drivers, they only pop in when close, on a clean fresh untouched install, any ideas?)

I have no clue, ped draw distances are controlled by visualsettings.dat as far as I know. Try the one I included here. Also check your ingame settings make sure that the object draw distance etc are not on 1.

[Chunk Norris]

7 hours ago, Fattypoohbear said:

Well damn... this is art. That's just insane how clean it looks, the picture at the gas station, the colour of the front car.. Great work! Were texture packs used on these photos?

 

I don't use any texture packs except for weapons. And of course added cars. Generally unless you really zoom in on a building  all the time you don't need to use higher res textures it's just a waste of memory in my opinion.

[Fattypoohbear]

6 hours ago, Chunk Norris said:

I have no clue, ped draw distances are controlled by visualsettings.dat as far as I know. Try the one I included here. Also check your ingame settings make sure that the object draw distance etc are not on 1.

Just tried again four times before i wanted to ask the following, i think i broke my steam copy, is that possible?

 

-Each time i did a fresh install, tried both ssd and hdd, deletion of gta profile/settings before, verifying files after install etc. downgrade to 1.7, Reshade, skipped the preset and package steps. All correct, i install your reshade as well.

Every step and test i get a vanilla GTA as a result with my original invisible driver peds bug intact from the start, Reshade tutorial does not show up, home doesn't take me there.

Am i dealing with a corrupted copy? windows/nvidia externally causing this?.. sorry to ask these questions here, if there is a better place to ask them let me know and i'll head there, google is a sh*tshow for specific issues

 

Thinking about building a whole new pc just for this, i would pay without hesitation if someone could get my gta to work the way i want to, and i dont even want crazy conversions or auto packs, just the big 4 and this reshade, Call it ChunkShade-GrimRushVPA+Copz

Peace

[Chunk Norris]

40 minutes ago, Fattypoohbear said:

Just tried again four times before i wanted to ask the following, i think i broke my steam copy, is that possible?

 

-Each time i did a fresh install, tried both ssd and hdd, deletion of gta profile/settings before, verifying files after install etc. downgrade to 1.7, Reshade, skipped the preset and package steps. All correct, i install your reshade as well.

Every step and test i get a vanilla GTA as a result with my original invisible driver peds bug intact from the start, Reshade tutorial does not show up, home doesn't take me there.

Am i dealing with a corrupted copy? windows/nvidia externally causing this?.. sorry to ask these questions here, if there is a better place to ask them let me know and i'll head there, google is a sh*tshow for specific issues

 

Thinking about building a whole new pc just for this, i would pay without hesitation if someone could get my gta to work the way i want to, and i dont even want crazy conversions or auto packs, just the big 4 and this reshade, Call it ChunkShade-GrimRushVPA+Copz

Peace

My bad, I am updating the reshade install instructions. Turns out reshade won't find the reshade-shaders folder if we don't select any packages during install (or manually edit reshade.ini)

 

So here's what to do:

OPTION A

-During the installation of reshade  if you put my config next to the game's .exe file already the installer will select it by default, you may press the next button here and also on the packages screen to let reshade download the necessary shaders for you
- keep in mind that reshade will download a lot more shaders this way than what's necessary but this is also a valid way to install the mod.

 

Option B

 - During the installation of reshade use the  SKIP  button on the select preset screen  but don't skip the next screen, just press next  let reshade select the basic packages.
- After the install is finished delete the 'reshade-shaders' folder that is in the game's directory and use the one I provided instead.

 

 

 

If reshade won't show up for you at all ingame then you somehow installed it wrong. You need to select vulkan only if you use dxvk otherwise select directx9.

 

I am not sure what to do with your other issues, I had something vaguely similar while modding GTAV on a fresh windows. are the .rar or .7z file you download not stuck on read only mode perhaps or something similar? Unfortunately I forgot what to do but I had to change some windows settings to stop blocking my downloaded files.

