Obtaining the 0.17.0.2 files from the creator’s Patreon or authorized source.

Before diving into the specifics of version 0.17.0.2, it is crucial to understand the core technology. The RTGI shader adds fully dynamic, realistic, and immersive ray-traced lighting to video games. It accurately models both (light bouncing off rough surfaces) and specular (light bouncing off shiny surfaces) global illumination.

The shader accurately calculates color bleeding, where light hits a colored surface and inherits its color when it reflects onto nearby objects.

It does not require an RTX-capable graphics card. It runs on any card capable of running ReShade, making it highly accessible.

Users can improve performance by adjusting settings within the RTGI menu, such as reducing the number of rays (sampling) or lowering the resolution of the GI effect.

Traditional video game lighting often relies on "ambient light," which uniformly brightens a room regardless of its geometry. RTGI completely replaces this lazy approach with physical calculations:

More recently, a mod for Stellar Blade adds RTGI along with ambient light correction and depth‑based sharpening. The installation process follows the same ReShade workflow described above: download the preset, extract the files into the game's executable directory, install ReShade with DirectX support, and activate the preset.