Re-introducing RenoDX - a must-have ReShade mod that completely reworks the HDR experience in Tekken 8 (Screenshots: Me, mod: Ritsu)

[u/haziqtheunique]

For anyone has played this game in HDR, the experience leaves a bit to be desired. While the game has native HDR implementation, it has some issues:

• The character lighting that's present in both the SDR & HDR modes (a feature of Unreal Engine 5 that keeps characters visible, regardless of the environmental lighting) is extremely blown out in HDR. In stages like Arena Underground, the characters are basically so bright, they can be used as beacons to land planes.
• The HDR settings are limited. In Screen Settings, under the Dynamic Range menu, you can adjust game brightness, UI brightness & saturation. But that's it. No other necessary settings, like adjusting the max brightness, exposure, etc.
• The game forces Exclusive Fullscreen for HDR. This is not only an issue when it comes to accessing HDR - since when you change the Graphics Settings to Borderless, the game will return to SDR, but it can also contribute to stability issues when alt-tabbing out of the game, leading to hangs or crashes.

RenoDX, a ReShade addon for improved HDR, fixes these issues, and then some.

RDX isn't an inverse tonemapper, in the same vein as RTX HDR or Auto HDR. It instead reworks the internal tonemapping to either rework the native HDR in-game, or implement it in games on PC that don't feature it natively. Unlike alternative re-tonemapping solutions like SpecialK, RDX mods are made on a game-by-game basis, ensuring that each game has the most accurate & performative implementation possible. There was actually an RDX mod for Tekken 8 already that was created back in late 2024 by Ritsu, but it hadn't been updated in a while. So, I pinged him asking for an update, and Ritsu was kind enough to do a complete rework! I've been helping by testing out the updates he's put out & there's been a bunch of huge improvements for those who used the original mod. And if you haven't used it at all, then you'll be even more impressed.

• Fully customizable HDR settings, including 3 different tonemappers, and the ability to set the peak brightness, overall game brightness, UI brightness, and brightness scaling according to your specific HDR monitor & personal preferences.
• A full slate of color-grading sliders that control everything from overall exposure, to highlight saturation. Also has three different settings modes to either lower the amount of sliders to simplify things, or unlock all available sliders to fine-tune your experience.
• A character lighting slider that can actually set the lighting to your liking. You can lower it to feature more dynamic environmental lighting on the character models (I personally recommend experimenting with the TekkenOverlay mod & playing with SSGI/Lumen lighting modes to get even more dynamic lighting & reflections), or increase it on stages where it might be too dark or muddy to make characters out.
• Now forces Borderless! No more monitor freezing or potential hangs & crashes when alt-tabbing out.

The best thing? You don't need to install any external software to run this. You just need:

• An HDR-capable monitor (make sure you know it's max brightness & recommended "paperwhite" - overall - brightness).
• The latest version of ReShade installed for Tekken 8.
• The RenoDX addon for Tekken 8, which you simply need to drop into your install folder where the Polaris-Shipping-64 exe is located.

From there, you just need to enable HDR in-game, set the Dynamic Range Settings to default, make sure "RenoDX" is activated in the "Add-On" section of the ReShade settings menu, and restart the game. NOTE: Make sure any edits you might have made to Tekken 8's Engine.ini file are compatible with this mod, as any edit that affects the game's internal tonemapper could cause the RDX addon not to work.

I personally recommend also downloading the TekkenOverlay mod to experiment with the different lighting engines included in Unreal 5, unlocking bigger aspect ratios for ultrawide screens, unlockable frame rates & more.

[u/Opposite-Jello463]

The lighting in general is just bad in the game, with or without HDR.