Mega Bezel Reflection Shader! - Feedback and Updates

[Cyber]

@Congruity

(Cyber, if you read this first, I didn’t follow up in your thread because i realized the newpixie shader wasn’t part of your DTP megabezel preset pack and didn’t want to keep asking you about a project you’re not responsible for since I’m already asking you a million q re Megatron tinkering)

It’s okay, I have a bit of nostalgia for the Newpixie-CRT-clone preset because that’s what I started with when I ended up making my first preset pack.

You can see that right here:

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. I recommend using Arcade - Sharp for arcade games, Composite - Pure for NES and similar systems and Composite - Sharp for the 16-bit era systems and everything else except games that rely on dithering to generate additional colours and transparency effects that aren’t being hand…

After a short while, I started going for a more “realistic” look but I kept a few presets which contained the same ethos of my original presets.

They are the “RGB_SHARP/SMOOTH” presets.

There are some modern variants of those called “Upscaled No Border” which use the Screen Only Base Preset.

There are also a few novelty items like “Old Skool RF Interference” which you can try out.

These are all based on Mega Bezel 1.14.0 though.

Perfect for your True Black HDR400 mode would be the CyberLab Mega Bezel HDR folder, which has Presets which take a hybrid approach to achieving the required brightness.

Have fun with the Newpixie-CRT-clone though.

[Congruity]

@Cyber

These are all based on Mega Bezel 1.14.0 though.

Actually, I was wondering if there was a way to keep your DTP presets installed since they require MB 1.14 which I have to manually reinstall every time I update the shaders through RA. Is there a way to change the required paths to a separate 1.14 folder I keep around?

[Congruity]

I really like your idea about adding the new pixie paramaters to MBZ_2_ADV-SCREEN-ONLY_GDV.

Is there a faster way of copy pasting them than manually typing everything up via retroarch? I tried opening up the .slangp shader file in notepad thinking I can copy/paste your paramaters but it showed this:

#reference “Root_Presets/MBZ__2__ADV-SCREEN-ONLY__GDV.slangp” #reference “…/…/resource/param_values/base/auto-settings.params”

[Duimon]

@Congruity

tried opening up the .slangp shader file

What you need to do is open some content (Even just an image file.) and load the parent preset. I recommend the STD.

shaders\shaders_slang\bezel\Mega_Bezel\Presets\Base_CRT_Presets\MBZ__4__STD-SCREEN-ONLY__GDV.slangp

Then save a new preset by any name you wish. (i.e. something easy like test1.slangp)

The create a text file named newpixie.params and paste the parameters in the new text file.

When you open up the test1.slangp in a text editor you will see…

#reference "shaders_slang/bezel/Mega_Bezel/Presets/Base_CRT_Presets/MBZ__4__STD-SCREEN-ONLY__GDV.slangp"

Add a second reference to the newpixie.params so it reads…

#reference "shaders_slang/bezel/Mega_Bezel/Presets/Base_CRT_Presets/MBZ__4__STD-SCREEN-ONLY__GDV.slangp"

#reference "newpixie.params"

Then run some content and load the test1.slanp… it should look like this.

From my quick test it looks just like the newpixie variation. (Which should be no surprise.)

From there you can turn off curvature and increase the non-integer scale to 100 and save the preset again using the same name (test1.slangp)

The result.

Keep in mind this was converted to a JPG to upload to the forum, some detail is lost.

You can rename the test1.slangp file however you wish. Just be sure to keep the newpixie.params file in the same folder.

If you wish to move the test1.slangp to a new folder you will have to change the reference path to reflect the change, or use an absolute path instead of a relative one.

[Cyber]

@Congruity

Is there a way to change the required paths to a separate 1.14 folder I keep around?

It’s quite simple to make a copy of the Mega Bezel 1.14.0 folder and rename it, “Mega_Bezel - 1.14.0” and a copy of the latest version and similarly append the version # to it and just open whichever one you wish to use and select all, copy, then open the “Mega_Bezel” folder, select all, delete, then paste the files you copied into the main Mega_Bezel folder.

You can repeat this process with the latest version if you wanted to switch back to it.

Or, if you wanted to be cool you could do the first step above, then using a mass editing tool like “Notepad++”, use the “Find in Files” feature to search for and replace every instance of “/Mega_Bezel” in my preset pack with “/Mega_Bezel - 1.14.0”.

[HyperspaceMadness]

Thanks to the awesome work of @kokoko3k the $CORE$ and $VID-DRV$ should now be working in the current or next nightly build.

Thanks @kokoko3k for your work and your generous support to the community!

FIX shader wildcards.

[slikvik55]

I’d like to experience that old MTV feel on a CRT

As TV broadcasts were 480i and not 240p what shader/settings should I use?

Also, my 80s music videos are from various sources so are either 480 or 1080 resolution. I’m guessing I need to use DREZ, but other than that, completely lost?

