Mega Bezel Reflection Shader! - Feedback and Updates

[Cyber]

I just added some alternative presets to my post so I should now have a fairly comprehensive set of shader presets for a slightly wider range of tastes and different resolution and system performance scenarios. This was due to some feedback I received yesterday and also in the past.

So the hard work should be almost done at least until or unless the next or some future update of HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader! breaks…err…changes something while fixing or improving something else.

Time to play some games!

[2V3EvG4LMJFdRe]

Has anyone seen or worked on something like Analog Shader Pack version 3\Televisions\Vintage\The Zenith\RF.cgp? I use this for a handful of 70s platforms and have never seen an equivalent. I’d like to move on to slang completely one day.

[Cyber]

@2V3EvG4LMJFdRe

Has anyone seen or worked on something like Analog Shader Pack version 3\Televisions\Vintage\The Zenith\RF.cgp? I use this for a handful of 70s platforms and have never seen an equivalent. I’d like to move on to slang completely one day.

If you try my Composite - Sharp preset and turn on Curvature, increase the halation way up and probably the deconvergence noise and lastly, try some of the other mask types it might probably start to look something like that. After that you can probably try to reduce the first 2 Signal Resolution settings under GTU settings. If I have time I might try it myself.

You can try these and tell me what you think:

Updated: 19/10/21

CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels (70s RF) Series

CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels (70s Bad RF)

CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels 70s Bad RF.slangp

#reference ":/shaders/shaders_slang/bezel/Mega_Bezel/Presets/Base_CRT_Presets/MBZ__2__STD__GDV.slangp"
g_cntrst = "0.500000"
GDV_AFTERGLOW_THRESHOLD = "7.5"
// BP = "16"
glow = "-0.300000"
SIZEH = "7.000000"
SIGMA_H = "2.300000"
h_sharp = "3.000001"
maskstr = "0.4"
maskDark = "1.000000"
GDV_DECONVERGENCE_ON = "1.000000"
deconrr = "1.000000"
deconrb = "-1.000000"
deconrry = "1.000000"
deconrby = "-1.000000"
HSM_INTERLACE_TRIGGER_RES = "100.000000"
HSM_FAKE_SCANLINE_RES = "216.000000"
MDAPT_MODE = "2.00000"
HSM_CURVATURE_MODE = "0.000000"
HSM_CORE_RES_SAMPLING_MULT_SCANLINE_DIR = "1600.000000"
g_crtgamut = "1.000000"
SHARPEN_ON = "1.000000"
SHARPEN = "0.250000"
CONTR = "0.090000"
GTU_ON = "1.000000"
compositeConnection = "1.000000"
spike = "2.000000"
gamma_c = "1.640000"
deconsmooth = "1.000000"
HSM_SCALEFX_ON = "0.000000"
HSM_FAKE_SCANLINE_ROLL = "0.000000"
HSM_DOWNSAMPLE_BLUR_SCANLINE_DIR = "0.000000"
HSM_DOWNSAMPLE_BLUR_OPPOSITE_DIR = "0.000000"
g_hue_degrees = "4.000000"
signalResolutionI = "83.000000"
signalResolutionQ = "145.000000"
g_sat = "0.050000"
HSM_FAKE_SCANLINE_OPACITY = "0.000000"
halation = "1.000001"
shadowMask = "4.000000"
addnoised = "1.000000"

CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels (70s RF - Curved)

CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels 70s RF Curved.slangp

#reference "CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels 70s RF.slangp"
HSM_CURVATURE_MODE = "0.000000"

CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels (70s RF)

CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels 70s RF.slangp

#reference ":/shaders/shaders_slang/bezel/Mega_Bezel/Presets/Base_CRT_Presets/MBZ__2__STD__GDV.slangp"
g_cntrst = "0.500000"
GDV_AFTERGLOW_THRESHOLD = "7.5"
// BP = "16"
glow = "-0.300000"
SIZEH = "7.000000"
SIGMA_H = "2.300000"
h_sharp = "3.000001"
shadowMask = "6.000000"
maskstr = "0.4"
maskDark = "1.000000"
GDV_DECONVERGENCE_ON = "1.000000"
deconrr = "1.000000"
deconrb = "-1.000000"
deconrry = "1.000000"
deconrby = "-1.000000"
HSM_INTERLACE_TRIGGER_RES = "100.000000"
HSM_FAKE_SCANLINE_RES = "216.000000"
MDAPT_MODE = "2.00000"
HSM_CURVATURE_MODE = "-1.000000"
HSM_CORE_RES_SAMPLING_MULT_SCANLINE_DIR = "1600.000000"
g_crtgamut = "1.000000"
SHARPEN_ON = "1.000000"
SHARPEN = "0.250000"
CONTR = "0.090000"
GTU_ON = "1.000000"
compositeConnection = "1.000000"
spike = "2.000000"
gamma_c = "1.640000"
deconsmooth = "1.000000"
HSM_SCALEFX_ON = "0.000000"
HSM_FAKE_SCANLINE_OPACITY = "65.000000"
HSM_DOWNSAMPLE_BLUR_SCANLINE_DIR = "0.000000"
HSM_DOWNSAMPLE_BLUR_OPPOSITE_DIR = "0.000000"
g_hue_degrees = "4.000000"
signalResolutionI = "83.000000"
signalResolutionQ = "145.000000"
g_sat = "0.050000"
HSM_FAKE_SCANLINE_ROLL = "14.000000"
halation = "2.000000"
addnoised = "1.000000"

