Estou usando o SDR, não testei ainda o HDR.
Mas estava com preguiça de editar o HDR.
Mas fica perfeito em SDR também.
Tenho medo de deixar em HDR por causa do Burning.
Mas agora estou testando na Sony Wega 
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Isn’t that considered cheating? 
You should do some comparisons with the Shaders set to off.
By the way what graphics card are you using? Also, your Mega Bezel version looks old. How come you haven’t updated to v1.14 yet?
That is a valid concern, especially if you’re not mixing your content. @hunterk created a shader which shifts the image down and up by 1 scanline so that there wouldn’t be uneven wear caused by the scanline pattern on OLED TVs.
It doesn’t seem to work properly with Sony Megatron Color Video Monitor yet though but it would be a nice feature to have built-in and maybe continued to be worked on.
In the meantime, enjoy your redundant shader tests…lol. Maybe you can try turning off the Mask and Scanlines. I can understand using shaders on a CRT Monitor but not a standard definition consumer TV because the TV and the Shaders are doing a lot of the same things.
Hello Cyber. I don’t have anything important to say other than thanking you for your hard work. I just discovered this 2 days ago and spent like 2h looking into documentation and settings.
Can’t wait to get back home on Sunday to try it. Cheers!
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Thanks for the help and the quick reply. I’ll try your other suggestions too and let you know how it goes, but first the quick answers.
I was surprised too, but for some reason there’s a very clear boost in brightness/contrast/saturation (not sure exactly) of the bezel when the NX shader is turned on. Since the game’s brightness is naturally dimmed by the shader at the same time, it makes the screen overall look very odd. It’s particularly bad with brighter bezels like the Famicom one.
To be clear, these screenshots were taken back-to-back with 100% opacity on the on-screen overlay. The only change was turning the shader on/off. The forum is limiting me to only one photo per post (new account) so I’ll embed the screenshot with the shader turned on first, then follow-up in a separate post with the shader turned off for comparison.
I’m using a Beelink SER7 mini PC with an AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS CPU and an integrated Radeon 780M for graphics. It can emulate just about anything you throw at it, but I assume the lack of a separate GPU is what’s holding it back with those Mega Bezel shaders. I haven’t spent much time trying to troubleshoot it yet though, just a quick test to compare with the HDR presets I had already configured.
And thanks again for the tips, I really appreciate it.
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If the shader was being applied to the overlay, you would see scanlines and masks e.t c and the same darkening happening to the overlay.
What you’re seeing is the effect of HDR being enabled and detected by your display and everything being brightened as a result. Windows has a calibration tool to control the brightness of non-HDR content when HDR is enabled but that may not have an effect here if you’re using th Vulkan driver. It may not necessarily work if you’re using D3Dxx.
Seeing that there’s no way to lower the brightness/Gamma of the overlay from within RetroArch to make it more HDR+CRT Shader friendly the best option I can think of is to adjust the brightness/Gamma of your overlays using some graphics/image editing software.
You can always save the edited ones as HDR versions or (for HDR) versions.
It’s not the lack of an external GPU, it could be the lack of a powerful enough GPU.
Have you tried the lower performance tiers, MBZ__2__PERFORMANCE_NO_REFLECTIONS, MBZ__3__STANDARD, MBZ__4__Standard_No_Reflections?
These IGPUs need fast system RAM in order to perform at their best. Do you know the speed/specs of the RAM installed? A Dual channel configuration is also a must.
Cooling and proper ventilation is also very important for maintaining performance.
What resolution are you running these presets at again?
You’re most welcome. I hope you enjoy using them as much as I do.
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That shot looks amazing and really shows that we have a long way to go with display tech before we can emulate CRTs
P. S not sure if you’re aware but there is an amazing fan remake of Final Fight which runs at any aspect ratio(from 1:1 to 64:49) and any framerate, supports original arcade resolution/refresh rate for 15khz CRT output, supports any controller imaginable, built-in retroarch shaders, can play as every character in the game(albeit in a limited fashion due to having to work with the original sprite set), cleaned up graphics, all 3 soundtracks(Arcade, Sega CD, X68000), surround sound support, sound effects ripped straight from the original PCB etc. it has all sorts of things going for it to list really.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXcWg6oF__k
You can download it here by clicking on ‘‘Latest Photo Album’’
This remake engine is also open source and you can use it to make your own game or remake an old one.
