It seems like we’re having a patience issue here. I never said you were wasting my time.
You indicated that you could only post one photo. That might be a temporary condition if you’re a new user. I tried to explain that a photo would be more useful than a GPU screenshot, especially in this case with your display being what it is, you seemed to understand that.
Your display appears to be a special case. I am merely awaiting the requested feedback from you in order to assess what is going on before charting a way forward.
I’m not the type to quit or give up easily when faced with a challenge.
That’s one of the reasons why I’ve made so many preset packs. My W420M preset pack was developed using a relatively cheap/low end LG TV which can’t do RGB 4:4:4 Full Chroma and that means that most subpixel masks won’t work or look correctly on it.
That didn’t stop me from persevering and eventually getting something that looked and worked well.
So it’s your choice if you want to give up and play without shaders then, if not and you want to try to figure things out then feel free to post a photo.
Alternatively, you can go through the shaders that come with RetroArch in the Shaders_Slang folder, you can also try one of the many other community shader preset offerings or even go through my presets and see what works well because all of my presets don’t share the same characteristics.
Most Shaders rely on clever programming to work around the challenge of losing brightness when trying to emulate a real CRT’s mask and scanlines. Unfortunately these tricks take the image further away from matching a CRT’s image.
Most of my presets don’t employ these tricks or use them very sparingly. So you just have to find the shaders and presets which will look best on your display.
In CRT Royale there’s a Shader Parameter called - mask_triad_size_desired, you can try adjusting that in integer values until you get something that looks suitable for your display. You can also play around with the Gamma Settings if you want to try to increase brightness.
I wish it was that good during my childhood. Both my TVs and RF modulators were state-of-the-art crappy engineering, whose manufacturers broke the realm of what was expected from low quality. Would something like those pics be achievable back then? Everything seemed so lousy (perhaps has to do with from where I come).
Also, was the OP using an RF out from his VCR? I never even heard of that. When I used something similar, it was for outputting an RF signal from the console to the VCR, which in turn would output to the TV using standard RCA cables (useful when that was the only input on the television). I’m kinda dumb, so I’m lost. Seems like OP is implying that RF was used into and out of the VCR. If that’s the case, why even use the VCR as a middleman? Why not plug directly into the TV?
Best viewed in fullscreen or zoomed in, in HDR mode or on a screen with bright settings for the full effect. You can download the .jxr files as well for proper HDR viewing.
CyberLab Megatron miniLED 4K HDR Game BFI Turbo Duo_DC 3D Comb Filter Shadow Mask Epic CAR9x8x.slangp
Yeah, I can’t detect any moire pattern with that configuration. The triads are a bit elongated, but looks good.
Currently I’m using RRGGBX sans slot mask because the brightness with slot mask added is just a bit too dim, even with 1000 nits
Every time I enable the slot mask and let my eyes adjust, I always find myself wanting that extra brightness. The real glow effect at 1000 nits using RRGGBBX is incredible.
The coarse dotmask is interesting, even if not commonly seen in TVs. Shots look good.
Yeah, I recently switched back to the 4K Mask from the 8K Mask which I modified to be RGBX/BGRX. The 8K Mask was stubbier. I’ll probably revisit it if I could fine tune it to get that type of alignment. I think I did though but when looking for my example to show you it wasn’t as perfect as the 4K Mask.
The whole purpose of me going through the hassle of modifying the 8K Mask Layout was because I actually preferred the shorter Mask Height of the 8K Mask.
When I say I recently went back to the 4K Mask, I mean very recently, as in maybe one or two updates ago.
Welcome back @Neofuuma! As long as I play games and have life, health and strength, I’ll be advancing these presets.
Right now I’m at a point where I just want to add some precisely sized reflective Bezels/TV Overlays using something lightweight like @Hyllian’s Uborder while keeping all of my preset settings exactly as they are.
What kind of display are you using? The brighter the better for these things.
@Hyllian, what would it take to port the latest version of CyberLab Megatron miniLED Epic Death To Pixels 4K HDR Shader Preset Pack to Uborder?
How can I convert your CyberLab__RGB-Smooth__PVM-Edition__ADV.slangp shader preset to a no border, no bezel, no reflection version (like your CyberLab_Upscaled_No_Border.slangp shader preset)? What shader parameters do I need to change?
This question has been asked an answered many times before. I’ll have to search the thread again for you to see if I can find the answer.
Do you know that I consider this preset to be a modern take on the older RGB Smooth PVM Edition Preset? Why not just use that one instead? One difference between the 2 is that the newer one uses Shadow (Dot) Mask instead of an Aperture Grille Mask but you can simply change the Mask Type to an Aperture Grille Mask.
