These are from my brand new CyberLab Megatron miniLED Epic Death To Pixels HDR Shader Preset Pack
Be sure to click/tap on Download Original Image to view them in the most optimal fidelity.
For a long time now, I’ve noticed while experimenting with lower scale factors that sometimes when the viewport is smaller the image looks more authentic and has a special vibrancy and sharpness to it which looks and feels better and more CRT like to me.
I’ve noticed every time I’ve switched back and forth between larger and smaller scale factors that there seems to be a sweet spot somewhere that may not necessarily be the largest possible image that the screen can display.
Then the possible reasoning behind this suddenly occurred to me. A lot of the improvement has to do with additional brightness output by the display when the viewport (window size) is smaller.
This leads me to believe that the higher tier miniLED TV on the market today for example the TCL QM851G, QM8K and the Sony Bravia 9 might be some of the best equipped displays for CRT emulation.
I have a TCL QM751G which is bright in its own right but I can imagine and get a taste of how useful the additional brightness headroom provided by the higher tier models might be. Not to mention the benefits of their increased dimming zones.
The brightest WOLED TVs might also fare well for example the LG G4 and G3, while the LG G5 and Panasonic Z95B might need some testing, validation and verification to see if current CRT shaders might need updating in order to support their novel subpixel layouts.
Note: One possible downside to using different scale factors is that it might interfere with the scanline and mask alignment.
CyberLab Megatron minLED 4K HDR Game BFI SNES 3D Comb Filter Shadow Mask Epic.slangp
Hello Cyber. First of all thank you for your amazing work in trying to make retro gaming feel as authentic as possible.
I’ve been trying around and playing with shaders for a while now and decided to stick with yours.
To further enhance my experience and gather some knowledge in the process I have a set of questions which you’re hopefully able to answer. I hope they’re not too many.
Info: I play docked on the Steamdeck with 4K HDR output through Retroarch to my Sony A8 OLED. I mostly stick to your Mini LED packs.
It says BFI in the shader names and I know it stands for Black Frame insertion. Is BFI actually necessary for these to look as intended? Retroarch through Emudeck doesn’t support BFI yet AFAIK and my TV isn’t capable of 120Hz anyway. I thought they mostly look good without.
I sometimes have a hard time to decide between these very distinct names. Fine, Sharp, Ultimate, Ultimate Fine Advanced. You get the gist. When I get up close I CAN tell the difference but I’m not always sure WHAT it is. Sometimes the mask density is higher. Is it emulating different quality TVs?
Often the shader names already have the name of the mask in them. When I then go into parameters I can change the mask though. When I go into the shader parameters of a shader with “slot mask” in the title, is it advised to also change the setting to slot mask or can I change it to Aperture grill if I prefer?
I realized most of these have 4K in the title but out of box without adjusting parameters they always seem to be at 8K by default in the screen resolution parameters, so the masks look way too large and I can see the individual RGB pixels from afar, as each color is made of 16 pixels instead of 4 then. I manually have to set them to 4K.
I’m not quite sure what to set my peak paperwhite luminance as. I found out peak luminance for my TV (Sony A8) is 650nits, but there’s no info on the internet about peak paperwhite luminance. I saw a retrocrisis video where he set his to 50, but that image is just way too dark then.
Why are they actually divided by consoles? I get why they’re divided by cable signals for example, but some of the SNES titled shaders give me the see through Sonic waterfall just as the Genesis titled shaders. What’s the reason behind that?
Welcome @IlMonco, and thanks for your interest and these great questions.
I know everyone calls them shaders but I mainly make Shader Presets which are settings for shaders made by other awesome people. So feel free to thank the shader devs as well because without them, there probably wouldn’t be any CyberLab Shader Preset Packs.
No, that’s really a note to help me remember the settings used when creating the presets. Compensating for BFI when making a preset would make for a very different if BFI was off in the process but you don’t have to use it.
I make so many presets and am always evolving them that I probably couldn’t tell you the difference either but sometimes when I come back to improve or adjust something I go into experimental mode. That does not mean that there was something wrong with what I did before so the previous good preset is usually kept and the new preset is simply a variation so it needs a new filename in order to differentiate. Hmmm…how do you differentiate such minor or evolutionary changes? I tried I, II III e.t.c but got tired of it so now we have this hyperbolic nomenclature.
Don’t take it too seriously. Most of these presets are self contained so you can go through them one by one and delete the ones you don’t like or make note of the ones you do. I just made a new preset pack, the name of it is Epic. I’m going to try my best to only include my best of the best presets and not clutter it too much but I’m not making any promises…lol
I don’t think I’ll ever stop adding and making presets once I am able to.
