Proper Shaders 10-26 (beta access)
If you don't know what Proper Shaders is, check other posts or official MixMods post: https://www.mixmods.com.br/2026/05/sa-proper-shaders/
(other updates/hotfixes for this month are logged on comments, updated on this same post)
I highly recommend to use with newer Proper Fixes version, that improved mesh normals for better lighting, and better PBR shadermaps compatibility: https://www.mixmods.com.br/2026/06/sa-proper-fixes/
Updated PBR shadermaps textures pack is at the end of this post.
10-26 Update:
Plants:
You no longer have to dream of having GTA San Andreas with optimized grass visible at long range, along with procedural objects ("procobj") such as additional vegetation and rocks. Now, you will see them at long draw distances (with configurable range).
GPU instancing: The game's grass is now rendered using GPU instancing—a technique used by virtually every modern game in the world to optimize rendering by offloading the workload from the CPU to the GPU for repetitive objects (making it perfect for grass).
Multithreading: To further offload work from the CPU, all grass and procedural object capture in the game runs in multithreading, including distance-based render-order sorting. This allows to resolve, in an optimized manner, the issue where background grass is rendered as if it were in the foreground (a problem previously solvable only via SkyGfx's dual-pass grass rendering option, which destroys the frame rate). Medium-high presets to above uses 600.0 meters distance for grass, while medium to low presets uses 300.0 for a good quality X performance balance.
More: Grasses and other vegetations will deform when the player and vehicles steps on it. The shader also performs an automatic optimization to lower the level of detail and density of distant grass models. A highly customized solution was also implemented to optimize grass receiving shadows (per-pixel shadows on transparent grass usually destroys frame rates on any engine, but not here: my custom hybrid-shadow solution is excellent, though it remains optional via the .ini file for lower-end PCs).
PBR shadermaps:
We are taking a new step in GTA III/VC/SA modding, as mods will now be able to easily include PBR features by using Proper Shaders on those games, much like modern game engines.
It already includes hand-crafted 320 shadermaps (with minimal semi-automation), from the 300 most commonly used game textures.
Currently it includes vanilla textures (yes, they are a bunch of 128/256px textures on the screenshots, from Proper Fixes), but from the next Jéssica's RoSA Evolved version (day 15) it will also include HD shadermaps based on RoSA textures (on her Patreon).
It runs on an advanced system I coded a while back, optimized using the game's native streaming system.
Requires Proper Fixes or SA Optimized Map (because it uses the same txd memory optimization).
PBR shadermaps will be ported to GTA Vice City and GTA III Proper Shaders too.
And adaptation is absurdly easy: you literally just need to create .txd files with the suffix, with textures inside it, and ModLoader + Proper Shaders will simply load and link them. If Proper Shaders isn't installed, the files will not be loaded. So anyone creating mods such as vehicles, weapons, can easily include shadermaps for players that uses Proper Shaders. Remembering that .json (.psjson) files to tweak textures by values (without needing shadermap textures) is also suported by ModLoader now, so can also easily be included by modders on their mods, both without any manual installation step.
This is highly encouraged for car mods, not just for visual reasons but also for optimization, since you can now add details by texture that previously required actual modeling; after all, normal maps create the illusion of 3D detail, while roughness and metallicness allow you to adjust surface reflections on a per-pixel basis without adding new geometry or materials. Reducing the number of materials is crucial for lowering CPU usage in car mods, and Proper Shaders makes this easy to achieve now.
I can provide car modders with free early access to the new version of Proper Shaders, allowing them to start testing and creating car mods for Proper Shaders PBR. However, to be fair to my supporters, I will only do this with major modders who have spent years producing lots good-quality car mods, not anyone.
ModLoader:
The .json files are now .psjson, loaded by ModLoader framework (supporting Priority etc). So mods can now include .psjson files to tweak materials, lights, effects etc.
More:
+10% of CPU performance optimization; Sunrays optimized by 5-10 times faster and better visuals without banding; fixed and improved visuals of vehicle headlight shadows; recreated volumetric lighting with better algorithm; added volumetric lighting to searchlights (police helicopter, Urbanize's and Black Project's Area 69 etc); lots of CPU-side code for shadows was being rewritten for more efficiency; fixed a game bug that an original 2005-standard game code miscalculates GPU with high total VRAM forcing the game to 16 bits color. In general, as always, the mod visuals has being improved more, by retweaking postfx, fog, lighting etc.
Even if you are not a supporter, you can check the public devlog on MixMods' server, "Proper Shaders" topic on Mod Showroom.
Jéssica Natália also helped a lot with this update, and she released Proper Shaders port for GTA Vice City and GTA III too, check it out!
Current progress
Full deferred rendering technique (like modern games)
Per-pixel lighting (hundreds of optimized dynamic lights)
Volumetric lights beams
Shadermaps (normal map, roughness map, metallicness map). Easy-adapt; streamed.
Dynamic 4 cascaded per-pixel shadows (NVIDIA's PCSS)
Soft shadow mask technique with gaussian blur
Screen space global illumination with AO.
Skylight (sky occlusion for additional big ambient occlusion areas, occluding sky light ambient color).
Tricolored ambient lighting like modern engines.
Volumetric clouds
Volumetric height fog with godrays
Water surface
Water caustics
Underwater
Ambient occlusion (SSAO, HBAO, proprietary SSGI)
HDR simulation with tonemapping (ACES or Timoty)
HDR composition and postfx (fixes color banding, specially on dark)
LUT
Auto exposure
Bloom
Sun rays
SMAA with temporal
AMD Contrast Adaptive Sharpening
Adaptive Depth Of Field
Simple dithered sky shader
PBR sky shader with sky blend
New horizon fog
Improved z-fighting
Soft particles
GPU instanced optimized grass, with physical deform
Multithreaded procedural objects and grass generation with higher distances
Shaders lit by directional light
Stochastic procedural texturing
Realtime global reflections
World rain surface
Vehicle shader (PBR, fresnel, rain surface)
Animated wind shader
Animated pickup shine
First person anti-clipping
Optional artistics (VHS, GTA:CW outlines, Aurora borealis)
Support for unlimited TXDPs (TXD parents) files in .ide files, which helps this (shadermaps) and other mods.
All 11+ thousand game textures are already configured with proper values for roughness, stochastic and shadows casting.
In progress
Cel/anime shading.
Decals projector (replacing the vanilla decals system, from CPU to GPU)
Screen space reflections
Planned
Lens flare
Parallax occlusion mapping
Specular anisotropic hair
Subsurface scattering
Improve wind/vegetation shader
Terrain splat maps shader
Download version 10-26. For beta supporters on 01.11.26 (DD.MM.YY) and 01.12.26 for the public. Possible bug fixes will be updated in the same post (check comments and Discord).
Sharing is prohibited until specific dates.
Download for PBR shadermaps (vanilla lowres textures; normal maps etc): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rSRcSA9ZKO1z_rAaN2eOGPQvKqF1967_/view