Mega Bezel Reflection Shader! - Feedback and Updates

[L4ZYD4NE]

Wow, had no idea my tastes in CRT shaders would spark such debate, while I haven’t used a real CRT in years. My memory of a very old Sony my family had (wood panels and all, yeah I’m old), expedited such traits. I actually remember as a kid opening the back of the thing (had no idea how dangerous that was at the time) to tinker around and “tune” it up a bit, which I actually managed to do with some success.

Anyhoo, at the end of the day regardless of how “real” it is or not means little to me, as to my eyes deconvergence can do wonders for what are in all honesty (especially by today’s standards) harsh pixel graphics. Retro games are awesome and having many ways to enhance their appearance, is the freakin’ berries. I say more choices not less and of course you do you.

Here’s a few more examples of what Mattias can do. ^^

While this shader does tend to lean a bit on the dark side, the games have never looked better to my eyes. ^^

[c9f5fdda06]

wow that looks so cool! I can’t wait to use Guest2 with your presets.

@L4ZYD4NE your preset looks just like the cheap TV my dad was able to afford back in 1998. It was a Zenith TV that had pronounced deconvergence. @John.Merrit Deconvergence is not the same as chromatic aberration.

[John.Merrit]

@c9f5fdda06

Deconvergence is not the same as chromatic aberration.

I never said it was. I was just saying it has no place in a CRT shader, just my opinion. And why go to such lengths to produce a CRT image that has convergence issues ? Surely, we have all been battling convergence issues in CRTs for years, especially buying a CRT off of ebay, only to find it has such issues that require either a CRT engineer, or someone without fear of electricity I find those shots really hurt my eyes, they’re so blurry I feel like I need to wear a pair of 3D Anaglyph Glasses just to stay in focus. Still, if that is what floats your boat, then fair play.

[L4ZYD4NE]

Well, as someone who used s-video cables (best case scenario) as their primary way of hooking up to a CRT back in the day, these screens look plenty sharp to me. Clearly you have a high tolerance for razor sharp pixels, I on the other hand do not. In fact I’m a big fan of TAA in modern games, as it’s really the only way to truly get rid of those pesky jaggies yo.

It does make me laugh though when I see ppl out there who are spending hundreds of dollars to get their consoles modded, all for the purpose of getting the sharpest image possible and here we are as emulator users (who have that by default), yet are doing the exact opposite. We’re after that old nostalgic warmth, that only really comes with imperfection. ^^

[HyperspaceMadness]

More Progress on the intro (The Moire pattern is because it is running at a very low res here)

[TheNamec]

@L4ZYD4NE

We’re after that old nostalgic warmth, that only really comes with imperfection.

Totally agree. I fell in love with HSM Mega Bezel 'cause I find it to be the first project to enhance obsolete technology without any kind of reverence, it’s simply making games look better on modern displays, be it 2d or 3d.

Simply put, I would never use HSM Mega Bezel on, say, Gamecube and Wii cores because artworks and personal experince are not tied to ‘old’ CRT generation. But if you want an ideal, sharp & clear Trinitron, HSM Mega Bezel can do it.

Sometimes this means not being perfectly, historically correct but… who cares? There are a lot of shaders pursuing this objective and putting a lot of efforts trying to simulate visuals from memory, as no CRT is equal to another.

Have fun, the way you love it!

[HyperspaceMadness]

@TheNamec

Sometimes this means not being perfectly, historically correct but… who cares? There are a lot of shaders pursuing this objective and putting a lot of efforts trying to simulate visuals from memory, as no CRT is equal to another.

Have fun, the way you love it!

Very well put!

This is totally my thought behind this as well, and to make the package flexible enough so people can create what appeals to them

[Digitech]

Do you have a specific preset for crt mattias or just use the default? If you have a custom preset it would be great if you share it with us

[L4ZYD4NE]

What you see is 100% default. There’s only two options available for the shader, curvature and scanline crawl speed. It’s one of the main reasons I’m hoping we can get CRT-Mattias added to the HSM Mega Bezel shader set, as being able to tweak things would be really great, but I certainly do love what’s there right out the box. ^^

[soqueroeu]

@HyperspaceMadness

I always thought about this start effect. The graph in the background must always come first and 1 or 2 seconds later the screen must light up.

