Retro Shader Fix (or RSF) is a series of patches for older versions of No Man’s Sky. As drivers for graphics cards have updated, the shaders of older NMS versions have begun to stop working (largely owing to Hello Games being a small indie studio, hah!) and so, in order to play them, one has had to downgrade their graphics drivers to a version that the shaders compile correctly on.
As of right now, I have written patches for as recent as version 1.38, but they could be made for versions as new as 1.77 — if needed — and theoretically could be developed for any version of No Man’s Sky that needs them.
These patches are designed to modify as little as possible. Every change is documented in the shader files, and each change was thoroughly tested individually to make sure that no unnecessary changes were made.
If you encounter any shader errors, please let me know! The SHADERERRORDUMP.txt
file in /GAMEDATA
is extremely helpful for fixing broken shaders. (Ironically enough, the more broken a shader is, the more easily I can fix it.)
Get the pak(s) you need from the Releases page.
- For version 1.10 and older, place the .pak in
/GAMEDATA/PCBANKS
. Then, go back to/GAMEDATA
and delete/SHADERCACHE
. You're done! - For version 1.12 and newer, go to
/GAMEDATA/PCBANKS
and delete (or rename)DISABLEMODS.TXT
. Then, in the same folder, create a new folder calledMODS
. Place the .pak in there, then head back to/GAMEDATA
and delete/SHADERCACHE
. You're done!
Run Build.bat
in the /Source
folder. The .pak
s will be in each respective folder.
- NMS “retro” versions installation guide on https://nomansskyretro.com/
This patch, for No Man’s Sky Foundations 1.10 through No Man’s Sky Pathfinder 1.24, fixes the errors that result in only the game’s UI being rendered. It is not needed for 1.09 and earlier, or 1.30 and later.
It updates the DEFINES shader to not use gl_FragData
(which has been deprecated), fixes a syntax error, and updates another shader affected by those changes.
It was developed by taking code from NMS 1.38 that resolves the issue, so there shouldn’t be any side effects.
Files affected: /SHADERS/CODE/COMMON/DEFINES.SHADER.H.BIN
, /SHADERS/CODE/FULLSCREEN/COMPRESSFRAGMENT.SHADER.H.BIN
Paks: (Foundations/Pathfinder).NVIDIAFragData.pak
Make sure to download the appropriate pak for your version of the game!
This patch fixes an issue in the SpaceMap pipeline that causes the “horizon” of the space map (the red “radar” effect) to not render correctly.
This patch can be applied to any version from 1.03 to 1.24. The same file works for all of them. 1.30 and later use a completely different space map, so they don't need it.
Files affected: /PIPELINES/PIPELINESPACEMAP.BIN
Pak: Universal.AMDSpaceMapHorizon.pak
Before | After |
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This patch is more akin to the NVIDIA shader patch in terms of changes made, plus a missing GLSL extension. It fixes invisible terrain, incorrect coloring, and missing textures.
Files affected: /SHADERS/CODE/COMMON/DEFINES.SHADER.H.BIN
, /SHADERS/CODE/FULLSCREEN/COMPRESSFRAGMENT.SHADER.H.BIN
.
Pak: Release.AMDFragData.pak
This patch adds a single missing GLSL extension to the DEFINES shader. It fixes invisible terrain and other missing textures.
Files affected: /SHADERS/CODE/COMMON/DEFINES.SHADER.H.BIN
.
Paks: (Foundations/Pathfinder).AMDTextureArray.pak
Make sure to download the appropriate pak for your version of the game!
This patch adds a single missing GLSL extension to the DEFINES shader and removes some compute code that only works on the PS4, as the new AMD drivers throw a syntax error even though the code never runs on PC.
Files affected: /SHADERS/CODE/COMMON/DEFINES.SHADER.H.BIN
Pak: AtlasRises.AMDTextureArray.pak