Digital Dreams (YouTube Channel) released a video showcasing a Grand Theft Auto IV map recreated in the GTA V engine, enhanced by Pascal Gilcher RayTraced Global Illumination shader for ReShade and a recent version of the Awesomekills Graphics mod. The results look pretty good, considering how the original GTA IV looks, which was groundbreaking for its time. Here’s the video:
It’s important to note that Pascal Gilcher RayTraced Global Illumination shader for ReShade doesn’t actually introduce real ray tracing. The shader is hooked to information provided by ReShade (depth buffer). The end result is a Screen Space Ray Tracing calculation, just like Unigine SSRTGI (Ray Traced Global Illumination), which indeed is a form of Ray Tracing, but not the same as RTX. Head over to the developer’s Patreon to learn more about it.
Personally, the ‘realistic’ graphics can sometimes come off as too intense as in this particular instance, where everything feels unnaturally reflective. Regardless, the developer has put in effort and this looks pretty good and not bad by any means.
Head over to the description of the video to learn how to install it yourself if you’re interested.
