I tried the new Arcade Sharp PVM Edition and now, I cannot decide if I prefer it or the old 1440p preset, both look great even if they look different. I like the small amount of blurryness of the 1440p preset, and I also like the sharpness of the PVM preset.
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Those are nice problems to have! Did you notice the Arcade Sharp 1440p PVM Edition as well in there?
For me, I can’t go back…lol
When I put on a game like The Simpsons and compare the outlines, the new preset really does a much better job. If you go back and forth you’ll see. For games that use a lot more shading and darker colours or more realistic graphics, I can understand your dilemma. Lol
It also depends on how close you sit to and the size of your screen. At a distance the older preset can hold its own but at point blank you can now notice the softness (some might say blurriness) compared to the new one.
I always wanted to have my text look sharp and legible especially in title screens like the Samurai Showdown III title screen, the area signs in Bonk’s Revenge and also the impressive white text on that deep green background in the title screen of Nekketsu Kōkō Dodgeball Bu: Soccer Hen and these new presets achieve that!
The good thing is the “Old” Arcade Sharp preset isn’t going anywhere any time soon so the option is always there to mix and match. The real reason these new presets actually came about was because for some reason I preferred the look of Super Mario World and Super Mario Kart with sharp, detailed outlines and text. Any visible smoothing looked strange to me and thus the RGB Sharp and RGB Raw presets were born and well the rest is history!
I’m really glad you’re enjoying them! Now I just have to find some time to play some games! Maybe I should take a break from preset development for a while. Lol
You know you can also try out my Composite - Sharp PVM Edition preset as an alternative to my Arcade - Sharp PVM Edition and my “old” Arcade - Sharp presets. It sits right in the middle. Not quite as sharp as the Arcade - Sharp PVM Edition preset but only slightly, yet sharper than my “old” Arcade - Sharp preset!
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Hi, just wanted to share some additional information concerning controlling the pixelation on the graphics in some Dreamcast games which wasn’t being removed by the ScaleFX algorithm in my presets.
Take a read of this post here and the responses. I’m glad I took a break and didn’t waste even more time and energy trying to get things to be smoothed beyond what I had already achieved. Now that I have some more information I know where I have to focus my attention on and what level to set my expectations on going forward when it comes to that.
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Hey guys, what would be the best option for pre-rendered background PSX games for 1080p? (I will definetely try each one but would love to see opinions from people that already tried/know this shader preset better)
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This is all subjective but you can try Composite - Sharp PVM Edition preset first. If you want things to be softer than that, then the Composite - Sharp 1080p edition preset.
Alternatively you can try the Arcade - Sharp PVM Edition, the Arcade - Sharp 1080p or the RGB - Sharp PVM or RGB - Sharp 1080p Edition presets.
Hope this helps. Feel free to post some screenshots if you like the presets and spread the word!
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These are cellphone camera photos of my 4K IPS TV using my CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels (Arcade - Sharp PVM Edition) preset!
Hats off to @guest.r and @HyperspaceMadness !!!
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I’m using it with just few tweks. Thank you!
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Posting this here at @Cyber’s request
Pushing mask strength as high as it can go, here- the sub-pixel detail is amazing. The post-CRT brightness setting and gamma adjustment makes it really easy to compensate for lost brightness without throwing the colors off too much.
Looks acceptable on a 400 nit IPS, really shines on my iPhone with ~600 nits.
(screenshots will appear absurdly dark if not viewed at original size)
Here are the settings.
#reference "shaders_slang/bezel/Mega_Bezel/Presets/Experimental/Nesguy/Nesguy__Aperture__Low-TVL__Mask-7__Dbl-Phosphor-Width__N0.slangp"
HSM_INT_SCALE_MODE = "1.000000"
HSM_INT_SCALE_BORDER_MIN_HEIGHT = "0.000000"
HSM_NON_INTEGER_SCALE = "100.169739"
HSM_CURVATURE_MODE = "-1.000000"
HSM_GAMMA_IN_LINEARIZE = "2.399999"
HSM_GAMMA_OUT_CRT = "1.900001"
HSM_POST_CRT_BRIGHTNESS = "500.000000"
HSM_TUBE_BLACK_EDGE_CURVATURE_SCALE = "1000.000000"
g_gamma_out = "2.550000"
g_crtgamut = "0.000000"
g_vignette = "0.000000"
wp_temperature = "6504.000000"
WP = "-100.000000"
glow = "0.005000"
brightboost = "1.000000"
brightboost1 = "1.000000"
gsl = "1.000000"
beam_max = "1.500000"
vertmask = "0.200000"
h_sharp = "4.500000"
shadowMask = "0.000000"
maskstr = "1.000000"
mcut = "1.000000"
masksize = "1.000000"
mask_gamma = "2.399999"
mclip = "0.000000"
decons = "-0.000000"
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Thanks a mil. I’m sure these settings might help some users who pass through in the future! Why don’t you open a thread with just your personal presets, screenshots and recommendations?
