Question about "Darken" and "EPX" Video Filters

Hi there, first of all thanks for RetroArch, it really is a miracle of a software. No more multiple emulators, finally this one includes them all, oh well at least the vast majority, i’m really waiting for a PS2 core with vulkan support, that would be even more incredible. Anyway, i was configuring RetroArch to find my best looking set up, and i just don’t know what to think about this, take a look, this is a comparison between Darken and EPX video filters, increase your brightness to the max to appreciate more the differences:

This is from Mega Man 7 on snes9x core with 5xbrz shader

This is from Fantastic Dizzy on Genesis Plus GX core with 5xbrz shader

Am i blind or Darken Video Filter makes 2d graphics much more smoother? Look at the sections i circled in Mega Man 7, look at the text in Fantastic Dizzy, that’s a tremendous difference. Is that an optical illusion maybe? Because, if Darken video filter really bring such improvements, wouldn’t be better to have an identical filter but without the darkening effect? I’m not an expert of course, i’m just trying to understand.

Thanks for your patience,

Matt

All darken does is make the screen darker. I think what’s happening is that EPX is interfering with 5xbrz and darken isn’t, so the result looks smoother. I suspect 5xbrz should look the same as darken+5xbrz, only not dark.

Ok, so… Uhm… Should I disable retroarch video filter completely? Is that possible? I’m asking because all the other video filters perform way worse.

yeah, just press start on the video filter and it will remove it altogether.

Thanks, it worked.

nb

If you don’t have a controller to do this, you can press “Spacebar” on keyboard.

1 Like