RAY TRACING - Valheim

VALHEIM RAY TRACING

Valheim Ray Tracing adds DirectX 12 hardware ray tracing to the game. It traces the world around you to improve shadows, reflections, ambient occlusion and indirect light. Interiors now receive ray traced light and shadow information, so rooms, doorways and spaces around fires can be illuminated with more convincing depth instead of relying only on the original screen image.

This is a visually focused mod. It is especially suited to screenshots and slow, deliberate exploration.

• Ray traced sunlight and local light shadows.

• Indirect diffuse lighting and ambient occlusion that add depth to interiors and sheltered spaces.

• Reflections on water and other supported surfaces, including Valheim's animated water.

• Scene tracing for buildings, terrain, props, vegetation and supported animated objects.

• An in-game F1 panel for adjusting effects, quality and performance settings.

RAY RECONSTRUCTION

The F1 Ray Reconstruction tab contains the NVIDIA DLSS Ray Reconstruction controls and status. This optional feature uses Valheim Universal Upscaler's DLSS runtime and requires compatible NVIDIA hardware and software. Availability is shown in the panel; the ray traced effects can also use the mod's built-in denoising when Ray Reconstruction is unavailable or disabled.

HARDWARE AND PERFORMANCE

Valheim Universal Upscaler is mandatory. Install it before using this mod. Make sure the Upscaler is running before attempting to install Ray Tracing. Ray Tracing requires the USPSCALER TO BE TURNED ON AND ACTIVE to function.

Tested on NVIDIA hardware only. AMD and Intel GPUs are completely untested. A DirectX 12 GPU with hardware ray tracing support is required; support on a specific card is not guaranteed.

This mod is expensive to run. Expect a substantial frame-rate cost, especially at higher resolutions or with several ray traced effects enabled. It is better used for pictures than for performance-sensitive gameplay. Lower the resolution or disable individual effects in the F1 panel if needed. Best used with high-end GPUs with Frame Generation.

INSTALLATION

1. Install BepInEx and Valheim Universal Upscaler for Valheim.

2. Extract the archive into your Valheim game folder, preserving its BepInEx and valheim_Data folder structure.

3. Launch the game and press F1 to open the ray tracing settings.

Results vary with the scene and available geometry. Some transparent, particle and shader-driven effects remain part of Valheim's original renderer. This is an evolving ray tracing implementation, so visual artifacts and compatibility issues are possible and will happen.

For the smart fellas: this is not ReShade.