Post a log using Pastebin, that should tell us why. You definitely need to update your Slang Shaders as well as follow the installation instructions to a tee. So you need to copy the recommended version of CRT-Guest-Advanced into the Shaders_Slang folder and the Presets go into the Shaders Folder.
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How to do this? How to create this log file and then publish it using Pastbin?
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https://docs.libretro.com/guides/generating-retroarch-logs/
Have you done this?
If you can’t get my newer CyberLab Megatron NX Death To Pixels 4K HDR Shader Preset Pack to work, you can follow this installation video for my previous CyberLab Megatron Death To Pixels 4K HDR Shader Preset Pack.
CyberLab Megatron NX W420M 4K SDR Game PSX Composite Shadow Mask Smooth Ultra Ultimate CAR9x8x.slangp
Zoom in or download then zoom in and be sure to brighten your screen!
Desktop users, right click then open in a new tab then zoom in until things look right.
They should also look perfect if you zoom out until they match the integer scale specified in the filename.
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CyberLab Megatron NX W420M
Zoom in or download then zoom in and be sure to brighten your screen!
Desktop users, right click then open in a new tab then zoom in until things look right.
They should also look perfect if you zoom out until they match the integer scale specified in the filename.
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I’m not sure if this is a Cyberlab question now or Megatron. I had this issue when I tried it a few years ago, in terms of it being overly dark.
I am using a 4K LED TV (Vizio p659-G1), and also using the Megatron NX presets for SNES.
For some reason I have to set the resolution to 1080p in the parameters, and the CRT resolution to at least 800 lines, to get any reasonable brightness - and then it really pops up in brightness. This is with my TV set relatively high in terms of brightness.
Is there a setting mismatch? Just TV too dark? Peak luminance per rtings is 560.
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Well, to reply/add info (and learning a bit), I do see what’s going on. Each of those settings (reducing display resolution, increasing signal resolution), reduces the mask. I went up close to the TV to see this.
So obviously those increase brightness significantly as they effectively reduce the mask to much less than what it should be.
So is this a function of the TV being too dark (rtings has HDR peak real scene brightness at 581)? Why do the colours appear to change so drastically in addition to the TV getting dark? Again due brightness?
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A few years ago, just before I released my first Megatron Preset pack, the Sony Megatron Colour Video Monitor had a severe bug which was preventing HDR from being enabled correctly.
So for us to troubleshoot hopefully we can start over from current times with up to date software.
Pictures of the screen helps a lot in diagnosing Sony Megatron Color Video Monitor issues by the way.
Lots of detail is good when reporting issues like this but I’ve only now gotten a chance to respond to your first message.
Manually turning up the brightness of the screen is something you might have to do when in SDR mode.
In HDR Mode, setting the Peak Luminance and Paper White Luminance values should take care of this.
What are your current settings for both?
What happens when you turn up the Paper White Luminance value even more than you have it right now?
Maybe, maybe not but your specs are around the 600 nits minimum recommendation for a good experience. My OLED TV is around 630 nits.
I’d like to believe that with some tweaking you should be able to get things to an acceptable level.
I hope you’re not trying to use BFI though.
The Paper White Luminance tends to have an even greater overall effect on brightness as opposed to the Peak Luminance.
Last resort you can try increasing the Gamma but I think you should start with the basics first.
Some TVs are not as dark when in HDR game mode.
If brightness challenged, you can probably try my CyberLab Megatron NX W420M Presets and switch HDR On in the Shader Parameters as well as in RetroArch of course.
Don’t forget to adjust the Display’s Subpixel layout in all cases because you don’t use a WOLED screen.
Alternatively, you can try my CyberLab CRT Royale or Mega Bezel Preset packs and switch HDR On for a hybrid approach.
I have some HDR ready Mega Bezel Presets in the works but in the meantime you can try these tips.
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The above is a link to a series of various photos. This is the preset: CyberLab Megatron 4K HDR Game SNES S-Video
Peak is set at 580. White was 600.
Most of the pictures are darker and less vibrant than they appear, other than the first with no shader and the last.
I just showed the impacts of lowering the display resolution and increasing CRT resolution, which leads to a bright picture but little mask to make it useable.
The drop in brightness (but also color fidelity) is interesting.
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In most of the pics the wrong Display Subpixel Layout was used. This could negatively affect the colour output.
Well the Mask is made up of black lines, right? Aperture Grille has some vertical ones every triad, Slot Mask has vertical and horizontal. It has the most so it darkens the image the most. Shadow Mask has no black lines or dots so it’s the brightest all else being equal.
If you increase the TVL, you increase the number of triads while decreasing the size and/number of black lines so it would be brighter.
I don’t think it makes much sense to compare a raw image with a CRT filtered image or one that is displayed on a real CRT.
The image would obviously look different due to the scanline gaps and the effect of the mask.
These are some of the main challenges in what I do, getting that colour and brightness where it ought to be after the full strength mask and scanlines alter the output in various ways.
