Mega Bezel Reflection Shader! - Feedback and Updates

So, this is what everybody was talking about when they meant V1.

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Thanks for giving us that infinite pixel mangler!

Now on to V2.0, it won’t take long this time! :rofl:

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Thanks everyone for your encouraging words! I’m really glad you are all still enjoying this project and the works of art our talented artists have created with it.

All your great feedback and pushing the system with your presets has helped this project get to where it is, . It was a bit of a haul to get to this point where it feels mature enough to release to the masses :grin:

Infinite pixel mangler, I like that :rofl:

Probably not 2+ years, no :joy:

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Greetings @HyperspaceMadness, I just got an idea to apply the same “overscaling” technique @Nesguy uses @ 1080p to get some extra pixels out of 3840 x 2160 resolution.

From my recollection, @Nesguy uses a custom resolution that’s larger than his monitor’s resolution but still in the overscan safe zone of the games and systems he emulates in order to get more pixels in the viewport than would otherwise be available if standard resolution settings were utilized.

How would I go about doing this in HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader for 1080p, 1440p and 4K?

Is it possible that we can have a parameter that simplifies this? I think it can be very beneficial and also help reduce moire artifacts as well.

So it’s basically a built-in overscan setting, kinda like the integer scale overscale setting but with curated, specific presets (notches) for the correct (safe) amount of overscan for each base resolution targeted matching the overscan percentages that @Nesguy uses.

This setting can be further evolved to support an overscan database of actual TVs and monitors overscan amounts and behaviour.

Can you point me to an example so I can see this?

I’m not sure but I’m wondering if he was doing this to get an integer scale larger than the screen.

If this is what is desired for the Mega Bezel then changing the Base Max Integer Scale Height should do the same thing.

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In effect, yes this is what he was doing. I’m not 100% sure but I think his motivation might have been to get extra usable pixels for the content by sacrificing the overscan safe area. If that wasn’t his primary motivation then it at least would have been a positive side effect.

I’d like to be able to use his exact overscale (overscan) percentage in HSM Mega Bezel and if possible use this same percentage at other resolutions.

I was thinking that I could use one of these settings or even the cropping settings to achieve this but what I was thinking and asking about was having specific common overscan amounts predefined for simplicity sake as a shader parameter or even as a comment or recommendation instead of my arbitrary overscan settings.

That’s why I started by using @Nesguy’s overscan settings as a reference since I trust his expertise and experience in this area.

If left up to me to determine overscan settings, I’d probably be guessing and just winging it - which is what I was attempting to do with @soqueroeu’s TV Backgrounds.

Ultimately I would want to have and be able to implement accurate overscan settings that will allow content to be displayed more like certain actual CRT models or at least be able to setup common overscan percentages as a sort of lowest common denominator that should work well with most games per core or CRT model simulation (overlay).

If I find or create one I’ll post it.

So to summarize, just as we have LUTs and other presets matching different TV brands, maybe we can also have overscan settings as a subset of the current overscan settings but with percentages that match common brands of TVs as presets.

For example if Sony TVs typically had 3% overscan then we could have a 3% overscan setting called “Sony Overscan”.

If Phillips used 2% overscan then we could have a 2% overscan setting called “Phillips Overscan” e.t.c.

The current default behaviour would have the viewport automatically scale to the edges of the bezel with no overscan or have the user set overscan settings manually based on their own knowledge or methodology.

What I propose is having some friendly overscan settings so that anyone playing can flip a switch and have the viewport match the overscan settings of some common TV brands. So it’s just an extension of the realism and immersion that HSM Mega Bezel brings and an expansion of its ease of use.

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OK so I took a look into this. Your presets run well for me. If I try to run some community presets and edit them to run on a glass preset, that is when I can encounter some slowdown (57 fps, for me which is obvious given it’s effect on sound).

What I did was edit Cyberlab_SNES_ADV to reference “…Presets/Variations/Glass-Minimal-Bezel-Edge__ADV-GLASS.slangp” instead of of “…Presets/Base_CRT_Presets/MBZ__0__SMOOTH-ADV__GDV.slangp”

It must mean my card is on the fringes of what is possible with this shader (at 4k and using advanced settings) and I need to start saving up.

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Do you use any other performance affecting features in RetroArch for example Run Ahead and Frame Delay?

You might have to adjust those if you do. Since I started using my new Slot Mask presets I’ve found that I had to lower my Frame Delay settings quite a bit in some instances.

I just assumed that the Slot Mask might have been more performance intensive.

Since it’s a relatively recent discovery that possibly coincides with your new performance issues maybe it could be related and also indicate a slight performance regression somewhere.

These days I’m looking at Windows updates and Windows itself as possible sources for performance inconsistencies.

