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 more natural, cinematic look without making the simulator feel overly saturated or heavily filtered. It improves lighting, contrast, atmospheric depth, shadows, and overall color balance while keeping aircraft, airports, clouds, and scenery looking realistic.

The preset is designed to look great completely on its own with the default MSFS weather and atmosphere. Active Sky and REX Atmos are NOT required.

If you do use them, the preset also works great alongside Active Sky and REX Atmos, allowing you to combine their weather and atmospheric enhancements with the visual improvements from ReShade.

The preset also works great with NVIDIA DLSS 5, maintaining its enhanced lighting, colors, clarity, and realistic visual style while using DLSS.

✨ Features

• More realistic and natural colors
• Improved contrast and lighting
• Enhanced cloud and sky appearance
• Better atmospheric depth
• Cleaner aircraft details
• More cinematic sunrises and sunsets
• Designed for both daytime and nighttime flying
• Works great with default MSFS weather
• Works great with or without Active Sky
• Works great with or without REX Atmos
• Active Sky & REX Atmos are completely optional
• Works great with NVIDIA DLSS 5
• Compatible with MSFS 2020 & MSFS 2024

The goal of this preset is simple: make MSFS look closer to real aviation footage while still preserving the simulator's natural appearance.

Screenshots may vary depending on weather, time of day, graphics settings, HDR, DLSS settings, weather add-ons, and monitor calibration.

🌤️ My Weather & Atmosphere Setup

For the screenshots and visuals shown, I personally use:

• Weather: AB MSFS
• Atmos: AB MSFS
• Enviro: .RexRealLife v2

These are not required to use the preset. The ReShade preset works completely on its own with default MSFS weather and atmosphere.

📥 Installation Guide

1. Install ReShade

Download and install the latest version of ReShade.

During installation:

1. Select Microsoft Flight Simulator.
2. Select the appropriate rendering API for your setup.
3. When asked which effect packages you want to install, I recommend installing all available shader/effect packages to make sure every effect used by the preset is available.
4. Finish the ReShade installation.

2. Install the Preset

1. Download and extract my preset.
2. Locate the included .ini preset file.
3. Place the .ini file inside your main Microsoft Flight Simulator folder, or somewhere easy to locate.

3. Select the Preset In-Game

1. Launch Microsoft Flight Simulator.
2. Once in the simulator, press the Home key to open the ReShade menu.
3. At the top of the ReShade window, click the preset dropdown.
4. Browse to and select the included .ini file.
5. ReShade should automatically enable the effects and settings included with the preset.

⚙️ Filters / Effects

You do NOT need to manually configure each filter.

The .ini preset already contains my ReShade settings. Once you select the preset, the required effects should automatically activate.

If an effect shows an error or is missing, reopen the ReShade installer and make sure you have the required shader/effect packages installed.

🌦️ Active Sky & REX Atmos

Active Sky and REX Atmos are completely optional.

You can use this preset with:

• Default MSFS weather and atmosphere
• Active Sky
• REX Atmos
• Active Sky + REX Atmos

No additional ReShade setup is required.

Because these add-ons can change lighting, visibility, haze, clouds, and atmospheric colors, your final appearance may vary depending on your settings.

🎮 NVIDIA DLSS 5

The preset also works great alongside NVIDIA DLSS 5. You can use DLSS while still benefiting from the preset's lighting, color, contrast, and atmospheric enhancements.

DLSS 5 is NOT required to use the preset.

❗ Important

The preset may look slightly different depending on:

• HDR settings
• Monitor calibration
• MSFS graphics settings
• DLSS settings/version
• Active Sky settings
• REX Atmos settings
• Time of day
• Weather and cloud conditions
• ReShade version

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

Enjoy! ✈️