Yeah I’m not saying that integer scale can’t be used with the Mega Bezel, it’s there for a reason it works but you have a bit less control over the exact size.
Something like @soqueroeu’s preset which has graphics for the TV should be set up to have the graphics scaled with the tube, so that when the tube scales with non integer it scales all the graphics along with it.
Having a situation where the scaling of the graphics is divorced from the screen scaling and the screen may change size and be offset from the graphics is not a great situation.
For getting a good size of the screen with integer scale I would suggest trying the integer scale snapping to snap the non integer scale to the closest integer multiple. And then have the graphics scaling linked to the tube. Then all the graphics will match the tube.
I totally get and understand this but what no one seems to be understanding is that I’m experimenting. I have my valid reasons why I’m on the path that I am on so everything is working as intended. I might come back to the default settings after I’m finished or if I’m not satisfied with the results of my experiments.
Remember what I share is what I use and what I use works very well at the resolution I have recommended users use it with. In the future other resolutions might be tested and added.
This point is very important and may have been missed.I will first qualify by saying at the mask and scanline settings I use things are not going to look as intended when scaled to different resolutions anyway so the point of changing the look and function of presets to not look strange would be moot when they would inherently look strange and not as intended to me. Again remember, what I share with the public is what I use personally so it has to look right first for me.
That’s one of the costs of trying to maximize certain qualities at a particular resolution rather than have something that looks average across all resolutions but is more compatible.
I’ve addressed this by testing optimizing and labelling for different resolutions.
Let’s not blow this out of proportion. @ynnad4 will be sorted out at his 1600 x 900 resolution when I get a chance just as I sort out other users who try different things that I haven’t gotten across to just yet, for example @DDB who tried to integrate my presets which are all for @soqueroeu’s curved presets so far.
So what might really be needed is just a little patience to allow the natural development process to run its course.
I want this to remain fun and enjoyable to all involved. Let’s not make things too serious and take away from the creative process that brings us much joy, satisfaction and in some cases relaxation.
My main point in responding here is to try to help with my knowledge of how the system works and how you could get integer scale as well as keep the graphics scaled properly and perhaps be more flexible and work at more resolutions.
I find when the shader is working in a flexible manner people have less difficulty utilizing it. This becomes really helpful when you distribute a package and want to help people have a positive first experience with it and avoid a lot of tech support.
You of course are free to use the shaders as you wish, I’m just trying to help things run smoother.
Ideally I would hope for users of the Mega Bezel to come away enjoying the experience of the shader adapting to their situation, because I believe this is one of its core strengths.
Thanks very much and I wholeheartedly appreciate and respect your vision for your work. I also appreciate all of your tips and contributions that teach me so much.
I just got the feeling that somewhere along the lines and sometimes I might be misunderstood.
I’m not sure I understand why @Duimon would say something like this if he understood that currently all but a few of my presets use Int. Scale Mode 0. If he doesn’t use the setting then why suggest that it be taken out or that it doesn’t belong there if it would affect what I have done negatively?
That is why I sought to address this comment. Please enlighten me as to where I went wrong with my interpretation of this comment if I did misunderstand.
I agree with this 100% but 4K_Optimized really means 4K Optimized. I thought that those folder labels were an effective way of avoiding possible negative first impressions as in this case. I guess
I need to improve my documentation while I continue my experiments. As I mentioned, I might return to Non-Integer Scale especially after my experience with the Sony PSX Background but initially I ran into some issues using that, Inherit Scale and Independent Curvature with the gaps that were created between the viewport and the bezel. Crop also didn’t seem to work as I expected as instead of the black gaps being behind the viewport and cropping causing the viewport to go over the gaps and behind the bezel, the entire bezel, viewport and gaps shifted.
I tried to bring this to your attention on a couple occasions but I guess you may not have noticed. I just didn’t have the time or energy to document this at the time using screenshots. I thought that it’s something that I might have brought up again at some point in the future.
Rest assured, I’m looking at the behaviour of Int. Scale mode currently and at some point might revisit Non-Integer Scale but to have it inheriting scale with independent curvature may not work due to the aforementioned gaps and the entire bezel moving when I try to crop - which is not how it works with the default Mega Bezel Shader and Bezel.
My Soqueroeu PSX preset uses both Non-Integer Scale and Inherit Scale so it’s not that I’m averse to that in any way. That just ended up being a better solution that kept things more consistent with the multiple core resolution changes and it didn’t have the same issues I ran into with Independent curvature because it’s a flat preset.
