Whatever works for you is fine. I have a feeling your screen might be setup a bit on the darker side. The backlight on the main screen I use for testing and development is set to 100%.
What are your backlight settings like?
Those last 2 pics you shared were at 1440p. I didn’t realize you were using that resolution. I thought you were using 1080p.
HAHAHAHA oh man, thanks for pointing that out. I have a 1440p monitor but I know you update your 4k and 1080p more often so I have been using those. I forgot that I was messing with the 1440p presets and left fullscreen on when I was using the 1080p presets LOL! And yes you are right about my monitor, I had my brightness to 50%. The monitor I use is a Samsung Odyssey G7.
Due to my use of Simple Presets and preset chains, whenever I update my 4K base presets, other presets which use them as a base will be automatically updated depending on the type of settings overrides that are present.
If users provide me with feedback on the 1440p presets then I might see that as a sign of interest and work on whatever issues that might arise. The 1440p presets are a bit different in terms of the mask Type I use so they might actually not have the same issues as the others so they may not need to be updated at the same cadence as the others.
My 1080p Optimized presets use Mask 6 with Mask Layout 1 but that’s just to match my 1080p TV. I would think that there would be displays with a reverse subpixel layout which would require the Layout to be flipped to 0.
Since I did most of my development of my 1080p presets on a 4K TV, I have tested them at 4K as well and the results used to frequently rival that of my 4K_Optimized presets so much so that they could have been used as variations at 4K just fine. If doing that in my 4K TV, I would have to set the mask layout back to 0 for things to look right though.
My initial tests using RRGGBBX mask, (can’t remember the number in CRT-Guest Advance off hand) haven’t really given me much inspiration to delve deeper into experimentation.
I will see if I can revisit it again sometime, probably while setting my TV to RGB 4:4:4 (albeit at 30Hz) for academic purposes.
I found that mask to look a bit strange with the RGB plus an extra Black/Grey “phosphor” at the end when viewed up close. I believe I tested it at mask size 1 which would be equivalent to Mask 6 at 2 from a phosphor size standpoint, correct me if I’m wrong.
I don’t really want to compromise the RGB pattern when viewed close-up so RYCB and BW masks are also not really acceptable for my current purposes (with some possible exceptions though).
What result or improvement do you expect to see from the use of the RRGGBBX mask?
I felt that the characteristics of the display output (or rather how games looked or at least how I wanted games to look using different systems) could be further tweaked, refined and represented by the use of additional sub presets.
Take NES for example, in particular the Ninja Garden trilogy, if I spend time tweaking a generic preset that works well on SNES or Turbo Grafx 16 and attempt to use it for NES, I’ve found Ryu’s Gi to look very off, dark and the colours to be generally oversaturated.
So I wanted to independently tweak Gamma and saturation between consoles.
When looking at SNES compared to TG16, I found that the TG16 looks better with relatively sharper pixels. It’s possibly due to the fact that the games frequently used higher resolutions and did much more resolution switching than the SNES combined with the different pixel art style (with the TG16 games bridging the gap between the 3rd and 4th generation of video game consoles), the SNES’s “strange” stretching of the pixels, along with its vastly superior colour palette and transparency ability.
Then there’s the Sega Genesis, I absolutely love how Sega Genesis games can tolerate the relatively “dirty” output I’ve ended up with by using my custom Blargg filter settings in combination with my Shader Preset that sharpens the image to go along with it.
It does beautifully with the Sonic The Hedgehog Waterfalls and many other examples of dithering. It makes Genesis and 32X games like Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II and Mega Turrican seem to appear like they have more colours than they did making them rival their SNES counterparts even more albeit at a cost of a cleaner, sharper looking output.
When comparing text of different games and systems using that same filter shader combination it’s almost as if Genesis games were made for that type of processing because text usually still ends up legible and smoothed at the edges but not blurry.
If the same settings are applied to a Super CD-ROM² game for example, you wouldn’t even be able to make out the text on the boot screen!
Things like the signs in Bonk’s Revenge can’t handle even the slightest amount of blur or halation. It just looks blurry and out of focus and can’t be unseen.
Using these Console Specific Presets has me turning on games and just watching and appreciating. They have definitely made me appreciate Sega Genesis games much more and I don’t see the 64 simultaneous colours on screen as the night and day, case closed disadvantage compared to the SNES that I did as a child.
Also, the dark, “dirty”, grungy look that I’m now getting from the Sega Genesis reminds me of the differences and characteristics I might have remembered when playing it at a friend’s house or even my own as a child.