I also made like 9 or 10 other preset packs which have tons of presets with 0 borders and 0 reflections, many with Aperture Grille Masks and many with Smoothing as well, but still you want that particular old preset. Have you tried the others, in my CRT-Royale preset Pack for example?
Anyway, let me see if I can remember how to disable the border if you’re unable to convert via finding a matching no border base preset.
First choose the same preset from my MBZ__0__Smooth-Advance_No_Reflections folder, the look for the Global Graphics Brightness Parameter in Shader Parameters and lower it to 0. Hopefully, that should do the trick.
You can report back if it doesn’t work. Also be sure you’re using Mega Bezel version 1.14.
Another thing you can try is you can replace the base reference preset in the RGB Smooth preset with a No Border base preset.
You’re right, I should have searched for a way to remove the bezels in the forum thread itself. I tried searching reddit, and then the wider web (I wish there was a tutorial on the megabezel website!), and then tried tinkering with all the parameters myself but couldn’t succeed. Duimon provided a helpful guide on the megabezel feedback libretro thread a while back but when I tried to follow his instructions for your shaders (thinking they should work since they are presets, not entirely new shaders), I failed to remove the bezels and background completely for some reason.
I really REALLY like the upscaled no border preset, for how bright and contrast-y it is, but it (subjectively) distorted the look on certain pixel art ps1 games (e.g. Valkyrie Profile), where the RGB Smooth PVM edition didn’t for whatever reason. Interesting to hear it’s mainly a mask type difference. I’m going to play around with those on the upscaled no border preset now to see if I can improve it to my eye.
I’m aware you’ve released so many preset packs, but if I’m totally honest, that’s part of my issue. It’s TOO much choice at this point and I feel like I’m splitting hairs with certain shaders looking 95% perfect and others reaching that 95% in a different way…I’ve been emulating avidly since the early 90s and pretty familiar with shaders. For the longest time I used basic CRT shaders and I felt like we peaked with CRT Royale, but then megabezel, megatron HDR, and now Cyberlab presets came out and to me completely eclipsed the OG slang shaders. But every time I start comparing how, say, Actraiser 2 looks across your hundreds of shaders, I can narrow it down to like 20-30 and then I keep waffling between them.
I often wish I wasn’t so obsessed with chasing shader perfection because it’s really eating into my game time (as a father of 2, soon 4 kids; wife due to give birth to twins in a few weeks lol), and, in a way, your meticulous obsessive tinkering to create new presets is enabling my own worst impulses to endlessly compare and contrast lol. Backhanded compliment, I know.
I’m THIS close to buying an old 27 inch Sony Trinitron off facebook marketplace and plugging my old pc to emulate via CRTSwitchRes just to deny myself the endless burden of picking the right shader for the right system for the right game.
Why would there be a tutorial on removing the bezel of the Mega Bezel Reflection Shader?
Aren’t there hundreds if not thousands of CRT Shaders which don’t include backgrounds or bezel?
The reality is that a creator or developer may have a distinct vision in their minds but have no idea how users are going to end up using what they have created.
So due to popular demand, we now have “No Border” presets.
Why didn’t you mention this in this thread? That’s what it’s for. It’s not too late to share some screenshots of what you’re describing.
I never said that the Mask type is the cause of any distortion you’re seeing. I just stated that the presets use different Mask Types. That shouldn’t be a reason for distortion in one and not the other but you need to define this distortion using some comparison screenshots. Only then will we know what parameters are involved.
This couldn’t have happened without continuous and ongoing development, learning and experimentation.
You don’t have to be. You can stop when you’re ready or just stick to the latest experiment. Right now it’s “Epic” which narrows things down quite a bit but the W2, Extreme, Super, Mega and Turbo presets and their Neo-GX Ultra variants just before were pretty on point in many ways and actually looked relatively smooth without the use of smoothing shaders. Great advantage of those is that they cut down the number of passes to 12 from 19 in my previous smooth shader presets.
There were always things that bothered me about the way the Super-XBR shader did things that I merely tolerated until I ditched it completely.
Then I saw a post from Guest.R using another XBR variant which did exactly what I wanted from Super-XBR so that’s how my new Epic presets and preset pack was born.
They don’t cover all scenarios that my previous 12 Pass presets did, for example there aren’t as many fine, higher TVL presets, which is something I recently started back exploring.
I may be meticulous but I don’t think I’m obsessive about these things. I’m okay with having options, choice and we’re definitely spoilt for choice nowadays.
