Amazingly Realistic Immersion Mod

On 3Dmigoto GitHub page they say:
"The d3dx.ini is tuned for hunting, not playing. "
What do they mean with 'hunting'? Is this related to logging, as in hunting other players?
"Hunting" shaders. My version of the .ini is tuned for playing, but you can set up 3DMigoto to allow you to interact with the shaders directly. This is what I did to get all the hash codes needed to achieve the various mods in the .ini file.

If you're going to do this, I recommend using the default .ini file and read the docs so you know how to capture the hashes. That said, I think I and CMDR AD got all the "good ones". Most are shaders you do NOT want to turn off, as they break the game when you do.
 
Is there a shader that does reflections? I'd like to turn them off for better performance, but I suppose that's probably done in opengl/directx.
 
Could I have the hash that just turns off the scratched windows that you mentioned please Duck? :)

e37ec68e66eac942

Is there a shader that does reflections? I'd like to turn them off for better performance, but I suppose that's probably done in opengl/directx.

I don't know - I wasn't looking at reflections when I did the testing. Are you talking about reflections of planet surfaces on your ship's hull? I'm not aware of any other reflections in the game. I actually long for the day when I'll see the faint reflection of my CMDR in the glass of my Type-7 as sun shines in and illuminates my white remlock suit, but that's raytracing and probably years away.
 
I don't know - I wasn't looking at reflections when I did the testing. Are you talking about reflections of planet surfaces on your ship's hull? I'm not aware of any other reflections in the game. I actually long for the day when I'll see the faint reflection of my CMDR in the glass of my Type-7 as sun shines in and illuminates my white remlock suit, but that's raytracing and probably years away.

Yes, mainly on the Mamba as it seems to have faint reflections on the arms which possibly leads to that ship being more of a performance hog than the others.

I'll have a go myself if you say 3DMigoto can be setup to "hunt". Any tips if you can spare the time.
 
First off, I need to give credit to CMDR AD for his initial work in this field, as detailed in his original thread located here. He is the giant whose shoulders I stand upon. Continuing his work, I have further modded Elite Dangerous to provide the following changes:
  • BLACK Space - That's right, space is now BLACK. The clouds of interstellar dust have been removed. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how realistic you want space to mirror the night sky you see IRL, this also removes the galactic core and the few distant galaxies normally visible. All stars, however, are clearly visible. If you normally operate in the Bubble, you may appreciate the black and realistic night sky over the default. If you're an explorer, you may wish to disable this particular option. See the thread below for screenshots (in particular post #16).
  • BLACK Shadows - A perfect complement to the black sky is black shadows. This modification removes ambient light from space, making the dark side of objects (stations, outposts, ships, landable planets) black as night. This is more realistic to how shadows look in the empty void of space when there are no sources of reflected light like planetshine. Don't worry, it looks better than I make it sound. Think of is as HDR Mode. Again this assumes you're operating in the Bubble, as closer to the core you would expect ambient light from the high density of stars. This feature is can be turned on and off separately from black skies.
  • No External HUD Elements - All circles and labels around planets and ships are disabled, making it feel like you're looking outside a simple glass window. I find this much more immersive, but it also adds a challenge as you'll need to use your cockpit HUD (radar, compass, etc) to navigate. It will also make combat much more challenging without the targeting reticles. Not for the faint of heart, but for those desiring an immersive world outside your spaceship along with the challenge of IFR flight, this mod is for you! Also disabled is the blue "TRON" glow around mapped planets along with the bright, crazy "comet trails" for ships in Supercruise.
  • Cleaner HUD - Normally our instrument HUD and side-panels have a "drop shadow" behind them, which this mod removes. The result is a cleaner look that doesn't block your view, but it may be harder to read the side panels in certain bright locations. I've also removed those lines that do nothing but clutter the view.
  • Space Snow Removed - The "snow" in space and the blizzards over planets have been removed. However I have retained the "flying warp stars" effect in Supercruise. Like all modifications, you can turn off this mod to keep the "space snow" in the game if you depend on it for your vectors.
  • Cockpit Smoke Removed - No more fires in the cockpit when your ship is only at 80% heat. This also removes smoke in certain places inside the stations, but not others. For example, humidity still can be seen coming from overhead vents, but the mailslot is no longer boiling with smoke.
  • Sun Modifications - Some minor sun modifications made, other more "invasive" mods provided but turned off by default. Experiment and see which combination of sun effects you like the most!
  • Remove Fog From Rings (OPTIONAL) - Per request, an entry (disabled by default) is provided to remove fog from ring systems once you drop on them. I don't use this feature, so it may require some testing.
  • Turn Off Cockpit Lights (OPTIONAL) - If you want a dark cockpit, or you are annoyed by those flashing red lights while mining, there is an entry (disabled by default) that will allow you to turn these lights off.
The way this mod works is that it intercepts calls to Windows graphics subsystem, allowing certain pixel shaders to be turned off. It does not replace or change any of ED's files, rather it adds some new files which ED will use when present. AFAIK this is in accordance with Frontier's EULA, as it's not changing the game files in any way, nor does it allow or promote cheating in any way that I can imagine. If anything, it makes the game HARDER to play, but in a way us realism nuts will enjoy.

