- description

Devil may cry, the who's your daddy of most
of the current melee games, fourth iteration.
Not met with universal praise on release, Nero
was bit tough to swallow, but then there is
.... the claw ... ehhr think toy story 3 or if you
want to toukiden 2 ...

note: tweaks are for the dx9 version of the game.

Typical for games released in that time there is a lot of
bloom, fog, blur and excessive contrast which, rather
obscure much detail in the game so to resurrect some of this detail
this package contains some tweaks realized with helix
(a precursor to 3dmigoto, works exclusively with dx9) and reshade.

Helix tweaks contain:
- reduce bloom
- reduce hdr
- reduce fog brightness in distance
- reduce dof and blur
- added curve shader
- set shaders to full precision (remove _pp)
  clothes npc
  weapon
  environment and structures
  skin body npc and avatar
  full precision gives a bit more accurate color
  and definition to textures, etc.

Further a reshade tone map re-balances brightness, plus removes a slight
yellow tint and a 'poor mans form of tessellation' gives the assets
(objects, environment, etc) a bit of relief and more definition.
Also added smaa (so disable in game AA).

Just in case you are wondering why I am using the ultimate asi loader
in this case without it the game crashes on startup, due to reshade
and a similar attempt with sweetfx, causes the game to crash on shut down.

The ultimate asi loader allows reshade to function without a hitch.

- install

Copy the contents of the zip file to the install folder of
devil may cry 4, the folder which contains DevilMayCry4_DX9.exe

- optional install

The following instructions are only needed
if you do not like using unverified dll's you can:

download helix from
http://helixmod.blogspot.com/
and place following file in the install dir of devil may cry 4
d3d9.dll

Note:
This package contains a 'd3d9.dll.hxdb' this is the debug version
which allows shaders to be found in game, usage rename d3d9.dll to
d3d9.dll.o then rename d3d9.dll.hxdb to d3d9.dll and in some cases
set UseEndScene = false to UseEndScene = true in the dx9settings.ini

download the 'ultimate asi loader' (32bits) from:
https://github.com/ThirteenAG/Ultimate-ASI-Loader/releases

then copy the dinput8.dll 32bits version to the install dir
of dmc 4.

download reshade from
https://reshade.me/  (preferably version 4.9.1)

Note:
Because this package uses the 'ultimate asi loader' take care and
first rename the existing d3d9.dll (helix) to d3d9.dll.hx then
install *only* d3d9.dll (32bits) to the install dir aka folder
of devil may cry 4.

Rename:
d3d9.dll
to:
reshade.asi

Rename:
d3d9.dll.hx
to:
d3d9.dll

Then copy the reshade folder plus ReShade.ini and reshadep.ini
contained in this package to the install dir of devil may cry 4.

Note:
dx9settings.ini of helix contains the name of the linked proxy dll
in this case leave it empty ultimate asi loader chains reshade.

- verify

To test the shaderfixes you will have to start and the restart
the game without the d3d9.dll example rename it to d3d9.dll.o
and restart the game.

Press 'F1' in game to toggle reshade shaders on or off
or press 'shift F2' and use reshades gui to toggle
shaders of. Toggling originalbeforesplit and splitscreen_tech
on gives a vertical splitscreen (right side shaders on left
side shaders of)

- tested

Tested with version 1.0.0.0 of devil may cry 4 on win 7 and win 10(1903)
/ nvidia 1050gtx ti

- performance

reshade / helix / usage 1080p@60fps*
without - clock 962Mhz gpu usage ~40%
with       - clock 962Mhz gpu usage ~50%
approximately 27% increase (1050gtx ti on win 7 / win 10)
max gpu: 1772Mhz gpu usage 100%
*) Game is capped to 60.7 with fast sync through nvidia inpsector

- further tweaking

If you like you can compare the modified shader(s), Dumps contains
the original shader, to alter values. The folder 'shaderoverride'
contains the modified versions.

Note helix works differently then 3dmigoto please search for a
tutorial or start looking here:
http://helixmod.blogspot.com/2010/12/how-to-guides.html

Specific shaders can be disabled by simply removing them
from the sub folders contained in 'shaderoverride'.

Most shaders <shadernumber>.txt have
a descriptive remark at top of the file (see shader list).

- tips

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Devil_May_Cry_4
see: Faster Loading very handy tweak!