At the moment I don’t have much energy to reply and discuss much further but I am curious to know how things are looking if you take a high quality photo using Pro/Manual mode, Shutter Speed 1/60, ISO 100 - 250, Manual Focus, White balance 4300K - 5000K. Be sure to have your room as dark as possible and try to keep the camera as stable as possible when shooting.
What I’m mostly interested in however is if you’ve gotten HDR to work properly and if your TV shows that HDR is enabled.
Do note that you can skip having Megatron doing the SDR to HDR Tonemapping altogether and use Windows 11’s Auto HDR to accomplish this. I think you have to set the SDR Brightness slider all the way to the max. You can also use Re-Shade to accomplish this. There are some excellent guides by @Dennis1 over at the Sony Megatron Color Video Monitor thread.
You can also try my W420M Presets as I’m curious to know how they would look on another screen. They have only been tested in SDR mode on an LG IPS 4K TV. It would be interesting to know how they fare on a bright enough screen as yours with HDR enabled.
All are Shadow Mask.
So I take it that things are looking better for you?
What happens if you turn Paper White brightness above 600 nits?
Also, since your TV as well as your Windows might be calibrated to a different Gamma and White Point to my display, feel free to adjust the Gamma near the bottom of the settings to increase or decrease the brightness once you think you’re completed setting your Peak and Paper White Luminance levels.
By the way, I’m not sure how to get a full quality image out of imgur. If you wish you can try imgbb or you can use IrfanView to resize recompress images to a maximum of 4096KB with chroma compression disabled while maintaining excellent quality.
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I will do some more digging.
I was pretty sure my TV is BRG pixel layout and so it was set right (value 2), but I will reconfirm. However, when I was fiddling with it before that made some different in the color (and sometimes a little more washed out if selecting RWGB (which is not right for my display anyway)), but it did not change the brightness in any meaningful way. As for paper White brightness it stopped having meaningful impact and from what I can see was still washing out the image.
And yes, my TV does show HDR enabled, and it is obvious given the glow of the text in Retroarch, etc. And more so when I turn off shaders the image is very bright, much more so than SDR. That is the first picture in that link.
I only have an iphone 13 and am not into photography but I can look into taking better pictures. I would say live, the pictures are darker and colors less than pictures suggest.
I will keep diving in to the settings to see if it makes a difference. With a TV with nearly 600 nits it shouldn’t be this dark.
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It is BGR. I didn’t say it wasn’t but some of the pictures you shared seemed to have the Display’s Subpixel Layout on 1.00 (RWBG (OLED)).
You know something, check and see if your colour format is set to RGB 4:4:4 Full. Anything other than that and the colours and brightness won’t look correct when using some combinations of Mask, Display Resolution and CRT Resolution (TVL).
This is what it’s not supposed to look like:
This is what it’s supposed to look like:
Ignore the refresh rate in both of these pics. On some TVs you may not be able to get RGB 4:4:4 Full Chroma support at the highest resolution and refresh rate due to HDMI Bandwidth limitations or other limitations due to the particular chipset of the TV.
On some TVs RGB 4:4:4 Full is only available when the HDMI Input is labeled “PC” or if the TV is in PC Mode.
On some TVs you have to manually enable HDMI Deep Colour as well in order to have access to the Wider Colour Gamut.
If this is in fact your issue and it very well could be, you can try my CyberLab Megatron NX W420M presets both in SDR as well as HDR mode and those should be much more compatible.
I’m eagerly awaiting your feedback after this. I had completely forgotten about that possibility.
Additional info. This is from the RTINGS review of your TV:
The EOTF follows the PQ curve very closely, resulting in an accurate HDR image up until the TV starts tone mapping. In ‘Game’ mode, the TV defaults to a backlight setting of ‘100’, which results in an over-brightened image. Setting the backlight to ‘50’ results in a more accurate EOTF, as (shown here). Whereas most TVs default to maximum brightness in HDR, Vizio TVs default to a setting of ‘50’. If you find HDR content too dark, simply increase this setting. If at a setting of ‘100’ HDR is still too dark, also decreasing the gamma setting to ‘1.8’ results in a noticeably brighter image, as shown here.
Another exerpt from that RTINGS review:
Like many high-end Vizio TVs, the lowest input lag is reserved for HDMI port 5. The other ports still have low input lag, but it’s a bit higher than most TVs currently on the market. Unfortunately, the low latency port doesn’t support some high-bandwidth formats, including 4k @ 60Hz with 4:4:4, and it doesn’t support HDR.
This is significant as you definitely need 4K @ 60Hz with 4:4:4 for these shaders to work and look their best. You also need HDR for them to be at their brightest and best and you also would like the lowest Input lag for gaming.
