ClearPlayHDR ReShade preset  

ClearPlayHDR ReShade for Stray, for those who like a more natural color palette, low bloom, low saturation and HDR-style clarity at playable frame rates.

ClearPlayHDR ReShade for Stray.

What's it for?
A ReShade preset for Stray to modify the game's visual output, clever stuff...the software, not me :p

Who's it for?
Anyone who likes a more natural color palette, less bloom, less saturation and HDR-style contrast.

Why the name?
Because its designed for clarity, playable frame rates and a nice HDR effect.

Is there a performance hit?
Yes, it's neither a light-touch or heavy-handed preset, it's a compromise, about a 10% frame drop, it will depend on your GPU, but I've minimised the ReShade shaders to the minimum required for the desired effect.

What's not to like?
The HDR effect can crush details in the dark shadows, although I think it works in favor of the game in this case...more moody. To compensate I've slightly increased shadow brightness. I also recommend increasing the in-game brightness by 1 or 2 points.

Why did you make it?
I started with the excellent J.A.ST.R.P. ReShade preset, full credit to sticknou who really nailed the color palette and toned down the awful over-saturation in the game, particularly all the RED!RED!REDRUM!....*ahem*. However it contains a lot of 'filmic' effects, bloom, vignette, grain, etc. which were too taxing on my GPU, good for screenshots, not so good for a playthrough, so I removed many of the shaders that had a minimum effect and removed all the extra bloom, of which I'm not a fan, added the fake HDR shader and tweaked a few values to my liking, and so here we are.... :)

I've no idea what I'm doing??
1. Find your installation folder for the Stray game executable (EXE) file: Stray-Win64-Shipping.exe (not Stray.exe!)
2. Download the zip file from the FILES tab and extract the preset ini file to the EXE install folder.
3. Download the latest ReShade EXE from https://reshade.me
4. Run the ReShade EXE from your Downloads folder, browse to the game EXE file Stray-Win64-Shipping.exe, select the default DirectX 10/11/12 option, browse to the game EXE file folder again and select the preset file ClearPlayHDR-ReshadePreset_1.0.ini and then wait while it downloads the required ReShade shaders.
5. Launch the game! If its working you can press the Home key to bring up the ReShade menu in-game to toggle the effects on/off, set various options and modify the shaders if you like. I'd like to see a cat vision shader...or maybe not ;-)

I hate it!?
1.Run the ReShade EXE from your Downloads folder, browse to the game EXE file Stray-Win64-Shipping.exe and then select Uninstall.
2. Delete the ClearPlayHDR-ReshadePreset_1.0.ini file from the game EXE folder.