There were some great Genesis games that I really enjoyed but there were so many with bad sound especially when compared to their SNES counterparts. I used to wish I was playing Super Street Fighter II on SNES when all I had available was the Genesis version as a teen for example and this was the case with many games.
The nice thing is that if that’s not their thing, users are free to use my old " Blending and Transparency" preset and they’ll get the clean, sharp RGB look with the MDAPT way of doing Sonic The Hedgehog Waterfalls.
Lastly, for whatever reason, when I last overhauled my colour and gamma settings I found that PSX Games now looked oversaturated when compared to the other consoles and the way things were before.
Also, my previous recommendations for PSX Games went something like PSX Games look great with either Composite Sharp with MDAPT turned off or Composite Pure with Scale FX turned on. That’s no longer necessary with my new dedicated preset.
I’ve also sought to address the slightly jarring resolution switching side effect that occurs when using integer scale, of the bezel snapping to the new resolution by switching to non-integer scale with a tweaked scale factor in order to keep moire to a minimum.
So you see, these new console specific presets give me more freedom to explore, characterized and customize while preserving and utilizing the foundations of what I’ve worked on before.
As for the user, all they have to do is choose NES for NES games, SNES for SNES games, Turbo Duo for Turbo Duo Games, Genesis for Genesis games e.t.c. and enjoy the same quality of experience that I enjoy, without having to know much if anything about shaders and scanlines except how to load them.
That’s my contribution to this community and world that has brought so much joy and happiness to me throughout the majority of my existence.
Many aperture grilles do in fact have the vertical black lines between triads (the “black phosphor” as you called it) So if it’s a question of looking authentic, I think it very much does.
Better phosphor shape, definition and dynamics at 4K, eliminating chromatic aberration and color fringing etc. It’s more or less the exact same as the improvement going from a simple RGB pattern to a subpixel-aware pattern at 1080p.
Yep I’ve also noticed that the same settings do not work across all systems. NES looks too bright with the same settings used for SNES, and the settings for SNES look too dark when used with PSX, etc.
That’s cool you’re getting so much joy out of this.
So, I just properly tested Mask 1312 - RRGGBBX for the first time really. I had mistakenly tested Mask 10 - RGBX but that’s another story.
The RRGGBBX mask doesn’t look right on my display when in YCbCr 4:2:0 mode which is the best it can do at 4K60Hz. The green “phosphor” stands out a bit too much creating a strange pattern.
When I switched to RGB 4:4:4 at 4K30Hz, the improvement was clearly noticeable over the RGB Mask 6 I am currently using.
I might have to do away with my quest for these RGB Phosphors at 4K and use a B&W Mask instead.
I might also have to do some more experimentation using my desktop at 1080p 60Hz RGB and see if I can get that to be more accurate.
Thanks for pointing out that bit about RRGGBBX. I was seeing the anomalies and imperfections in games like Ys Book I & II but now I know the exact reason and that there’s room for improvement.
Hello.
Well I was testing the “HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader!” and I had a very good experience, from the resolution to the various options, and from there I came to this other CyberLab project. Well my problem is that:
I have a 1080p monitor and I play more retro consoles like Playstation, Sega Genesis and among others. In this case I managed to install (very easy by the way), but I did tests on the two consoles mentioned, and they were very dark in the image and I would like to know if there is a way to lighten the image properly?
I know it’s a very “noob” question to ask, but I’m afraid of messing with some option and spoiling the work that was done on the project. One of the options that I managed to clarify (but I don’t know if it’s the right one, let’s say) would be the “CRT MASK” that I change from “6” to “2”, but I don’t know if it’s right or if there’s another way to improve the brightness of the image and not get so dark. The Preset I changed for example was “CyberLab__PSX__ADV.slangp” inside the folder “1080p_Optimized_Presets/Console_Specific_Presets”.
And one last question, as my monitor is 1920x1080p, do I have to use the 1080p “presets” or will the others be better? Because I tried out of curiosity and it was dark the same way unfortunately 
Thanks to whoever helps =)
Hi there @jacarado, there are many different ways you can do that. Don’t be afraid of breaking anything. You can always get the presets back from the zip.
First thing is to ensure that your backlight is set to be bright enough. My backlight is set to 100 on the display I use currently.
Then there’s the CRT Gamma In and CRT Gamma Out you can reset those to defaults by pressing Start or set them to something like 2.1 l/2.5 respectively.
You can also increase the Post CRT Brightness.
Be sure to toggle the Mask Layout to get the one that matches your screen and try different presets in the pack and see which work and look best for you.