Note: You’ll need to have both the “CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels 70s RF Curved.slangp” preset and the “CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels 70s RF.slangp” preset saved in the same “…\Retroarch\Shaders” folder for these presets to work.

[2V3EvG4LMJFdRe]

These look pretty close to me! Thanks! I’ll try to report back with a more detailed comparison. I actually don’t like the curvature on the one I’m using and tried to disable it before to no avail too so that last one hits the spot.

[Cyber]

@2V3EvG4LMJFdRe

I actually don’t like the curvature on the one I’m using and tried to disable it before to no avail too so that last one hits the spot.

Oh you don’t like the curvature? Okay, well since the base presets don’t have curvature you can just omit the line that says:

@Cyber

HSM_CURVATURE_MODE = "0.000000"

Updated: 19/10/21

…even in the first preset if you want to turn it off. Or you can just use this and you’ll have 2 Old TV shaders (without curvature) to play with and see which one you prefer:

CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels 70s Bad RF Without Curvature.slangp

#reference "CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels 70s Bad RF.slangp"
HSM_CURVATURE_MODE = "-1.000000"

@2V3EvG4LMJFdRe

These look pretty close to me! Thanks!

@2V3EvG4LMJFdRe

so that last one hits the spot.

Thanks, I’m glad you like them!

What I’ve noticed is that display resolution has a huge influence on how these shaders look so I have a couple alternatives that might better suit lower resolution displays.

CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels 70s Bad RF - 1080p and 1440p.slangp

#reference "CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels 70s Bad RF Without Curvature.slangp"
halation = "0.500000"
addnoised = "0.70000"

CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels 70s RF - 1080p and 1440p.slangp

#reference "CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels 70s RF.slangp"
halation = "1.700000"
addnoised = "0.700000"

Note: You’ll need to have the “CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels 70s Bad RF.slangp” preset, the “CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels 70s Bad RF Without Curvature.slangp” preset and the “CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels 70s RF.slangp” preset saved in the same “…\Retroarch\Shaders” folder for these presets to work.

[2V3EvG4LMJFdRe]

Is there a way to browse the shaders shared in the thread that isn’t scrolling the thread? It gets confusing very quickly. Maybe they could be better documented?

[Duimon]

@2V3EvG4LMJFdRe

Is there a way to browse the shaders shared in the thread that isn’t scrolling the thread?

Well, technically this thread is about the Mega Bezel. Most of the information on the Mega Bezel can be found in the first post or two.

The thread really isn’t a resource for custom shaders so 99% will be useless to you if that is what you are looking for. (Although if you are interested in the evolution of the Mega Bezel it is a really good read. )

@Cyber has created some custom versions of shaders that are included in the Mega Bezel.

@HyperspaceMadness Maybe we should create another thread for these kind of customization’s and add a link to it up top?

[Cyber]

@Duimon

Maybe we should create another thread for these kind of customization’s and add a link to it up top?

I’m not arguing but are you sure that’s necessary? I felt like me directing users back to this thread when they see my presets might have actually promoted and expanded the userbase of HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader since all of my presets require it. I have done a couple other custom presets recently (not for me) which don’t use it and guess what, you won’t find any reference to them here. Only the ones that use HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader!

I remember @HyperspaceMadness saying that he lets stuff soak a little to gauge interest before including new things in the package. How can you gauge interest if the thread is split just as the signs of interest are starting to manifest?

I also remember @HyperspaceMadness saying:

@HyperspaceMadness

It would also be interesting to know if there are particular other analog shader pack shaders which are highly desired and could be replicated with GDV & the Mega Bezel

Guess what brought @2V3EvG4LMJFdRe here? They were looking for a way to use their old favourite Analog Shader Pack Shaders with new versions of RetroArch and all I was trying to do was offer an alternative in this inspired replication.