In general the longer and more extreme the name the more refined the preset. In some cases you can look through the thread and see where I posted screenshots of photos and the names of presets and you can try those.
You can also try to stick to the newer presets as newer ones tend to be more refined. I’m always noticing stuff that can be improved and learning as I go along but not all the time a new preset or pack means that the old ones are obsolete or irrelevant. Sometimes, I perfect then I start over or try something different or new and I come up with a new naming scheme or new preset pack to reflect that fresh start.
Some of the terms have meaning though.
Fine means a higher TVL or smaller pitched mask features (aka higher mask density).
Sharp usually means, no (edge) smoothing is applied.
Advanced is a new generation of presets which have additional features like noise, rounded corners and the ability to crop overscan or garbage from within the shader parameters.
Ultimate presets are supposed to be more refined than vanilla presets but sometimes I refine an already Ultimate preset. Hmmm…Ultra Ultimate? Ultimate Ultra? Mega for Megadrive/Genesis? Super for SNES? Turbo for Turbo Duo/Grafx16/PC-Engine?
Do you see where this is going now?
You shouldn’t have to change a shader with “Slot Mask” in the title to Slot Mask in the Shader Parameters. That’s a bug or typo if you see something like that and of course you can change it to whatever Mask type you prefer, although I kinda already do that for most presets and I compensate for the differences in certain characteristics which happen when you switch Mask types. This is also one of the reasons why there are so many presets, for every preset there can be at least 3 versions, 1 for each Mask Type to start with.
This is not a bug, this is a feature. 8K and 4K just allow for different Masks to be selected which would give the approximate TVL thats listed in the Resolution parameter provided that you run the preset at the selected display resolution specified.
However, you can find that a mask with a different subpixel layout that is only available using the 8K setting looks better than a mask of a slightly different or similar TVL that’s available using the 4K Display’s Resolution. Sometimes the Mask height might be more appropriate for the 8K mask Vs a similar but not identical mask in the 4K set. I first started using 8K when I noticed that the centre of the Slot in one of my Slot Mask presets wouldn’t align exactly with the center of the scanline but the 8K mask lined up exactly!
In more recent times I noticed that many of the 8K masks that I liked used RYCBX instead of RGB and although they generally looked almost exactly like what I wanted, that additional subpixel bothered me so in the latest addition of my Epic preset pack, I modified all of them to use RGBX/RBGX/BGRX masks instead.
It’s still under the same 8K setting.
You can use the TVL settings while using any of the Display Resolution settings to adjust the size of the Mask features. You don’t have to switch to 4K to do that. You can’t easily adjust the height of the Mask in Sony Megatron Colour Video Monitor though. That seems to be fixed. Which is why I choose to use 8K over 4K in some cases. You complained about the Mask looking way too large but did you compare the height of the 4K and 8K masks? The 4K slot masks are taller than the 8K ones.
So you can have mask that’s just as chunky using the 4K setting if you lower the TVL.
These things are just a guide and a starting point to setting the shader up. It varies according to your Picture Mode, Tonemapping settings e.t.c.
You really have to use your eyes to dial these in perfectly. Too much brightness leads to harsh looking highlights and oversaturated, clipped colours.
Too little and it leads to darkness and very inaccurate looking colours.
The trick is to use the reported Peak Brightness/Luminance to get a close enough figure for your Peak Luminance, then crank up the Paper White Luminance until it looks bright and good to you without going overboard and clipping all the details. The number doesn’t matter. How it looks matters.
I don’t know how he arrived at a value of 50 for his Paper White Luminance for any TV but the vast majority of his videos are excellent while a few might sometimes be a bit oversimplified or its possible that he may not have fully understood what I might have been trying to convey in explaining how to go about setting up the shader or presets.
As you see, I’m the opposite in that, I try to provide as much details as possible in my explanations but this doesn’t always work for the masses. What RetroCrisis does is very appreciated at the end of the day. Maybe that settings of 50 is just what he needs for his display but definitely not anyone who owns an OLED TV of any kind.
On my OLED I used 630 Peak and 630 Paper White Luminance. For my "Near Field presets, I used 630 Peak and 450 Paper White.
If you have a similar WOLED based OLED TV, I don’t see your settings being vastly different.
Because different consoles have different output chips and circuitry even among the same generation and family. There are several variations of Sega Megadrive/Genesis hardware and each would look different on the same composite cable.
How would I capture these differences if I used one preset for all variants within the family?
Well there’s dithering in SNES games too as well as Turbo Duo family games and if blended properly can provide more colours and transparency effects so why not exploit what the software can do to bring forth such elements?
