Feel free to post a photo. - I can’t because every print I make the image gets darker.
Are you using the recommended CRT-Guest-Advanced-NTSC version for that preset pack? - yes
What are your Peak and Paperwhite Luminance settings? -
Are you using HDR Game Mode? - Yes
Also what size screen are you using and how far away are you viewing from? - 42", Next to the TV (1 meter) dark room.
I forgot to ask you, do you have BFI enabled (as that can suck brightness)? - Disabled
Hi, Darkand.
I also have a brightness issue with the HDR shaders and my OLED. It doesn’t appear to be an issue with LCDs because of the way each of these technologies output a bright image.
Some things you can try:
HDR mode “on” in Retroarch but off in shaders
Increase “Contrast 5.00x” a bit.
You can try raising ‘paper white’ to 350; make sure your Peak Luminance is correct in both instances.
I hope this helps.
Oh, I just wanted to get an idea of what you were seeing that’s all. I guess that could be because of aggressive ABL on your particular model. That shouldn’t happen if the image is in motion though.
These settings in the RetroArch video menu (below and besides “Enable HDR”) have no relevance whatsoever to Sony Megatron Colour Video Monitor in HDR Mode and are always overridden by the values in the Shader Parameters. The values you see here are for use with shaders other than Sony Megatron Colour Video Monitor.
These are the values you should be adjusting. The ones here are for my TV. You need to find values which work for your TV. So set your Peak according to what you find in RTINGS. It should most likely be higher than my old 2016 OLED TV, then set your Paperwhite Luminance as high as you need to to get things bright enough. Don’t worry about the number, worry about how it looks. You can try different scenes, lots of white as well as varied scenes. The Gray Ramp test on the 240p Test Suite is also useful in calibrating this value.
What’s your OLED Light setting when in HDR Game Mode?
I suggest my latest CyberLab_Megatron_NX_Death_To_Pixels_4K_HDR_Shader_Preset_Pack _22-05-24 since all presets in there are optimized for near field viewing, while the vast majority of my previous presets are not.
Did you try this?
What Graphics driver are you using in RetroArch? Vulkan and D3Dxx have different setup procedures and implementation in RetroArch. If you’re using Vullkan, this is supposed to operate independently of Windows HDR Settings, while if you’re using D3Dxx, you’re required to enable HDR in Windows first before enabling it in RetroArch.
Also be wary of Windows 11’s AutoHDR as that could be conflicting with RetroArch’s/Sony Megatron’s Inverse Tonemapping implementation.
With that said, if you’re on Windows 11 you can allow Windows’ AutoHDR to perform Inverse Tonemapping instead of RetroArch or Sony Megatron Colour Video Monitor by enabling AutoHDR in Windows 11 for RetroArch. I believe you would have to be using a D3Dxx Driver in RetroArch. @Dennis1 recommends setting the SDR Brightness Slider all the way to the right. You’ll have to leave HDR Off in RetroArch’s HDR Settings and Switch the SDR/HDR Toggle in the Shader Parameters to SDR.
You can try @RetroCrisis’s HDR Calibration Video if you’re still not getting anywhere but that was never required to use Sony Megatron Colour Video Monitor.
Everyone has varying levels of sensitivity to these things as well as different environments and lighting conditions. Do remember that the author of Sony Megatron Colour Video Monitor recommends a minimum Peak Brightness of at least 600nits for a good experience. My TV can barely hit that and many of LG’s OLED TVs exhibit lower peak brightness when in HDR Game Mode.
Newer LG OLED TVs have maybe marginally and gradually improved on this over time.
What’s your OLED Light setting when in HDR Game Mode?
I suggest my latest CyberLab_Megatron_NX_Death_To_Pixels_4K_HDR_Shader_Preset_Pack _22-05-24 - I’m using this.
What Graphics driver are you using in RetroArch? - Vulkan
Thanks for the detailed information @darkand. I just searched for your TV on RTINGS. Did you did you do that most important first step after installing Sony Megatron Color Video Monitor? It appears that you might have missed most of the setup instructions after the installation instructions for both CyberLab Megatron NX Death To Pixels 4K HDR Shader Preset Pack as well as Sony Megatron Color Video Monitor and those are very important steps to follow.
