CyberLab Death To Pixels Shader Preset Packs

[Cyber]

Greetings @MetaRidley42,

@MetaRidley42

noticed that many of the coolest combos for most realistic results come from presets that only seem to exist for either 1080p and 4k.

Are you sure about this? It’s very possible that the highest quality results might be achievable from some of my more mature and stable offerings and the newer offerings might be more experimental in nature.

Take my console specific presets for example. Some are actually identical to the presets in the main preset parent folder but they’re just copied and renamed in order to make it easier for users to match preset with console.

@MetaRidley42

Am I better off setting my RA resolution to 1080p and using those presets? I am assuming that the 4k would be useless for obvious reasons.

Hmmm…I don’t think you should use a resolution that doesn’t scale evenly on your screen. It might be best to stick to 1440p (2560 x 1600 in your case). You can use any preset at any resolution however, the Mask Type, sizes, overall sharpness and brightness may not translate well from 4K or 1080p Optimized presets to 1440o presets.

So you might have to use different Mask and Sharpness settings to achieve similar results.

I don’t currently have a 1440p screen with RetroArch setup to properly test new 1440p presets currently.

Back in the day, I used to run my 4K screen at 1440p and 1080p in order to develop and test those presets.

This won’t work anymore now that I develop things down to the “phosphor” level. I would need to “see” properly for me to do proper development and testing.

Especially with things like Slot Mask presets, I’ll definitely need to be able to see how things look and line up natively for me to do things in the best possible way.

What do you really think you’re missing out on though? What consoles/systems do you emulate?

Sharing some screenshots as well as photos of the screen might actually be a good way to assist me in seeing how things look today.

That’s an easy way in which you can help further the development of some more 1440p presets.

If you look at my MBZ_3_STANDARD_FULL_REFLECTIONS folder, you’ll see that I recently updated my @Soqueroeu-TV Backgrounds CyberLab Special Edition Presets with 1440p as well as 1080p Optimized presets.

Don’t forget that you can use my shader presets with my custom CyberLab Blargg NTSC Video Filter presets as well as the core supplied Blargg NTSC Video Filters.

So in other words, what I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t be missing out on much when it comes to quality by using 1440p Optimized presets at 1440p resolution.

Yes, there are less options available but at least it might be less confusing.

In my last tests I’ve always admired how close the 1440p Optimized offerings looked compared to my 4K_Optimized offerings.

Feel free to chime in with some screenshots and let’s see if there’s anything more specific that I can assist you with when it comes to improving your experience.

[MetaRidley42]

Thanks for the reply.

I am definitely the type to dabble in most different systems, and my preference is to set it at one preset, as if I was using the same TV for various systems, and leave it there. I understand and definitely appreciate that some of the presets are tweaked for other systems, that’s just my preference. Mostly I have been using the composite pure 1440P preset for pretty much everything.

There are some exceptions, for example I like using the computer monitor smooth preset for both arcade games on FB Neo, as well as Dreamcast games on Flycast.

The presets that specifically got my attention that I seemingly can’t use on 1440p were the slot mask presets, most of my actual CRTs over the years that I’ve used were slot masks of one form or another, so that looks very familiar to me. That was the most obvious preset group that seemed to be present in 1080P as well as 4K but missing from 1440P.

However, don’t take this to mean that I am demanding they be developed for 1440P, especially given all your hard work on what are certainly much more common resolutions, I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing an easy way to do it.

A couple of questions though if you don’t mind:

If you look at my MBZ_3_STANDARD_FULL_REFLECTIONS folder, you’ll see that I recently updated my @Soqueroeu-TV Backgrounds CyberLab Special Sections Presets with 1440p as well as 1080p Optimized presets.

I was not aware of the section, I recently updated both the mega bezels shaders (or at least I think I did) by doing an update slang shaders command from within retroarch. I also downloaded your very recent update of the presets and install that today as well. However, when I attempted to select any of the presets in this folder that I quoted you above, it says that retroarch had an error and cannot apply those presents. I may be dense here, but is there another piece of the puzzle I’m missing to try those out?

Don’t forget that you can use my shader presets with my custom CyberLab Blargg NTSC Video Filter presets as well as the core supplied Blargg NTSC Video Filters.