In my presets I try to achieve those things by default most of the time so it’s not necessarily something you’ll read much about or hear me talk about but you’ll definitely see in action when you use my presets.
You’re most welcome. Thanks for the impromptu Q & A and feel free to ask more and also to share more!
Formally announcing my intent to finally (optimistically using the word) ‘upgrade’ from my 9th gen Pioneer Plasma TV to the 2025 Panasonic OLED once it goes on sale next year.
Honestly motion smoothness is one of the big reasons I’ve stuck to the Kuro Elite for so long, knowing OLED’s struggle to preserve the same smoothness is a worry for me. And I was able to calibrate my set to really get super close to my HDR laptop with 4K HDR movies using MadVR’s tone mapping conversion. At this age it’s a little scary to anticipate how much work it will be to reach the same levels of content and satisfaction with a new set. x.x
It’s more money on GPU’s, more worry about FPS, BFI, CRT Beam Emulation, etc.
And then Micro LED hopefully comes to save us in a decade afterwards anyway. ;p
Pretty much everything they’re saying about the Panasonic over at AVS Forums.
I think you watch the HDTVTest YouTube channel too?
Also LG seems like they aren’t even trying when it comes to calibration anymore. (I’m just parroting this off of articles I’ve read though TBH)
At this age, I watch more movies than play games.
TBH I don’t understand subpixel layouts. :x
My other friend got a Bravia 8 II, but he lives kinda far and isn’t as picky with the shaders as I am, and then I’m not as picky as a lot of people I respect around here. I wish I could loop him into helping you though.
I think you might have a certain affinity towards Panasonic and if so, there’s nothing wrong with that. Do enjoy your TV when you get it!
Yes, I look at that from time to time as well as many others. Note that HDTV Test arrived at a different result in the Overall Best TV of 2024 compared to the Value Electronics Shootout by Stop The FOMO and Brian’s Tech Therapy. So don’t be surprised if they arrive at a different result this year as well.
One thing about LG is that they tend to support their flagship TVs for a very long time so It’s very likely that anything that might be off with that particular model will be rectified in due course.
This is what actual owners have had to say about the G5:
I’m sure there’s an explanation here somewhere but I sent you a Link to the “OLED Subpixel, How Do They Work?” Thread so you might be able to learn a little from there.
You might have heard in the past that a pixel is the smallest element of a digital image or display. However each of those pixels are made up of smaller elements of individual colour called subpixels. The combination of the subpixel colours determine the final colour of each pixel.
What we try to do here is allow these subpixels to be analogous to the phosphors on a CRT. However CRTs mostly had they phosphors in an R-G-B layout in that order, but only some modern displays share that subpixel layout so we may not always be able to map to a CRT’s R-G-B phosphor layout 1:1.
Depending on the layout of the display, we might use BGR instead or RBG.
QD-OLED is not even in the question because of the shape of its subpixel layout, it wouldn’t be able to map 1:1 with any CRT Layout.
So it took a while before we figured out how to get acceptable phosphor to subpixel mapping on WOLED TVs. With this new RGB tandem OLED, the layout is different so either one of the other existing mappings might work or we might need to create a new mapping.
If we are stuck with a QD-OLED monitor for now (I’m going to trade it in for one of those new AOC Mini LED for better HDR experience eventually), what are the best settings to change to mitigate the subpixel mismatch issue?
Something else that happened, when I updated RA from 1.20 Stable to 1.21 Stable, it broke a lot of your shader presets, specifically the 4k HDR presets. Like, distorted colours, blurry, etc. I tried installing 1.20 again but they were still broken…Weird issue, might be just me (I also get constant crashes upon game load on 1.21 with certain cores now), just thought to bring it up in case others have it.
Pioneer, and Sony actually. I guess I had a Panasonic VCR back in the 90s??? But I’m just not big on QD-OLED with their fringing and magenta push. Definitely disliked that on the QD-OLED PC monitors I’ve tried. Samsung forcing exaggerated saturation and avoiding Dolby Vision is an instant disqualifier ofc. (I keep accidentally winding up with DV encoded files which makes it a desirable feature)
Sony has better SDR color accuracy and apparently the processors do more accurate upscaling, but I just watch over media files on my PC so…I’m not hooking a cable box or an NES up to it or something like that. Maybe 2026 Sony will not be using a QD-OLED panel and then I’ll wait another year for their sale, but I feel like they’re sticking with QD.
When it comes to speakers the Z95B’s 170W 5.1.2 sound difference is no comparison, I presume to help people avoid needing a separate soundbar purchase? But I use an external 5.1 speaker setup anyway so that’s not factoring in…
But because you brought it up, I went and checked the game modes; what am I missing here?
