Guides VAM Desktop ReShade Guide 2025 + Redux Presets

ReShade Guide for VAM

Introduction​

I am updating my previous guide as I have learned a bit since then. Some of the stuff in this guide will mirror the last guide as nothing has changed in those sections. I have also included some of my latest presets that you will find at the end of the guide. I made these presets on an IPS monitor so you should be able to obtain the same look on your monitor, although it looks fine on my OLED as well. The main difference will be the black levels so you may need to make slight adjustments. ReShade presets are all about tweaking to your preferences so some presets might not be perfect for you out of the box.


Redux Novel Preset



Vanilla VAM (No ReShade)

Step 1​

Go to the ReShade website in the link below and click on Download ReShade 6.5.0





Step 2

Once you have completed the download, open up the setup application and you will be greeted by the following window. VAM will probably not show up in this list by default so click on the browse button.




Step 3

After clicking on the browse button, go to where your VAM directory is and click on the main application exe. Mine is on a secondary drive but yours may be different.




Step 4

Once you have found your VAM application, click on it and it will now show the file path at the bottom of the window. Click next once you are ready.




Step 5

You will then be asked which API you want to use. For the purpose of this guide, we will be going with DirectX 10/11/12.




Step 6

You will be asked which effects you want to install. Click on the check all button at the top right of the window and make sure all the effects are selected below, then click next.




Step 7

Next, you will see all the effects being installed and you will get a Successfully installed screen when it is finished. You may click on finish to complete the installation process.




Step 8

Now, go back to your VAM directory and you should see ReShade folders and files. Create a new folder named reshade-presets. This is where you will place my presets as well as any others you come across or make.




Step 9

When booting up VAM, make sure you are using the Desktop Mode batch file in your directory to make sure you aren’t leaving any performance on the table. If you want to quickly disable ReShade without uninstalling anything I recommend moving the “dxgi.dll” file temporarily out of your VAM directory. Doing so won’t allow ReShade to load up when you want to use VR.




Step 10

When you boot up VAM you should see ReShade loading in at the top. This can take a bit of time as there are a lot of effects to load in. Once you are at the main menu, press the “Home” key to start the tutorial.




Step 11

From here, you can follow the ReShade built-in tutorial or skip it to start messing around with things




Step 12

At this point, you will be able to use basic effects in ReShade. This should work ok with non-RT presets, but I do recommend finishing this guide to learn how to fully utilize those presets as well. Before that though, I would advise going to the Settings tab at the top and assign the “Effect toggle key” to the “Insert” key. You may also assign the “Page up/down” keys to switch between presets if you want but keep in mind this could conflict with some scenes that have those set as hot keys.




Step 13

Make sure you have "Generate Depth Texture" on in your performance preferences. It will be used in the section below. You may copy my other settings here as well as I find they work for most scenes but certain scenes from some creators may need different options. I change between 2-4 Smooth Passes sometimes so that setting can also depend on the




Ray Tracing and Depth Buffer

Ray Tracing in VaM?​

In this part of the guide, I will explain how to fully utilize presets that have ray tracing added. To me, this is when VAM is looking its best without editing them after the fact. You can usually quickly toggle the effect off if you enter a more demanding scene, so it's most ideal for single person scenes. The difference can be quite subtle at times, especially in scenes with dark void backgrounds. I will leave my specs at the end of this guide to give you an idea of how I am able to achieve playable frame rates with these effects as they can be taxing, but you may be able to do better by tweaking these presets or experimenting with effects yourself.

Now, do understand that this form of ray tracing isn’t on the same scale as Cyberpunk as it isn’t using engine data and can only use data that is currently viewed in your window or “screen space” if you will. I found this video below explains pretty well how it works. Regardless, it can still look pretty good in most cases and new updates to these RTGI effects improve the performance and speed.



You will need to make sure your Depth Buffer is correct. If you turned on the Generate Depth Texture option, it should automatically set the buffer, so I have cut out the old method form the previous guide.

The image below shows the settings I use for the global preprocessor definitions which should be correct for VAM, although these may differ for other games.




Afterwards, you can use the DisplayDepth.fx effect to make sure the buffer is working properly. It should look like the image below.




RTGI Add-ons

Now that you have set up your depth buffer, it’s time to add RTGI to VAM. One of these is a paid addon but you could technically get by without them. I will link their Patreon page below just in case. Most of my presets utilize the NiceGuy shaders but a few of them do have Marty effects so I still recommend picking them up for experimentation purposes. Marty still seems to be updating his RTGI so I could replace the NiceGuy shaders going forward, but for now I find the Marty shaders don't work as nice with VAM in comparison for the main effect. As the NiceGuy shaders are hard to find these days, I have included them in my preset bundle to save you all the trouble of hunting them down as they are technically free now. The extra Marty effects as well as cshade effects should be bundled in with the latest ReShade builds but I can add those if needed.



Once you have downloaded the files, it should be an easy drop-in to your already existing Reshade files in your VaM directory. Be on the lookout for duplicates as having two of the same effect in ReShade will cause it to show up twice in your effect list and will apply the effect twice which isn’t what we want.

ReShade Load Order / Shortcuts

Here is an example of a ReShade preset load order. Just like a load order for modded Skyrim or other games, the order of these effects matter and can change the look drastically. It's honestly what takes me so long to experiment with these presets to create different looks. To the right of the effects list, you will see Numpad numbers next to some of the effects. This allows you to quickly toggle between effects so that you don't have to open the ReShade UI each time. I would also recommend turning off AutoSave at the top right when making changes to the list. You can even choose to make a new preset and inherit the current preset. This makes it easier to edit without accidentally messing up your working list.




Session Plugins

These are the session plugins I commonly use these days. The first 2 are for CUA hair and items so it's always good to have loaded by default. ScreenTools is cool for setting up portrait shots and saving certain camera views. I don't really use the only features of it, but I know it can do a lot more. The disable postmagic plugin is useful as ReShade doesn't always play nice with postmagic, which is used in a ton of scenes. The last one I mainly use to strip scenes if I want to add my own lighting. I have linked them below if you want to add them.









That’s all! If the depth buffer is working correctly, you will see a major difference in the shadows compared to default. You may also notice some weird screen effects when booting up VAM, but don't be alarmed as that just means the buffer is working correctly. Some effects work without the depth buffer so don’t assume everything is working just because some effects are. To finish up, I will post my PC specs and some pictures of my new presets if any of you are interested. I mainly just use the Snipping Tool Windows app to make my pictures so everything you see is just from ReShade with no other enhancements.

These pictures have fairly customized girls so the reference list would be quite long, but if you would like to know specifically what was used, I will do my best to track it down for you.


PC Specs

CPU - Ryzen 7 7800X3D

GPU - RTX 5090

RAM - 64GB DDR4 6000MHz

Monitors - Dell G3223Q 4K 144Hz IPS + MSI MAG 321UP 4K 165Hz OLED



Gallery

Redux Standard Preset



Redux Shade Preset



Redux Novel Preset (Sketch Effect)



Redux Standard RT Preset