I wonder what would make CRT shaders look better though: high brightness on MiniLED or perfect blacks on OLED. Then there’s also latency which is supposedly smaller on OLEDs in general, but I suspect such a high-end SONY TV also does that well. Will try to find the BRAVIA 9 side-by-side along a C4 or G4 in a shop to compare in person.
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Remember, all CRT Shaders are not the same. A shader like Sony Megatron Color Video Monitor (or any other shader that is setup to use maximum mask strength and scanline opacity) is going to end up with an inherently darker image.
High brightness, aided by HDR or otherwise is the current brute force method to counter that and the results are quite impressive.
Mini-LED TVs, while not being as precise as OLED TVs, also have perfect blacks.
I don’t think the latency factor will be much of an issue unless the screen display is really horrible at it.
An OLED TV’s extremely low latency can actually be a disadvantage in some scenarios leading to a more jittery/juddery experience due to frames not transitioning and blending smoothly into one another.
This is noticeable on things like slow scrolling end credits in movies for example.
While the MiniLED won’t have per pixel perfect black levels the contrast ratio should be just as impressive if not even more so due to having true blacks in the areas which should be black and at the same time being able to push higher peak and sustained brightness in the highlights.
So theoretically, both should be quite impressive but it all depends on if the local dimming algorithm can keep up with the action and just works without being noticeably late to kick in or making a mess of things.
Sony has shown where their algorithm/processing is a cut above the rest by demonstrating a highly detailed greyscale map of the image using their Mini-LED backlighting system with good granularity between light to dark per Mini-LED zone.
Remember something only has to be good enough by a certain threshold before we reach the point of diminishing returns.
Now this is all hype and speculation until someone or some people actually go out and try the TVs themselves in these scenarios.
High Brightness headroom is extremely important when used with CRT Shaders to be able to use BFI.
Besides improving motion clarity on the whole the mask tends to appear as a blur on sample and hold display technology when thing start scrolling and moving fast on the screen.
Higher levels of BFI reduce this effect while improving motion clarity so that’s a possible win for the Sony Bravia 9 Mini LED in theory but we will have to see who is brave enough to put it into practice.
@Nesguy bought a 1,000 nits Mini-LED monitor but was not impressed by the local dimming in CRT shaders but the high brightness was still sufficient to provide him with a wonderful experience overall to the point where he no longer complains err…posts often about negative or unsatisfactory experiences.
This Sony Bravia 9 is supposed to represent the next level or generation of this local dimming processing but it has been hyped and marketed quite a lot so we’ll see.
Then there’s the no burn-in and possibly more accurate subpixel layout.
I would definitely give it a try if I was in the market for a new TV but either way, you should be satisfied.
Just remember this, with HDR and high brightness, coupled with highly intense scanline gaps, you introduce an almost worst case scenario for uneven wear of OLED subpixels, which is what I think eventually took place with my TV.
Modern OLED TVs are supposedly more robust but who is to say it can’t happen with them as well?
@hunterk provided me with a shader that shifts the entire screen up and down by 0.5 pixels over time, so this in theory should help the unused subpixels to be used but it might need some fine tuning because if used in timer mode the pixel shift can be jarring and noticeable during gameplay and unfortunately it doesn’t work with Sony Megatron Color Video Monitor out of the box at the moment.
Someone who knows more about these things than myself might have to be be able to figure that one out.
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hey hows it going I decided to use my phone to zoom into the TV, I wanted to ask if each mask looks ok and If not what can I do to fix them.
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Hi @Cyber,
We spoke on the Retro Crisis channel. As I said, I couldn’t get the CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels Shader Preset Pack to work on Linux. Have you already run these filters on Linux?
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Greetings @kayzzen01,
I haven’t but I’d be surprised if others haven’t.
Are you getting an error when trying to load them? If so what is the error message?
Have you installed everything into the prescribed folders?
If possible, please post a log using pastebin.
Are you able to load any Mega Bezel Reflection Shader base presets or variations that are included with Mega Bezel Reflection Shader?
The Aperture Grille and Slot Mask look about right to me but with such zoomed in pics it’s hard for me to tell if there is something wrong with the rendering which might require a bit more context.
Which Shader and presets are those taken from?
Also these things can be made however you like, if you don’t like things like the deconvergence you can just turn them off.
The shadow mask looks strange but it’s not surprising depending on which shader or preset you might be using.
