Mega Bezel Reflection Shader! - Feedback and Updates

[HyperspaceMadness]

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The Mega Bezel Shader is updated to V 2020-07-14

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Changes

• Fix to auto aspect ratio to a bug introduced last update & cleaned up this code

Master system Batman with some extra cropping added on the left side to remove the black border

just FYI these are the “special case” resolutions caught by the auto aspect ratio mode

    vec2 nintendo_gameboy_advance_res =     vec2(240, 160);
    vec2 nintendo_gameboy_res =             vec2(160, 144);
    vec2 nintendo_ds_top_bottom_res =       vec2(256, 384);
    vec2 nintendo_ds_side_by_side_res =     vec2(512, 192);
    vec2 nintendo_3ds_top_bottom_res =      vec2(400, 480);
    vec2 nintendo_3ds_side_by_side_res =    vec2(720, 240);
    vec2 atari_lynx_res =                   vec2(160, 102);
    vec2 atari_2600_res =                   vec2(160, 228);

Everything with y res higher than 500 uses PAR aspect ratio, and everything else uses the explicit aspect ratio set with the parameter which defaults to 1.33 which works well for arcade and crt age consoles.

Screenie of Phantasy Star just for fun

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@HyperspaceMadness

Here’s a link to the package

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AlJgyN_LYasyoIxcS8s6B2gH947dQg?e=1M2dzs

Set your video driver to Vulcan or GLCore

Set your video aspect ratio to your monitor resolution and set integer scale to OFF

Installation Instructions

• If you have previous versions of the Mega Bezel installed:
  • Delete shaders/shaders_slang/crt/shaders/HyperspaceMadness
  • Delete all hsm presets from shaders/shaders_slang/crt
• Inside the .zip is a shaders folder, drop this shaders folder directly over your existing one and everything will go into the right place
• Set video driver to Vulcan (It will run in GLCore but seems 2x faster in Vulcan)
• Set video aspect ratio to your monitor resolution and set integer scale to OFF
• Load a preset in the shaders menu, mega bezel shaders are found in shaders_slang/crt

[Bullfrog]

@Duimon

Your system should be plenty able enough for the shader.

Nice, good to hear this, = D

@Duimon

Are you using a clean new install of Retroarch or running the shader on an old setup?

Pretty old setup, but I regularly update it using Stellar, first I use the “RetroArch” option and then the “Cores” option. TBH, I don’t remember where/who told me to update like this instead of using the “RA+Cores”, it was a long time ago, not sure if this still makes a difference. Moreover, don’t know if I should use the “upgrade” option, but if I recall correctly, it overwrites your config files, so should be avoided, but I’m not 100% sure on this:

@Duimon

BTW. I do happen to be the author of the graphic, HSM has been kind enough to include it in his release. I have a Github repo…

GitHub

Duimon - Overview

I have a B.S. in Graphic Communications and a passion for emulation that stretches back to the early days of MAME and DOS emulators. - Duimon

…where you will find other graphics you can use with the night preset, (complete with Lit LED TopLayerImages for systems with visible LEDs.) No Master System graphic yet but you could make a request. (I have a habit of moving requests to the top of my list.)

Wow, they look fantastic! I’ll be trying them for sure!

So, the Night folder I assume is the one to be used with the Night preset. To use it, Do I just need to add as Overlay in RetroArch option? Does it need to have a .cfg file?

And the Overlay-Hybrid should be used with the HSM presets that doesn’t automatically generates the overlay and the user adds them manually in the Overlay options, right?

@Duimon

No Master System graphic yet but you could make a request. (I have a habit of moving requests to the top of my list.)

If you feel like, I would love to see a Neo Geo and/or CPS3 overlay done by you. Usually I use MAME to arcade stuff, but the HSM Reflection Shaders combined with you Overlays would make start using RetroArch for Arcade in a instant!

