Mega Bezel Reflection Shader! - Feedback and Updates

RetroArch Additions Shaders
#3018

Hi @Mauricio, Thanks :slight_smile:

this is an error which happens on some operating systems when a shader uses absolute paths E.G. :shaders/shaders_slang/blah/... . Instead of relative paths E.G. ../Base_CRT_Presets /blah/...

I’ll adjust these for the next release so we don’t have these problems anymore.

One fix is to have the shaders in the retroarch folder.

If this doesn’t fix it or you don’t want your shaders installed there, a workaround is to adjust the paths, in the variations presets you can replace where it says

#reference ":/shaders/shaders_slang/bezel/Mega_Bezel/Presets/Base_CRT_Presets/

with

#reference "../Base_CRT_Presets/

I’ll update the presets on the next release to fix this, sorry for the bump in the road :upside_down_face:

3 Likes
#3019

Iqarujanus a user on Steam has shared a fun collection of screenshots using @Duimon and @TheNamec’s presets :star_struck:

I really enjoy seeing how people decide to use this stuff :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

Screenshot Collection
Screenshot Collection1080×1444 560 KB

https://steamcommunity.com/id/Iqarujanus/screenshots/

Thanks Iqarujanus! :smiley:

7 Likes
#3020

I have the paths issue on Archlinux too. The shaders are in my /home/tromzy/.config/retroarch/shaders folder, though. Hope the next update will fix it !

2 Likes
#3021

This is great! Congratulations @HyperspaceMadness, @Duimon and @TheNamec. I’m sure you must feel proud of this accomplishment!

4 Likes
#3022

Just updated my CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels (Composite & Arcade - Sharp) Presets! Tweaked the rolling scanlines to be just a tad more subtle and increased the spike removal for a slight spike in image quality! lol Plus I added some instructions in my post for persons with lower end systems. Please do enjoy! I certainly do!

Of course screenshots will follow a bit later. I still have to figure out why some of my screenshots have been looking so dark.

I also corrected the gamma/brightness on my (Composite - Sharp) preset.

I think they’re ready for prime time. They’ve been tested on and optimized primarily for 4K screens. Not sure what’s gonna happen on 1440p screens. Might have some slight weird scaling artifacts. 1080p might work but might lose a bit of detail and end up looking very different. I only tested some screenshots @ 1440p and noticed some scaling artifacts that weren’t there when I tested the same screenshots on a 1080p screen.

I really have to update the current screenshots because they’ve evolved so much past those. Will do that as soon as I can.

@HyperspaceMadness, @Duimon, @guest.r, @Brainbin74, @Nesguy feel free to take 'em for a spin.

5 Likes
#3023

Is it just me or is anyone else really excited about and looking forward to the next HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader release?! I’m really happy about the way things look with the latest updates to my shader presets! They’re, just that bit more refined to me now!

3 Likes
#3024

I see that you have corrected the gamma and contrast… I would test this, as for example in the game bonk revenge ( pc kid2 pc engine) See if it matches my sony kvb crt. ( then attention I take care of the grain and the respect of the crt, aspect ratio, gamma etc…). :joy::joy::joy:

1 Like
#3025

Yes, it is something that I had in the back of my mind to attempt but I am still new at this so I take my time. I’ve been adjusting and dealing with things one step at a time. My reference is my eyes, mind, extensive experience and knowledge as an avid gamer and my excellent memory - which is something that some of the purists among us here reject as a proper reference but which I embrace. I’m doing this for my personal enjoyment and by extension to share my experience with those who would also like to appreciate what I appreciate.

You can feel free to modify and do whatever you wish to take these presets in the direction you desire as I have done with the original presets they are based upon. My main goal was to get a shader preset to replace the cgp preset that I was using for years but I believe I have more than surpassed that goal in a very short time.

Credit and gratitude to all who made this possible once more!

3 Likes
#3026

I’m teasing you, it’s a joke. I will of course make a copy and correct the mistakes I find… You are obliged to give the config files of the systems, or even corrections per game. Ex: different overscan per machine and per game… Ex: pc engine cd castlevania, you must have the full screen of the logo konami without black bands… And so configure this game specifically to correct the overscan… (which is like saving game override cfg)… For this game, if you make save core override all the other games will be badly displayed… That’s why I’m working on my side, to provide my preset with config files that correct some games. It’s long, requires knowledge and experience. In short, that’s why I’m teasing you about the ratio aspect, because it’s impossible to get it on all systems, except to provide corrections by games with problems with the config.

Good luck my friend.

:blush:

1 Like
#3027

Many of theses issues, including the cropping of black lines, can be handled automatically by the shader. There are auto black-space cropping parameters, PAR aspect scaling, (That can even switch aspect on the fly during transitions if desired.) and many, many more parameters that you can play with. The Mega Bezel is a brand new world!

4 Likes
#3028

Is this shader optimised for non-Vulkan low-to-mid tier hardware?

1 Like
#3029

Yes, I understood that. Lol. I was just putting in my general disclaimer so that people understand my objectives and my methods.

I’m aware of this and as I play games and notice things like noise or excessive black bars on the borders of the screen, I meticulously crop them because I find them distracting. I have already been doing this and saving game overrides as I go along and encounter these situations. My focus is on removing the noise and black bars though and not necessarily on correcting the aspect ratio when I do this because I wouldn’t know the correct reference for the precise aspect ratio for each game, plus it doesn’t really bother me that much if the aspect ratio is slightly off.

