NieR Replicant How to Install ReShade & Special K (Local)

1) In the game’s installation folder, replace the executable (called “NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139.exe”) with the one found in this guide[wiki.special-k.info] in order to revert the game to the older version that supports the Special K fixes

2) Install the Special K global injector program[sk-data.special-k.info]

3) Hold down Ctrl + Shift while launching the game (With Special K running) to open the Special K Compatibility Layer window

4) Click on [Install Wrapper DLL]

5) Close the game

6) The Special K program can now be closed or uninstalled, as the ini file containing Special K now exists in the game directory and is injected using dxgi.dll, eliminating the need the Special K global injector program to be running

7) The issue that I ran into at this point is that trying to install ReShade now would give me is that “dxgi.dll” already exists, but if you delete the existing file Special K will stop working, so the solution is to rename the existing “dxgi.dll” that injects Special K to “dinput8.dll” (found this bit of information on PCGW[www.pcgamingwiki.com])

8) At this point the ReShade installer[reshade.me] can be used without issue. If the installer doesn’t pre-select the graphics api for you, It’s DirectX 11

The first time you launch the game after all this, it might be misaligned off the bottom right of the screen, depending on what your screen settings were before installing. changing the resolution to something else than back to what it was before re-centered the game window for me

This guide doesn’t contain any information that didn’t already exist, just puts it in one place for the people who have this issue in the future so you don’t have to go through the process of troubleshooting like I did, with the biggest issue I encountered being those conflicting dxgi.dll files. As for the question of why to do this:

Why Special K? Special K fixes some performance issues in the game and allows you to uncap fps, among other things

Why ReShade? the shading of the game looks really washed out. not sure if that was the intention but I personally think this ReShade preset[www.nexusmods.com] looks much better

Why go through the effort of a local install rather than using the global program? Completely unnecessary to be honest, but I personally didn’t like the idea of either having to launch the injector before playing games or running it as a system service, but if that doesn’t bother you than this guide is not for you