Is there something that looks like it needs fixing to you, both when zoomed in as well as out?
It was CyberLab Megatron 4K HDR Game PSX S-Video Smooth, I just changed the peak brightness & paper white and switched between each mask.
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Okay great, sometimes, besides switching the mask, you can also try different combinations of “Display’s Resolution” and “Resolution” settings in Sony Megatron Color Video Monitor.
Up to now, I haven’t really found a Shadow Mask pattern that I like when using it, maybe I need to take some close-ups of the one that I use in CRT-Guest-Advanced via Mega Bezel Reflection Shader and see if I can get @MajorPainTheCactus or someone else to add that exact pattern and layout to Sony Megatron Color Video Monitor.
So thanks for the inspiration because I really love Shadow (Dot) Masks as well.
Thanks, i’ll keep it on Aperture Grille but I did mess about with TVL. Not exactly sure what it is but I like 300 TVL but I like the brightness 1000 TVL gives lol. I just kept the display resolution to 4K to match my TV.
Well 300TVL would give a more textured look and it should be easier to notice the individual phosphor colours. It would also help in reducing the appearance of jaggies while appearing sharper all else being equal.
1000TVL would appear brighter because there’s less dark space between the phosphor triads.
You can just lower the Gamma or increase the Paperwhite brightness if you want to make things brighter.
You can also lower the Saturation if the colours are still too dark.
This resolution parameter functions as a sort of divider for the TVL settings so it’s not really necessary to set it at the number which matches your display.
That’s really just a hint or suggestion to make it easier for less experienced users to get the TVLs that they’re looking for.
In my experience and testing the 8K setting on a 4K Display gives better alignment between the scanlines and the horizontal slots when using Slot Masks.
With Aperture Grille 4K is fine.
Fair enough, The only thing is if I mess with the paperwhite brightness doesn’t that mess with the intended look of a CRT and I would get crushed blacks or clipped highlights. I don’t have a CRT so how do I know if I have the game devs intended look.
I also tried SpecialK with Perceptual Boost for fun.
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None of what you mention here can be measured or achieved with any degree of certainty or accuracy using CyberLab Megatron Death To Pixels 4K HDR Shader Preset Pack or CyberLab Megatron NX Death To Pixels 4K HDR Shader Preset Pack.
This isn’t accurate, reference quality stuff you’re starting with to begin with.
I mostly use my memory, feelings and opinion in order to dial in my settings. So my approach is more of a reverse engineering of the content to give it a particular look that I might have in mind at the time.
So just trying to make things look as good as I can get them for my personal tastes.
I think the Sony Megatron Color Video Monitor shader has some outstanding issues and bugs in its current tonemapping implementation which negatively affects black levels and gradients.
Then who really knows what is developer intent?
What constitutes the intended look of a CRT? There is quite a lot of subjectivity and variance where this is concerned.
Different CRTs of different sizes, ages, models, eras with different calibration settings can make the same content look very different.
I don’t use any CRT for reference either as a matter of fact, I recently dumped a 17" VGA CRT Monitor that I had just taking up space, doing nothing.
Life is short, just enjoy the games.
I don’t know/remember what TV you have but have you tried my new Near Field presets?
I’m using 450 cd/m² for Paperwhite brightness on those.
If you have a similar display, you should be able to push it past 350.
Your right, I think I need to stop trying to make things “perfect” according to someone else and just stick with does it look right to me.
I have a LG G2, where can I find these Near Field presets I must be blind.
Thanks again.
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You’ll find them here:
Thanks where do I put them, I have them in C:\RetroArch-Win64\shaders but I get a failed to apply shader with every shader thats named “CyberLab Megatron NX 4K HDR…”
Basically all the “NX” named ones.
I mean no offense but I’m getting the feeling that you haven’t read the installation instructions in their entirety nor looked at any of the installation videos.
Have you read the entire set of installation instructions in the first post?
…Including the very specific instructions for downloading and installing the correct version of CRT-Guest-Advanced and extracting it to a specific folder where it won’t be overwritten by an Online Update?
I read them I just didn’t do a very good job, I’ll go back and read it more carefully, My apologies.
No need to apologize. Just take your time. You can post an update if you get through or are still having issues.
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Thanks, I got it working, I was confused about where to put crt-guest-advanced but everything works great now.
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