Mega Bezel Reflection Shader! - Feedback and Updates

[HyperspaceMadness]

There’s something strange going on here, the shader initializes with very large buffers (2048x2048 core res), then the buffers update to the smaller size.

I checked the Snes9X core and it does this difference in initialization, but the initial initialization is 1024x1024 instead of 2048

I checked the BSNes hd beta and it has a discrepancy like this too, although it’s initial size is 512x512

Makes me think I should investigate my “AbsoluteMaximum” pass size mode idea which would catch some of these things, because pushing 2048x2048 through a crt shader which will be rendered onto a monitor at 1080p is not giving you anything positive. It would also catch these situations where the initial size is wacky like this. A “AbsoluteMaximum” pass size mode would look at the incoming buffer’s resolution and limit the pass to what you tell it. It would probably stop 90% or all of the crashing which happens on shader load.

Sliding up the priority list…

[MIKEBLK]

I appreciate all the time you’ve taken to help me out bro

so would it be correct to say, you guys weren’t seeing this bc you have much stronger GPUs and the shader would load regardless of the extreme upscaling ?

[HyperspaceMadness]

@MIKEBLK

so would it be correct to say, you guys weren’t seeing this bc you have much stronger GPUs and the shader would load regardless of the extreme upscaling ?

Yes, my thought is we are asking for a very large amount of memory from the GPU and this is causing the problem. And likely if you have enough gpu memory you might not run into the limit.

I think the other reason we haven’t seen it as much is because not everyone uses the SMOOTH-ADV presets

Also I think the SMOOTH-ADV presets are the only ones we’ve seen crash Retroarch

[RetroGames4K]

I made it, I have got the pattern of my Sanyo But I’m Not sure about the gamma though… I made 2 different…Brighter an less brighter…

And another 2, I like the pattern, but not the colour…

Some Few More…

[Cyber]

@RetroGames4K

I made 2 different…Brighter an less brighter…

I can definitely see the improvement in the first 3 screenshots.

The second 2 though, something seems off. Contrast seems a bit muted and everything seems to have a slight layer of haze over it. Maybe a bit too much blending somewhere.

I didn’t zoom in on the last 3 but I definitely like the subtlety of the Curvature. It’s there but doesn’t seem too distracting and you’ll probably not notice it unless you’re looking for it and the floor boards look straight! Great job! If you can’t make up your mind about 2 different presets, why not keep both?

There were times when I couldn’t decide between 2 parameter settings and I simply settled on the average, thinking to myself, that has to be the sweetspot!

But the first 2 are definitely a step in the right direction. You probably already know this but when you increase Gamma, saturation tends to decrease so you might sometimes want to bump it a little depending on what you might be looking for.

I’m sure your Sanyo CRT’s colours pop effortlesly and not to mention those beautiful CRT black levels which would give it an almost insurmountable advantage in the contrast department. So don’t be afraid to push the saturation to help mimic those phosphors glowing, instead of using too much of the “artificial” glow and bloom, which rely less on the phosphors and more on just adding colour in the area where the phosphors are actually supposed to be the source of those colours.

[TheNamec]

This is a totally unexpected breakthru achievement for both the project and all the shaders authors!

Looks like @HyperspaceMadness Mega Bezel Reflection Shader will finally bring CRT delight to modern PC games. It’s something I could only dream about in the latest two years

Here’s some Aeterna Noctis straight to my widescreen Ikegami

And here’s some Dead Cells with standard GDV

and DREZ downsampling to 240p for a more SNES-y feel

This was made possible by a new experimental “utility” core that brings windows capturing to Libretro. Link https://gitlab.com/johnsirett-public/libretro-wincapture

I’m literally speechless! Thanks John Sirett!

[HyperspaceMadness]

@TheNamec

This was made possible by a new experimental “utility” core that brings windows capturing to Libretro. Link https://gitlab.com/johnsirett-public/libretro-wincapture

I’m literally speechless! Thanks John Sirett!

I have to say this is absolutely amazing, I’ve been hoping this could exist for years

[Drybonz]

@TheNamec

This was made possible by a new experimental “utility” core that brings windows capturing to Libretro. Link https://gitlab.com/johnsirett-public/libretro-wincapture

Oh wow… finally, we can use those standalone emulators, like miniVmac, PCSX2, etc… that the RA version is way behind on, and have shaders. Can’t wait to get this running.

[e2zippo]

Amazing stuff for sure! Can’t wait to try it out

[Boz1978]

Wowza!!! This is quality

[HyperspaceMadness]

I did some experiments on seeing what it could look taking something like Dead Cells at 4K through different downsampling options:

4K

Cubic Downsampled

4K again for reference

GSharp downsample with some tweaked gaussian settings, this adds some blur between scanlines so could perhaps help scintillating for vertical movement

I think when downsampling to 240p, adjusting the downsampling the horizontal much higher res than the vertical creates a really nice result for some of these modern games

[TheNamec]

Totally cool! Will this be added as a 5th filter method to DREZ presets?

[Drybonz]

@HyperspaceMadness

creates a really nice result for some of these modern games

Awesome… was it hard to set up? I haven’t messed with it yet… it looked like it has to be compiled? which I’m not sure how to do.

[TheNamec]

Pretty simple, you specify the window title in a text file to help the core choose the window to be captured.

You launch the game , then launch RetroArch and use content loader to open the text file. You can use Ctrl+alt+t to switch focus (controls) between RetroArch and the game. The game should be max 720p for performance reasons

[HyperspaceMadness]

@TheNamec

Totally cool! Will this be added as a 5th filter method to DREZ presets?

I’m going to evaluate if I can swap the cubic with gsharp resampler, and the extra blur would be just settings. But I have to do some testing to make sure we can get something similar to what were were getting with the cubic with gsharp, I think I should be able to.

[Duimon]

@TheNamec

Pretty simple, you specify the window title in a text file to help the core choose the window to be captured.

I tried it with DOSBox and you can’t get mouse control.

To be a seamless experience there needs to be some way for the core to launch the emu then capture the window.

Maybe an AutoHotKey script that starts the emulator, launches the core with content and preset, and then presses the hotkeys?

[Drybonz]

@Duimon

To be a seamless experience there needs to be some way for the core to launch the emu then capture the window.

Launchbox might be able to launch both.

[hgoda90]

I finally got it running myself.

[p3st]

quite awesome i am busy one weekend and a wild core i dreamed of attacks

[FinalBoss]

Hello, could someone help me run? I spent all Sunday and I couldn’t. If anyone can help me thank you