I hope you don’t find my posts about my presets to be detracting from the main topic as I was really trying to help and support HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader!. It could just be that there’s not much news regarding the main topic at the moment because the new version is currently being worked upon. What else can we chat about in the meantime?

If you still feel the need to split then go right ahead but I think it might be a bit premature.

[Duimon]

My friend, I wasn’t suggesting that HSM split the thread, nor was it my intent to devalue your contribution.

If you go back up in this thread to March of 2020 you’ll see that I posted all of my work here.

Eventually I created my own thread and started cross-linking to this when I had news.

My thought was only that @2V3EvG4LMJFdRe seemed to be mistaken about the content, and my intent was to offer a solution to his “documentation” comment.

[Cyber]

@Duimon

My thought was only that @2V3EvG4LMJFdRe seemed to be mistaken about the content, and my intent was to offer a solution to his “documentation” comment.

I understand. Well @2V3EvG4LMJFdRe is probably new to this new simple preset format as well so it might be slightly daunting. I mean even I am new to these things so I’m taking things one step at a time. I doubt I’ll get huge enough to warrant a new thread anytime soon. I didn’t even expect to be making any other presets and derivatives other than the ones I originally posted but I guess things are evolving. It seemed like fun trying to match some of the screenshots using the little that I’ve learned even if roughly.

What I have been doing is trying to have my presets up to date and ready for whenever @HyperspaceMadness might be ready or so inclined to include them in the main package. I might have made a slight announcement here and there in the thread just to let anyone interested be aware that they can take a look back at the old post to see and get the latest.

I’m thinking that once it becomes a part of the package, there’ll be no need to refer users or anyone interested to the raw presets and instead users would only have to be directed to the main HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader package. That’s why I haven’t even bothered to make a neat, little shader package zip file available for download.

[Cyber]

@2V3EvG4LMJFdRe

Is there a way to browse the shaders shared in the thread that isn’t scrolling the thread? It gets confusing very quickly. Maybe they could be better documented?

I suggest you take it one step at a time. You’ll need this first:

HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader! - Feedback and Updates

[Mega_Bezel_Logo] This thread is about the HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader for Retroarch! Here you can tell me what’s working for you and what could be better The shader is in a beta state, getting close to a V1, there will be some changes coming here and there, but almost all the parameter names are not going to change anymore. Try adjusting the shader parameters to change the look, as most things are adjustable for personal taste. SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PARTNER ON THIS PROJECT: I want to …

Read up and get that installed and working then you can try my shaders or any other compatible shaders you find in the thread or forums.

This is the post to my shader presets here:

HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader! - Feedback and Updates

Just sharing my latest presets with the community. I’m quite satisfied with these settings for now. Pictures won’t tell the whole story as there’s a bit of subtle movement going on in there so feel free to try them out. With that said, for the best viewing experience of these screenshots I suggest you right click on the image then click, “Open link in new tab”, “Open link in new window” or “Open image in new tab”. Then click on the new window or tab and press the F11 key for a fullscreen view. …

[HyperspaceMadness]

@Cyber

What I have been doing is trying to have my presets up to date and ready for whenever @HyperspaceMadness might be ready or so inclined to include them in the main package. I might have made a slight announcement here and there in the thread just to let anyone interested be aware that they can take a look back at the old post to see and get the latest.

Yup that’s great, happy to see the presets you’ve created, I’ll try to get them into the experimental folder soon :).

[Cyber]

@HyperspaceMadness

Yup that’s great, happy to see the presets you’ve created, I’ll try to get them into the experimental folder soon :).

Thanks, I really appreciate that! You take your time and let the next release bake sir! I’m certainly in no rush. I’m really having fun with this version and I would imagine that this upcoming version might take a lot due to the significant changes.

[Cyber]

@HyperspaceMadness

[EDIT 2] Another cool thing you can do is turn scalefx on and only increase the Core Res Sampling Mult X . This has the effect of increasing the detail/smoothness while keeping the same scanlines and scanline feel.

If you step back and forth between these two you will see how it helps clean smooth out the silhouettes

Just today, I read this. Now you’ve posted this:

@HyperspaceMadness

Yeah I’m sure the deconvergence is having an effect, but Duimon is correct that the newpixie-clone preset uses the fake scanlines, so what this does is you get a higher res image generated by ScaleFX, then the “scanlines” are added on top, really an alternating darkening pattern.

Especially with the rolling scanlines they slide up the screen and you really see the high resolution smoothed image through that. So you definitely do get an effect of “bleeding” of the image over the scanlines. The rolling scanlines are a purely artistic treatment and not really related to what a real CRT does at all.