Definitely going to try this. I think that after some adjustment (disabling the video intro, as well as changing the slot mast mask type slightly) on the composite pure setting, the NSTC filter could put it over the edge to be the one that I stick with and use for most systems. In order to use your custom video filter presets, do they need to be downloaded and installed in the retroarch folders the same way as the general presets? And is the proper way to apply the shader as a preset for the system or globally first, and then change the filter settings? I’ve never dabbled with video filters before, so that specific step would be new to me.

Finally, just as a general curiosity, would you say that your presets are designed to be used without any sort of curvature adjustment or setting? I constantly go back-and-forth on which I think looks better, curvature feels like I’m playing the original system and CRT, but I do appreciate the pure linearity/geometry of playing without any adjustment as if on a flat screen.

Any recommendations as to what settings to change in order to get the best overall curvature setting if so? Last time I went into the shader settings I recall that there were a bunch of curvature options such as 2D, 3D, and several other settings that I wasn’t sure about the differences between.

As always, thanks so much for your hard work.

[Cyber]

@MetaRidley42

my preference is to set it at one preset, as if I was using the same TV for various systems, and leave it there. I understand and definitely appreciate that some of the presets are tweaked for other systems, that’s just my preference.

Unfortunately when you have additional variables to consider for example how the display’s subpixel structure aligns with the Mask “phosphors” as well as the fact that different systems, even when hooked up to the same Composite input of the same TV for example, would produce vastly different outputs in terms of signal quality and sharpness, if you only focus on emulating the TV, you’re missing a significant portion of the equation and experience.

That’s what I tried to do here. Besides that some systems or even games just look better with different Mask styles.

Back in the day, we probably didn’t have that luxury so we played on whatever TV we had and we enjoyed it but now that we have the technology at our fingertips if we wanted to go beyond that we could.

One size fits all definitely does not work for NES and SNES. If you make the best preset for SNES and you tried to use that on an NES core, it might end up extremely oversaturated and dark.

Regular NES, SNES and Turbo Duo Composite output were all relatively clean and sharp, while Genesis, not so much but that enhanced dithering and produced nice colours and transparency effects.

If you used a preset that was optimized for SNES on Genesis, you might miss out on those things.

While if you used a preset optimized for Genesis, you might get all of those goodies on Genesis while having readable text but that same preset used on Turbo Duo might yield illegible text and an image not becoming of the Turbo Duo.

@MetaRidley42

CyberLab Special Sections

This was an autocorrect typo, it should’ve been “CyberLab Special Edition”.

@MetaRidley42

However, when I attempted to select any of the presets in this folder that I quoted you above, it says that retroarch had an error and cannot apply those presents. I may be dense here, but is there another piece of the puzzle I’m missing to try those out?

From the long and extensive first post of this thread:

@Cyber

Note: CyberLab__Composite-Pure__Soqueroeu-TV_Special_Edition__STD.slangp REQUIRES SOQUEROEU – Mega Bezel TV Backgrounds to be installed.

You can get it at the link below:

This thread is about my original TV backgrounds for use in conjuction with @HyperspaceMadness Mega Bezel Reflection Shader. I think lots of people would be pleased to play old games using an actual CRT TV, so I created my own project as a nice way to have a simulated TV… INSIDE your actual TV or monitor. Be

@MetaRidley42

In order to use your custom video filter presets, do they need to be downloaded and installed in the retroarch folders the same way as the general presets? And is the proper way to apply the shader as a preset for the system or globally first, and then change the filter settings? I’ve never dabbled with video filters before, so that specific step would be new to me.

@Cyber

Update 20/04/22:

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

@Cyber

Leave your GPU to do the heavy Mega Bezel work, while offloading some stuff and applying some finesse to the final output using the oft untapped power of your CPU!

There are now two custom Blargg NTSC video filters included in my preset pack!

These need to be copied to the “ RetroArch/Filters/Video ” folder.

To load them you need to go to:

Settings ----->

Video ----->

Filters ---->

After loading your video filter, you can save your settings as a Core Override in the Quick Menu so it will automatically load that video filter everytime you use that core.

These video filters are now available in the latest nightly build of RetroArch. They have been renamed however. You’ll know them by the words “Blargg”, “Custom” and “Psuedo” in the filenames.

@MetaRidley42

Finally, just as a general curiosity, would you say that your presets are designed to be used without any sort of curvature adjustment or setting? I constantly go back-and-forth on which I think looks better, curvature feels like I’m playing the original system and CRT, but I do appreciate the pure linearity/geometry of playing without any adjustment as if on a flat screen.