I will also add that it is my fault @DDB ran into his first issue because he had asked me if I was doing any PSX presets based on @soqueroeu’s backgrounds and I had told him to just copy and paste the settings from any of my other presets and rename the reference to whatever other Soqueroeu preset he wanted to use.
I didn’t realize at the time that @soqueroeu didn’t include any curved presets for PSX so my curved preset settings would not have translated well for @Soqueroeu’s Flat presets like his PSX preset.
I think users have to accept a bit of responsibility to read the documentation (at least the bold stuff) and adjust their expectations accordingly if they want to have an experience that’s as good as what can be seen in the screenshots and videos, which is what I think gives the true first impression. So far any user that hasn’t achieved that on trying the presets has been sorted out.
C’mon man 1080p, 1440p, 4K. People can’t understand that? So I am definitely committed to a positive user experience and I do try to do my part where that is concerned.
Open my CyberLab__Composite-Pure__Soqueroeu-TV_Special_Edition-Genesis__STD.slangp preset and replace the existing settings that match those with the values above and you should be good to go!
Thank you so much for caring buddy. More than a bug report, seems like a little request. I just have a 20" VGA 1600x900 monitor. It may help somebody else if have smaller monitors.
New edit:
here some proof in 1600x900, 16:9 aspect ratio.
My point was that the main reason that @HyperspaceMadness wrote the Mega Bezel was to take away the difficulty of setting up an overlay that had a custom screen size.
Right now 99% of my presets work OTB on a 4x3, 16x9, or 21x9 aspect setup. Everything just automatically works using Mega Bezel magic.
@HyperspaceMadness has consistently kept the ease and automatic nature of the experience a high priority.
If you have a background that requires a specific screen size, and use integer scale… if you change the internal scale resolution it will break.
This is just one example but it illustrates why in some situations I think that integer scale doesn’t fit the core mission. I never suggested that it be taken out, just that in many situations it takes away from the base mission.
I am really not intending to blow this out of proportion but a short time ago 4K optimized was user subjective. Nothing really strange happened if you used one of your presets on 1080p… it just didn’t look the same.
This lengthy back and forth was the reason I bowed out of explaining this last week on HSM’s thread. Now I wish I had left it buried.
The simple reason for this my friend is that the mostly default presets that you use don’t push mask and scanline definition and strength to the limits like all of my presets do.
All of my original presets can be used at any resolution. 1080p Optimized Presets are fully compatible with 4K resolution. 4K Optimized Presets might look softer if run at 1080p (which is why I made 1080p Optimized presets in the first place). If you try to use either at 1440p or use the 1440p at 1080p or 4K resolution things may not look right because of the mask size and settings.
Lower resolutions may not be able to preserve some of the finer details I try to bring out in my presets (for example the RGB triads when you go close to the screen) and because they usually end up softer, I might compensate in different ways. Then some parameters work and look very differently at different resolutions like GDV noise.
The main reason “strange” things started happening recently with my presets at different resolutions was because of integrating them with @soqueroeu’s TV-Backgrounds and using independent curvature and bezel settings.
Things didn’t seem to work as straightforward as I expected using this combination of settings so I first asked questions perhaps not loudly and clearly enough but in the meantime used trial and error to get to where things are now.
In addition to that some combinations of settings produced a lot of moire which I had to find ways to deal with that preserved what was most important to me on the creative side of things.
With that said. I separated my presets into different folders for different resolutions for a reason. Users are free to experiment but for the presets to look as intended it is best they follow the guidelines and recommendations.
Nothing is wrong with discussing and trying to understand why someone has a particular thought process or methodology of doing something. I posted an album showing why I have done things the way I have at least in this most recent set of background integrated presets in a more appropriate part of the forum.
Remember just as you might spend hours, days and weeks trying to get the fine and final nuances done properly and as you have envisioned in your graphics it is probably a similar effort that I put into getting things to work and look right in my presets.
Another thing that I hope we can all appreciate is that these things are works in progress and time to work on them is limited so if things look or behave a certain way that may not seem 100% perfect especially when it’s something new or an overhaul, sometimes all that’s needed is some time.
You’re welcome @ynnad4 something doesn’t look quite right in that screenshot though. That blue border isn’t in my screenshots. Is it that you disabled Curvature in the preset or have some other setting in RetroArch not setup according to the HSM Mega Bezel setup instructions?
