There’s another simple method to disable the Bezel and Background Graphics:
Set Opacity to 0 for “Bezel General”, “Frame” and “Background”.
I did the following:
Set Global Graphics Brightness to 0. Then under CRT Screen Scaling set Int. Scale Mode to 0 and Non-Integer Scale % to 100.
This leaves black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. Is there any way to get of those? Or did i do something wrong?
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Those black bars could be coming from the Core or game. You can probably use crop settings or adjust the Non-Integer Scale or Viewport Zoom upwards until they disappear.
Be sure to use the presets in the MBZ_2_Performance_No_Reflections folder.
You can even try setting Integer Scale to On and enabling Integer Scale Overscale and setting your Aspect Ratio to 4:3 or Core Provided in the main RetroArch settings (counter to HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader Setup Options).
If trying the last suggestion, you might have to set HSM Mega Bezel’s internal aspect ratio to Full so it would follow what is provided by the RetroArch Settings.
I’ve figured out the problem. I changed the base integrer scale max height instead of the non-integrer scale %.
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I’m glad you did. It’s better to use Integer Scale where possible when using my presets. So you can try the option I gave you above with setting Mega Bezel Aspect Ratio to 6 (Full) and setting Integer Scale and Integer Scale Overscan to On and Aspect Ratio to Core Provided or 4:3 in RetroArch Main Settings.
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Some more photos of the screen featuring CyberLab Composite Pure! Zoom in to see the “phosphors”.
Note: I left GDV noise on for these photos. I tried using 1/30 Shutter speed to capture multiple phases of the noise generation cycle. I don’t know the exact frequency at which the noise algorithm operates but I do suspect that if I took a picture at 1/60 some of the visual information would be missing.
I’m seeing thin horizontal white lines in the center of some of the the “phosphors” (mostly in the white lines and text). I’m not sure if it’s the GDV noise or bloom settings causing this or maybe something completely different. It doesn’t bother me in the least in practice though since this is the first time I’m noticing it like this.
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This is a little something I’ve been working on lately.
Be sure to load full resolution and zoom in enough until they look right.
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These closeups still don’t look as natural or perfect as the shots posted by @MajorPainTheCactus. I can’t quite put my finger on it, I think it’s a combination of things including the camera. I can’t remember why you said you were scaling the mask but have you tried using a subpixel-respecting mask that gives you the same TVL you’re going for? Or are you avoiding that because you want it to be compatible on more displays?
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They look great to me and I enjoy playing my games with them, especially on my TV and at the viewing distance I play at. They’re doing what I need them to do to the pixels and I don’t want to go too in depth because my presets are constantly evolving as I experiment and try new things.
As for comparisons to the Sony Megatron Color Video Monitor, they aren’t really necessary in my opinion because just as there are very different brands and models of TVs which don’t look identical so too are there different shader presets that don’t necessarily need to look or strive to look exactly the same or match the same reference.
They certainly aren’t perfect or the most realistic/accurate possible - I just noticed the white horizontal lines when using bloom for example, but do they really need to be especially when you don’t necessarily notice those things at normal viewing distances?
These are the types of questions I will be asking myself as I go forward with my preset development.
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Yeah I’m not necessarily talking about matching any particular reference though so much as looking like a “generic” CRT. To put it another way, there are certain things that you would only see on a digital display and certain things that you always see on an analogue display.
Scaling the mask IMO always looks somewhat artificial and I think you can notice it at normal viewing distances, but not everyone is as sensitive to such things. Absolutely do whatever works for you.
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It could just be a legacy side effect of my earlier experimentation. It’s possible that that was the only mask size and combination that would give me RGB triads on my particular screen before CRT-Guest-Advance implemented the mask layout parameter. I’m not interested in magenta-green or RYCM, RGBX or even B&W masks. I would also prefer RGB to BGR triads as well.
I’m sure I would have tried all the various mask combinations since then and I probably just still prefer the “chunky pixels”. Maybe I’ll try it again sometime but remember, I play on a 55" screen from a distance of about 8 feet away.
Also in those particular examples you commented on, deconvergence is turned off. I had planned on revisting that in the future.
Right now I’m working on integrating my presets with Blargg’s NTSC filters including with my custom filter presets. I’m seeing some positive results fine tuning the sharpness settings of the shader presets but I have to balance sharpness against unwanted artifacts that can be introduced.
Megatron doesn’t even work properly on my TV due to the 4:2:0 issue, while I don’t have any problems getting GDV and Mega Bezel to look great. I do recommend Megatron as well as your shaders to those who would like more accuracy focused shader presets than mine and Megatron is a great option for those who want something that looks great but it very lightweight.
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I’m looking into it as always my friend. Always having a nice looking the Sonic games with your composite looking addition alongside the other effects. Do you know if there’s some current way to add the Rainbow effect along with the composite looking into your preset ?
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Thanks, I’m glad to hear that.
If I wanted to get the rainbow effect, I could turn on Blargg’s Composite Filter from within the Genesis Plus GX Core Options Menu.
I personally don’t like some of the other “NTSC” artifacts that it produces and so that’s why I went about customizing the Blargg NTSC SNES Video Filter settings to my liking. Unfortunately that video filter doesn’t seem to produce the same rainbow effect but it does a great job if blending dithering like the waterfall in Sonic.
