Modder ‘Junior_Djjr’ has released a must-have graphics mod for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, called Proper Shaders. This mod adds major new graphical features to the game, such as Deferred Rendering and Per-Pixel Lighting. This isn’t a Reshade Mod. So, let’s take a closer look at it.

Proper Shaders aims to provide the best remastered version for GTA: San Andreas. This is perhaps the only mod that adds a full deferred rendering system to the game. The mod also adds per-pixel lighting, offering hundreds of optimized dynamic lights.

And that’s not all. We also get Volumetric Light Beams, Ambient Occlusion (there is support for both SSAO and HBAO), Soft Particles, and Sun Rays. The modder has also added Dynamic 4 cascaded per-pixel shadows (also known as NVIDIA’s PCSS Shadows). There is also a Soft Shadow Mask technique with a Gaussian blur.

And the graphical improvements do not end there. We also get Stochastic Procedural Texturing, an Animated Wind shader, Shaders that are lit by directional light, Player Mipmapping, and HDR simulation with tonemapping.

It’s also worth noting that the mod configures all 11+ thousand game textures with proper values for roughness, stochastic, and shadows casting. This should make all materials look better and more realistic.

In future versions, Junior_Djjr plans to add even more features. For instance, he’s currently working on implementing Volumetric Clouds, PBR sky shader with sky blend, Ambient Occlusion Mapping, Normal Mapping, and Screen-Space Reflections.

He will also look into adding Screen Space Global Illumination, Parallax Occlusion Mapping, Specular Anisotropic Hair, and Subsurface Scattering.

To showcase its visual improvements, Junior_Djjr shared the following comparison shots. On the left, we have the vanilla version. On the right, we have the May 2026 version of Proper Shaders. In my opinion, the modded version looks better in every way.

Now, there is good and bad news. The bad news is that the latest version of this mod is behind a Patreon wall. The good news is that you can download an older version of it for free. That version does not have all of the features I listed above. Nevertheless, it can greatly improve the visuals of GTA: San Andreas. So, I suggest giving it a go. You can download it from this link.

Speaking of GTA: San Andreas, here are some other cool mods for it. Multi Theft Auto is an open-source software project that adds full online support to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Modders are also experimenting with RTX Remix Path Tracing. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Mission Maker is another cool mod that lets you create your own missions. And then we have this mod that allows you to play it in VR.

Finally, we have the demo for Grand Theft Auto: Carcer City. Grand Theft Auto Carcer City is a total conversion that aims to have the biggest and most detailed city ever seen in the 3D-era GTA games. The mod drops players into a completely reimagined world inspired by Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and the dark levels from Manhunt. Players will explore a city filled with gangs, corruption, and people fighting to get by. It’s a really cool mod, so don’t sleep on it.

Have fun!

John Papadopoulos

John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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