Edited Tuesday at 01:56 PM by Chunk Norris

[Fattypoohbear]

35 minutes ago, Chunk Norris said:

My bad, I am updating the reshade install instructions. Turns out reshade won't find the reshade-shaders folder if we don't select any packages during install (or manually edit reshade.ini)

Yes i thought so and tried it that way, but sadly something is seriously off with my copy i think, i have installed reshade on dozens of games and last week on GtaIV and V as well. They worked fine.

This was a bit different as i had to add the timecycles but i also covered that step.

But my game in general is unresponsive it seems, the ped car bug, reshade not showing after a correct install, i choose vulkan over dx9, tried both, added the dxvk in case of vulcan, i carefully did everything right.

 

-2 notes,

*reshade installer does not automatically detect the Chunkshade.ini file

*also does not make a reshade-shaders folder after install. i chose the correct pathway to the exe of steam.

Would a complete format with a legit win10 change anything to this issue?

Gonna update my drivers maybe, last option in my head

 

Thank you for the response

 

NOTE to others: This is a personal hard/software issue, the Chunk Reshade works fine i am sure.

Can't wait to see albums of playtroughs

[Chunk Norris]

38 minutes ago, Fattypoohbear said:

Would a complete format with a legit win10 change anything to this issue?

 

It wouldn't hurt but at this point I would make it Win11 instead

[Fattypoohbear]

13 hours ago, Chunk Norris said:

It wouldn't hurt but at this point I would make it Win11 instead

Did the test, pc aint "healthy" enough to run 11

Also did a visualsettings.dat config to change the lod of peds in vehicles, just as your .dat file it didn't affect my game. hardcoded?

[Chunk Norris]

8 hours ago, Fattypoohbear said:

Did the test, pc aint "healthy" enough to run 11

Also did a visualsettings.dat config to change the lod of peds in vehicles, just as your .dat file it didn't affect my game. hardcoded?

no there are some lod distance settings for peds in visualsettings.dat but to be honest I never messed with them. Your issue might be memory related maybe try experimenting with different -memrestrict commandlines

 

 

 

 

Mallorie is not impressed by the mod

 

 

some Asian fella waiting for the L-train

 

 

A beautiful machine waiting for an oil change

Edited Wednesday at 01:05 PM by Chunk Norris

[Fattypoohbear]

5 hours ago, Chunk Norris said:

Your issue might be memory related maybe try experimenting with different -memrestrict commandlines

I tried every commandline combination i can think of, from no restricts to defining the restrctions to no commandline at all. I have 6+6gb vram and 16gb ram so i dont know where the memory issue could be. Also the visualsettings.dat is hardcoded to peds on the street 20, and peds in vehicles on 7, what was Rockstar thinking?

More bug details:

Peds pop in at 3 car lengths away from nico, and once they spawned they can be seen from any distance,

Sniperscope also makes them appear, everything else pops in just fine, peds on the streets, textures, all works fine on a fresh install, nothing i do changes the vehicle peds to how they used to be.

 

5 hours ago, Chunk Norris said:

Mallorie is not impressed by the mod

xD xD, yeah It's only Michelle who is easily impressed remember

 

5 hours ago, Chunk Norris said:

some Asian fella waiting for the L-train

Did you use Tweak all peds on this one? yeezes the detail on the peds and brick walls/windows

 

 

Legit perfect, very impressive and the people i showed it to also had big eyes. Hope i can get it to work as well on my 65" Oled.

Pc on the way to shop tmrw..

 

PS how does sunny look underneath the railways at hove beach, that corner with the tiny diner at the safehouse

Edited Wednesday at 06:31 PM by Fattypoohbear

[Chunk Norris]

I am currently testing a modified version of the mod targeting DayL's natural timecycle.

 

The results so far are promising:

[MiesThies]

I can't wait to get home today to try this out! It looks so, so good and I think you do IV's charm justice very much!

Looking forward to your future updates! I was always too lazy to fiddle with reshade myself, so your presets are quite helpful.