@HyperspaceMadness

Thanks for all the screenshots, this helps a lot, you are right it got squished flat like a pancake

My bad for not including them in the first place, . These flattened image gave me Virtual Boy feelings, haha

@HyperspaceMadness

I should be releasing an updated version with the fix tonight or latest tomorrow.

Just tried the update, now Master System and everything using Genesis Plus GX is working nicely! thanks for the update!

However, Beetle PSX HW continues to malfunction on my and. As before, any hsm-mega-bezel and any hsm-reflection-only makes Retroarch close as soon as they are applied.

And hsm-screen-scale-crt-guest-dr-venom and hsm-screen-scale-crt-royale that were working fine before, now displays a flattened image:

(I really should stop taking screenshots from scenes with black background, my bad, )

I would like to post my core configs because maybe I’m using options that doesn’t play well with the shaders but couldn’t find how to use spoilers. Is it possibly? Otherwise I would clutter the topic even more

And I also tested some N64:

Night preset works fine but the gameplay field doesn’t “touches” the inner part of the bezel:

And the Night N64 preset displays de bezel upside down,

[HyperspaceMadness]

@Bullfrog

So, the Night folder I assume is the one to be used with the Night preset. To use it, Do I just need to add as Overlay in RetroArch option? Does it need to have a .cfg file?

And the Overlay-Hybrid should be used with the HSM presets that doesn’t automatically generates the overlay and the user adds them manually in the Overlay options, right?

For any of these which are not the Overlay Hybrid the texture needs to be set inside the .slangp preset file. For the overlay Hybrid you add it like a normal Retroarch overlay, so you need to create a .cfg file to go along with the image. The Overlay Hybrid ones are really made for people who have hardware which can’t run at full speed with the full Mega Bezel. If your system can run it I suggest the full Mega Bezel because it is more flexible.

@Bullfrog

And hsm-screen-scale-crt-guest-dr-venom and hsm-screen-scale-crt-royale that were working fine before, now displays a flattened image:

Thanks for the snapshots, I’ll check out what the right solution to this is, I did a google search and found that it runs at at an odd resolution which is probably what is tripping up

@Bullfrog

Pretty old setup, but I regularly update it using Stellar

To test I would try just downloading a new separate Retroarch installation from their site, drop the shaders in there and test without any adjustment to see if this fixes it.

@Bullfrog

Night preset works fine but the gameplay field doesn’t “touches” the inner part of the bezel:

This is actually normal because N64 just has all this extra space around the original image. To fix this you can adjust the [CROPPING] Crop Overscan Top etc to crop out the extra black space. If people really wanted it I could look into having an auto-crop which would try to crop off all black space, and I’m not totally sure it would be robust.

@Bullfrog

Night N64 preset displays de bezel upside down,

This is because the N64 preset is expecting to run on top of Mupen which flips the viewport upside down, and this is a fix to flip it back. To fix this go to the parameters and turn off [VERTICAL FLIP] Flip Viewport Vertical. Which core are you running for N64?

[Bullfrog]

@HyperspaceMadness

For any of these which are not the Overlay Hybrid the texture needs to be set inside the .slangp preset file. For the overlay Hybrid you add it like a normal Retroarch overlay, so you need to create a .cfg file to go along with the image. The Overlay Hybrid ones are really made for people who have hardware which can’t run at full speed with the full Mega Bezel. If your system can run it I suggest the full Mega Bezel because it is more flexible.

Got it! So I’ll try to use the full Mega Bezel.

