Reshade Ray Tracing Shader Rtgi 033 2021

The 2021 community found RTGI transformative in titles with static lighting or no GI at all:

RTGI 0.33 works by analyzing a single frame of a game (the depth buffer and color buffer) and tracing rays in screen-space. It asks: "Where is light bouncing from the pixels I can see?"

Because it cannot see around corners (no BVH structures like RTX cards), it sometimes fails, causing "light leaks" or missing reflections. However, in 2021, version 0.33 introduced a critical improvement: Temporal Stability. Older versions flickered wildly. Version 0.33 smoothed out the noise, making it feel shockingly close to hardware ray tracing.

Do not use the standard ReShade installer for RTGI. You need the specific shader repository. reshade ray tracing shader rtgi 033 2021

By late 2021, Marty McFly moved RTGI to a paid Patreon model for version 1.0+ (which later included depth-of-field and improved denoising). However, version 0.33 was the last truly "open" version freely distributed and modifiable.

Why does the modding community still reference it in 2024 and 2025?

For gamers who refuse to upgrade from Windows 10 or keep a legacy gaming rig, RTGI 0.33 is still the most effective "free ray tracing" solution available. The 2021 community found RTGI transformative in titles

ReShade is a generic post-processing injector for Windows games. It allows developers and modders to write custom shaders that hook into a game’s rendering pipeline after the frame is drawn.

RTGI (Ray Traced Global Illumination) is a specific shader developed by Marty McFly. Unlike simple color grading or ambient occlusion (AO) shaders, RTGI simulates how light bounces off surfaces to create realistic indirect lighting and shadows.

Before 2021, most "fake ray tracing" shaders were simply screen-space reflections. RTGI 0.33 changed the game by implementing a hybrid approach: screen-space ray marching combined with depth buffer information to create plausible light bounces. For gamers who refuse to upgrade from Windows

Without RTGI, Los Santos looks flat. With version 0.33, the neon lights bounce off wet pavement. The temporal stability fixed the awful ghosting of older RTGI versions on car windows.

The shader is currently developed via Pascal Gilcher’s Patreon. Later versions (v0.38, v0.40+) have introduced Ray Traced Reflections (RTR) and better denoisers.

Note regarding "Piece": If you are asking for a "piece" of code or a specific download link, I cannot provide direct download links for paid/patron software. However, v0.33 was widely circulated as a "public test" build at the time.