If you’re on 1080p, you can try Mask 5 or Mask 7 or 8 and that might brighten things a bit but you might have to disable deconvergence for Mask 7 or 8.
You can also lower the Mask Strength or Scanline Type setting.
You can try any preset in any folder but they are tested on and optimized for the resolutions that are stated in the folder so they may not look as good using different resolutions.
Feel free to post some screenshots describing whatever issues you might be having. Sometimes there could be bugs or things that may not have been picked up during testing or present in the material used for testing that might be seen in other games.
When you say it’s dark, do you mean really dark or slightly dark?
Let’s see if we can make things better for you.
Great display shader pack. How can i use it with the Duimon and Soqueroeu-TV presets in combination for 1440p like in the screenshots?
PSA: N64 ----> Composite Pure, Composite Sharp & Arcade Sharp All look fantastic!
Thanks @Schwenkman!
You can try the presets I’ve already integrated and use them as an example.
If you want to learn to integrate my presets yourself then you might have to change the reference base preset (it’s usually the first line in the last preset in the chain) in @Duimon’s or @soqueroeu’s presets to point to my presets or vice versa.
You can also copy and paste the settings in my presets into @Duimon’s or @soqueroeu’s presets or vice versa.
These scale settings have only been tested at 4K resolution so if you’re using a different resolution you might have to adjust the scale settings, and possibly some other stuff. Switching Integer Scale Mode to 0 might make things easier to fit but then you might be more likely to get moire patterns depending on the scale factor.
Well I did the tests requested, and with that I changed the parameters of the field “CRT Gamma In” and the field “CRT Gamma Out”. And forgot to mention, the monitor I’m using is an AOC Full HD Agon AG323FCXE.
1.35 (Default loaded into Preset)
2.5
3.5
I don’t know if you can notice the difference, because I tested it on another monitor (with a lower resolution) and it was really dark, improving with the values of 3.5. If you notice on the edges, the reflection of the game is much clearer.
And below the information of the SHADER:
And look, I’ll be honest, this preset is wonderful my friend, you can see the comparison between the one with the shader applied and the one without any shader, the difference is blatant!!
I’ll keep trying to see what the best configuration is, because when I remove the shader, it gets MUCH lighter, but very “ugly”, let’s say, without having that vision that tube TVs provided in relation to the image and the final result.
Very nice! I’m glad you’re getting the results you’re looking for with my presets.
You can also try leaving the Gamma In and Gamma Out at 1.35 and raising the Post CRT Brightness to 3.5 (or higher) and see if that’s bright enough for you.
Experiment and see which way looks better.
This is what CyberLab Turbo Duo for Blargg + Blargg_NTSC_Turbo_Duo_SNES_PSX_S-Video_CyberLab_Special_Edition looks like today!
CyberLab Turbo Duo for Blargg + Blargg_NTSC_Turbo_Duo_SNES_PSX_S-Video_CyberLab_Special_Edition
This is what CyberLab SNES looks like today!
This is what CyberLab Genesis for Blargg + Blargg_NTSC_Genesis_S-Video_CyberLab_Special_Edition looks like today!
CyberLab Genesis for Blargg + Blargg_NTSC_Genesis_S-Video_CyberLab_Special_Edition
This is what CyberLab NES for Blargg + Core Blargg NTSC S-Video looks like today!
CyberLab NES for Blargg + Core Blargg NTSC S-Video - 1
CyberLab NES for Blargg + Core Blargg NTSC S-Video - 2
CyberLab NES for Blargg + Core Blargg NTSC S-Video - 3
CyberLab NES for Blargg + Core Blargg NTSC S-Video - 4
CyberLab NES for Blargg + Core Blargg NTSC S-Video - 5
CyberLab NES for Blargg + Core Blargg NTSC S-Video - 6
You can use MPC-HC, MX Player or VLC Player to view the videos.
CyberLab__Arcade-Sharp__PVM-Edition__ADV
You have to zoom in or view these screenshots fullscreen for them to look right.
This is what things look like after my latest update 18-05-22. I’ll update the videos in the previous post to show the improvements.
Jail bar de-dithering, (aka waterfall blending) & Sharp Sega Genesis Output at the same time.
CyberLab Genesis for Blargg + Blargg NTSC Genesis Composite CyberLab Special Edition video filter
CyberLab Turbo Duo
CyberLab SNES
CyberLab SNES (MDAPT Off)
CyberLab SNES Sharp
You have to load full resolution then zoom in or view fullscreen in order for these to look correct because of the mask and scanline settings.
