- description

Tomb raider underworld crystal dynamics final outing with Lara
in their first trilogy concludes Lara's quest for her mother.

helix shader tweaks
- reduce fog and godray bloom

update 16/04/2024 v1.1
- set shaders to full precision (remove _pp)
  landscape
  sky
- shader reduced sun glare
- tweaked tonemap added fake ambient light
- reduced luma sharp
- added curve shader thru sweetfx
  the curve shader can be disabled see further tweaking for info.
- update of the helix dlls
- removed improve shadows cast by character
- removed improve shadows cast by object

The sweetfx tone map reduces the rather heavy darkening and a
'poor mans form of tessellation' gives the assets (characters, environment, etc)
a bit of relief plus some color tweaking by reducing red and green.

Further disable the in-game AA, this package sets smaa by sweetfx.
The screenshots contain AO (ambient occlusion) this was forced
by nvidia inspector:
https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/nvidia-inspector-download.html
basically uses hbao flag 0x00000026 (Warmonger).
More detail:

### NVIDIA Profile Inspector ###         Tomb Raider: Underworld

[1 - Compatibility]
Ambient Occlusion compatibility          0x00000026 (Warmonger)

[2 - Sync and Refresh]
Frame Rate Limiter V3                    61 FPS
Maximum pre-rendered frames              1
Vertical Sync                            Fast Sync

[4 - Texture Filtering]
Anisotropic filtering mode               User-defined / Off
Anisotropic filtering setting            8x

[5 - Common]
Ambient Occlusion setting                Performance
Ambient Occlusion usage                  Enabled

[Other]
Enable Ansel                             0x00000000 ANSEL_ENABLE_OFF

note: keep in mind ao is generally expensive gpu wise.
      also in some scenes the ao 'bleeds' see screenshot
      for example.

- install

Copy the contents of the zip file to the install folder of Tomb raider underworld,
the folder which contains tru.exe with exception of the folder(s):

- optional install

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

download sweetfx from
https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/sweetfx-shader-suite-download.html
copy the d3d9.dll (32bit version) to the install folder then copy the
remaining files and 'SweetFX' folder, in this package, to the install
folder of the game.

download helix from
http://helixmod.blogspot.com/
and place following files in the install dir of tomb raider underworld
d3d9.dll
dx9settings.ini

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

- verify

To test the sweetfx settings open sweetfx/shaders/main.h with
a text editor and modify the lines:

//#include "Splitscreen.h"
//FinalColor = SplitscreenPass(FinalColor,tex);
to
#include "Splitscreen.h"
FinalColor = SplitscreenPass(FinalColor,tex);

save the file and run the game you should see an vertical
split-screen (left side unmodified, right side modified)

- tested

Tested with version 1.1 of Tomb raider underworld on win 10(1903) / nvidia 1050gtx ti
sweetfx (the last version, is as far as I know, no longer in development)

- performance

sweetfx - helix gpu usage (game capped at 60.7 frames) plus fast sync
without - clock 962Mhz gpu usage ~50%
with       - clock 987Mhz gpu usage ~60%
approximately 10% increase (1050gtx ti on win 10(1903))
max gpu: 1784Mhz gpu usage 100%
* AO was enabled in both measurements
  the forced AO adds roughly 30% gpu usage.

- further tweaking

Disbale the curve shader open:
\test drive unlimited 2\SweetFX\shaders\Main.h
change line 61 from:
  tex = curve(tex);
to:
  //tex = curve(tex);
save and close the file then restart game.

Toggling shaders open sweetfx/shaders/main.h with
a text editor and modify the lines:

#include "cartoon.h"
#include "LumaSharpen.h"

to (disables the including of the bump relief shaders)

//#include "cartoon.h"
//#include "LumaSharpen.h"

and

FinalColor = cartoonpass(FinalColor,tex);
FinalColor = LumaSharpenPass(FinalColor,tex);

to (disables the rendering of the bump relief shaders)

//FinalColor = cartoonpass(FinalColor,tex);
//FinalColor = LumaSharpenPass(FinalColor,tex);

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

- tips

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Tomb_Raider:_Underworld