With each preset and pack, I sometimes try to solve different problems. I have had TVs break and had to witch to completely different tiers of display and made preset packs just for that so what you see as a confusing mess is actually just evidence of a long journey.
So these are not to obsess about and it will always be hard to find the best because best isn’t always the latest. This is about what mood am I feeling to play this game in today. So maybe higher TVL, mid TVL?
I don’t really take that long to choose a preset if I want to play a game and my default presets are not what I’m currently working on or my latest. Sometimes I have to manually load up the latest.
When I learn more and start to notice things I sometimes go back and try to apply the new learning to older presets.
There’s also a lot to be gained by playing around with Custom Integer Scaling and aspect ratios as well as scanline and mask alignment.
No one speaks about that but trust me, it’s huge.
If that is what you want then do that. I like the challenge and the result of my efforts at making these games look beautiful in whatever way I can. I don’t obsess over trying to match any particular CRT.
I find Trinitron Masks and sets to be a bit boring. My “holy grails” are the Commodore 1702 that spent years under the dining room table before being dumped like a piece of unrepairble, obsolete trash some decades ago and the JVC D-Series.
My dilemma is that miniLED is better at so many aspects of CRT emulation than OLED that it’s mind boggling, except when the room is completely dark and I’m walking about viewing at less than ideal angles and I can see blooming everywhere.
The only thing that can save minLED there is a nice preferably dark reflective bezel to conceal it all.
I was looking into it, which is why there have been some recent updates to my Mega Bezel preset pack but that version of Guest is really outdated now and I simply can’t reproduce what I’ve been able to achieve with the newer one which I use for my Sony Megatron preset packs.
So I live with the blooming after hours for now. Maybe a uborder port of my Epic preset pack might solve that.
I’ve been burned by OLED though. As in literal burn-in of scanlines. I won’t give up the flexibility in Masks and the much needed brightness headroom of miniLED any time soon but I won’t be sad if someone buys me a high brightness LG G4 or G5. MinLED TVs are also getting better and better with each generation.
Yeah, I notice the blurring of the Mask during motion but it is what it is. I experimented for a while with BFI but brightness and colour vibrance won.
I’m sure many of the cork sniffing “CRT is the best for motion and FPGA is the best for lag” psychopants can’t beat some of the game I have beaten in recently times with my blurry, laggy LCD. I’m talking about games like Super Star Soldier, Lords of Thunder, Gate of Thunder, Super Mario Bros. and Ninja Gaiden II!
My point is not to insult anyone, it’s just to say, don’t forget to enjoy playing the games with whatever hardware you have at your disposal.
CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels Shader Preset Pack
CyberLab Custom Blargg NTSC Video Filter Presets
CyberLab CRT-Royale Death To Pixels Shader Preset Pack
CyberLab Megatron miniLED Epic Death To Pixels 4K HDR Shader Preset Pack
CyberLab Megatron miniLED Death To Pixels 4K HDR Shader Preset Pack
CyberLab Megatron NX Death To Pixels 4K HDR Shader Preset Pack
CyberLab Megatron NX W420M Death To Pixels 4K Shader Preset Pack
CyberLab Megatron Death To Pixels 4K HDR Shader Preset Pack
CyberLab Uborder miniLED Death To Pixels 4K HDR Ready Shader Preset Pack
CyberLab ReShade Death To Pixels Shader Preset Pack
These are the preset packs I’ve made so far. RetroArch has built in support for HDR so any shader can benefit from that. Sony Megatron Colour Video Monitor can switch between HDR and SDR modes so an HDR display is not a requirement for those presets, just a bright enough display.
Any Sony Megatron preset that is set to work in HDR mode can be switched to SDR mode.
For other shaders, brightness enhancements are employed which might make the phosphors appear less accurate at least when viewed from up close.
My Mega Bezel preset pack mostly has presets designed in SDR mode but it does have a folder which includes presets designed in HDR mode.
My CRT-Royale preset pack was designed in SDR mode.
My Sony Megatron W420M preset pack was designed in SDR mode on a bright enough TV (I suppose).
My uBorder and all other Sony Megatron preset packs were designed in HDR mode.
If you look closely, you’ll see that even on a real CRT the horizontal slots on the slot mask are not perfectly centered and aligned with the scanlines.
Also note the saturation levels of the phosphor primaries and the subtle bloom/halation that can be seen behind and in between the phosphors.
I’m also sure that just as the scanlines add something to the final image, so too do the vertical unexcited phosphors as we now have available in CRT-Guest-Advanced.
@MajorPainTheCactus once mentioned that it should be possible to simulate that using Sony Megatron Colour Video Monitor but I haven’t been able to so far.