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Thanks for the heads up. I knew about the other fan game Final Fight LNS Ultimate but had no idea about this one. If you’re into these kind of fan games you should also check out Streets of Rage X, it’s shaping up to be a good fan game next to SOR Remake.
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I saw that LNS Ultimate thing, but to me it looked like a crappy MUGEN-tier hack.
Big Blue Frontend’s remake started around 2018(or earlier) and it’s done all by one single guy with an insane engine written from scratch. It’s completely autistic(in a good way).
I didn’t elaborate that much but the gameplay is changed quite a bit, there’s juggles like in Guardian Heroes and special SF2-style moves, elaborate grab mechanics, dedicated pick-up button so that you can punch things while holding an item so as to not waste it if you don’t want to and all sorts of mechanics etc. He even wrote his own pixel shader.
Really it’s way too insane of a list to keep track of. I’ve been following his updates on youtube for a long while. Very outspoken and a bit of a nutty boomer and goes off on hilarious rants… that said the work he put on this over the years is just ridiculous.
Crazy thing is that he still updates it from time to time, the built-in retroarch shaders was one of the last updates he did a few weeks/months ago. Now he’s working on a Samurai Shodown 2 port with the same engine, only this time around he said that unlike with Final Fight, he will stay faithful to the original gameplay.
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I really didn’t get that from that one photo. Haven’t you seen good CRT Shader Photos or CRT vs good CRT Shader comparisons?
…and the interesting thing about that photo is that it it showing the output of a CRT Shader running on a CRT, so how can you tell which one it’s desirable qualities are coming from?
Take a look at some of these photos:
https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/v5lm5FLGvh
https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/Rrlp0IUqru
https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/rXd5s5Q5SE
@Cyber I meant the brightness, the colors and the subtle glow effect
The phosphor detail a little bit too
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The lack of scanlines and masks is a good point, I hadn’t realized that. So you’re saying that Windows is overcompensating for the darker game image and blowing out the brightness/colors of the overlay as a result? I’ve been using Vulkan as the default driver for everything with this PC already by the way, but I admit that I don’t entirely understand the difference between that and the other options.
I was able to get some of the “no reflections” presets (both standard Mega Bezel and CyberLab presets) to work with the Duimon bezels after my last post, but I didn’t care for the game’s look compared to the HDR-specific presets. Depending on whether I turned on the HDR setting in RA or turned it off and used auto-HDR from Windows instead, the colors were either too saturated or too washed out for me. I got similar results with the other non-HDR CyberLab presets I tried. I could try them again with HDR turned off entirely, but the bezel designs weren’t a big enough leap in quality compared to the basic overlay bezels (especially without reflections turned on) to make it worth fiddling with the settings since I had already found an HDR preset that I liked.
I think this is the way forward for me. I was able to compensate for it a little bit by lowering the opacity of the overlays in RetroArch, but that only helps so much. Plus it looks weird when you could see the corners of the game image peeking through the edges of the fake TV.
- The product page lists the RAM as “Dual DDR5 Channel (SODIMM Slots×2, Up to 5600MHz, Max 64GB)”.
- I don’t expect cooling is the issue since it takes a while for the heat to build and the thermal throttling to kick in on this PC and the reflection shaders make the framerate drop immediately.
- I’m using a 4k HDR non-OLED display from TCL. I’ve already been editing the shader parameters to match. Again, I guess I could try lowering the resolution or turning off HDR to get better performance, but I’d also be surprised if I preferred those results to the 4k HDR presets I’ve already got running.
Sorry I meant to drop the product link earlier with the additional specs but I forgot while taking screenshots:
Also sorry for the delay and the out-of-order replies earlier. Apparently my account is still too new and requires mod approval for every post.
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It’s not that Windows is overcompensating. It is that we are trying to compensate for sending a very dark overall image to the screen by using a brute force method to extract as much brightness as possible from the display.
The overlays are not a part of that darkened image so they must be darkened to match or they will end up overly brightened.
You’re doing too much without providing valuable feedback with photos of the screen and settings. How am I supposed to assist if we can’t go through this step by step? I’m not able to visualize and process all this at once in my head.