It would actually be interesting if you took the presets as a base and applied your perfections, adjustments and corrections to it! I could just imagine what we (the community) would end up with in the end because what is there now is already very satisfying for me! So, I wasn’t being sarcastic in the least.

Thanks and take care. Although I have my ego, when things are pointed out to me, I consider the constructive criticism or observations then I either agree or disagree and choose whether it is something I want to work on improving in the future. Sometimes things can be brought to my attention that I might have already noticed but just haven’t gotten around to addressing yet. One can’t expect to achieve greatness if one is afraid of and not open to constructive criticism.

I hope you’ll enjoy my contribution and that it will help others achieve the levels of nostalgia and appreciation for the art of gaming that I’m currently enjoying.

4 Likes
#3030

One way I’m thinking about trying to accomplish this in the future is getting a sort of lowest common denominator type of compromise for a global crop for the presets because our TVs didn’t have per game awareness but they displayed our games just fine. So perhaps rather than per game or per console adjustments a more faithful approach (and one that would benefit a wider range of end users) might be to use a particular TV as a reference and apply the cropping to match that TV across the board. I forsee the disadvantage here would be that for some games, part of the hud/status area might end up being cropped as it probably would have been on a real CRT and that might end up less desirable than seeing all of the game art in its correct aspect ratio because we can.

One aspect of my design goals for these presets is to eventually create as much of a one-size fits all as much as possible so I test across multiple systems and games and sometimes due to whatever quirks and anomalies an adjustment might be made to cater for something that’s seen in one game on one system then when you switch to another game and system, it seems to break what you had or not work so well on another. In cases like that, I would most likely end up somewhere in the middle of the two best settings for each case and I think that’s where some of the magic and beauty comes from in these presets.

2 Likes
#3031

Can you be a bit more specific as to your hardware? There are different options available for different performance levels ranging from potato to advanced.

Why don’t you have access to Vulkan?

I think they work on other APIs though.

#3032

I get up, drink the coffee and read your messages. I don’t see any problem in providing a configuration file to the user. Because these are only text files that do not take even 8 to 10 MB for complete folders for thousands of games corrected. Now the problem is not retroarch, but the creator of each core. Either he took into account the overscan in these calculations, or not… So it is not the case on crt because the snes displays 256224 without overscan, if the snes core displays 256240 it takes into account what the crt did not display the overscan (was invisible to the user because hidden by the overscan) If all cores were the same in this approach? There would be no problem of framing, but it is not the case. If nobody does it? One day nobody will know how to display the games. If my crt breaks down…I will be one of them… So before all this disappears, I’ll do on my side the custom aspect ratio so that the games will be displayed like on crt, in aspect ratio, and in overscan. It’s a different approach that we have, I want the real reproduction and you are more in the nostalgia of the thing, I love the way you explain yourself, your ego? Etc… You are a good person.

The only system I wouldn’t do… Or difficult to do and the arcade… It is vain to try to display the arcade perfectly… Like for example mortal kombat, because this game will exclude all lcd 60hz. Which are not able to display 50hz… Because mortal kombat is in 54 hz. On my crt perfectly frame but on no lcd monitor it will be playable because 54hz is not 60hz… And that consequently the game goes too fast in 60hz and becomes unplayable… But the work has already been done with groovy mame, and groovy mama literally transforms my sony kvm crt into an arcade monitor, overscan, aspect ratio, pixel ratio, refresh, etc… Everything is perfect and I don’t have to change anything, it’s like having the real jamma card, without input lag, without defects. And fortunately because it corrects 25000 games? Aie aie aie… So the only thing I do? It’s to take care of all the other systems… The arcade is complex… And has already been done…at least on crt…I didn’t follow groovy mame on modern tv…I don’t know what is done… Anyway, here is my friend.

1 Like
#3033

I just tried it.

After it took like 3 minutes to load on DirectX11, the performance was pretty abysmal.

I recommend at least a quad core CPU for this shader, because it can’t run on older duals.

1 Like
#3034

Do you use runahead? This thing can kill your cpu. I have a core i5 4690k it’s not an overpowered cpu, it’s 4th generation intel… And an rtx2070… No shader can saturate my cpu, in 4k 3860*2160, and I use runahead 2 to 3 frames depending on the core… Super nes 2 frames ( if not input lag which does not exist on crt and real hardware…)

1 Like
#3035

It was off the whole time.

My Laptop just sucks, that’s all…

And before you ask, OpenGL is terrible on it.

1 Like
#3036

Ah yes it’s about laptops are expensive, obsolete quickly, and at equal price ofrre 30 to 40℅ performance, cpu desktop vs cpu laptop? Gpu laptop vs gpu desktop… Etc… It’s a choice you pay a lot of money for something that has only one purpose, to be on the go, to do some work, world exel etc… As soon as you want to play, the prices go from simple to double. Not to mention that laptops offer exotic resolutions because of their lcd… Etc… So I understand that retroarch and shaders are not suitable for a laptop. Like on my android quadcore tablet that can’t run the royal crt shaders, etc… Good game

1 Like
#3037

There does seem to be a known issue that the shader chain takes an especially long time to load on D3D11 compared to the GLCore or Vulkan drivers. I would suggest Vulkan or GLCore if those drivers run on your system.

The next release of the shader is going to run faster than the current version due to the caching feature that I am adding. I’m not sure if this will help with your laptop though as it really depends on what the GPU performance is.

But I’m pretty sure the really long load time is D3D11.

2 Likes