[Duimon]

DREZ is only meant to be used with hardware rendered cores and increased internal resolution scale.

For both situations I would play with the scanline opposite direction multiplier parameter. (Either decreasing or increasing it.)

[slikvik55]

So just to clarify, using the FFMPEG core, I should not use DREZ to get 1080p to simulate 480i CRT, but instead pick one of the standard presets and use the scanline direction parameter instead?

[Starman99x]

Try my interlacing settings below with any presets other than DREZ, as in my test I found that interlacing + drez was too rough and jaggy around the edges:

// INTERLACING / RELATED TWEAKS
// ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HSM_CORE_RES_SAMPLING_MULT_SCANLINE_DIR = "100.000000"
HSM_DOWNSAMPLE_BLUR_SCANLINE_DIR = "10.000000"
HSM_CORE_RES_SAMPLING_MULT_OPPOSITE_DIR = "101.000000" // TEMP WORKAROUND FOR TRIGGERING INTERLACING
HSM_DOWNSAMPLE_BLUR_OPPOSITE_DIR = "10.000000"

HSM_SCANLINE_DIRECTION = "0.0"                  // 0 = Auto
//hiscan = "0.0"                                // ScaleFX or XBR Only.
no_scanlines = "0.0"                            // GDV Only.
HSM_INTERLACE_MODE = "1.0"                      // -1 = NO SCANLINES / 0 = NO INTERLACING / 1-3 = NORMAL INTERLACING / 4-5 = INTERPOLATION
HSM_INTERLACE_TRIGGER_RES = "375.0"             // Trigger Resolution for Interlace, Fake Scanlines or VGA.
HSM_INTERLACE_EFFECT_SMOOTHNESS_INTERS = "0.0"  // Interlace effect smoothness
HSM_INTERLACE_SCANLINE_EFFECT = "0.35"          // Interlace scanline effect ('Laced brightness)
iscans = "0.30"                                 // Interlace (scanline) saturation.
vga_mode = "0.0"                                // VGA Single/Double Scan mode.

HSM_FAKE_SCANLINE_MODE = "0.0"

bogus_afterglow = "0.000000"                   // Bad with interlacing.

You don’t need to use all of them (some are basically default or safety measures) and you can tweak as you like, but I want to save you some headache by showing you a workaround I used to fix interlacing not being triggered, at least for me, which is this line specifically:

HSM_CORE_RES_SAMPLING_MULT_OPPOSITE_DIR = "101.000000"

[Duimon]

@slikvik55

scanline direction parameter instead

I was AFK. I meant Scanline Opposite Direction Multiplier. Then you could try enabling interlacing and see what you think. I have never been a fan, but it might be just what you are looking for.

Here is a shot of a 1080p video with Opposite Direction Multiplier set to its lowest, (25) using mask 7.

[slikvik55]

Thanks man, I’ll give them a try. And thanks as always @Duimon

[BlockABoots]

Whats the most up to date Bezel Pack to use with Mega Bezel??

[HyperspaceMadness]

Do you mean which community packs like Duimon’s? Or are you wondering about compatibility of different megabezel packs with the latest version of the Megabezel?

[BlockABoots]

I guess about the compatibility with latest version of MB

I did try downloading Duimon’s Mega Bezel pack from his Github but they seem to fail when loading??

[Duimon]

@BlockABoots

they seem to fail when loading??

I am going to guess that this is related to the recent wildcard bugs. If you upgrade to a nightly version of RetroArch things should be fixed.

To know for sure, we would have to see a log.

[Wolfgang]

Hello! I come with a new little problem that I have in Retroarch XD! This time I have a problem with Mega Bezel. When I emulate arcade games, like Final Fight, I don’t have any problems, the textures, filters, everything is spectacular, BUT… my problem is when I emulate Playstation games, specifically when using the SwanStation core. When I load a Playstation game using the SwanStation core and with the Mega Bezel configuration loaded, the game runs, but only the background sound is heard, and the screen is absolutely black, I have tried changing some settings, but I still have the same problem. I leave some images below.

(Playing on the mame32 core without problems.)

(Shader activate)

(When I load the SwanStation core, only the audio is heard and the screen is completely black.)

(This is my configuration for Mega Bezel)

How can I solve this? Help

[Duimon]

While I don’t get a constant black screen, when I use the internal (Core) opengl driver, I get a black screen once in a while.

Try setting the internal driver to Vulkan. The default is “Auto”.

[BlockABoots]

Updated to the latest nightly and your packs are now working!

[MagicHat]

@HyperspaceMadness

You will want to make sure you grab a release rather than the main branch in the repo. The releases are all the Mega Bezel V1.x, the latest main in the repo is the V2 stuff that I’ve been working on and has been taking forever.

I guess I’m still confused on how mine says Version V1.17.2_2024-05-18 vs what’s in the latest release section on github V1.17.1_2024-04-14.