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This free plugin will make games on your Steam Deck look even better

Ghost of Tsushima running on the Steam Deck.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

A modder named SnooOranges3876 has released a plugin for Steam Deck titles that lets players adjust graphics on the fly, improving appearance and performance, and the best part is that it’s both free and easy to use. Called LetMeReShade, this plugin allows players to adjust illumination, contrast, colors, and much more on the fly. It can be particularly beneficial to older titles, too.

The plugin is available through GitHub. It circumvents the often-complicated install processes for ReShade mods and instead lets players quickly apply those mods to games. In the example video, SnooOranges3876 is seen changing shaders in Cyberpunk 2077 and Heavy Rain, with several other titles like Alan Wake and Monster Sanctuary as potential options.

LetMeReShade - A Decky Loader plugin for injecting reshade in your steam games.

When asked what the benefit of installing the plugin is, SnooOranges3876 said, “ReShade enhances game visuals by adding post-processing effects such as improved colors, contrast, sharpening, ambient occlusion, and global illumination. It allows real-time customization through an overlay UI, enabling players to tweak settings or use community presets. While primarily used for visual upgrades, it can also include performance optimizations, such as adaptive sharpening.”

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Once installed, players can access an in-game overlay where different settings can be enabled or disabled with a few clicks. Just be aware that it isn’t totally without cost; you’ll feel a performance hit with this enabled on most games. Users on the subreddit suggested finding a title that runs easily at 60 frames per second on high settings and then locking it to 40fps after enabling the plugin.

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The Steam Deck continues to grow in popularity despite competitive hardware like the ROG Ally entering the market, and much of that growth is due to community support with unofficial mods like this one. LetMeReShade isn’t available on the official Deck Loader plugin list, but you can still get your hands on it and install it manually through Github.

Patrick Hearn
Patrick Hearn writes about smart home technology like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, smart light bulbs, and more. If it's a…
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