Extract text from NVIDIA shader files (CGFX)
To convert CGFX shaders to another format, you need NVIDIA Cg Toolkit or other Developer software.
To convert other file formats to the "Shader Source Code" file type, you need software like NVIDIA Cg Toolkit or a similar tool.
The .CGFX file is a legacy CgFX Shader File. It contains Cg (C for Graphics) shader code and rendering state configurations. Developed by NVIDIA, these files define how 3D materials, lighting, and textures are rendered in hardware-accelerated graphics applications.
Originally, developers managed and compiled these files using the NVIDIA Cg Toolkit. 3D animation software like Maya and 3ds Max also used dedicated CgFX plugins to display real-time materials in the viewport. You can read more about the Cg language on Wikipedia.
Users need to convert these files because the Cg language is obsolete. NVIDIA officially deprecated the toolkit in 2012. The .CGFX format locks legacy game assets and 3D scenes into a dead pipeline. Modern graphics APIs like Vulkan and DirectX 12 do not support it. It requires outdated plugins or software to render properly.
The best workaround is to port the code to modern target formats like HLSL (High-Level Shading Language) for DirectX or GLSL (OpenGL Shading Language). Because the uncompiled files are text-based, you can also view them as standard TXT files to extract the mathematical logic.
This format is extremely difficult to convert because standard online converters only process standard documents or images. They cannot parse, compile, or translate proprietary 3D shader languages.
Convert.Guru analyzes your CGFX file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted CGH files.
If you want to convert CGFX file to , you can use NVIDIA Cg Toolkit or similar software from the "3D Shader Effect Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert files to CGFX, try NVIDIA Cg Toolkit or another comparable tool in the "3D Shader Effect Storage" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our CGFX converter.