Any recommendations as to what settings to change in order to get the best overall curvature setting if so? Last time I went into the shader settings I recall that there were a bunch of curvature options such as 2D, 3D, and several other settings that I wasn’t sure about the differences between.

I don’t use curvature mainly because the way it’s implemented in shaders doesn’t look like how I remember games looking, even on curved screens. I get headaches very quickly when I look at the fishbowl scrolling and bent status bar text and other stuff like that.

Most of my Soqueroeu-TV CyberLab Special Edition presets have mild curvature applied.

I haven’t used them so long and some parameters might have changed in the past few months. The first thing to do might be to look for the [Curvature] Section in the Shader Parameters and set it to 2D (probably 1).

You can run into some issues when using curvature such as reduced performance as well as a higher chance of seeing moire patterns on the screen.

Tweaking it should be fairly simple, there a setting to determine how much the curvature of the screen follows the curvature of the bezel.

@MetaRidley42

As always, thanks so much for your hard work.

You’re most welcome.

[MetaRidley42]

New issue (not trying to hijack this whole topic, just something I ran into now in real time):

My entire retroarch.exe crashes/freezes then crashes whenever trying to launch any content with a video filter option enabled.

I can select a filter option in RA without a core loaded, but then launching any core + content yields the same result.

Obviously others are able to use the shader + filter stack, so does anyone have any ideas as to what other settings might be causing this?

[Cyber]

You might need to provide some more information for example game, core, internal resolution e.t.c. If you can enable logging and post a log that might also help.

Do know that not all cores support the video filter presets. Some cores have them built-in so you should have no problem using the bult-in ones.

The ones I made were tested with Genesis Plus GX, PicoDrive, Beetle PCE, Beetle SuperGrafx, I think I might have also tested them with SNES 9X.

I recently tested with Beetle PSX but I couldn’t see a difference.

Please be a little more specific as to which shader preset, which video filter preset and which core you’re trying to use.

Try loading the Core with no shader, then loading the filter, then saving the filter setting as a Core Override, then the next time you load the core the filter will be automatically loaded. Then load the Shader and see.

It could be a VRAM issue. A log might definitely help.

[Cyber]

It seems like CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels Shader Preset Pack is making the rounds around the internet!

PSA: I use the CXA2025AS palette when designing, calibrating and testing my NES presets so if you use a different palette you may not be getting the optimal experience.

Seems like World of Gameplays is at it again!

CyberLab_NES_for_Core_Blargg_S-Video_Filter

It looks like World of Gameplays is on a roll today!

CyberLab_NES_Slot_Mask_for_Core_Blargg_S-Video_Filter

CyberLab_NES_Slot_Mask_II_for_Core_Blargg_S-Video_Filter

CyberLab_NES_Slot_Mask_II_Ninja_Gaiden_for_Core_Blargg_S-Video_Filter

CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels Shader Preset Pack YouTube Playlist

[MetaRidley42]

I “solved” it by switching to glcore from Vulkan. The shaders alone were working fine with Vulkan, and the filters worked on Vulkan without the shaders enabled, but glcore allowed both to work.

Thanks for the reply!

[Cyber]

@MetaRidley42

I “solved” it by switching to glcore from Vulkan.

Hmmm…I would have still liked to get to the bottom of it though but I’m glad you got through!

Loading Blargg filters alongside Shader Presets shouldn’t be so difficult for the system to accomplish even using Vulkan.

It could have something to do with the particular cores you’re using but I don’t know what they are so I can’t really tell.

[Yogurtcito]

@Cyber

You’re welcome and welcome to Libretro Forums @Yogurtcito!

Thank you very much and thank you for your reply!

@Cyber

Have you tried toggling the mask layout as mentioned below and in the (very long and extensive) first post of this thread?

I haven’t tried that at the moment of writing, I knew there was some oversight on my part. I tested recently but unfortunately I found that changing the mask layout from 1 to 0 now produces a strong blue tint, it’s funny how these presets simply don’t want to work as intended on my system by default haha.

Also I tried the Cyberlab Slot Mask 1P2RTA, and was surprised to find they also give me that green tint (haven’t tried them before).

So I’ll stick to changing the mask types as the way to use these. Both 5 and 7 look good! I was really confused as to why that green tint was affecting other presets which previously look beautiful, but restarting RA is not that much of a nuisance as a workaround. I’ll personally keep the Arcade Sharp PVM as I really like that grill look. Thank you very much for your input!