You can probably use my settings together with the GDV-NTSC base preset that’s available in HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader and use the GDV-NTSC parameters to recreate the rainbow effect or learn how to chain shaders and chain your own modified Rainbow effect shader with CRT-Guest-Advanced and go from there.
I believe HunterK showed you how to go about doing it in another thread sometime ago.
Why don’t you like RGBX? I think it looks very good if you can get it bright enough.
That would probably help, for sure. At least in the vertical direction.
have you tried 1.00/1.00 gamma with blend mode 2 in guest-dr-venom? It’s hard getting it bright enough, but it looks good sharpness-wise if you want to completely blend dithering. If you don’t care about dithering than type 1 with increased ntsc resolution does the trick. Curious to see if Blargg’s filters can be made to look less harsh.
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If by harsh you mean less blurry, they most certainly can. You need to lower the resolution of the Blargg SNES Filter to a certain threshold in order to blend the Sonic The Hedgehog waterfalls. This softens the image. You can reduce this considerably by feeding the Blargg filter a sharpened input from the shader.
Maxing out Horizontal Sharpness and Subtractive Sharpness will still leave things slightly soft.
Simple Sharpness however, can get you the rest of the way.
The sharpness settings, even when maxed out don’t seem to destroy the blended dithering that Blargg’s filter applies.
At size 1 the colours seem a bit messed up on my display and it’s very hard to see the individual RGB triads, when they’re so fine. At size 2, the Black phosphor seemed wrong to me and things appeared even more grid like than mask 6 size 2.
Not yet, is this the same as CRT Gamma In/Out in HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader?
I haven’t really explored and exploited the full potential of the Blargg NTSC filters as yet and I really like the fact that they’re CPU based because the CPU tends to be underutilized and I’m thinking that it might allow people with weaker GPUs to be able to enjoy the best of Scanlines, Masks, Reflective Bezels as well as NTSC effects.
I’ve only briefly dabbled in GDV-NTSC using your modified Sony Megatron Preset. Maybe when I’m finished playing with the Blargg video filters I’ll give it a try but Blargg does a few things all at once, including contrast adjustment.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like anything can be done to reduce the harshness of the artifacts and fringing in the core based Blargg filters so Composite is basically unusable for me in any emulator I’ve tried so far.
I start at S-Video with the built-in filters.
I’m almost ready to release my first set of sharpened shader presets designed to work exclusively with Blargg NTSC video filters. Just have to bring all the settings together and package everything in an organized manner.
I think this might be a good time to cull my old RGB-SHARP and RGB-Smooth presets from my package as I don’t use them.
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Yeah at 4K size 1 would be equivalent to 540 TVL or using mask 0 or 6 at 1080p. At size 2 you’re also doubling the size of the black lines between triads which will make it look too grid-like. I think RRGGBBX was recently added as an option though.
I’m not totally sure but I think that’s grade’s gamma?
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RRGGBBX looks really nice; mask size 1 @ 4K.
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RRGGBBX will probably get around your chroma subsampling issue as each phosphor is represented by two pixels. RGBX won’t work with 4:2:0 subsampling as I’ve described and is probably why you don’t like it (understandbly).
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Note: To use the following new Console Specific Presets, please follow the steps below to load the corresponding Blargg Video Filters.
The other Console (or Game) Specific Presets will look fine (and as intended) without any additional video filters.
CyberLab_NES_for_Core_Blargg_S-Video_Filter.slangp
Quick Menu-->Options-->Video-->Blargg NTSC Filter - S-Video
CyberLab_Genesis_for_CyberLab_or_Core_Blargg_Composite_Filter.slangp
(Blending and Transparency, No Rainbow Effect, No Shimmering Artifacts)
Quick Menu-->Options-->Video-->Blargg NTSC Filter - OFF
Settings-->Video-->Video Filter-->Blargg_NTSC_Genesis_Composite_CyberLab_Special_Edition.filt
Quick Menu-->Overrides-->Save Core Override
Or
(Blending and Transparency, Rainbow Effect, Shimmering Artifacts)
Quick Menu-->Options-->Video-->Blargg NTSC Filter - Composite
CyberLab_Turbo_Duo_for_CyberLab_Blargg_Composite_or_S-Video_Filter.slangp
Settings-->Video-->Video Filter-->Blargg_NTSC_Turbo_Duo_SNES_PSX_Composite_CyberLab_Special_Edition.filt
Quick Menu-->Overrides-->Save Core Override
Or
Settings-->Video-->Video Filter-->Blargg_NTSC_Turbo_Duo_SNES_PSX_S-Video_CyberLab_Special_Edition.filt
Quick Menu-->Overrides-->Save Core Override
For additional information on how to load Video Filters in RetroArch, you can take a look at the guide below:
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Note: If using my presets it’s important to set the Mask Layout correctly to match your screen’s subpixel layout. I suggest users flip the Mask Layout option and see which one looks better as a first step in using the presets. Usually an incorrect Mask Layout would have the image looking a bit washed out compared to the correct one.
Another way to tell is by looking closely at the screen. If you see RGB or BGR “phosphors” over a white are of the screen, then your Mask Layout should be correct. If you see Green/Magenta then you might need to toggle the Mask Layout setting in either the Shader Parameters or in the Presets themselves.
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