With GTA 6 nowhere near release, fans of the series have to content themselves with GTA 5 for the time being. It is a 10-year-old game and can look rather bad graphically. However, there is a simple way to change that: using mods. In this article, Gurugamer is going to showcase the top 10 best visual mods for GTA 5 in 2023. By installing these mods, players can make their GTA 5 look truly next-gen.
1. GTA 5 Redux
GTA 5 Redux is perhaps the most ambitious mod ever created for the Grand Theft Auto series. It overhauls almost every single aspect of the base game for a more realistic experience. Visual-wise, almost all aspects have been modified, with significantly upgraded 4K textures. Your game will look super photorealistic.
The weather is 100% re-written weather from scratch, no detail has been over-looked. All weather has been carefully crafted to provide a stunning sunrise/sunset, as well evening, night and day. They are made to blend together naturally, and create an image that will leave you breathless.
The gameplay also gets a good number of upgrades as well. From the Police system to Weapons, Melee, Explosions & Damage and even Population, Random Events & Pedestrian Ai, the mod has pretty much everything. Vehicles handling is also improved. Overall, if you what to completely overhaul all aspects of the game, GTA Redux is the top choice.
2. VisualVanilla
VisualVanilla is a graphics mod that subtly improves graphics without altering Rockstar Games' idea of how the game's setting feels for the players. It changes and improves a lot of thing while keeping it low-key and immersive. Some of the biggest changes of this mod are the removal of the annoying chromatic aberration and the massive overhaul of the underwater environment.
The beautiful VisualV's edited modifiers for areas & interiors, improved color correction, fixed rendering code, etc. Furthermore, all weathers have been reworked to match the vibe and colors to be as close as possible to Rockstar Games' design. This makes V feel less dated.
3. VisualV
VisualV is a graphic overhaul modification for Grand Theft Auto V, bringing you completely redone weather effects, edited modifications for areas/interiors, improved color correction and much much more. These changes add some life to Los Santos and Blaine County, making the areas look much livelier. VisualV has own ReShade and ENB presets, with heat haze effect available only for VisualV.
The mod also fixes the game's rendering code, so your playing experience will be more smooth and nicer. Similar to VisualVanilla, VisualV also rewrites all weathers effect in the game.
4. PRSA - PhotoRealistic San Andreas ENB
PRSA ENB is an all-in-one and sophisticated visual enhancer, compatible with all weather and lighting mods, using custom shaders to offer the most natural and realistic visuals possible as a base to emulate photograph & movie pipeline.
Endless different looks possible using accurate reproduction of cameras, films, colorgrades and postprocessing.
5. HD Low End
HD Low End is ideal for people who want to enjoy the enhanced visuals of GTA 5 despite having low-end PCs. It improves the quality of graphics at lower settings and employs some ingenious methods to boost device FPS. The result varies system by system - some can even get up to 20 more FPS.
The settings of this mod can be modified - players can choose their wanted options based on the capacity of their PCs.
6. Old Gen Visual
The current version of GTA on PC is actually an "enhanced version" to the original console release, with improved graphics. Most of the settings are unnecessary clutter. Because of this, you can get better performance by downgrading it back to the original.
Old Gen Visual is a graphic mod that brings back certain key graphics elements from the PS3/X360 versions of the game. A lot of players have reported an increase in FPS after installing this mod.
7. Rehancer Photorealism
As the name suggested, this graphics mod promises to bring GTA 5 players a more photorealistic world. Once installed, your gameplay will have a much more stunning look with glimmering water textures, gorgeous lighting, and more. After all, you’ll be able to enjoy GTA 5 with almost all the best graphics improvements and drive around the city streets with a good sense of visual well-being.
In terms of system requirements, this mod also requires high-end hardware for the best gaming experiences without any lags.
8. NaturalVision
Anyone who has played GTA 5 for quite a while may know this mod because of its immense popularity within GTA 5 community. In NaturalVision, the overall graphics get overhauled with an ultra-realistic feel. Every texture, frame, or single scene in the game now looks more exquisite and vibrant thanks to the improved lighting.
On the downside, NaturalVision is a resource-consuming mod, so you will have to run it on high-end computers. If not, it’ll just a waste of time and storage space.
9. Project RELOAD Texture Overhaul
Project RELOAD Texture Overhaul aims to replace all the low quality textures in GTA 5 with better versions. With it installed, all of the game’s textures get improved greatly, providign the effect of an entirely new game.
The best part about this mod is that Project RELOAD made it a highly optimized mod, so even if your computer is mid-range, you can still run it.
10. GTA V Re-Sized
GTA V Re-Sized is unlike the usual mods that kill the game's graphics utterly so that it runs on budget PCs. This is a special mod that focuses on resizing the images rather than blurring them out. While the extra FPS from this mod is not that high, you get to enjoy a decent GTA V experience. This is better than just playing a dull game on high FPS.
In the normal version of GTA without any mod, the size of the images for any object is varying from 2048 to 4096. This taxes your system heavily and is the reason for the sudden stutters when you move to a crowded place. GTA V Re-Sized fixes this by reducing the size of the images to only 512.
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