12.6ms input lag on the Z95B, 12.9ms input lag on the G5…
FPS/RPG settings in Sound Mode…and 60hz mode that pushes input lag down to 8.6ms. CRT’s have 8.3ms input delay. Apparently the Z95B can further reduce input lag to 4.8ms with 120Hz signals.
I tried to go find the comparable interface for the G5 and I just find tons of videos saying it’s cooked for gaming. u.u
I’m not educated on that, so DYOR.
HDTVTest explained what True Game Mode is on the Z95B here:
This is what @MajorPainTheCactus had to say about QD-OLED subpixel CRT mask emulation:
Just be careful and do your research because all miniLED displays are not the same and there are many factors can make or break the experience.
There’s no perfect TV for CRT Shader emulation yet in my opinion. Let’s hope you don’t miss the advantages of OLED when you “upgrade”.
I’ve been using 1.20 and then 1.21 for ages now. I doubt that would have broken my presets.
What might “break” presets or rather cause them to look differently than intended is if you updated your Slang_Shaders using the Online Updater without first backing up and then restoring the relevant/required versions of the shader for the particular preset pack.
If you read near the download links to the packs in the first post, it specifies these things in the installation instructions.
For my Mega Bezel Preset Pack you need Mega Bezel 1.14.0.
For my Sony Megatron Colour Video Monitor Preset Packs the version of CRT-Guest-Advanced is also specified.
Only my very first Sony Megatron Colour Video Monitor should be affected by an Online Update of the Slang Shaders though as all my other Sony Megatron preset packs look for the Guest Advanced shader in a different folder from its default installation folder.
From my Sony Megatron W420M Preset pack onwards, there’s no need to separately install the CRT-Guest-Advanced shader because it’s included.
I’m not sure why your games would be crashing. Perhaps you might need to also update your cores or do a roll back of the cores that no longer work as well.
As always sharing a log file using Pastebin will always help with getting to the bottom of these kinds of issues.
Also, if you want to downgrade RetroArch, you first need to rename or delete the retroarch.exe file.
It seems like Panasonic really hit it out of the park this year with this TV. I wasn’t so impressed by their return to the US market last year though. Notwithstanding, in the context of shaders and presets which rely on the TV to brute force brightness through heavy (near opaque) mask and scanline settings, brightness will always tend to be a priority. So it remains to be seen which of the TVs is better for CRT shader emulation.
I would like some assistance in testing the new subpixel layout though.
On another note:
Your thinking is almost exactly like mine on these points. Raised black levels in a bright room means QD-OLED (at least in it’s current form) is definitely not for me and after waiting with bated breath to see if it would have launched with a “proper” striped RGB subpixel layout, they came up with this pentile triangular nonsense that has no relevance whatsoever to what we’re trying to accomplish here. Then you’ve said it already, no Dolby Vision. Samsung’s processing looks oversaturated and under detailed.
Probably just the 4 HDMI 2.1 ports on the LG G5 (as well as other models) vs only 2 on the Z95B (one of which doubles as the EARC port).
Gamers with a beefy gaming PC might lean more towards the LG G5 , thanks to its support for refresh rates up to 165Hz (excluding the 48-inch and 97-inch models) and VRR support in the form of AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync across all four HDMI 2.1 ports. The Panasonic Z95B has a very respectable but slightly lower 144Hz refresh rate with FreeSync VRR support, but only two HDMI 2.1 ports. Both televisions support 4K/120Hz gaming on the latest generation consoles, with minimal latency.
Vincent’s conclusion here sort of aligns with what I said about the potential for manufacturers to iron out their TVs’ initial flaws over time via firmware updates:
I like the way Panasonic caps the Peak Luminance based on the content Metadata though in an effort to limit the white subpixel diluting the colour saturation.
Same page re: last years Panasonic lol.
Vincent’s video there seems to show the subpixel for the Z95B doesn’t it? Looks like RGB and not BGR.
It’s on sale on Amazon so I think I’ll do the monthly payments cause Shaders are my big hobby now and who knows where my mind will be (or if alive) next year.
I haven’t bought a new TV since the HD CRT Sony over 20 years ago…after I replaced it with the PRO-111FD for a lucky $300, I hoped to never buy a TV again. ;p
You’ll have to teach me what I’m supposed to be looking for in regards to subpixel layout signs. Even now I can hardly tell the difference on my Kuro Elite but BGR seems to look worse by about 0.01% on a Guest Advanced slot mask by RetroCrisis.