So, just to make sure that I get this right, let’s say that I want to get a result similar to this example given in github landing page:

First I would download the png from “Logo/SNES.png”;

Then, I would apply hsm-mega-bezel-crt-guest-dr-venom-Night preset;

Go to its settings inside RetroArch and change this line:

BackgroundImage = …/crt/shaders/HyperspaceMadness/textures/HSM_Duimon_Super_Famicom_3840x2160.png

to this:

BackgroundImage = …/crt/shaders/HyperspaceMadness/textures/SNES.png (assuming I put SNES.png in the same folder)

And for systems that has content inside the Night folder, I can also change

TopLayerImage = …/crt/shaders/HyperspaceMadness/textures/TopLayerImage_Night_3840x2160.jpg

to the downloaded jpg? (Although I must admit I still didn’t understand exactly what is the Top Layer Image… does it go on top of the gameplay field?)

@HyperspaceMadness

I did a google search and found that it runs at at an odd resolution which is probably what is tripping up

This it interesting, I had no idea different games had custom resolution on PSX

@HyperspaceMadness

To test I would try just downloading a new separate Retroarch installation from their site, drop the shaders in there and test without any adjustment to see if this fixes it.

Sure, I’ll try this later

@HyperspaceMadness

This is actually normal because N64 just has all this extra space around the original image. To fix this you can adjust the [CROPPING] Crop Overscan Top etc to crop out the extra black space

So many years that I don’t see an actual N64 in action, didn’t remember this fact, but now it makes sense, thanks for clarifying!

@HyperspaceMadness

If people really wanted it I could look into having an auto-crop which would try to crop off all black space, and I’m not totally sure it would be robust.

Sounds interesting! But now that I know about the [CROPPING] Crop Overscan Top I’m already satisfied, ^^

@HyperspaceMadness

This is because the N64 preset is expecting to run on top of Mupen which flips the viewport upside down, and this is a fix to flip it back. To fix this go to the parameters and turn off [VERTICAL FLIP] Flip Viewport Vertical .

Nice, I’ll try to fix here

@HyperspaceMadness

Which core are you running for N64?

[Duimon]

@Bullfrog

@Bullfrog

So, the Night folder I assume is the one to be used with the Night preset. To use it, Do I just need to add as Overlay in RetroArch option? Does it need to have a .cfg file?

By tonight I will have at least a rudimentary guide on how to use with my graphics in the README of my HSM graphics repo, the night folder, and the Overlay-Hybrid folder. Please keep in mind that much of the method is subject to change as the shader matures, and my method may not be the only way, just my way.

[Syh]

PlayStation games will change resolution while you are playing the same game, it’s a weird system lmao.

[Bullfrog]

@Duimon

By tonight I will have at least a rudimentary guide on how to use with my graphics in the README of my HSM graphics repo, the night folder, and the Overlay-Hybrid folder. Please keep in mind that much of the method is subject to change as the shader matures, and my method may not be the only way, just my way.

@Syh

PlayStation games will change resolution while you are playing the same game, it’s a weird system lmao.

really? lol,

[HyperspaceMadness]

At one point at bootup something Duimon found is that it probably outputs no signal, so retroarch outputs an image which is somehting 10px or 20px.

If you are ever wondering about the resolution coming from the core you can turn on first shader parameter which is the Debug info and it will show you all the resolutions on-screen

[Syh]

Yeah, start screens and menus are commonly a different resolution then actually gameplay. The bios screen also uses a different resolution from what I recall.

It’s odd lol.

[Duimon]

@HyperspaceMadness

Duimon - HSM Reflection Shader - Graphics - Feedback and Updates

New one by request. I think it is ready for release! [SMS_WIP1] Or with a bezel logo. [SMS_WIP2] SEGA Master System! I REALLY took liberties with this one. More than most, it is representative, not realistic. I could have done what I did with the ZX and 2600 (plopped a realistic console on the screen) but I wanted more balance. (I completely eliminated most of the console and concentrated on the decals.) I like it!

[HyperspaceMadness]

@Bullfrog

Although I must admit I still didn’t understand exactly what is the Top Layer Image… does it go on top of the gameplay field?

The Top Layer Image generally goes on top of everything, but it has masking to control which area it appears, E.G. By default it is set to not appear on top of the tube.