The program you need is called 3Dmigoto. Click the name to download the file (version 1.3.16). Extract the file and then copy the CONTENTS of the x64 directory to your elite-dangerous-64 directory (in my case this is found at D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Elite Dangerous\Products\elite-dangerous-64). Next you need to download the d3dx.txt I've attached to this post, rename it to d3dx.ini, and save it to the elite-dangerous-64 directory, replacing the one that comes with 3Dmigoto. That should do the trick! To disable any particular modification, just insert a semicolon ( ; ) in front of the 3 lines of code for that specific mod, thus commenting it out and turning it off.

DISCLAIMER - Whatever you do, you do of your own accord. If your computer catches fire and your Arx disappear and Stigbob knocks on your door demanding cookies, I am not responsible! Blame TJ, or better yet, don't blame anyone. AFAIK there is no risk, but a prudent person would research all of this before installing "alien" software on his/her computer.

NOTE - If you want things like haze in stations removed, see CMDR AD's original mod as linked above. You can copy-n-paste settings from his .ini file to mine to remove haze, "warp stars", etc.
That's a very interesting collection of tweaks!
Unfortunately I am out there pretty often and don't spend too much time in the Bubble, so I don't really want things to vanish from my background. Concerning the tinting, I don't want it to be better by removing dust, but I want it gone...
The space snow also is the only indicator of our ship's trajectory, so I won't remove it due to FA off flying. I really, really wished our ships had tech from the prequels... In First Encounters, and I think also in Frontier, there was an indicator on the screen showing the ship's trajectory, which was awesome!
I'll try around with the star setting. I'd love them to be much brighter when up close. Apart from that, I tweaked my Reshade to already darkening the shadows and desaturate the game without making it look much different.
 
That's a very interesting collection of tweaks!
Unfortunately I am out there pretty often and don't spend too much time in the Bubble, so I don't really want things to vanish from my background. Concerning the tinting, I don't want it to be better by removing dust, but I want it gone...
The space snow also is the only indicator of our ship's trajectory, so I won't remove it due to FA off flying. I really, really wished our ships had tech from the prequels... In First Encounters, and I think also in Frontier, there was an indicator on the screen showing the ship's trajectory, which was awesome!
I'll try around with the star setting. I'd love them to be much brighter when up close. Apart from that, I tweaked my Reshade to already darkening the shadows and desaturate the game without making it look much different.
Well, at the very least you can try it out just to experience the difference and then uninstall it (very easy to do). I went exploring last night, and the views I'm getting in VR are amazing. Granted, I'm not seeing the galactic dust and overly-bright nebula (which isn't realistic anyway, see https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/what-do-nebula-really-look-like.535374), but to land on a moon at dusk in tight orbit with another planet, with black skies, realistic stars, and "HDR" shadows, well it felt real. That's the type of person this mod is for, those who want to experience space as it actually is, rather than a colorized "I can see all the nebula around me for thousands of light years" version of space that ED gives us by default.