I use a Geforce GTX 1070 which is supposed to be comparable in performance to a GTX 980. I haven’t used the glass preset in a while but I can test it and see.

Have you considered using MSI AfterBurner to overclock your GPU?

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Yes, I do use run ahead. That is why I’m thinking my card is on the edge of what is possible with the advanced shader. I do OC my card a good amount.

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You know many if not most of my current presets don’t require the “MBZ__0__SMOOTH-ADV_GDV.slangp” level presets to run like back in the olden days.

That is because most of them don’t use ScaleFX nor prescaling. Very few also require MDAPT.

I just continued to use the SMOOTH-ADV base preset for ease of development and flexibility as well as to allow users to toggle the features as they see fit.

So you can probably replace the current Glass Preset that’s under performing with a lighter version and most of the presets should continue to look the same while having improved performance.

This might be cheaper than purchasing a new graphics card.

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Yes, what Cyber said about the base preset he uses is what is slowing things down. All of his presets use the SMOOTH-ADV as the base so if you swap this out for an ADV or STD glass preset it will run much faster.

The SMOOTH-ADV have a 3x upscale in the middle of the chain and have scalefx integrated

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So the Zoom Crop basically does this kind of overscan cropping.

If we did have known overscan amounts for specific tvs and manufacturers it could be worth it to have a few predefined zoom crop percentages available.

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Exactly!!

I was just thinking of ways in which I can improve things and I remembered that @Nesguy uses a custom resolution in order to get more pixels at 1080p. It makes sense. I just wanted to try that at 4K using Mega Bezel to see if I can further improve quality.

This is something that we can start to research. For now I’ll probably start with @Nesguy’s overscan percentage. I think he actually has a formula he uses to calculate how much overscan in lines of resolution are appropriate. I’ll refer to it. I’m just putting the idea out here straight from my thoughts one time before I go about experimenting later.

If implemented correctly this might reduce the need to have as many different Game Presets just to eliminate black borders and junk from many games.

If anything I might actually prefer playing games which had black bars on certain TVs with the same black bars in HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader. For example Street Fighter II Turbo Hyper Fighting for SNES. This might also help with preserving accurate aspect ratios in games because cropping off from the sides or top/bottom like I currently do can distort the aspect ratio.

Having some real-world references in this regard built right into the shader might take things to an even higher level.

This is what I’m talking about and would like to be able to do in HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader as well as getting a few predefined zoom crop percentages:

In this example @Nesguy speaks about specific resolutions not percentages. I hope I will be able to implement things as precisely as this while using percentages.

I can probably look at the resolution info while adjusting the percentage as a guide (or use a calculator). I just hope it will look and work the same way even if there’s a slight rounding error due to the use of percentages instead of discrete numbers of lines.

People have asked time and time again what kind of hardware they need to setup a great emulation system, while others have asked what graphics card they would need to run HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader.

I’ve always dissuaded them from anything SBC or Android related and have instead tried to steer them towards a minimum Ryzen 4000 series APU or better based on some users’ reported success.

Well, I’ve always wondered if I could run these on my phone after GDV-Mini was integrated and I just did so successfully.

Device: Samsung Galaxy A71
Core: Nestopia UE
Driver: Vulkan
Audio Latency: 64ms
Frame Delay: 0
Auto Frame Delay: On
Run-Ahead to Reduce Latency: On
Number of Frames to Run-Ahead: 2 Frames
Use Second Instance for Run Ahead: On
Shader: MBZ__5__POTATO__GDV-MINI.slangp
Display Resolution: 2400 x 1080

Screenshot_20220626-233741_RetroArch

Thanks @HyperspaceMadness, @guest.r, @DariusG, @Dogway and all others who’s work and efforts made this possible.

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waiting for the next update

Waiting for the mask bloom update to come to HSM :wink:

Thank you @guest.r, @HyperspaceMadness, and @Duimon

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It’s coming, I have it integrated locally :slight_smile:

I’m currently trying to get Reshade’s MagicBloom working…

Too Much? :rofl:

I also took the liberty of upgrading your meme to animated :wink:

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Mega_Bezel_Logo

The new Survey for 2022 is up!

Please respond if you are interested in helping influence the future of the Mega Bezel!

The Survey will stay open for 4 weeks until August 1st.

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just did the survey! I tried SMB with STD preset, i’m not sure if it was a correct test but on my (5y old) PC it went to ~1400 fps :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :partying_face:

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The Super Mario test ran at 200~ on Mesen with runahead at 2, with it disabled, it went above 400, on FCEUMM it went beyond 2000. So I believe the test part could use more info so you’ll have more accurate reports like using a specific core and disabling/enabling latency settings, etc.

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The way it is now would provide more real-world data based on the configurations that users actually use. That’s also valuable information to have.

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