About the N64 preset, some of the settings it has different than the others is that scalefx is turned on and the sampling has been adjusted to give smoother looking geometry and still have nice scanlines.

[Bullfrog]

Nice, thanks for the explanation!

[pnkiller78]

Is it just me or the cropping options do nothing on this preset hsm-mega-bezel-crt-royale? I tested the same options hsm-mega-bezel-crt-guest-dr-venom and they work without as expected. Just loaded fresh the preset without making any modification on both cases to test if my old preset overrides have something that is messing with the cropping and they didn’t work on royale.

[HyperspaceMadness]

Yup, that’s right, Royale is one where the sampling & cropping is not controlled by the Mega Bezel, this is because to implement this I need to wade into the underworld of Royale and the special sampling it uses, and this will take some extra effort.

Quick poll, how many of you who are using the Mega Bezel are using Royale?

[JHorbach1]

@HyperspaceMadness I don’t use Royale as it looks awful and scanlines are uneven on my 1080p display.

[Bullfrog]

Finally got Beetle PSX HW working with HSM Shaders! And indeed, some option in the core config was the reason for the Shader not working right, making RA shut down.

Reseting the Core settings to default did the trick. Funny thing is - already set the settings to my preference and it is still working fine - couldn’t find exactly what was the cause, but at least it’s working good now!

Now there’s something that I would like to ask, don’t know exactly how to call this, but the “light reflection” that appears on the top left corner of the gameplay field and on the bottom right, when the background is dark/black, as seen above the left player on the screenshot - Is there anyway to tune it down a bit? I think it’s an awesome detail and really adds to the CRT feel, however it can get a bit distracting in games with lots of dark backgrounds…

@HyperspaceMadness

Quick poll, how many of you who are using the Mega Bezel are using Royale?

So far I’m just using the hsm-mega-bezel-crt-guest-dr-venom-Night (and the N64 variation) and I’m loving it!

And talking about N64, I also tried the new paraLLEl N64 that people are saying is the new best option for low-level emulation/high-accuracy N64 emulation and they work amazing with the Night-N64 preset!

Screenshot with native resolution and x4+downsampling:

@Duimon

By tonight I will have at least a rudimentary guide on how to use with my graphics in the README of my HSM graphics repo, the night folder, and the Overlay-Hybrid folder.

Hi @Duimon, don’t know if I’m looking at the right place or not, , but the readme of the repo you are saying is the following path, right?

github.com/ Duimon/HSM-Reflection-Shader-Graphics/blob/master/README.md

(I added a space on the url to don’t preview the content and clutter the post)

[HyperspaceMadness]

@Bullfrog

Is there anyway to tune it down a bit? I think it’s an awesome detail and really adds to the CRT feel, however it can get a bit distracting in games with lots of dark backgrounds…

Yup this is the [TUBE] Tube Glass Image Opacity parameter, just reduce it or set it to 0 to remove it completely.

[Duimon]

@HyperspaceMadness

Duimon - HSM Reflection Shader - Graphics - Feedback and Updates

I think I have it worked out. [SMS_New_WIP1] Not much of the sloping sides are there, but they are there. I also darkened the red a lot to ease distraction. It’s a bit busier than the first, but I like it.

How do you like it?

[pnkiller78]

Seems like it’s just me who uses Royale… and that’s the only one I use, I really like the bloom effect on letters and the old crt feel you get on it. It kinds of remind me the old low quality CRT TV I used when I was a kid. Anyway if you someday feel like implementing the cropping in that shader, I would really appreciate it.

By the way, I really love your work, it’s amazing and I’m very impressed with the whole idea and quality of the result. The only missing feature that I would love was to be able to set a color for the frame bezel, so it could match the background images, I use it with different background images of different CRT TV, and some have silver tones, other gray in dark and light variants. The current frame color in like dark gray only.

[dragon57]

I use Royale as well. It seems to match closest to the old monitors I used to have.