If you are playing a modern AAA game with native ray tracing, no—ignore this shader.
But. If you have a backlog of 50+ classic PC games, an aging GTX 1070 or RTX 2060, and you want to feel like you just installed a $700 graphics card upgrade for free, then Reshade Ray Tracing shader RTGI 0.33 is still the king.
It represents a unique moment in PC history: When a single hobbyist developer democratized ray tracing three years before NVIDIA’s marketing team claimed they invented it. It isn't perfect. It has noise, ghosting, and edge artifacts. But when you first walk into the Bannered Mare in Skyrim and see the firelight naturally wrap around a wooden beam, you will forget it's a "fake."
Install it. Tune it. Play your favorites like you’ve never seen them before.
ReShade RTGI 0.33 is not a replacement for native hardware-accelerated Path Tracing. But it doesn't need to be.
It is the ultimate "what if" machine. What if Assassin’s Creed: Unity had modern denoising? What if The Witcher 3 (pre-next-gen update) had bounce lighting? What if Mirror’s Edge Catalyst actually looked like the concept art?
With version 0.33, Marty McFly has proven that software ray tracing is not dead; it is just getting mature. If you haven't looked at ReShade in a year, go update your preset. The grain is gone. The future (of modding) is bright. Reshade Ray Tracing shader RTGI 0.33
Ready to try it? You can find the shader on Marty McFly’s Patreon (usually free after a short exclusivity period) or via the ReShade Discord server. Pair it with qUINT_ssr for reflections and MXAO for ambient occlusion, and you won't recognize your old games.
Have you tried RTGI 0.33? What game did you test it on first? Let us know in the comments.
Lighting Up the Past: A Guide to ReShade RTGI 0.33 Ever looked at a classic game and wished it had the moody, realistic lighting of a modern blockbuster? While we wait for official remasters, the modding community has already bridged the gap. The Ray Traced Global Illumination (RTGI) shader for
, specifically version 0.33, is a game-changer for digital archaeology.
Developed by Pascal Gilcher (better known as "Marty McFly"), this shader doesn't just add a filter; it fundamentally changes how light behaves in your game world. What Makes RTGI 0.33 Special?
Version 0.33 arrived as a major update alongside ReShade 5.3. The standout feature of this release is the addition of motion vectors. If you are playing a modern AAA game
Temporal Stability: By using motion vectors, the shader can track how pixels move from frame to frame. This drastically reduces the "ghosting" or flickering often seen in older screen-space effects.
Hardware Independence: You don’t need an expensive RTX card to run this. Because it calculates lighting based on the game's depth buffer rather than dedicated hardware cores, it works on older GPUs too.
Dynamic Bounce Lighting: It simulates "Global Illumination," meaning light from a bright green wall will actually bounce off and cast a soft green hue onto nearby objects. How to Install RTGI 0.33
Setting this up requires a bit more care than a standard ReShade filter. ReShade Tutorial | How to use the RTGI Shader (0.25+)
Reshade RTGI (Ray Traced Global Illumination) shader, specifically version
released in August 2022, is a major update to Pascal Gilcher's (Marty McFly) popular screen-space path-tracing tool. It bridges the gap between traditional rasterized lighting and true hardware ray tracing by simulating light bounces based on the game's depth buffer. Key Features in RTGI 0.33 ReShade RTGI 0
The headline feature of the 0.33 update is the introduction of motion vectors Enhanced Stability:
Motion vectors allow the shader to track object movement relative to the camera, significantly reducing the "ghosting" or "trailing" artifacts common in earlier versions. Improved Temporal Accumulation:
By knowing where pixels move between frames, the shader can accumulate more lighting data over time, resulting in a cleaner, less "noisy" image during movement. Visual Impact & Gameplay Review
The shader transforms scenes by adding depth and realistic color interaction. Global Illumination:
Light realistically bounces off surfaces. For example, a bright orange light source will cast a subtle orange glow onto nearby white walls. Ambient Occlusion:
RTGI provides a much more accurate form of ambient occlusion than standard SSAO, adding weight to corners and the intersection points of objects. Visual Artifacts: Despite improvements, RTGI is limited by being a screen-space effect
. It can only calculate light for objects currently visible on your screen. If you turn your camera away from a light source, its contribution to the scene's lighting may disappear or flicker. Performance & Requirements
Installing RTGI 0.33 is not as simple as dragging a file into a folder. The author, Marty McFly, distributes his shaders via Patreon (though legacy versions can be found via community archives). Here is the safest, modern way to install it.