With your aversion to skybox tinting (which this mod practically eliminates), I just assumed you were a realism nut like myself. Yes, I'm the nut, I fully admit it, and I don't blame anyone who doesn't like what this mod does. But for those of us who are realism nuts, this mod is pretty freakin' amazing. I'm not bragging, as I'm only using a tool that somebody else wrote. I'm just very, very thankful I found this tool, as it has changed the game for me in a very positive way.
 
Last edited:
Yes, mainly on the Mamba as it seems to have faint reflections on the arms which possibly leads to that ship being more of a performance hog than the others.

I'll have a go myself if you say 3DMigoto can be setup to "hunt". Any tips if you can spare the time.
I'll play around with it today and get back to you. However, if you are looking to improve performance, you may be disappointed. I'm under the impression that reflections are textures generated by the CPU that then are mapped on via a shader. I base this due to the "update lag" that can especially be seen in lower quality settings. The shader itself probably has very little performance hit. Things like shadows and draw distances make a much bigger difference to performance.
 
Well, at the very least you can try it out just to experience the difference and then uninstall it (very easy to do). I went exploring last night, and the views I'm getting in VR are amazing. Granted, I'm not seeing the galactic dust and overly-bright nebula (which isn't realistic anyway, see https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/what-do-nebula-really-look-like.535374), but to land on a moon at dusk in tight orbit with another planet, with black skies, realistic stars, and "HDR" shadows, well it felt real. That's the type of person this mod is for, those who want to experience space as it actually is, rather than a colorized "I can see all the nebula around me for thousands of light years" version of space that ED gives us by default.

With your aversion to skybox tinting (which this mod practically eliminates), I just assumed you were a realism nut like myself. Yes, I'm the nut, I fully admit it, and I don't blame anyone who doesn't like what this mod does. But for those of us who are realism nuts, this mod is pretty freakin' amazing. I'm not bragging, as I'm only using a tool that somebody else wrote. I'm just very, very thankful I found this tool, as it has changed the game for me in a very positive way.
Yeah. I'll definitely try around with it. It just sounded like there's always also a setback included. Concerning the nebulas, most of them wouldn't even be visible to the human eye and are colourized on any pictures we view. So that's already not scientifically correct. But we can always say, the smart-view filter of our ship does that for us...
I got to admit, that I kinda like seeing nebulas when I'm closing in on them... I'd also love to remove the space dust, but since this is the only indicator of my ship's trajectory, it would be very bad for FA off flying if they would vanish. Killing off reticles and the like is not really immersive, because it's rather unlikely for a space ship to not have such things. I'd take a toggle for that anytime (there is also shift+alt+g to turn off ALL hud elements.)
My shadows are already pretty dark and colour is dampened and desaturated a bit as well thanks to almighty Reshade.
And yeah, I'm a pedantic nut as well. The tinting annoys me so much, because it would be totally possible to give us more realistic space and they didn't do that despite the whole gameworld being a simulation of our galaxy...
 
I'll play around with it today and get back to you. However, if you are looking to improve performance, you may be disappointed. I'm under the impression that reflections are textures generated by the CPU that then are mapped on via a shader. I base this due to the "update lag" that can especially be seen in lower quality settings. The shader itself probably has very little performance hit. Things like shadows and draw distances make a much bigger difference to performance.

Thanks a lot! Yes, this was my feeling as well that reflections were done in opengl/d3d, but then I searched google and found a few sites mentioning how to do reflections with a shader.

But I'm loving not having the orange/blue HUD anymore. When I'm flying towards a group of planets I see some stars that slowly shift against the background and then resolve into planets the closer I get. Before I was just blinded by the orange ring, even at lowest settings and with the HUD colours changed to half their normal value. It's just so big and blocks out anything nearby. Most things I can use the left hand reticle. Small objects may be a bit difficult, but usually the radar will show when close enough. HUD still shows planet values (height/gravity/coords etc) when near/on planets. The only concern is combat, whether I will be at a disadvantage or not. I fly with gimbal anyway, so probably not. It's something I'd hoped the devs would incorporate years ago, as turning the whole HUD off is too much of a disadvantage. Great work!
 