So you do something and it looks washed out, there’s a reason for that. It would be nice to know what preset you tried, and stuff like that to guide you as to what’s the next step.
The most important thing to remember is that you have to adjust your Peak and your Paper White Luminance values.
Unless you’re doing external Tonemapping, HDR always needs to be enabled in RetroArch Video Settings.
If using a Sony Megatron preset, HDR also needs to be enabled in the Shader Parameters of the Preset itself and you have to adjust the Peak and Paper White Luminance from in the Shader Parameters of the Preset itself.
If you’re using any other shader you they won’t have Peak and Paper White Luminance settings so you’ll have to adjust those settings from the RetroArch Settings–»Video–»HDR menu.
So once you understand this, let me know and we can take it from there. For now, you need to stick with one preset or preset pack and get that to work before going all over the place…
Have you looked up your TV on RTINGS or other review sites to determine its Peak Luminance yet?
Sorry, I glossed over the details because there’s been a 24-48h delay between each of our replies to each other so it’s hard to remember the exact details I’ve tried in the last few days. I’ve figured out how to lift the requirement for all of my posts to be approved by an admin though so that shouldn’t be a problem anymore.
I also didn’t want to waste your time with the details since I decided they were irrelevant to my needs by then anyways. I was just trying to briefly report my findings after trying your suggestions, even though the results appeared to be a dead-end for what I’m looking for myself. The use of either RA’s HDR setting or Windows’ auto-HDR wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped when combined with non-HDR presets because of the effect on the color saturation. Even though I didn’t have the time or knowledge to know exactly why that’s the case or how to fix it, I still thought that could be valuable knowledge for the help thread.
The only reason I was jumping around was so I could better understand my options between different preset packs before fully committing to a single system and dialing in those settings for every single console and core in Retroarch. I didn’t go into details with my Mega Bezel experiments because I was already happy with my configuration of your 4k HDR Megatron presets (including the shader parameters for peak luminance, paper white luminance, sub-pixel layout, screen resolution, CRT resolution, and HDR, most of the details found by following the Retro Crisis video guides) and I didn’t see any of those non-HDR preset packs providing enough of an advantage over my current settings after briefly checking them out. Spending the time required to troubleshoot the oversaturated/washed out colors didn’t seem worth it to me.
Really the only issue I had left was the blown-out overlay bezels, but it sounds like editing the PNGs to compensate is the easiest solution for that. That’s just a matter of trial-and-error, something I can easily handle on my own. Sorry if my rambling didn’t make that clear in my last post and thank you again for the help and advice, and of course for your hard work on making these presets and sharing them with all of us as well.
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Okay but oversaturated/washed out colours is not surprising if you just slap HDR onto a preset that’s optimized for SDR.
So the trick is to reset most of the brightness enhancements first, for example Post CRT Brightness, Gamma_C, Brightness Boost, get your Peak Luminance, Paper White Luminance and Contrast dialed in in the RetroArch Settings–»Video–»HDR menu then adjust your Saturation.
Most of my Mega Bezel Presets are geared towards viewing from a distance so if that’s not your cup of tea, they might benefit further from a slight reduction in NTSC Resolution Scale.
I have some guides outlining how I went about converting some of my presets to HDR. Have you read those? You can also take example from my new 4K HDR Presets added to Mega Bezel by comparing what’s different from their non-HDR optimized counterparts.
The Peak and Paper White Luminance values you set in the RetroArch Settings–»Video–»HDR menu could be the same that you use for the HDR presets you have working now. You might just have to use the 240p Test Suite or a game that you’re familiar with to dial in the Contrast value.
Remember these are my Peak and Paper White Luminance settings. You have to replace then with what works best with your display.
Actually there’s another way. You can use Mega Bezel to load your overlays then you’ll have access to all Mega Bezel’s on the fly image adjustment settings including adjusting the Gamma and Brightness of your overlays and all of this can be done non-destructively.
There are examples of how to load backgrounds in Mega Bezel in my MBZ__3__Standard_Full_Reflections_CyberLab_Special_Edition folder.
You can also open one of Duimon’s presets or read over some of the last few posts on the Mega Bezel thread where Duimon recently explained a simple method of loading overlays in Mega Bezel Reflection Shader.