Really enjoyed!

[BendBombBoom]

@L4ZYD4NE I too like terrible looking shaders. It’s a pain to work with but have you tried out mame_hlsl? It has options for all the terrible stuff, rolling scanlines, ntsc artifacting, curvature, deconvergence… etc. You can start with a clean slate so you can dial in the ugliness more precisely than what either new pixie or mattias offer. For example Mattias compared to Mame_HLSL

[L4ZYD4NE]

@BendBombBoom

I too like incredible looking shaders.

Fixed! lol

Seriously though thanks for the suggestion, I have indeed tried it and it’s certainly a good alternative, but I’m just feelin’ Mattias way too much atm. ^^

[TheNamec]

Mattias gives very good results with early 3d games, I use it for Dreamcast Soul Reaver with very nice results! I tried doing a little test on a scene I found out to be critical for crt-shaders: simulated Genesis/Megadrive transparency!

Let’s do a little comparison between crt-mattias and MegaBezel-GuestDrVenom on Street of Rage II (sorry for stretchedness, I have HSM MBR required settings on):

crt-mattias

MegaBezel-GuestDrVenom

I find crt-mattias to give a more 90s worn-out arcade feel, but as you can see it keeps the pixel-y pattern on the light cone. MegaBezel keeps bright and sharp, and somewhat keeps the original art work as intended: pixel-y pattern becomes a fake transparence.

Of course the most famous employ of this technique is in Sonic waterfalls, but I first noticed it along the Streets. This is the ‘faithfulness’ we need! Artist-envisioned artifacts exploitation!

[L4ZYD4NE]

That’s interesting, for me I’m actually not satisfied with how CRT-Mattias handles Dreamcast era games, 3D or otherwise due to how the shader scales scanlines, it basically changes them in respect to your desktop resolution instead of what the game is spitting out, you can actually see this in a couple of screenshots I took earlier of Soulcalibur and TMNT, both in 1080p and 4k. If the scanlines were working correctly, the screenshots should look the same regardless of desktop resolution, although the 4k image would be crisper of course.

As for the comparisons, this is just another reason I’m absolutely pining for CRT-Mattias to be ported to this project, as that option can be found in all CRT shaders in the HSM Mega Bezel package. The option goes by the name [De-Dithering MDAPT], it’s a neat tool, although can be a bit of a double edged sword. It’ll blend certain patterns, fixing items intended to be transparent (as you clearly demonstrated), but at the same time meddles with similar patterns found in other items, so a character’s fist for example could become unintentionally blended etc. ^^

[HyperspaceMadness]

@TheNamec

pixel-y pattern becomes a fake transparence.

Yeah, this is the MDAPT passes which are blending the checkerboard . MDAPT is set to blend checkerboards by default in the Mega Bezel (because this mode does not seem to have many false positives). If you increase the mdapt mode parameter to its max it will start to blend vertical stripes as well.

Note: or you can turn it to 0 to turn it off

[Potch]

Hello, everytime i try to use this shader i have this error. But i’m in vulkan i dont know how to fix that.

[HyperspaceMadness]

Hi there, it looks like you are trying to run the version from m Github. To run this version you will need to use the version of retroarch.exe which is in the Github repo under the folder named something like _Retroarch_Alpha. You can also get one of the nightly builds

[TheNamec]

@HyperspaceMadness

you can turn it to 0 to turn it off

Due to intensive use in Amiga games, I can’t

[HyperspaceMadness]

@soqueroeu

I always thought about this start effect. The graph in the background must always come first and 1 or 2 seconds later the screen must light up.

Glad you like it

So the effect is controlled with parameters, so you will be able to adjust it to your taste

There’s 3-4 parts which each have adjustable timing.

1. Switch-on zooming/expanding effect
2. Static Noise
3. Solid Color
4. Logo Image

The Color will be user adjustable as well, and the Logo Image can be changed out with whatever you like.

And of course the whole thing can be turned off

[JDH]

Just tried this shader for the first time on integrated graphics and no beans - just crashed retroarch. I can’t use Vulkan but can use GLCore and have followed the Installation Instructions. Anyone have luck on integrated or should I give up now?