How to Make Assetto Corsa Look Real

If you have ever seen a clip of a hyperrealistic racing game, that’s probably Assetto Corsa. Apart from being considered one of the best sim racing games, Assetto Corsa also has great mod support. 

From cool tracks and cars to completely changing the look of the game, there is a lot you can do with mods in Assetto Corsa. But one of the best things you can do with mods in Assetto Corsa is increase the graphical fidelity of the game and make it extremely realistic.

Mods are often considered difficult to set up, especially for beginners. However, making Assetto Corsa realistic is quite easy, and here is how to do it. Just follow these steps, and your game will look realistic soon.

Step 1: Download Content Manager

Content Manager is a mod launcher for Assetto Corsa, allowing you to install and manage mods. If you ever want to mod Assetto Corsa, you need to download this. The setup can be technical, so follow these steps to install it correctly.

• Download Content Manager from their official page(paid or free version). It will be a zip file
• After it’s finished downloading, extract the files.
• Open the Content Manager Application in the folder
• The Content Manager install window will open up.  You might see a new file in the same folder by the name of Update Content Manager when you open Content Manager. If that’s the case, close out of the Content Manager and open that file; it will update the installer to the latest version. Then, open Content Manager again.
• In the installer, you first need to put in the folder location of Assetto Corsa. You can either find it manually or use SteamIt if you have the game there.
• You can skip the next box, as the installer would have already pulled your Steam ID. Just move on to the next box and enter your gamertag.
• Next are the plugins; just install 7-Zip and CefSharp. Then, click on OK.
• The app will start.

Now, you will always the game from the Content Manager. 

As for the free or paid version, you will mostly be fine with the free one. But the paid version has a lot of good features, so I recommend the paid version if you can get it.  Otherwise, the free works fine. You can still do pretty much everything you can in the paid version.

Step 2: Download Custom Shaders Patch

The next thing you need is the Custom Shaders Patch. You don’t need to go to the browser; you can download it within Content Manager. Follow these steps.

• Enter the Settings page in Content Manager by clicking on the cog icon at the top-right. 
• You will see a tab named Custom Shader Patch, enter it, and then click on the button to download it. It will install as well.

That’s pretty much it, next up is install either Pure or Sol, one’s free, the other isn’t. Both are made by the same creator. For this guide, either works fine. Sol is free, but the creator has stopped development on it; it still works fine. Pure costs 1$ and with it you get future releases and features. The functionality of both remains the same

Step 3: Install Pure Or Sol

Pure and Sol are mods that help improve the graphics of the game. Most other graphics mods and filters require you to have either Sol or Pure. Both are made by the same creator. For this guide, either works fine. Sol is free, but won’t get future updates; it still works fine. Pure costs 1$ and with it you get future releases and features. The functionality of both remains the same. So, whatever you choose, it will work.

Download Sol

Download Pure

• Download either Pure or Sol from their respective links. It will be a zip file.
• For Sol, just drag the zip file into Content Manager, and it will install.
• For Pure, click on the install Pure file, and it will ask you for the Assetto Corsa‘s folder location. Just select the folder and hit Ok. Then just follow the prompts to install. 
• The rest of this part is the same for Pure and Sol.

After installing, the next thing you need to do is enable it. Just follow these steps.

• Just go to Content Manager > Settings > Custom Shaders Patch.
• Go to Weather FX from the left vertical navigation bar. 
• Click on the Weather Style Dropdown and Select Pure/Sol.

You are mostly done here; the only thing left is to download a PP filter.

Step 4: Look For PP Filters

PP or Post-processing filters add visual filters to the game and make it look better. You can find thousands of PP filters made by people across the web. You can try as many as you want till you find the best one. For starters, here are some great options to try.

• C13 Aegis
• Natural Mod Filter
• Premier Realistic Filter

Just install the ones you like, extract the zip file, and copy the files into Assetto Corsa’s game folder. If it asks you to replace existing files, click on yes. 

Then, just go to Content Manager > Settings > Assetto Corsa and then Video on the left navigation bar. Then, in Videos, scroll down until you see the Filter drop-down and select the filter you downloaded.

You are now down, and you can start enjoying the game in ultra-realistic graphics. 

Step 5: Enjoy A Realistic Assetto Corsa

You can pretty much leave it after installing the PP filter, and the game will look great. However, if you want to tweak even more, you can. 

• To do this, open Assetto Corsa.
• Move your cursor to the top right, and you will open the Content Manager Side panel.
• Then, click on Sol Config or Pure Config, and a window will open.
• This is where you can tweak pretty much everything about the visuals. 
• You can either mess around and find the perfect settings yourself or download a settings preset from the web.

Making Assetto Corsa look realistic sounds daunting, but it’s a relatively easy process. But, once you do this, there is no going back. Normal Assetto Corsa won’t cut it for you, at least it doesn’t for me anymore.