To add to the anniversary community updates,
Proper Fixes got a big update as well, apparently there were so many changes they couldn't be listed in a changelog.
As for me, I think I finally healed myself from the "hi res remaster" look and embraced the PS2 piss filter.
I've been using a few mods that made San Andreas look "realistic". the two biggest offenders being Timecycle24 which made the game look realistic by making the color grading all linear, and Color Mod that added bloom. Plus SkyGFX with a similarly "realistic" configuration as well as 2DFX with an extended drawing distance.
I realized how much it kills the mood of the game, such as by making foggy Back O Beyond look not foggy at all and removing the blue tint that made it so mysterious. After getting rid of the aforementioned mods, tweaking SkyGFX to be more like PS2 and pulling back on 2DFX's draw distance, I successfully managed to bring back the soul into the game.
I do still use a plethora of mods to improve the graphics, but I believe I've hit the right balance between visual improvement and maintaining the original style.
-I use the RoSA Evolved project that adds HD textures that are faithful to the textures used by R*, either by sourcing the original ones or upscaling them.
-Shadow Settings Extender is there to improve on vanilla shadows, which tend to be scuffed but still look better than any ENB ones, plus they actually work unlike the ENB ones.
-A few mods like Graphics Tweaker and MixMods do small touchups to things like particle transparency, gamma adjustments and other details like that.
-Atmosphere Interface Pack and Proper Radar make the UI nice and crisp, basically proper faithful remasters of it
Frankly, there's too much to list. I use a lot of mods and I meticulously mix and match them with Modloader profile configs. For context, here is my Modloader folder and configuration. I keep very little outside of it so this is 99% of the magic. Wouldn't trust myself to make a "good enough" modpack for the masses though.
EDIT: I've decided that Real Skybox and FxsFuncs give enough of a flare without clashing with everything else that they'll stay. ColorMod and Linear Graphics Timecycle24 are out though. I've also took some more screenshots to appreciate the atmosphere of the game.
Few remarks in terms of modding:
-I found out I had DirectionalFromSun enabled in SilentPatch which really messed with the lighting on cars and peds, something that kept bugging me for a long time. So I recommend not enabling it to avoid a lot of cases where cars/peds are darker than they should be.
-My current SkyGFX configuration is a mix of various settings. It has the PS2 color filter and radiosity, but also the Env vehicle pipe which gives them proper cubemap reflections, as well as detail maps from Mobile and stochastic texturing, a feature added to SkyGFX Extended fork by Junior_Djjr. With the right textures it will randomize certain textures, like cliff rocks or grass, so they don't end up looking same-y. You probably know what I'm talking about, San Andreas suffered a lot from obviously tiled textures like that.