Lastly, Mega Bezel Reflection Shader also includes Base Presets which leverage the Sony Megatron Color Video Monitor shader so you can have it all with the benefit of the low performance requirements of Sony Megatron Color Video Monitor.
I know it’s a lot and I’ll try to add further examples and useful links but it’s definitely worth it to get things setup exactly how you want them.
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Alright so I just tried to combine Mega Bezel (without reflections), Duimon’s built-in bezels, and the Megatron base shader preset. I followed your most recent suggestions on how to accomplish that while configuring everything for HDR output, using quite a few of the very helpful comments embedded throughout Duimon’s presets as well, but I’m running into a few roadblocks. I think mostly I’m just missing the exact parameters I’m supposed to inject into the preset chain.
Here’s what I’ve accomplished so far:
- Customized
LITE_Bezel.slangpin Duimon’szzz_global_paramsfolder. Now all of the[Guest-Mini]-[Bezel]presets in theLITEfolder point towardsMBZ__4__STD-NO-REFLECT__MEGATRON-NTSC.slangpinstead of one of theGDV-MINIpresets. - I edited
zzz_global_params/Shader/LITE/user_Bezel.paramsto point towards a new file namedSDR-to-HDR_TCL55.params. This new params file is saved next tono_scanlines_or_mask.params, the file which is used as an example in the comments insideuser_Bezel.params. This is where I have all of my custom shader parameters saved for optimizing the base Megatron Preset for 4k HDR.
The two edits above should allow me to more easily apply these same custom parameters across all of Duimon’s relevant presets. I’ve already tested this method and it appears to be working, no broken relative filepaths or anything.
This is what I have so far in SDR-to-HDR_TCL55.params:
// Suggested settings from Cyber:
post_br = "1.000000"
// Bright Boost Bright Pixels - 1.10
// Bright Boost Dark Pixels - 1.40
gamma_c = "1.000000"
HSM_GLOBAL_GRAPHICS_BRIGHTNESS = "40.000000"
HSM_STATIC_LAYERS_GAMMA = "0.620000"
// Saturation - (Increase by +0.31)
// Also set all Afterglow and Persistence settings to 0.00
PR = “0.000000”
PG = “0.000000”
PB = “0.000000”
AS = “0.000000”
sat = “0.000000”
// To fix Shadowmask Presets (Only for Mega Bezel 1.15.0 or higher)
mshift = “1.000000”
// For a little extra brightness
gsl = “0.000000”
maskstr = “0.950000”
// Megatron HDR settings
hcrt_hdr = "1.000000"
hcrt_max_nits = "840.000000"
hcrt_paper_white_nits = "500.000000"
hcrt_expand_gamut = "1.000000"
hcrt_lcd_subpixel = "2.000000"
hcrt_crt_resolution = "2.000000"
As you can see from lines I commented out, I can’t find the right syntax for adjusting Bright Boost Bright Pixels, Bright Boost Dark Pixels, and Graphics(?) Saturation. So far I’ve also just copied the Peak and Paper White Luminance values I was using earlier. The same values are also currently saved and active in Retroarch’s settings. I haven’t tried dialing in the contrast value yet or adjusting any of the settings for the bezel.
The colors in the game already look pretty good with these settings, though a bit darker overall compared to the Cyberlab Megatron 4k HDR preset I had already configured. Obviously I’m not too worried about that at the moment since I’m still just trying to establish a baseline. A few things are bothering me though, but with the laundry list of Mega Bezel parameters to adjust I’m not sure where to start:
- When my character moves and the game image scrolls, I notice a flickering effect in a few small areas of the game, particularly along rough edges in the game’s artwork where one color meets another. I think this is the “shimmer” I’ve seen mentioned before caused by issues with non-integer scaling? It’s a relatively subtle effect, but it definitely isn’t present in the Cyberlab Megatron HDR preset I was using before. It’s particularly visible in Super Mario RPG (SNES) along the edges of the dirt paths. I tried to capture it with a screen recording and with my phone’s camera, but it wasn’t visible on either.