Very very important information regarding your TV and compatibility with these presets:
Resolution 4k
1080p @ 60 Hz @ 4:4:4 Yes
1080p @ 120 Hz Yes (native support)
1440p @ 60 Hz No
1440p @ 120 Hz No
4k @ 60 Hz Yes
4k @ 60 Hz @ 4:4:4 Yes
4k @ 120 Hz No
8k @ 30 Hz or 24 Hz No
8k @ 60 Hz No
The Vizio P659-G1 supports most common input formats but doesn’t support 1440p. It can also display chroma 4:4:4 properly in all supported modes, as long as the ‘Computer’ picture mode is used, which is great for use as a PC monitor. The Full UHD Color has to be enabled for most high bandwidth signals.
Like many other Vizio TVs, HDMI port 5 is a low-latency port, and it doesn’t have the Full UHD Color setting, so some formats, including 4k @ 60Hz 4:4:4 aren’t supported.
HDMI 2.0 Full Bandwidth Yes (HDMI 1,2,3,4)
I guess HDMI Port 5 is out unless you don’t want these presets to look their best.
While you’re at it, you might as well copy RTINGS calibration settings unless you can do a better job.
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This was helpful. In fact, I remember now my TV is in fact set to YpBpR444/limited, as there is something up with the Vizio getting an HDR signal in RGB format. I had to change this so playing movies in HDR worked properly otherwise the color space and other aspects were off.
I set it to RGB full to test.
I tested the NX W420M and when set up properly in SDR it looked fine when I set the backlight to max. Switch to HDR on in Retroarch and the shader caused many issue with rest of settings being left alone.
Therefore I can only conclude there is some interaction with the shader and my TV that causes issues when it flips into HDR mode with the more detailed masks.
From what I understand, the HDR should be brighter than SDR if everything is working properly - that is the benefit of using it.
Perhaps if I get a different TV I will try it again!
I appreciated the back and forth.
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Thanks for the reply. Peak is set to 580 per rtings. I can tend paper white to 1000 and it still doesn’t make much of a difference.
So when the mask is “minimal” in terms of turning the resolution low (to 1080p) and CRT TV resolution to 800 or 1000 lines the brightness is almost overly so, so HDR is being enabled correctly.
I will take some pictures and repost.
To be clear, I am using the latest version of the preset and the recommended underlying shader (both Megatron and Megatron NX were tried).
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Did you also do all of this?
You would probably need to have your refresh rate set to 60Hz and not 120Hz.
You have to use “Computer” picture display mode.
You need to enable “Full UHD Color”.
You also have to be using HDMI Inputs 1, 2, 3 or 4. Not 5 at all.
Also, make sure your HDMI cable is rated for HDMI 2.1 Ultra High Speed 48Gbps to be safe.
You can use all of the presets like this. HDR is not a requirement.
This is a bit vague, maybe some photos might help me to understand better. Do note that your refresh rate needs to be 60Hz and you need to enable Full UHD Color as well as be using the " Computer" Picture Mode for everything to work as it should.
You also need to enable HDR in RetroArch Video Settings as well as in the Shader Parameters of the Preset.
You’re conclusion is probably a bit premature. Call it a theory or hypothesis instead at this point when there’s still a lot more experimentation, testing and variables to be factored in. What I’d say is that you’re getting closer to the root of the issue and you’ve made a lot of progress so far.
I wouldn’t worry too much about this. These Masks are precise down to the RGB subpixel, that’s why they any chroma compression destroys them. Rotated Masks/Shadow Masks and two pixel Masks like the ones used for the higher TVLs wouldn’t suffer as much from this.
On most TVs but not all. Some TVs can get just as bright or almost as bright in SDR mode compared to HDR mode.
I think with enough patience and understanding you can get it to work with your current TV.
No problem, I want as many users to be able to enjoy these things as possible.
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Can I get some information on how pixel density effects the shaders? I am considering a 1440p 24’ monitor as I love the clarity and small screen size for web/regular gaming, but for retro gaming I am wondering how the high ppi will effect shaders. Will there be any difference from a more standard 1440p 27’? Will the scaling/scaline size/etc be effected? This is pretty niche so if there is a difference I assume there are no presets or guides for it.
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Pixel density contributes to the CRT Shader experience but you still need raw resolution. 4K really is where it’s at now but 1440p can suffice if you’re not using an OLED display because there still remain some subpixel alignment issues with respect to 1440p and OLED which have been more or less solved at 4K.
So beware of 1440p OLED for accurate CRT Emulation.
PPI shouldn’t affect scaling but all features, including scanlines would naturally be more dense as a result of the denser display.
A 27" 4K or even 32" 4K you should be in for a real treat, especially if you get a very bright HDR compatible display.
1080p and 1440p can also work but I’m biased towards 4K because that’s what I have the most experience with.
Thanks, I understand 4k is optimal but my pc cannot run 4k for standard gaming and cant afford a second expensive display just for retro. Im going from my current 1080p 24’ to the same size screen but in 1440p, If I understand you mean the scanlines more dense or appear thinner on the screen than a standard 1440p but the scaling of each line per integer scaled game pixel would be the same? And does HDR really improve the visuals of the filter? I was under the assumption it was just about the brightness. Is that mostly important just to 4k displays?
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Time to do some research.
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