I noticed that the screenshot is 1600 x 1200. Is that the optimal resolution for using these settings?
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Wow, the non-integer scale scanlines are so good now that I didn’t catch that. Ideally it should be 1494x1120 at 1080p, though.
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Well I’m too new around these parts of the forum to remember when they didn’t look so good so I’ll take your word for it that they’ve improved quite a bit. Lol
So are you saying that a user should set a custom resolution of 1494 x 1120 in RetroArch while using a screen or desktop resolution of 1080p? I’m not sure I fully understand what you have in mind.
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Yep, exactly that. This is only true for games/systems that use 224 horizontal lines, though. For games that use 240 lines, a custom resolution of 1600x1200 can be used. The amount that gets cropped in either case is outside of the safe area for CRTs. 5x vertical scale makes a big difference with the scanline beam dynamics.
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Wow! Thanks for sharing your knowledge! Great tip!
I’m now wondering what would work for 480p content and also what custom resolution would be best if using a 1440p or 4K screen. I have try to fully understand this.
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With 480p content you can only go up to a vertical resolution of 960 before you crop way too much (assuming a 1080p screen)
1920 x 1440 works perfectly for 480p content on a 1440p screen.
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Noob question: Where can I set this custom resolution and how can I know how many horizontal lines a game/system is using?
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One way you can see the horizontal resolution a game is using is by going into Shader Parameters and turning on Show Resolution Info. It’s the first parameter.
Custom Resolutions can be set in Settings…Video…Fullscreen Mode
But Windowed Fullscreen Mode would need to be turned off for these settings to have any effect.
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You’re welcome! I’m glad you’re enjoying my presets. Feel free to share your tweaks and some screenshots!
Thanks, I changed the Resolutions in Fullscreen Mode to 1496x1120 and disabled the Windowed Fullscreen Mode. But now when I try to go fullscreen, it doesn’t cover the whole screen.
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This is something I don’t interfere with so I don’t have much experience to guide you here but if the custom resolution you set is lower than the resolution of the screen then that might happen.
What Nesguy was suggesting was setting Custom Resolutions which were multiples (for example 2x, 3x, 4x or 5x) of the core resolution but just slightly larger resulting in some of the overscan area being cropped off.
Perhaps @Nesguy or @HyperspaceMadness might be of assistance? Also a little more information might help, for example what core, game, the resolution info and maybe a screenshot and a summary of what you’re trying to accomplish.
On another note, you can launch clones of Mame ROMs easily using LaunchBox. It’s as simple as right clicking and selecting which clone or version of the game you want to play from one entry for all of the clones. You can even set which one you want to be the default. I don’t know if you saw my reply on that.
You can also have the same ROMs setup to use both Mame and Final Burn Neo and easily switch between the 2.
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Hey, the PVM editions look really cool! Nice job on them. I took the RGB Sharp PVM and modified it like the original RGB Sharp and got a result that’s fitting for my eyeballs. Unlike before, I’ve decided to keep your mask type, but lowered its strength. Looks good in everything from 8-bit to N64. I want to use it in PS1 games with 2x resolution, but unfortunately the scanlines look really odd. I’ll see about finding a solution later. But for now, here are a few screenshots and a download to this preset.
EDIT: Ok, so from my testing, only one PS1 game running at 2x resolution has weird distracting scanlines, and that game is Ghost in the Shell. Setting the Int Scale Mode to 1.00 fixes this, but understandably causes the picture to be smaller. Imo this is a better choice than simply removing the scanlines because removing them causes the picture to be too bright. Scanlines are hardly visible in any game at 2x res. Doesn’t really bother me tho.
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