What it does today.

The 3D scene is drawn into a 16-bit float target with the same multisampling as your window, so bright light keeps its headroom above white. Choice of tone curve: Neutral (default), AgX or ACES, with dithering against banding.

the game's own unedited and fixed-function draws aren't scene-linear, so the final frame is still display-referred.

The game's own lit shaders are edited as they load: lighting per pixel in linear space, separate sky and ground ambient light, specular highlights with Fresnel. Terrain, objects and bike/rider paint all get it; the game's textures, masks, shadow map and fog are kept. If an edit ever fails to compile, the original shader is used.

draws the game makes without shaders (for example the onboard bike when the game's reflections are off), true HDR output.

StockMXB Evolved

A real-sized sun disc (0.27°, darker at its rim) drawn only where the sky is open, with lens glare that scales with how much of the disc you can see. Sunlight and shade keep a measured ratio of about 4.5 : 1; sun colour and sky gradient follow the time of day.

When MX Bikes' own shadows are switched on, their hard edges are filtered soft.

MXB Evolved's own shadow cascades and terrain self-shadowing.

StockMXB Evolved

Ground-truth ambient occlusion (GTAO) darkens creases and contact points, less on sunlit surfaces. Surfaces facing down pick up light bounced off the ground.

occlusion of the skylight only (it currently applies to the final colour); the bounce light hasn't been judged by eye yet.

Hour and sun-direction sliders. The sun (or moon) relights the scene, light and fog colours change with its height, the sky gets a sunset glow, and nights have stars and a moon. Noon keeps the track's own look.

the game's shadow map doesn't follow the moved sun; unlit textures such as signs and some buildings stay bright at night.

Rain streaks and snowflakes, overcast light, wet-looking ground, weather haze, lightning flashes with synthesised thunder that arrives after the light's travel time. Visual only: grip never changes.

lightning bolts, splashes, keeping rain out from under roofs. The thunder sound and the on-screen flash haven't been checked in a test yet.

In the rain, muddy pools form on flat ground near you, with screen-space reflections of the scene and sky, Fresnel and ripples.

pools that collect in the real hollows and ruts (MX Bikes doesn't expose the terrain heights this needs), pools in the distance.

Snow settles on surfaces that face up. Your own bike stays clean.

depth, and ruts cut through the snow.

Clear-air haze that turns distant hills bluish, valley haze that hugs the ground, the sun's forward glow in the haze, and light shafts. The track's fog can be scaled from 1 to 3: thicker only, never thinner.

StockMXB Evolved

Your own bike throws dust that grows with speed, clods of roost when you accelerate, and spray in the rain, all in the colour of the ground under you.

other riders' particles, mud splats, snow, tyre and exhaust smoke. The dust puffs are still faint.

The ruts themselves come from MX Bikes, which already deforms its terrain as you ride.

tread prints pressed into the dirt.

Fine grit and dark specks on the ground near you, sized in real metres.

real stones with shadows, clods, sand ripples.

StockMXB Evolved

MX Bikes has its own 3D grass option. Nothing added.

A slider that takes out part of the light and shadow painted into ground textures, so the real lighting does the work.

not yet judged on a track whose textures carry heavy painted shading.

In the onboard view your bike collects mud, dust or snow as you ride (faster in the rain), mostly on its lower parts and in the ground's colour, and it wears off again.

the third-person view and other riders' bikes.

StockMXB Evolved

Temporal anti-aliasing (TAA) for steady fences, trees and track edges, with FXAA as a lighter fallback. Works with the game's own MSAA, and switches on alpha-to-coverage for see-through textures when the window is multisampled.

per-object motion for other riders; the visual gain of alpha-to-coverage hasn't been judged yet.

StockMXB Evolved

Camera motion blur like a 1/120 s shutter (adjustable), with your own bike and hands kept sharp. Bloom, contrast-adaptive sharpening and a light vignette.

other riders' own motion isn't separated from the camera's yet.

MX Bikes has its own onboard camera. MXB Evolved doesn't change the camera or the field of view.

Presets (Performance, Balanced, Quality, Ultra), tabs for Lighting, Colour and Camera with live sliders, and Save, Reload and Defaults.

mouse clicks on the menu also reach the game behind it, so open it on track, not in the game's menus. Tested through the developer's test input; real keyboard and mouse still to be checked.

F12 saves a PNG of the finished frame without the menu. F9 re-reads the settings file.

shaders are built in, so F9 doesn't reload them. Real key presses still to be checked (tested through the test input).

A log file with a performance line every minute (frame rate, slowest frame, GPU time of the effects), stutters over 100 ms, and a check for overlays and injectors that can clash, such as ReShade.