If so, the curvature I have set is extremely subtle and shouldn’t cause an issue. If you want things flat and to fill the screen properly without that blue border just let me know.
do you mean left right top down ? That’s Genesis plus gx borders. I sort of remember the original console had them but also BlastEm core have them set by default. Some videos out there prove that the console have them as well. It’s just a matter of taste though.
i just forgot to mention: I think this is the first preset I intended to load/make it working and this presets project is a whole mess. Shaders linking from one file to another and multiple times between multiple folders, aside from the fact that are connected to the HSM Mega Bezel Reflection and SOQUEROEU TV Special Edition effects that only make things even more messy.
Be that as it may, it seems like there’re so many new several presets to play around with, I really appreciate your work put into this project buddy and I hope you get a ton of positive feedback about them.
I have a 12 years old system + this 1600x900 20" monitor so I can’t give any feedback about the:
MBZ__1__Advance_Full_Reflections presets but at least with the MBZ__2 preset I could get some slowly loaded presets with a very promising appearence.
I really hope at some point somebody can manage to mix my rainbow effect for composite-sega genesis within your Composite looking presets, that would be the ultimate perfect looking for Composite gameplays.
One of my goals for this project is for it to be easy for new people to start using existing presets. Then if they want to go down the rabbit hole of customization they can, but in general they shouldn’t have to.
One of the reasons for the back and forth is that I didn’t realize that Cyber’s 4k presets only worked at 4k, rather than just looking a bit better at 4K. This is because in general with the Mega Bezel you don’t need to worry much about what resolution the user is running it at, because I try to code it to adapt to the user’s setup as much as possible for ease of use.
I think most or all of the presets from @soqueroeu, @Duimon, @TheNamec & the base Mega Bezel are set up to work at all resolutions, you can find links to their threads at the end of the first post of the Mega Bezel thread.
LuL just noticed you’re the author from HSM Mega Bezel reflection shader, really nice work ! This whole project may take me a very long time to realize how many features has within it.
I just got caught from the very first Mega Bezel presentation. Is there some specific shader/preset that has available those scanlines that can be seen along with the Mega Bezel logo ? I can’t see them present within the Composite presets from Cyber. Certainly I can’t remember the looking from CRT TVs I used to play with, but these you have seem pretty neat !
Yeah there are a bazillion parameters, for better or worse
Do you mean all the screen shots? Or one particular one? Most of the screenshots are using the standard guest-advanced settings that you get from the base presets you can see in the Mega_Bezel/Presets folder
no, just the very first animation for bezel screen uploaded there. The moment you see logo, you can see some scanlines like curved from center to each top/bottom edge. I’d like a lot to have them in the Composite presets.
This isn’t entirely true @HyperspaceMadness. Firstly my preset pack has over 50 presets. The ones that we’ve all been used to which I have been developing over the past 6 months or so can work fine at any resolution you run them at, they will just look different. The 1440p Optimized ones may not have mask patterns and sizes that look well at 1080p or 4K.
If you’re running 1080p you can load any 4K_Optimized preset and it will work fine. It might just be a little softer than the same preset at 4K or the corresponding 1080p Optimized preset (which is why I made them in the first place).
You can load any 1080p preset at 4K resolution and it will look great. (It just may not have the same details at the finest level as the 4K_Optimized preset.)
When @soqueroeu wanted us to test his new V2 presets. I paused my preset development a bit in order to give his own a spin.
He also asked me to port my presets over to his.
I thought that the best way to go about this was to start from scratch and just use my vision and experience to come up with something. I did this and posted it to his thread.
I started using this preset personally and what I use is what I share. I’ve been tweaking the settings little by little as I notice things that I would like to improve.
I started off with the NES preset then eventually added presets for the consoles that I use. Since I use a 4K TV, this has all been taking place at 4K resolution.
When I decided to package this made sure to put them in a folder called 4K_Optimized because they were only designed and tested at 4K resolution. My aim was to eventually test and optimize presets for 1440p and 1080p resolutions at some point in the future.
@ynnad4’s experience may not really be representative of the vast majority of users because he is the first and only user so far out of hundreds if not thousands who has come to the fore trying to load one of these new presets (which I am still constantly working on by the way) at 900p.
Ah I stand corrected then, this is why I was surprised that it didn’t work when it wasn’t at 4k, because I thought it was as you just said that they will run fine but just look a little different
