I’ll just reply with a quick feedback, because I’m not finished playing with the shader yet, so I’ll only talk about things I’m sure. So far, I’ve noticed good and bad things, though a few were already fixed in your latest update (you’re fast).
Default settings
Sane choices. There are many good shaders, but few with all-around and bright defaults, demanding previous knowledge for further tweaking. Crt-Hyllian looks good out of the box, and unskilled users can promptly enjoy it, while leaving room for additional changes, for anyone else.
Masks
Still all good. Everything remained as good as the previous version, but now with presets and flexible switching between 1080p and 4k coarseness. Slot masks are faster. No green/red tint on gray areas. Top notch quality here, should satisfy anyone but pursuers of complete accuracy (though I think even they would commend your work).
Scanlines unevenness
Some problems, unfortunately. Default settings do what was promised: less unevenness even for the “sharp” option. However, things fall apart with most tweaking attempts.
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To begin with, unevenness will never disappear, as long as the image is being scaled at a non-integer value. It can be mitigated, and a higher resolution screen with a higher pixel density might make the problem invisible to the human eye, but it’s still there. We just tackle the issue with the best possible solution, knowing it won’t be the perfect, just the most appropriate.
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Even though the defaults are mostly fine, there’s still some edge situations where unevenness become apparent. With many different screens and resolutions, that’s to be expected, and that’s when tweaking comes. Regrettably, unlike previous versions, there’s barely any room for changing parameters without making everything worse.
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“Sharp scanlines” are vastly affected by even small amounts of “brightness boost” and “glow”, even more than the previous “sinc scanlines” option. Although raising the “glow rollout” parameter helps a little.
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Both scanline options are considerably affected by lowering the “min beam width” parameter by even small amounts, making it harder to control bleeding through the gaps. Specially given how the “soft scanlines” are weaker than the “gaussian scanlines” at the same settings.
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“Scanline strength”, if upped, gives bad results even with soft scanlines.
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Vertical scanlines work, but the problem is more apparent during scrolling. Although I play only a few games like that, so I’d rather not comment too much.
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To control bleeding without messing the picture, I resorted to an old trick of lowering both gamma outputs at the same amount. It gets better, but not with the same degree of control from the previous versions.
Overbrightness
I like my shaders bright, close to unfiltered/raw levels of bright. While I can always achieve it easily with crt-hyllian, I noticed that my preferences became almost the bare-minimum. With every shader, sometimes the picture is too bright or too dark. There are multiple ways to remedy the situation, and it’s no different with crt-hyllian… or it used to be no different. In previous versions, there were a few options you could use to balance things out, but now:
- “Min beam width” quickly generates uneven scanline gaps. So, you can make things brighter, but not darker.
- “Glow” is the same as above, and unecessary when everything is already bright enough.
- “Brightboost”, though more granular, it’s now very bright even at the lowest value. So, you can make things brighter, but not darker.
- “Mask Dark Subpixel Strength” does not exist anymore. Although you can still make things darker with the new “mask strength” parameter, but not brighter.
- “Scanline strength” can’t be as inconsequentionally manipulated as before.
- NEW: interestingly, changing the default mask preset (value “0”, custom) to “Aperture 1” (value “1”) results in a more balanced brightness default without changing anything else.
Older versions let you freely make the picture brighter or darker in many different ways. There are instances where you want a specific pattern brighter, but it creates imbalance, so you darken something else and get a solid result.
All in all, the shader is improving, I just noticed how things turned out less balanced this time around. You told me a new behavior was needed for vertical scanlines. I don’t know if that’s related to the issues, but, in the case it becomes an obstacle, wouldn’t be better if an alternate version was to be created (like “crt-hyllian-vertical/tate”)? For now, that’s all the feedback I can give you. Thanks for listening.
By the way, here’s a demonstration of the “gamma trick” I need to use with the current version:
Default values (with glow)
Default values (without glow)
Gamma trick used, without glow (all other values are default)