- Similarly, compared to the basic bezel overlays I was using earlier from OrionsAngel, the amount the game image needs to be shrunk down to accommodate the wide frame of the fake CRT is a bit too much for me, especially since that extra space is wasted without reflections turned on. Again, I also suspect that difference in scaling is causing the flicker/shimmer effect.
If those two issues are related like I suspect, then I see two ways of fixing it. Either I replace Duimon’s bezels with OrionsAngel’s, or I adjust the shader settings to make Duimon’s bezels larger. However both solutions would also require adjusting the scaling of the game itself, not just the bezel around it. It sounds like replacing Duimon’s bezel with another is easy enough but I don’t know where to start with changing the game’s scaling within Mega Bezel.
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I can see that you’ve misunderstood my SDR to HDR tips and maybe it’s my fault for providing too many options or solutions in the same post.
While I’m glad you made some progress you might have ultimately entangled yourself even further which is the opposite of what I was trying to do. This is partly because you are trying to do more than one new thing at the same time.
One is getting HDR to work while using Mega Bezel and the other is loading your background using Mega Bezel so that you can lower the Brightness/Gamma once HDR is applied.
I gave you a few methods and examples to go about both, but instead of following one of the examples, you’ve managed to intertwine and combine bits of all of them. Now what you have is a hybrid of a hydra and a Frankenstein and this is not what I had in mind at all.
My SDR to HDR Conversion Tips are shader specific. Even more so they are specific to the Shader Preset Packs which they refer to.
My Mega Bezel tips are for my Mega Bezel Preset Pack only, While my CRT Royale SDR to HDR Conversion tips are for my CRT-Royale preset pack only. Those are both preset packs geared towards SDR displays so they are the ones which need steps to be applied in order for them to look good in HDR.
None of them are for use with the Mega Bezel Sony Megatron Base preset. Those things are not needed for that because it is already HDR ready and I haven’t any presets using that Mega Bezel Base Preset.
I also provided a link to a preset I made using the Mega Bezel Sony Megatron Base Preset which you could have used as an example if you wanted. That is more for standalone use and was a completely different example/solution. You could have used that to get HDR working in Mega Bezel and have Sony Megatron working at the same time then followed the examples in Duimon’s or my post or preset packs or my preset packs to load your background.
Let me know if you understand up to this point.
Also you have to make up your mind if you’re going to use Duimon’s backgrounds or your own.
Duimon’s boiler plate guidelines are a completely different rabbit hole. Now you’re just adding different recipes together in an attempt to make one dish. The only thing I referred you to Duimon’s post was so that you’ll get an idea of a simple method of loading a background, without having to worry about paths.
My method, based on the examples in my preset pack would need you to use the proper paths to locate your graphics.
So those are two methods to accomplish the same thing, loading a background. You only needed to choose one.
So please go back and restate what it is you need to accomplish and set about doing that one step at a time.
Getting HDR in Mega Bezel is one step. I gave you 2 Methods - use my regular mega bezel preset pack and follow the SDR to HDR conversion steps or use the Sony Megatron Mega Bezel Base preset, for which I provided an example preset.
The other step is loading your backgrounds. I gave you several methods to do this. One was using the advice in Duimon’s post and the other was using the example from my Mega Bezel presets with my own graphics/backgrounds.
You could have also used Duimon’s preset pack itself as an example or template for loading your own backgrounds.
So keep it simple accomplish both goals one step at a time. Take it slowly and seek advice before going to far down the rabbit hole.
This is because those settings in my SDR to HDR conversion guide were not for the Mega Bezel Sony Megatron Base Preset, they were for my Mega Bezel preset pack only.
If you do go the Mega Bezel Sony Megatron Base Preset route, you don’t have to worry about the Peak Luminance, Paper White Luminance or Contrast in Settings–>Video–>HDR except HDR being turned On.
You will be entering Peak and Paper White Luminance values in Shader Parameters instead.
The only time you’re using the Peak and Paper White Luminance or Contrast values in the Settings–>Video–>HDR menu is when you’re dealing with non-HDR shaders or using an HDR preset in non-HDR mode.
This is probably because Mega Bezel uses an older version of the Sony Megatron shader. You can use the preset example I posted in the Mega Bezel thread as a starting point.
I have no idea. With no visual cues or aides I’m even more at a loss as to what’s going on.