@Cyber i don’t know if it was asked here but what is the reason this shader+bezel pack exists
The community is fond of tweaking the Guest etc, presets to emulate different hardware and work well with specific platforms.
@Cyber’s modifications are extremely popular.
Soon, new features in Retroarch will make it easy to use Cyber’s modifications within other works, such as @TheNamec’s, @soqueroeu’s, and mine.
They also exist because, RetroArch stopped supporting .cg shaders and my Analog Shader Pack “Death To Pixels” CRT Shader preset (not my creation by the way) stopped working.
I combed the Libretro Forums looking for a solution and tried using modified versions of RetroArch in order to keep using the Analog Shader Pack. I even tried to compile RetroArch with CG support but failed.
I eventually came across some cool looking Shader Presets with reflective bezels from @HyperspaceMadness and I immediately began tweaking.
I was very satisfied with the results and I contined to delve deeper into shader preset development, trying to tweak my settings to my satisfaction. Things eventually evolved and grew into what you see today.
I was happy to share what I was working on with the rest of the community so that folks who had to give up Analog Shader Pack could have a decent alternative or at least be able to take advantage of what I use and have an easier starting point.
I hope that answers your question.
Hello,
I just found out about shaders recently when trying to make some SNES games look more natural. I’m playing at 1440p and I’m currently bouncing back and forth between the Composite-Sharp_1440p and the 1080p SNES console specific shaders. Is there any disadvantages to using a 1080p shader at 1440p, and would it be worth it to lower my resolution to 1080p while playing if using it? Overall, both look amazing, I’m just being a bit nit-picky trying to get my perfect settings in order before I get too into the games.
Thank you
I can’t answer that with certainty since I haven’t tested my console specific presets at 1440p (yet).
You can probably use whichever one looks best to you. If I were to make a 1440p version of my console specific presets there may not be any huge difference in terms of the overall sharpness of the presets themselves as they’re probably about as sharp as I can get them right now, which is what used to be the main differentiator between the various resolution optimizations in the past. I basically was trying to ensure that sharpness was more or less consistent when using different resolutions.
There were other things that I needed to tweak the presets for as well like the mask size and type. Mask types that might work well for 1080p and 4K displays may not be the best choice for 1440p displays.
At some point I was trying to have all of my presets to show the RGB triads when viewed up close. I wasn’t getting this to look right in my testing at 1440p so I ended up going with a completely different mask type as a result.
I have now learned that the final look of those RGB triads can vary considerably depending on the subpixel layout of the individual display and at the time I was trying to do all of my testing and development on a 4K screen. The result is that the way the presets would look at 1440p on my 4K screen may not match at all the way they might look on a native 1440p screen.
Since the main differentiator between the resolution optimizations is using the Mask Type, Size and Layout which I think looks best at any resolution, I would really want to be testing on a native 1440p screen going forward.
So what you can do is continue using my 1080p Console Specific Presets (or even my 4K Console Specific Presets) and experiment with the Mask Types, Sizes and Layout at 1440p and use the one that looks best to you. You don’t have to go below Mask 5, you can play around with Masks 5 through 1312. You can turn off Deconvergence first if you want to see exactly how each mask aligns with your display’s subpixels and be sure to try both layout 0 and layout 1 for each mask type.
You can either leave the Mask Size at 0 (Auto) or adjust it between 1 and 2 to match your taste depending on which Mask you have selected.
This is how you would get the console specific presets to match your display.
If you don’t find any settings to be satisfactory or have any confusion, you can just fall back to the Mask Size and Mask Type settings that are used in my Composite-Sharp__1440p__PVM-Edition preset.
Ever since the Guest-CRT-Advanced shader that’s one of the foundations of the HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader package got the ability to toggle (reverse) Mask Layouts, I’ve recommended that users experiment to see which Mask Layout looks best with their particular displays as I have set them to match my personal displays.
Try not to be too nit-picky, just use what looks good and if you enjoy my presets be sure to spread the word so that others may benefit!
I don’t recommend dropping down to 1080p resolution if you’re on a 1440p screen as that would result in uneven scaling. You can drop down to 1280 x 720p though if you need to get an additional performance boost.
So feel free to go ahead and experiment. Even though it may sound tedious to go through all those Mask Types, Sizes and Layouts, it’s not really that hard. The correct Mask Size and Layout should be pretty obvious at first glance so you can quickly move on to the next Mask Type.
Lastly, don’t forget to turn Deconvergence back on when you’re finished, then you can go back then Save the Preset as a Core Preset and also as a new custom preset with a new name.
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