Reshade for the Sims 4 is a powerful way to change how your game looks in a big way.
There’s a preset for everyone, whether you want to make a girly fashion shoot, a dark story series, warm and cozy postcard pictures, or just change the way the game looks while you’re playing it.
Read on to find out how to install reshade in Sims 4 in just a few easy steps!
Reshade is a post-processing tool that lets you add or change effects like color saturation, brightness, hue, depth of field, and more to your favorite games.
Depending on what you tell it, it can completely change the way your game looks, making it more realistic, better looking graphically, funny, grimy, or any other style you want.
It’s an extremely useful tool!
Even though reshade is considered a mod, it is installed differently than most mods because it is a separate injector.
This means that you can’t just extract it, copy and paste it into your Mods folder, and be done.
Instead, you’ll have to do certain things for it to work.
Download & install Sims 4 Reshade
To get started, go to the Reshade website and follow the links to download the executable file.
Take note of the file version because not all presets will work with all versions.
You may need to switch to an older version to get your desired preset to work.
Here’s how to install the reshade mod once you’ve downloaded it:
- Remove the “Reshade.exe” file and run it. You can find the mod in different places, depending on where your browser gets it from. Most people’s Downloads folder, which can be found at C:UsersYOUR COMPUTER NAMEDownloads, will work.
- Choose a game. Since Reshade can be used on games other than the Sims 4, you’ll need to choose the right game. Find out where your Sims 4 game is installed. For most people, it’s in C:Program Files (x86)Origin GamesThe Sims 4GameBin. Here, you must choose the.exe version.
- Pick Direct3D 9 instead. After you choose your game, you’ll be asked to choose between Direct3D 9, Open GL, Vulcan, and other options. The Sims 4 only works with Direct3D 9, so that’s all you need to choose.
- Choose all of the effects you want your game to have. If you want to change the look of the Sims 4 in a lot of different ways, you should choose ALL of the effects from this list. Some of the effects can be so strong that they may slow down slower machines, but if you want to get the most out of Reshade, you should choose all of the options.
- Just click OK a few times and everything will download. Here, the program will work on its own to download everything it needs for the chosen options. It shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes to do this.
- Get some presets and install them. Once you’ve extracted the presets, copy them to C:Program Files (x86)Origin GamesThe Sims 4GameBin, which is where you installed Reshade the first time. The Bin folder is where the presets need to go.
- Start the Sims 4 game. Reshade will start to load, and the top of the game screen should show you how far along it is. While you wait for the injector to finish getting ready, you can still click menu items behind this progress bar to load the game.
- Use the Reshade program to choose the preset you want. Reshade gives you a lot of ways to set it up, and you’ll probably need to spend some time going through the menu to learn everything it can do. I really think you should go through the tutorial that comes up when you first start Reshade. At the very least, it will get you used to how it works.
The Bonnet Simmer has a short video tutorial on YouTube that shows you how to find and run presets you have downloaded and installed.
There are a lot of longer videos with more information, but if you want to get started as soon as possible, this one is a good place to start. It’s just over 6 minutes long.
Some Tips & Tricks
Because the Reshade tool is so powerful, it can be a little hard to figure out how to use it at first. Here are some tips to help things go as smoothly as possible:
- Be aware of how gameplay differs from photo presets. A lot of players use Reshade to take screenshots of their games, and the presets they use change the way the game looks in a big way. If you want to use Reshade while playing, you’ll find that many of the more powerful presets will slow your game down and make it hard to move around. For the smoothest experience, use presets that are made for games with less intense effects.
- Set up short-cut keys to make things easier. In the Settings > General section of the Reshade menu, you can set keys to do things like turn your preset on or off, cycle through all preset options, refresh effects, etc. It’s much easier to use keyboard shortcuts than to go to the overlay menu every time you want to use or change a preset.
- If you play mostly with your computer keyboard like I do, don’t map any shortcuts to keys you already use in the game to do other things. For example, I use the “home” key, which also opens the overlay menu, to bring up walls. If I change that to a different key, the menu won’t pop up every time I want to raise the walls of my sims.
- Take the right pictures! When you press “C” in-game, the in-game camera will take a picture, but the preset effects won’t be copied to the picture. Use the PrntScrn key to get the effects to show up in your pictures. Reshade will save these screenshots automatically in the folder C:Program Files (x86)Origin GamesThe Sims 4GameBin, where everything else is installed. In the Settings menu, you can change where the files are saved.
- Reshade is usually on when you start the game, so make sure to change to a preset that doesn’t mess up gameplay before you quit so that the next time you start the Sims 4, it doesn’t look too messed up.
Reshade for the Sims 4 is a powerful way to change how your game looks in a big way.
With a little planning and know-how, you’ll be a Reshade master in no time, adding fun and cool effects to the Sims world.