 

EDIT:

So I was pleased to notice, that installation was actually easier than I thought! And I am even more pleased with the result, it looks awesome!

A few questions, thoughts:
- Added to the known issues you mentioned, in my short experience the radar or rather the HUD in general looks a bit odd due to reshade, so it surely looks best without HUD. Also every text on the screen looks odd due to this. Not a big deal for cruising around, but I am not sure how I feel about it for a playthrough where subtitles and the HUD are more necessary for me.
But I think there's nothing you can do about, right? Maybe you might just want to add this info and/or a screenshot of that, so people like me know what to expect exactly. I am on the very high preset.

- What reshade preset do you use for playing? For screenshots probably Max?

 

- Do you play with definition on or off?

 

- What are your graphics settings in general?

 

- Would you recommend downsampling like DSR on top of all the above?

 

- If I want to try out your different presets, how do I do that in the easiest way? Do I have to "reinstall" reshade and click modify and then choose the other resahde.ini? Or is there a simpler way? EDIT: I think I can just change the "PresetPath=" line in reshade.ini, right?

 

All in all thank you so much for sharing your preset and thanks for contributing to the GTA IV modding community!

 

EDIT: I tried to capture how the HUD etc looks on a screenshot, but it looks completely normal on screenshots

Edited 21 hours ago by MiesThies

[Chunk Norris]

4 hours ago, MiesThies said:

I can't wait to get home today to try this out! It looks so, so good and I think you do IV's charm justice very much!

Looking forward to your future updates! I was always too lazy to fiddle with reshade myself, so your presets are quite helpful.

Thank you!

 Now keep in mind that my reshade is not like ENB. you will still need a good timecyc and then it goes on top of that and (hopefully) enhances it.

 

Here's some more screenshots with the slightly altered version for DayL's natural timecycle:

 

[MiesThies]

6 minutes ago, Chunk Norris said:

Thank you!

 Now keep in mind that my reshade is not like ENB. you will still need a good timecyc and then it goes on top of that and (hopefully) enhances it.

Yep, I am using thetimecyc from ResponsivePlus, as you suggested!

 

Also the DayL pics look really promising!

Edited 21 hours ago by MiesThies

[Chunk Norris]

20 hours ago, MiesThies said:

A few questions, thoughts:

- Added to the known issues you mentioned, in my short experience the radar or rather the HUD in general looks a bit odd due to reshade, so it surely looks best without HUD. Also every text on the screen looks odd due to this. Not a big deal for cruising around, but I am not sure how I feel about it for a playthrough where subtitles and the HUD are more necessary for me.
But I think there's nothing you can do about, right? Maybe you might just want to add this info and/or a screenshot of that, so people like me know what to expect exactly. I am on the very high preset.

- What reshade preset do you use for playing? For screenshots probably Max?

 

- Do you play with definition on or off?

 

- What are your graphics settings in general?

 

- Would you recommend downsampling like DSR on top of all the above?

 

- If I want to try out your different presets, how do I do that in the easiest way? Do I have to "reinstall" reshade and click modify and then choose the other resahde.ini? Or is there a simpler way? EDIT: I think I can just change the "PresetPath=" line in reshade.ini, right?

 

I will look into the issues you mentioned.  What issue do you notice with the HUD? Overbrightening? Blurriness? I will make some tweaks today to see if I can provide a workaround. Even though I only see issues in the menu with the HUD.

 

I use MAX but I have a relatively strong PC (6800xt and 5800x) in 4k it stays above 60fps most of the time.

I recommend using very high though for normal gameplay if you have a strong pc. Otherwise all of them have the same basic colors really, even medium is very fine in my opinion.

 

Graphics settings are maxxed out with view distance and object distance on 84/84 to avoid a bit of z-fighting issues.

 

I never experimented with downsampling to be honest feel free to try it. The blur might be a bit too much as i use a DoF effect for objects and buildings in the distance (could be the reason some of the hud elements maz look funny to you)

 

Thanks for your feedback I will start implementing a fix for these issues you mentioned later today