Mega Bezel Reflection Shader! - Feedback and Updates

So are you saying it’s working in this preset, but not the others?

2 Likes

Yes, but I’ve only tested those 3 Base Presets above so there could be others which I haven’t tested which either work or don’t work.

Do you need me to test more base presets or is this a good enough start for you to track down the source or any potential bugs causing this?

The way you have the brighter ambient-lit tube here reminded me of something. Is there a way to have it subtly display the mask instead of just a smooth surface? Not like the Black Level (Adds Scanlines Over Black) setting where it only does the scanlines, but actually the full mask, which the scanlines are then drawn on top of rather than having them just floating on empty black.

I looked through the settings a few times but couldn’t find anything that did it but I may have missed something. If it’s not currently an option, please consider implementing it! I think it would go a long way toward making everything look more convincing for me. Particularly in combination with a little signal noise which currently looks a bit odd without the rest of the mask being slightly visible as well.

I’m also curious about the hum bar. I want to try using it as a sort of flicker or “partial BFI” but the fastest setting of “3” just splits the screen across the center, alternating top and bottom halves every other frame. I suppose “2” would be the full screen, but maybe there are some in-between values that would cause the “split” to still move each frame? In other words, a combination of the slower bar and the faster flicker, I guess.

It would also be great if it could run at a higher frame rate than the game itself to take advantage of a higher refresh rate. I tried messing with different VSync intervals but I’m not really capable of noticing what effect that has on the flicker, if any. But if the shader could multiply the game’s native frame rate and draw the effects at that higher rate, and then still sync the output, that would probably do the trick.

It’s an interesting question, but in terms of realism, I’m not sure adding a mask pattern on the unexcited tube would help, because when the lights are on in a room with a crt tube I don’t think you see much of a mask. It would be interesting to see a Photoshop or Gimp mockup of how it would look to see it its really something that we’d want.

This will show mask on any part of the tube which is illuminated by the game image, regardless of if there are scanlines or not

We could try adjusting the increment to 0.5

Right now that isn’t how Retroarch works, the shader framerate is directly linked to Core output frames

3 Likes

Man, this is really good. It will look more realistic. I really appreciate this change!

1 Like

Hah, I just went to look for examples and it looks like you guys were talking about it already back in December and there are some great shots of it: Calling all CRT owners: photos please! I guess the slots are behind the phosphor stripes so you get those nice solid lines filling out the black space rather than just a void. That’s definitely the type of look I’d like to get, hopefully it’s not too hard to figure out.

Maybe I’m missing something or doing it wrong, but this only raises the level of the scanlines, and still leaves the gaps black. I can get a somewhat decent look by setting this to 0.01 and then dropping the interlace trigger res to force it to fill out. But that only works as an example since it obviously ruins the rest of the image, and the slots are too prominent that way compared to those example photos. It also gets too bright when combined with even the lowest amount of signal noise.

Yeah I’d be curious to see what finer adjustments would do, not sure what amount would be good though.

That’s too bad about the frame rate, but maybe one day…

I think that’s enough for me to be able to track down what’s going on, thanks for getting me the direct comparisons.

3 Likes

Yeah I’ll think about this and what might help here.

This all depends on your scanline settings, and how much you have set for the scanline to affect above and below the scanline. You can tell if you turn on the NoScanline mode you will see the mask affects everything, just if you have scanlines which produce a black area in the middle it is not going to affect that. It is a black adjustment before the crt effect.

Try the new contrast option in the Signal noise to be able to adjust how much the overall brightness is adjusted.

2 Likes

Do you guys prefer it with or without scanlines?

Excellent! This is a great relief! I’m really looking forward to seeing this resolved!

You’re welcome, thanks for all the hard work you put into providing this great platform for the expression of our creativity!

3 Likes

I was wondering about this too… I have a couple vector games I can’t seem to get rid of those black lines (vertical games, I think, like Tac Scan, Sundance, etc)

I apologize if this has been answered before. Is there a global setting to turn off the scanlines and keep the reflections? Also, maybe turn on sharpening? I love the scanlines, but some games/systems I would prefer sharp pixels. Thank you for not roasting me in advance.

i think its also have to do how emulator renders the game , its allways slighty dotted loooks weird without any shader in my mind

thats how mine now looks up close thing is you cant reach this with mame

3 Likes

That looks good, and I did try the new vector presets, but I like to be able to see the vector points and I didn’t know how to tone down the lines (not to open a can of worms).

hmm i like them this way …but maybe than you can try mame it has at least settings for the point and line size etc. but it will be in low res

1 Like

MAME has a hi res mode, I just had to make .opt files manually for the vector games, for some reason. It doesn’t look as bold as the ones you have in FB but for most games I have them looking like I want them… just a few stragglers, like I mentioned.

oh i didn´t now that …i have to look into that

1 Like

Vector in MAME (current) set up the way I like them… most people would probably prefer yours, with the thicker vector lines and bolder colors.

5 Likes

best would be a setting like mine …with an brigther lilne in the middle like yours …with the dots. visible …i think i tried it and then everything gets harsh on the eyes and hard to read

2 Likes

There is definitely still room for tinkering on mine. Now that I am thinking about it… I had to crop a bunch of black off of a couple of those vertical games and I’m wondering if the stretch from that makes those black lines I was talking about more visible.

2 Likes