@Cyber

Also, is your computer outputting RGB 4:4:4 to your monitor?

And regarding your question, I honestly would be lying if I tell you I know what my pc is outputting. I’m really starting to learn all the terminology so I don’t understand really well what 4:4:4 is or whether my gpu/monitor is capable of that. I did some reading today though, but I don’t think RGB 4:4:4 is my case as my monitor is a 7 years old tv and I’m just using a generic HDMI cable, so I apologize for my lack of understanding. I’ll include some pictures of my nvidia driver settings if that provides some information.

Thank you for your work once again!

[Cyber]

@Yogurtcito

it’s funny how these presets simply don’t want to work as intended on my system by default haha.

@Yogurtcito

I was really confused as to why that green tint was affecting other presets which previously look beautiful, but restarting RA is not that much of a nuisance as a workaround.

This is really strange behaviour. I just tested all of the presets we spoke about and they all work fine on my end. I tested them with a slightly older revisions of my preset pack, Mega Bezel and RetroArch and the behaviour was the same after I updated all of them.

I think my FlyCast settings are all Default.

It could be some driver or OS bug or issue. Try updating your core or maybe rolling back to an older one.

Are your graphics drivers up to date?

You can also try resetting your FlyCast Core options to default.

[Theoldnation]

Hello i would like to ask something curious, is there anyway to add motion blur to the image?

[Cyber]

@Theoldnation

add motion blur to the image?

Hmmm…there’s Afterglow and Afterglow Threshold. You can play around with those settings but less is usually more.

[Cyber]

Presenting My Latest Preset:

You can use MPC-HC, MX Player or VLC Player to view the video.

CyberLab_SNES_Slot_Mask_IV_OLED_for_Higan_Blur_and_Colour_Emulation

You have to load full resolution, then open in new tab or window, zoom in or view fullscreen in order for these to look correct because of the mask and scanline settings.

[Cyber]

Oh, this is a nice pic!

r/retrogaming - Can anyone recommend some cables for S-video? I’d like to pair...

[Johnny99]

Hey, I have the latest of the death to pixels pack, mega pixel pack, and soqueroeu backgrounds packs (both original and v2.0). For some reason when I load any of your presents with soqueroeu backgrounds in your death to pixels pack it fails to load. Not sure why.

However, everything else works beautifully and it’s so so beautiful. Thank you for making one so optimized for 1080p. All of this means a lot. I remember emulating on a windows 98 and XP with CRT monitors on zsnes, nesticle, and snes9x; so emulating with your computer presets is so nostalgic to me.

[Cyber]

@Johnny99

For some reason when I load any of your presents with soqueroeu backgrounds in your death to pixels pack it fails to load. Not sure why.

Hi, it’s probably a path issue.

Make sure your Soqueroeu-TV Folder looks like this:

"Shaders/Mega_Bezel_Packs/Soqueroeu-TV-Backgrounds_V2.0/"

When you download them from GitHub it adds a “-main” to the end of the foldername. You can either remove it from there or add it to the paths in the reference lines in my presets.

Make sure Soqueroeu-TV Backgrounds is installed in the “/Shaders/Mega_Bezel_Packs” folder.

@Johnny99

However, everything else works beautifully and it’s so so beautiful. Thank you for making one so optimized for 1080p. All of this means a lot. I remember emulating on a windows 98 and XP with CRT monitors on zsnes, nesticle, and snes9x; so emulating with your computer presets is so nostalgic to me.

I’m glad to hear this!

Do note that my “Computer Monitor” presets are designed to look more like a TV style computer monitor from the early 80’s, for example the Commodore 1702 Monitor rather than a much more finely pitched VGA PC monitor of the 90’s.

Whenever I get around to emulating DOS games, I might make some VGA Monitor presets.

So you can get back to me on your folder structure for the TV backgrounds. I might have to update my installation instructions to be a bit more specific.

[Johnny99]

@Cyber

Make sure your Soqueroeu-TV Folder looks like this:

"Shaders/Mega_Bezel_Packs/Soqueroeu-TV-Backgrounds_V2.0/"

Hey thank you! I realized this on my own shortly after sending my post lol.

I appreciate the help though!

[Theoldnation]

is there anyway to config the death bezel for ds?

[Cyber]

I don’t see why not. Can you elaborate a bit as to what you would like to do?

[Cyber]

You might like this @HyperspaceMadness, @guest.r, @Hyllian, @Dogway, @hunterk!

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