Transform your Microsoft Flight Simulator visuals with a realistic ReShade preset designed for both MSFS 2020 and MSFS 2024.

This preset focuses on creating a natural, realistic, and cinematic look without making the simulator overly saturated or heavily filtered.

It improves lighting, contrast, atmospheric depth, shadows, colors, clouds, and aircraft detail while preserving the natural appearance of Microsoft Flight Simulator.

The goal is simple:

Make MSFS look closer to real aviation footage. ✈️

Designed to look great during daytime, nighttime, sunrise, sunset, overcast, and low-visibility conditions.

✨ Features

• More realistic and natural colors
• Improved contrast and lighting
• Enhanced cloud and sky appearance
• Better atmospheric depth and haze
• Cleaner aircraft details
• Improved shadows and highlights
• More cinematic sunrises and sunsets
• Balanced for day & night flying
• Works with default MSFS weather
• Works alongside Active Sky
• Works alongside REX Atmos
• Works alongside NVIDIA DLSS 5 Neural Rendering
• Compatible with MSFS 2020 & MSFS 2024
• Designed to stay realistic without excessive saturation or filtering

Weather/atmosphere add-ons and DLSS 5 Neural Rendering are completely optional.

The preset works completely on its own with the default MSFS weather and atmosphere.

Want to see how the preset actually looks while flying?

▶️ YouTube Showcase:
https://youtu.be/NmTyoTUjKts
If you enjoy the preset, consider liking the video and subscribing for more MSFS content! 🙌✈️

1. Download My Preset FIRST

Download and extract the preset from Flightsim.to.

Inside the download you'll find my .ini ReShade preset file.

Keep this file somewhere easy to find because you'll select it during the ReShade installation.

2. Download ReShade

Download the latest version of ReShade directly from the official ReShade website:

👉 ReShade:
https://reshade.me/

3. Install ReShade

1. Open the ReShade installer.
2. Select Microsoft Flight Simulator from the application list.
3. Select DirectX 10/11/12 when asked which rendering API to use.
4. When ReShade asks you to select a preset, click Browse.
5. Select the .ini preset included with this download.
6. Click Next.
7. ReShade will read the preset and automatically determine which shader/effect packages are required.
8. Allow ReShade to download and install the required effects.
9. Continue until you reach the Add-ons page.
10. No additional ReShade add-ons are required for this preset, so you can continue through this page.
11. Finish the installation.
12. Launch Microsoft Flight Simulator and enjoy! 🙌✈️

⭐ IMPORTANT

Make sure you select my .ini preset DURING the ReShade installation.

This allows ReShade to automatically identify and install the effect packages used by the preset.

You do NOT need to manually install every shader package, and you don't need to manually recreate all of my filter settings.

The .ini file already contains the settings needed for the preset.

For anyone wondering what I personally use in my screenshots and videos:

• Weather: AB MSFS — Realistic Live Weather Set — 10/14/2025
• Atmos: AB MSFS — Realistic Atmos Set — 10/14/2025
• Enviro: .RexRealLife v2 — Less Blue, More Neutral Enviro Set — 05/04/2026

Some users have had trouble finding the older AB MSFS presets, so those specific versions may no longer be publicly available. I still have them installed.

None of these are required. My ReShade preset works perfectly fine with the default MSFS weather and atmosphere or whatever weather setup you prefer.

The preset works great alongside NVIDIA DLSS 5 Neural Rendering, which I personally use in my screenshots and videos.

DLSS 5 Neural Rendering is completely optional and is NOT required to use this preset.

The ReShade preset works perfectly fine without it and can be used with your own preferred MSFS graphics setup.

The screenshots and videos shown were captured using:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition
RAM: 64GB DDR5 6000MHz
Resolution: 1440p

You do NOT need these specs.

The ReShade preset itself is relatively lightweight.

Your overall performance will depend much more on your resolution, MSFS graphics settings, aircraft, scenery, traffic, weather, and other add-ons.

Lower-end systems can still use the preset.

Your results may look slightly different depending on:

• Weather & time of day
• HDR settings
• Monitor calibration
• MSFS graphics settings
• Weather/atmosphere add-ons
• DLSS 5 Neural Rendering settings
• ReShade version
• Aircraft & scenery

For the closest results to my screenshots, I recommend starting with the preset exactly as provided before making your own adjustments.

DLSS 5 Neural Rendering, AB MSFS, Active Sky, REX Atmos, and other graphics/weather add-ons are NOT required to use this preset.

If you have any questions or run into an issue, feel free to leave a comment on the download page and I'll try my best to help.

Thank you for downloading and enjoy! 🙌✈️