This is what RTINGS is saying about the Peak Brightness of your TV:
Hallway Lights (~1950 cd/m²) 776 cd/m
Peak 2% Window 806 cd/m²
Peak 10% Window 808 cd/m²
Sustained 2% Window 786 cd/m²
Sustained 10% Window 780 cd/m²
I would probably go with a Peak Brightness of around 776 if I were you.
I noticed a slight sepia tone and an extreme richness and saturation of the RGB phosphors in your photos. This is an indication that your Paper White Luminance setting is too low.
On my OLED set reds will turn almost burnt orange then brownish as you turn down Paper White Luminance, while they will get even closer to red as you turn that value up.
Another thing I noticed is that many of the Green “Phosphors” have some Yellow in them. I’m not sure where that is coming from, it could be the Dynamic Tonemapping but the “phosphors” should be purely Red, Blue and Green.
The LG C3 is dimmer in Game Mode than in other picture modes, and it’s noticeable if you swap between Game Mode and other modes. Still, it’s bright enough for a pleasant HDR gaming experience, and it’s an improvement over the LG C2 OLED. For a much better Game Mode performance, see the Samsung S89C OLED.
These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:
I’d also give their settings a try and compare how things look both with and without Dynamic Tone Mapping set to On.
After you get that right, if you want to fine tune the Brightness, you can adjust the Gamma in Shader Parameters near the bottom. If you wash things out or if your colours are too dark after that, you can then adjust the Saturation.
When setting the Paper White Luminance, you can use the Gray Ramp and Colour Bars tests (from SNES 240p Test Suite) to help you know where to stop. Too much and things get a burnt, unnatural, clipped look, while too little and your reds especially will look brownish/rusty.
Lastly, for this session, do adjust your User Interface settings so that the Menu Opacity is set to 0 so that you can see your adjustments take effect in real-time.
I think you’re actually very close to getting things to look right but you clearly didn’t read (or understand) the manual.
That’s okay, as it took me years before I was actually able to use Sony Megatron Color Video Monitor properly. Do ensure that you’re using the recommended version of CRT-Guest-Advanced for my presets and make sure you’re on the latest Sony Megatron Color Video Monitor.
I’m looking forward to seeing at least improved photos after you read that RTINGS article and apply the correct settings for your screen.
There are other exciting things you can do afterwards once you get the basics correct. For example trying some of @Dennis1’s presets and methods.
Go try my new pack as it has both SDR and HDR presets. I have never seen the SDR ones on an OLED TV so you can be my guinea pig.
Do note that there are apps which can allow you to take further control of your TV and adjust ABL and other settings which are not normally accessible to the end user.
Hello. I play on a Sony 40 w905 TV. Does it make sense to use these shaders in 4k or is it only needed in 4k and with hdr? I saw it with sdr, but also in 4k
Do I need the 2023 version or can I use this one? crt-guest-advanced-2024-05-18-release1
UPD I tried loading the preset CyberLab Megatron NX W420M 4K SDR Game SNES S-Video Shadow Mask Smooth Ultra Ultimate CAR5x4x But the program tells me Faild to load. What could be wrong?
Hello, that TV reminds me of my Toshiba Regza 40XV645U. I can’t say how any of my Sony Megatron Color Video Monitor Presets would look at 1080p because I haven’t tested them at that resolution.
Sony Megatron Color Video Monitor does support 1080p so you can try adjusting the Display’s Resolution, CRT Resolution (TVL) and Mask Layout. Your TV might be BGR so you can try setting the Subpixel Layout to match.
Brightness of the display is a key requirements of Sony Megatron Color Video Monitor so it remains to be seen how well your TV will perform.
Alternatively, you can try my CyberLab CRT-Royale Death To Pixels Shader Preset Pack, which has 1080p presets albeit with RGB layout instead of BGR or the best bet, might be my CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels Shader Preset Pack. That has many 1080p Optimized Presets which should work well with your display.
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.
How to do this? How to create this log file and then publish it using Pastbin?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
