(old version from March, much has been improved since then)
The first version of a mod that revolutionizes the graphics of GTA San Andreas.
New short video: https://youtu.be/ywMmVQ7pgTk
Video from last month (the shadows have been improved drastically):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uCiIDZdUNE
With the goal of stability, compatibility, and optimization, this is a graphics mod that's actually playable, for gameplay, not just for taking screenshots.
Well integrated into the game (e.g., separate values for day and night), non-intrusive and highly customizable, similar to my MixSets mod: if you don't enable anything in the .ini file, this mod will do practically nothing to your game. There are no minimum requirements; if you want, you can use it only for soft particles and fix z-fighting - you have total control.
This is a proprietary mod; not a preset or modpack!
You're not on a Patreon page from those people that just edit .ini files from a mod (like ENB, ReShade, RenderHook etc) and share them to make money off of it for years, even without updates. This mod is being created by me - If you're stumbled upon this and you don't know me, I'm the owner of MixMods, the largest GTA website in Latin America; I've been creating mods for GTA San Andreas for 15 years (any game mod for 22 years), and I'm the modder who has created the most technical GTA mods in the world.
Why this is big?
Until yesterday, the only person in the world who had created something like this for GTA San Andreas was petrgeorgievsky (not counting the MTA:SA shader framework), but both SA::Render and RenderHook never became complete and stable because, in my view, the project was worked on from top to bottom (recreating parts of the game's rendering, and the rest of the work was limited to fixing bugs), instead of bottom to top (taking the original, functional game rendering and only enhancing it, without reinventing the wheel). Furthermore, this mod uses some patches (like PS2 pipeline) and best practices from SkyGfx, and is even partially compatible with it.
What can you expect from this version?
Even though the goal is stability, compatibility, optimization etc, we're still talking about the first alpha test version, so expect something not totally functional yet, as there's still a lot of work to be done (I worked on it for only 3 weeks yet! With some helps from Jéssica Natália). Read the Readme file in the download, as it contains all the warnings about potential problems. I still have to work every day on my GTA-like game "IMPUNES", I'm very busy, so I can only work on Patreon for a little over a week a month (usually the last week), but I still intend to fix critical bugs at any time, and I always reply on supporters' Discord server and Patreon helping people.
Current progress
Dynamic 4 cascaded per-pixel shadows (NVIDIA's PCSS)
Ambient oclusion (SSAO)
HDR simulation with tonemapping (ACES or Timoty)
Auto exposure
Bloom
Sun rays
SMAA
Simple dithered sky shader
New horizon fog
Improved z-fighting
Soft particles
Player mipmapping (automatic)
Shaders lit by directional light
Stochastic procedural texturing
Animated wind shader
Support for unlimited TXDPs (TXD parents) files in .ide files, which helps this and other texture mods.
All 11+ thousand game textures are already configured with proper values for roughness, stochastic and shadows casting.
In progress
Volumetric clouds
PBR sky shader with sky blend
Per-pixel lighting
Roughness mapping
Ambient occlusion mapping
Normal mapping
Metallic mapping
Water surface
Underwater
Decals projector
Planned
Lens flare
Volumetric fog
Volumetric lighting
Screen space reflections
Screen space global illumination
World rain surface
Vehicle rain surface
Parallax occlusion mapping
Specular anisotropic hair
Subsurface scattering
Advanced car paint and dirt
More AO options
Temporal anti-aliasing
Improve wind/vegetation shader
Terrain splat maps shader
Download version 03-26. For beta supporters on 01.04.26 (DD.MM.YY) and 01.05.26 for the public. Possible bug fixes will be updated in the same download link.
Sharing is prohibited until specific dates.