I've tried it myself but prefer the colourful post-Beyond graphics etc. But just to add re advantage/disadvantage in combat, be careful what you use the tool for, I'm absolutely sure the original mod threads mentioned it but restrict yourself to cosmetic changes only, which fdev I believe said was ok, but this tool could be used for other things and fdev could ban players if messing with things offering multiplayer advantage etc.
 
I've tried it myself but prefer the colourful post-Beyond graphics etc. But just to add re advantage/disadvantage in combat, be careful what you use the tool for, I'm absolutely sure the original mod threads mentioned it but restrict yourself to cosmetic changes only, which fdev I believe said was ok, but this tool could be used for other things and fdev could ban players if messing with things offering multiplayer advantage etc.
I cycled through all the shaders, and I saw nothing that would give me an advantage over another player, except that I'm happier now than I was before, thus I might have a dopamine advantage, LOL.
 
I cycled through all the shaders, and I saw nothing that would give me an advantage over another player, except that I'm happier now than I was before, thus I might have a dopamine advantage, LOL.
Yup, I'm not suggesting changing cosmetic effects is a problem, just reiterating the warnings I remember from the original threads, if the changes are cosmetic it should be fine but it could be used for other things and fdev could ban players.
 
Yup, I'm not suggesting changing cosmetic effects is a problem, just reiterating the warnings I remember from the original threads, if the changes are cosmetic it should be fine but it could be used for other things and fdev could ban players.
AFAIK this particular mod ONLY changes things on a "cosmetic" level. It basically lets you turn off different "layers" of the visuals being displayed on the screen. It doesn't change any of Elite's files, it just intercepts draw commands being sent to windows and drops some of those (like the commands to draw space dust). Turning off the HUD actually handicaps the player using this mod, as we have to fly using instruments, eyeballs, and intuition.
 
AFAIK this particular mod ONLY changes things on a "cosmetic" level. It basically lets you turn off different "layers" of the visuals being displayed on the screen. It doesn't change any of Elite's files, it just intercepts draw commands being sent to windows and drops some of those (like the commands to draw space dust). Turning off the HUD actually handicaps the player using this mod, as we have to fly using instruments, eyeballs, and intuition.
Cool, I just remember the warnings not to change anything that could offer multiplayer advantage. As I say fdev agreed changing cosmetic stuff eg space dust was fine although I cant find the link
 
This looks rather good, congratulations on eliminating that confounded space dust. I am looking forward to trying this but I am wary of contaminating my ED directory with stuff that might break it. Firstly, is it simply a case of copying files as I have shown in the image below? If so, how does it work? How does ED know the mod files are there? Also, how do you back it out if it needs uninstalling? The uninstall.bat file has a huge list of files. Sorry if these questions are obvious or naive.

2020-01-16 19_38_38-x64.jpg
 
Firstly, is it simply a case of copying files as I have shown in the image below?
Yep!
If so, how does it work? How does ED know the mod files are there?
It has to do with how file systems work. ED will call one or more of the .dll files, which are in your Windows / System directory. However, a file system will always usually give preference to a local file over one in a different directory. So by placing these dll files in ED's directory, ED will load those instead of the Windows ones. These files basically act to intercept any calls going to the Windows graphics system, dropping calls to the specific shaders that are listed in the .ini file. The rest of the graphics calls are passed on to the original .dll files.

That's a simplified version. A software engineer would likely cringe at my explanation, but hopefully it gets the basic concept across.

Also, how do you back it out if it needs uninstalling? The uninstall.bat file has a huge list of files.
Uninstall always works for me. You can also comment out any specific filtering you don't like, picking and choosing from my list. Just edit the d3dx.ini file to your preference.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom