@Cyber gotta tell you, that Arcade Sharp preset makes one of my favorite arcade games from the 90’s look darn nice
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Thanks for the positive feedback! I’m glad you’re enjoying my shader presets! Expressions like these go a long way towards fueling my motivation to do even more and to do even better!
Yes, detailed tutorials/guides with screenshots and/or videos can go a long way in demystifying this stuff and making it even more accessible. I had a video tutorial up which covered the installation but it’s now outdated due to changes in the shader.
Time is quite limited these days and if I had to choose between making a video and improving my shader presets sadly most of the time I would choose the latter. These latest preset are a complete overhaul of what was there before so in the process things would have probably been broken in my 1080p and 1440p Optimized presets. I addressed the 1080p Optimized presets in my most recent update and 1440p should soon follow.
What resolution display are you running? 4K is where the real magic takes place! Remember to share these with others so that more may benefit.
Thanks a lot @Neofuuma! I try my best. This is just the first iteration of this complete overhaul of my classic presets (well almost complete since I deliberately left my RGB - Sharp preset untouched for anyone who still wants to hold onto the previous look).
Once I get my 1440p Optimized presets out of the way, it should just be about fine tuning. I also see that you’re hitting that magical 60fps with full reflections! Good things come to those who wait. I didn’t even expect to get such an improvement out of these after I was finished with my Computer Monitor presets. Now they’re already like old news but very important old news that helped me to reach to this point. I already have some ideas for what I want to do next so stay tuned, enjoy and remember to share this with others so they can benefit!
By the way, you might want to take a look at your Crop/Zoom settings. Did you take a bit too much off the top there?
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That was with no playing around with any settings, so not sure what’s going on there I’ll have to take a peek.
Yes, even on the advanced preset, I was hitting 60 fps with most things I put at it. Even if I’m just on a 42" TV and at 1080, it’s still very nice looking.
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Can’t wait to see how you want to improve on this shader, because it’s already so freaking good. I really do appreciate your work, so keep it going! I was constantly tinkering around with different shaders, trying to find just the right one with just the right setting, but this is it. I’m going to use this one for pretty much all of my systems that i got set up so far. Only thing that i’m still tinkering with are the bezels. I finally managed to change them as well, thanks to your instruction.
My Tekken aspect ration issue is solved as well btw, thanks. In terms of the brightness, i think i’ll just keep it as is. It’s only really an issue during daytime when the sun’s out. I’m playing on an LG C9 btw, so that is probably part of why i thought it was a little dim during the day. I agree, 4k is were the magic happens, but i tried the 1440p preset on my PC monitor and it looked pretty fantastic as well. Once i get a little more time on my hands i’ll probably gonna sit down and write a click-by-click tutorial on this.
I got another question relating to the Nintendo DS. Do you think there’s a way of making your shader work with it? I tried the side by side mode and it seems to scale the scanline grid to the scale of the small screen, so basically the scanlines and the whole CRT effect becomes less noticable. You see some of it, but sitting a little further away almost makes it appear as if no shader is activated. For some reason it works a little better using the top/down orientation, but that is making the screens to small for my liking. Did you ever fumble around with DS emulation by any chance and got some pointers on how to best go about using your shader with it? What core would be best to use and some general settings that might be important?
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Every 2 - 4 weeks I say this myself then come out with a complete overhaul like this set. Previously it was my Computer Monitor presets and prior to that it was De’Ja’Vu with the presets that resemble my Current RGB-Sharp PVM Edition preset. It’s been a very hectic 6 months since.
Thank you very much for your support and taking your time to share such positive sentiments.
I’ve never emulated DS but some have had success mixing my older 1440p presets on 4K screen resolution for handhelds so you can try the 1440p RGB Sharp Preset. Other than that, that’s a challenge for the future and you can probably look into @Duimon’s excellent work on handheld shaders using LCD Shader Presets.
If you replace the reference shader in my preset, with Cyber’s and then adjust the [CORE RES SAMPLING] >>> Opposie Dir Multiplier,
it will look correct. The parameter setting will depend on your internal resolution. (I am using 2x native.)
Because of differences in Cyber’s parameters and mine, you will also have to turn off integer scale in the [CRT SCREEN SCALING] parameters section.
This method should work for any time the details get too small.
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This is what you’ll see if you stick your nose up to the screen using my new and improved for 2022 CyberLab Composite - Sharp PVM Edition Shader Preset! Just zoom in and bask in the everglow of those RGB “phosphor” triads!
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I’m going to be straightforward: I don’t like the new composite sharp pwm preset. It’s darker than previous preset, it’s “grainy” (especially on a big screen), and it just doesn’t look right.
In your preset those “phosphor triads” are basically squares, and with very large black empty spaces between them too. From a distance it looks like really low res early LCD screen (like a GBA screen or something).
Here is an example of extreme close-up on my Sony Trinitron CRT for comparison:
Again, I don’t mean to be rude. I tried your presets recently (after the post on emu reddit), and I was blown away. I think that this should be a new preset entirely. Your previous composite sharp pwm presets were perfect in my opinion.
And here are same screens I posted on reddit with your previous preset: https://imgur.com/a/rOGHa2p (imgur album). Sure, it doesn’t have those “triads”, but IMHO they look so much better and more “authenthic” from a distance. Again, here are a couple of pictures of my CRT from a viewing distance:
If you want the previous look, you can use my RGB Sharp PVM Edition Preset. I left that one intact for those who prefer that look. Also, you’re free to keep using the previous version as long as it remains compatible.
Yeah, I know, my point is that new preset looks so much different that it should be called something new.
We’d have to agree to disagree on that one. My presets have always been constantly evolving. What if I told you that this is what it was supposed to evolve into all along and that it was just on the journey to what it is now and that they are all still evolving as long as I decide to keep working on them?
At this point I don’t see a need to change the name and I also don’t see a need to add or keep all of my old presets in the same package. One style will just be the old version with whatever date matches the package and going forward this version is just the current version with whatever date is attached to it.
I think you might be a bit confused by the way I do things. The names of or even the design goals for my presets don’t really have much to do with any particular electronics manufacturer’s products.
Everything is all based on whatever is in my mind at the time. I design and create what works and looks good for me on my setup and I share it here so that others can experience what I experience if they so desire.
I do welcome and take feedback into consideration though so I have noted your points. Remember this is all subjective so while some may prefer the old look to this one, the opposite might also be true and one thing I’ve learned in life is that you can’t please everyone.
Besides changing the names, is there anything specific that I can do or share with you in order for you to continue to have a wonderful experience with the preset styles that you prefer?
It’s really very simple to get from one style back to the other and vice versa in terms of settings changes. This might actually be a great opportunity for you to wet your feet and start to do some preset development and tweaking of your own. I only started this about 6 months ago.
So, if you would like to experiment and get things back the way they were, the settings are available in the old presets if you still have them. You might need to alter some settings to maintain compatibility with the current and newer versions of HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader.
You can just lower the mask strength and reset the scanline settings to default by clicking start on each of the parameters. The only other thing you might want to change is the Signal Resolution Y and possibly also I to whatever was in the previous versions.
It’s really quite simple and you can save whatever customization you come up with as whatever you feel like calling it.
So I am here to assist you to get things as close as possible to where you want them but I reserve the right to maintain full creative control, direction as well as creative license in the way I express myself, package and produce my works.
I can understand your passion though, especially since you used the term “perfect” to describe my presets but I would prefer a softer approach in the future when addressing these types of issues that can be so easily resolved.
When @guest.r or @HyperspaceMadness madness makes a change to their shaders that affect my presets negatively, I usually take a very humble, respectful and gentle approach towards getting things back the way they were or understanding what the underlying differences may be before moving forward. If you want to be a custodian of my old presets just let me know. It’s really not hard to do things like this as these are just settings but they are settings based on someone’s subjective and in some cases objective vision of how something should be or what something means to them.
I’m glad to know that my work could actually touch someone’s emotions to this point and believe it or not, this is the type of feeling and energy that I am getting from my new presets. Do know that they are very new and are still undergoing testing and tweaking.
One thing I’d like to add is that I run my OLED Light at 95 out of 100 and my LED backlight at 100 out of 100. So if you have an OLED with your backlight set to 70 out of 100, it’s no surprise that my new presets will look darker to you.
If you readup on all of the “Accurate” CRT threads in these forums you’ll see that almost all of the projects and presets require HDR for the extra brightness required to push the full mask and scanlines. No one complains about brightness or dark presets in those threads and they are all aiming for realistic simulation.
Another thing that seems apparent from your post is that your viewing distance to screen size ratio might be a bit different to mine. Maybe if you have a large screen, you might want to try viewing from a further distance if possible because in my viewing environment, even without superior OLED tech that Shadow Of The Beast example in live gameplay is simply magical. Even Super Mario Bros. is a sight to behold for me.
So for your sake, you can just pretend I renamed my Old CyberLab Composite - Sharp PVM Edition preset to CyberLab RGB - Sharp PVM Edition, apply the same tweaks you already had from before and you should be good to go! RGB Sharp is just supposed to be a cleaner, sharper version of the old Composite - Sharp.
Alternatively, you can also try my 1080p Optimized Presets even though you’re using a 4K display.
Thanks for your continued support and patronage.
Hey Cyber, you’ve already answered and kept me up to date on reddit and here. Just wanted to tell you about an observation that I’ve made. I’ve always loved your presets but felt something odd like an rainbow effect on the mask effect when using my LED display. I had never tested it on my VGA CRT, I tested it this week and was amazed how PERFECT they look. I’ve already told you how I love the composite pure presets but now I can see what all presets where made to look like. I don’t know if it is the pure black of the scan lines (the same screenshot looks amazing on both my VGA CRT and on my AMOLED mobile) or if it is that my TV’s have a too bright black.
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Thanks, I’m glad you enjoy my presets. You can’t really judge these or any presets properly from screenshots but especially presets with full strength mask and scanlines.
If you post a screenshot and the full name of the preset or presets in question, it might help me to understand what you’re describing better.
You can even take a close-up of the screen itself from a side angle.
I wouldn’t mind getting a couple pics of that VGA CRT in action too but that’s kinda cheating isn’t it? It already has a Shadow Mask and all of the CRT dynamics.
You can feel free to elaborate on this “odd like rainbow effect issue” as I want to better understand what’s going on with your LED display. It could be something intentional or it could even be something unintentional that I didn’t mind at all. It could also be due to differences in the RGB subpixel arrangement between your LED display and mine and also differences in display calibration.
Also, don’t forget to try my latest update!
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I would think that the dot pitch on a VGA CRT would be plenty small to show a 240p CRT shader. I need to get that set up to see what it looks like. (Maybe when the weather gets warmer.)
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The saturation and warmth of the colors looks really different in the pictures even though they look similar in real life, I really don’t know a lot about cameras ISO’s and capturing CRT pictures but the effect I’ve quoeted is clear in those picures. The less saturated one is the CRT
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They are both using CyberLab__Composite-Sharp__1080p__PVM-Edition__ADV but it happens across all presets.
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I’m also adding some pictures of screenshots when using CyberLab__Composite-Sharp__1080p__PVM-Edition__ADV as I think they, as screenshots, better shows how the shaders change when just changing from screen to screen. Just to quote again, that the colors on the CRT pictures looks really greenish and less saturated than IRL and their collors looks closer, if not better, than the LED ones. Using CyberLab__Composite-Sharp__1080p__PVM-Edition__ADV and the only alteration was CRT Compare = ON
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Thanks for sharing. I still am not really understanding the issue you were describing about the odd rainbow effect on the mask effect when using the LED display.
Of course differences in calibration, display panel and display technology can reveal differences in the output of the presets.
I’ll have to run through my presets on some different screens and see if I can see what you’re describing.
Are both your LED display and your CRT calibrated? Do they normally show the same colours and colour temperature? If not you can try calibrating.
This is the output on my 4K LED TV @ 1080p using my latest CyberLab Composite - Sharp 1080p PVM Edition preset.
Looks pretty neutral to me.
If you look at the colours in both of your A/B comparisons you’ll notice that in the first image both the original and filtered are warm and the colours look similar to my eyes, while both the original and filtered sides of image #2 have the same extra cool, greenish tint. I would advise calibrating your displays to your liking.
I think many here use the 240p Test Suite ROMs.
As for the odd rainbow effect you’re speaking about, is it those vertical bands that can be seen in all of your images using my presets on your LED display that you’re talking about?
If so, there can be so many different variables causing that, I’m not even sure where to start. It could very well be that a few adjustments to your display and maybe display driver settings might make all of that disappear.
Are you sure all of your HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader required RetroArch settings are correct? Especially Aspect Ratio - Full and Integer Scale - Off? I have my TV set to Game Mode and Aspect Ratio on my TV is set to Just Scan and my Input is labelled PC.
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Hi Guys,
New user here. 
I recently discovered this exceptionelly awesome shader preset pack. Kudos to “Cyber”, “HSM”, and all the other kind people who made, and shared this pro work.
I switched to this preset pack from the CRT_Royale_XM29+ which also looks very good IMO, but these presets just looks a little “softer/more authentic” on the eyes to me.
I have 2 questions I hope people can help me with?
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Is it possible to remove the bezel artwork from the shader? Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s fucking dope to be able to see in-game reflections on the bezel. The reason I would like to remove it though, is to get more screen real-estate. The aspect ratio and everything is top notch, but of course when applying a bezel the in-game area itself becomes smaller. Is it possible to use all the shading parameters, and just remove the bezel artwork?
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Would you guys (primarily the ones who helped create this package) be willing to share your personal different presets for systems like SNES, Genesis, NES, Neo-Geo, CPS1/2 etc?
Again, thank you all for creating this. It really looks damn excellent.
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