One thing which is interesting which can be done with ScaleFX and the Mega Bezel chain, is you can get an increased resolution on the horizontal without changing the vertical sampling, so you can get the actual scanline dynamics, a couple presets you can try are:

• Smoothed-ScaleFX_Horz_Only__
  • This increases the sampling horizontally but leaves vertical the same, so the same number of vertical scanlines
• Smoothed-ScaleFX_Antialias__
  • This adds a very slight blur sideways but keeps the sampling the same as normal
  • Because the slight blur was done after the scalefx but the resolution sampling is kept at core res so the effect is of a slight anti-aliasing on edges

Very interesting stuff indeed. I’ll play around with these settings a bit and see if I can get some further improvements. I did something like that with the core res parameters by trial and error earlier though. I increased the horizontal, while leaving the vertical intact to give the effect of higher resolution, less pixelated graphics but still preserving some of the old school low resolution look due to the it having the same number of scanlines and vertical pixels.

I was also curious as to the real purpose behind the rolling scanlines.

On another note…Does the RetroArch global Bilinear Filtering option in video settings have any effect when Mega Bezel is active? Also the CPU based filters?

I couldn’t tell a difference with Bilinear Filtering turned on or off or when I tried any of the Blargg NTSC Filters. I did see a drastic effect when I tried other filters though, like one of the green LCD Dot Matrix filters.

By the way HyperspaceMadness, @Brainbin74, @Duimon, @Nesguy, @2V3EvG4LMJFdRe, @Tromzy I just updated my preset post with some video clips which should provide a much better representation of how my presets look in real life. They are all native 4K video clips and must be downloaded first (i.e. not viewed in the browser preview) to get the optimal viewing experience. They’re short clips so I suggest you loop them as well.

HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader! - Feedback and Updates

Just sharing my latest presets with the community. I’m quite satisfied with these settings for now. Pictures won’t tell the whole story as there’s a bit of subtle movement going on in there so feel free to try them out. With that said, for the best viewing experience of these screenshots I suggest you right click on the image then click, “Open link in new tab”, “Open link in new window” or “Open image in new tab”. Then click on the new window or tab and press the F11 key for a fullscreen view. …

[2V3EvG4LMJFdRe]

Sadly, it seems it’s gonna be difficult to get this going on my macOS setup because the only driver available is “gl” which won’t support these. There’s some talk of bringing the Vulkan driver through Metal on Github, but no release has come out of it yet. However, I actually run RA through Parallels because of a separate issue, and I can use the D3D11 driver there. Running RetroArch 1.9.10, I load individual .slang shaders that come with RA just fine, but when I load any MegaBezels preset, nothing actually happens nor loads. And if I go to the HyperspaceMadness folder from RA, instead of all the .slang files I get “No Items”.

My file structure is:

RetroArch/shaders/HyperspaceMadness

RetroArch/shaders/shaders_slang/Mega_Bezel

I’ve tried with HyperspaceMadness inside Mega_Bezel too, but since the Mega Bezel .slang files show as “No files” regardless, I don’t think it’s the issue. I’d say it’s the RA version, but since it’s the latest one…

[Cyber]

@2V3EvG4LMJFdRe

Sadly, it seems it’s gonna be difficult to get this going on my macOS setup because the only driver available is “gl” which won’t support these. There’s some talk of bringing the Vulkan driver

What about Boot Camp?

[Cyber]

@2V3EvG4LMJFdRe

RetroArch/shaders/HyperspaceMadness

RetroArch/shaders/shaders_slang/Mega_Bezel

This is an incorrect installation. There isn’t supposed to be a HyperspaceMadness folder in the shaders folder nor a Mega Bezel folder in the shaders_slang folder.

The Bezel folder is supposed to be copied into the shaders_slang folder.

Also if your driver is set to gl you wouldn’t “see” any slang preset files from within RetroArch.

[HyperspaceMadness]

I’m not sure it’s available on Mac, but if the GLCore video driver is available this works well with the Mega Bezel.

[2V3EvG4LMJFdRe]

You’re right, I actually got confused when unzipping and ignored the “bezel” level folder. I think it could use a better name, I immediately got confused because it seemed like the kind of word RA already uses, as in I thought there is already a “bezel” folder somewhere in RA and I had to put these in there. Anyway, just a comment.

There is actually only the original “gl” driver on macOS and nothing else. I do run Bootcamp already, but I’m trying to consolidate most of my setup on macOS for various reasons (one being that Bootcamp is no longer supported by macs hardware, M1 and forward). That said, I have now been able to load the shaders through RA running on Parallels (a VM with Windows) with the D3D11 video driver. It takes a long time to load a preset, but it runs ok after that. I’ll see how that goes as far as usability. Thanks for all the help, I’ll be back…

[Duimon]

I’m a bit confused. I thought that one of the reasons for slang shaders was Metal support.