My advice, use my Mega Bezel Preset Pack or Duimon’s Mega Bezel Preset Pack with SDR to HDR conversion tips.
Or, use the Mega Bezel Sony Megatron Preset I posted or just the stock base preset, load your graphics and start over from there.
Mega Bezel gives you the power to adjust these things and Duimon has several options at different screen sizes/zoom levels to choose from in some of his presets.
I almost forgot to mention, I even provided a new 4K HDR folder in my latest Mega Bezel Preset Pack which takes all of the guess work out of converting SDR presets to HDR presets. That would also be a great starting point. For those you would setup your Peak and Paper White Luminance as well as Contrast in the Settings–»Video–»HDR menu.
Once you have those loaded, you can then try to get your background loaded.
The only thing is that your hardware may or may not be powerful enough for those presets without some modification of the base presets.
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Honestly it didn’t take me that long so no big deal and I was mostly fiddling with the Mega Bezel stuff again to try to better understand what it was you were suggesting I try, which clearly I still failed to grasp. It was really just replacing a few relative paths and copy/pasting parameters from one preset to another. I backed up all the default folders before trying anything too so it’s quickly and easily reversed as well.
I spent a lot more time trying to chase down a weird bug in Windows that was disabling HDR entirely, but that’s a completely different story. Turns out it was actually a bug in my TCL TV that only took like two seconds to fix once I finally diagnosed the cause.
Frankly I think I’m back to what I was trying to say a few days ago. I already had a couple of the Cyberlab Megatron 4k HDR presets dialed in to a place I’m already happy with and had my sights on customizing them for each core/console. The only issue left was the effect HDR had on the basic overlay bezels I’m trying to use at the same time which was why I came here. The only reason I mentioned trying Mega Bezel was because I was curious how those shaders and bezels compared to what I started with, but I’d already abandoned that idea after it looked like it would take too much work to bend those default configurations to what I needed.
I thought your previous post was suggesting ways to either migrate or approximate those same settings inside Duimon’s Mega Bezel environment in order to gain better control over the bezel’s display settings since that was really the only problem I had left to address. I was game to try since Duimon’s and OrionsAngel’s designs are so similar to each other (are they both based on the same initial art assets for each console?) that I had no strong preference of one over the other. Whichever bezel collection was easier to configure and extend across Retroarch would be fine by me.
Since that wasn’t what you were suggesting and I still don’t understand how switching from the standalone Cyberlab presets to the Mega Bezel / Duimon presets would help me, I’m just planning to stick with the Cyberlab settings I’ve already found and taking your earlier advice to just toss OrionsAngel’s overlay PNGs into an image editor and see what a few quick brightness/gamma adjustments will get me.
The way I see it, I could try going back to the SDR to HDR conversion settings for Mega Bezel using the links you helpfully tracked down for me earlier, but then I’d have to do the basic configuration of the shader all over again, figure out how to expand the size of the game screen inside the bezel (all of the alternate bezel presets made the game smaller than the default, not larger), and possibly diagnose the weird flickering/shimmering effect if it’s still present under the new settings. And even then, there’s no guarantee I would like the shader results as well as the Cyberlab Megatron presets I’ve already configured. All of which is to say that it still sounds like switching to Duimon’s bezels would be more work than editing a handful of PNGs, not less, which is what I had already assumed a few days ago.
This is the part I’m still not clear on. How would either of these methods be functionally different from loading the same bezels as Retroarch overlays? Will loading them as part of the shader instead prevent them from being distorted by the HDR settings? Or will one of these methods allow me to compensate for the distortion some other way? Otherwise I’m not sure how they would be any easier or better than editing the PNGs manually.
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They will load automatically when you load the shader preset.
You will be able to use all of Mega Bezel’s resizing, lighting, colouring and other on the fly, real-time graphics editing functions, as well as apply reflections to the bezel/background overlay you’re using.
You would be able to very easily compensate for the brightening caused by HDR with 2 simple parameters which you can include in your shader preset.
HSM_GLOBAL_GRAPHICS_BRIGHTNESS = "40.000000"
HSM_STATIC_LAYERS_GAMMA = "0.620000"
You wouldn’t have to interfere with the actual PNG files at all using the Mega Bezel Method.
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