This was Panasonic’s Plasma subpixel layout, and remember Plasma’s have phosphors so I don’t know how they’ve been spoilers my presets or not:
Yes, it was shown and the layout is known, however I’m not a Shader dev nor someone who fully understands how the interaction between the displays subpixel colours and the masks and I came in after the experts were laying the foundations of what we have today but I’m a person who finds a way to figure out how to achieve what I want with whatever tools I have available inclusive of my determination coupled with lots of trial and error. So while I might have theories as to what might work, they would need to be tested.
What messes with the mask in WOLED is the extra white subpixel. So that leads to weird spacing and alignment issues with Masks which were designed with only 3 subpixels in mind.
I don’t think any CRT Shader Mask layouts were designed with OLED TVs in mind and it was sort of by accident as well as some intense trial and error that some existing mask Layout and TVL combinations just happened to work on WOLED.
Yeah, don’t worry, when we reach that bridge I’ll know what to ask.
Plasma TVs as well as most shaders and presets that aim for high brightness in the SDR realm usually compromise a lot in the mask and scanlines accuracy and detail, especially the colour accuracy, opacity and definition of the emulated mask and phosphors themselves.
To some this doesn’t seem important as you can’t make out those details like individual RGB phosphors from normal viewing distances anyway, right?
They are the building blocks and foundations of a CRT’s image though and when you start straying from there and start “diluting” the foundation, it would affect the final image.
With these things though ignorance is bliss and for some there’s a lot of variance as to what they find acceptable, good, great, awesome, nostalgic e.t.c.
Well this is an example of a subpixel shot that might be useful when you get your Z95B but as for Plasma, that’s beyond my scope. Even the G5/Z95B/RGB Tandem OLED is to some extent because I tend to make presets for the displays I use personally.
If you’re interested in researching CRT Shaders and Plasma, there should at least be some information by @Nesguy who used a Plasma TV at some point and shared a lot of knowledge about the operation of CRTs and how to get shaders to get closer and closer to how they looked and much more available in these forums.
You do actually get to learn a lot along the way though and this is not to say that I didn’t already start off with or have not been constantly increasing my technical knowledge at the same time.
This video sums up some of the issues we are faced with today as we search for the perfect display for CRT Emulation.
It’s basically that stuff that really helped me keep away from FOMO. The PRO-111FD’s 12-bit panel’s Deep Color is enough for MadVR’s Tonemapping to simulate the look of HDR, yeah I don’t hit that high nit contrast, but when I watch on my friends QD-OLED, I see I’m getting 90% of the experience. It’s “only 90% as breathtaking” on my display.
Kuro’s feel like the perfect SDR panels, oddly I can’t quite hit the same “true black” levels on my backup KRP-500M…but basically if anything happens to my PRO-111FD I’ve got this other Plasma that a lot of people consider to be better, and I’ll figure it out then cause I definitely know how the service menus work really well by now. (This is assuming I don’t stick with this Z95B - which I guess will be determined by how sensitive I am to its “significantly reduced” temporal dithering and chrominance overshoot. I watch a lot of mooveezanteevee so I’ll know within that return window if I’m bothered and should return it or not. I can keep you posted in this thread if interested.)
First of all, thank you very much for taking your time to develop these presets, they seem wonderful.
I recently got a 4K HDR 144Hz QD- OLED TV (Samsung S90D) and thought it would be perfect to try some CRT simulation shaders with. However, as a relative newcomer, I am a bit confused. I simply don’t know what to use, exactly, and/or what settings to tweak. Ideally, I want something that requires as little tweaking as possible while looking good.
What do you suggest, exactly, in terms of what presets and settings to use?
I wouldn’t consider that the perfect display for these types of things though.
All the steps are there, telling you how to use each preset pack. You just have to go down the rabbit hole. If you’ve read but you don’t understand something specifically then you can feel free to post a question.
There are so many, how do I even choose?
I strongly suggest you read the first post of this thread, including watching the videos. That should at least leave you with an idea of what can be done and you might see something that you might want to try.
Be sure to also read the readme files inside the preset packs even if they might be a bit outdated.
Eventually things might start to sink in and seem more familiar.
Based on what @MajorPainTheCactus said he uses for his QD-OLED Display, be sure to change the Display’s Subpixel Layout/Mask Layout to RGB.
Just play around randomly with the presets and preset packs like you’re in a sandbox. Don’t be overwhelmed just because you’ll be spoilt for choice.
Also, you can use any preset pack on any TV, not because one says miniLED means it’s for miniLED, that’s just what it was made on. Same goes for presets with OLED in the name.
No presets were made for or on a QD-OLED though. OLED in this context refers to WOLED and more specifically RWGB WOLED.
QD-OLED displays in their current form don’t map to current subpixel CRT shaders but some might say it is good enough.
