Multipass Shaders

What’s the difference between a multipass shader like crt-hyllian multipass and the regular crt-hyllian?

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Shaders are usually multipassed for speed, but sometimes it’s just to add more effects.

That doesn’t seem to be a clear answer. What is the actual difference between a multipass shader and non multipass?

I can’t believe someone asked this same question two years ago and here I am looking looking also for a clear answer. LOL

I’m not sure what kind of answer you’re looking for here. To an end-user, my previous answer is about as much as you need to know. That is, multipass versions of a shader are usually faster than the non-multipass version (depending on your GPU; sometimes multipass shaders are actually slower on RPi et al) because the GPU is better able to parallelize the workload. Other times, a multipass shader just means “a collection of separate shader effects that are combined into a single, complex effect”.

Forgive my ignorance but this is what I got from your response.

CRT-Hyllian Multipass = Faster Depending on the CPU or slower depending on CPU

CRT-Hyllian = Another version that exists for no reason.

There has to be a difference between the two. Pros and cons.

Sorry bro but I am still looking for a clear answer of the difference between the two.

Please don’t get mad or take it personal.

The multipass version is faster on most hardware. For times when it’s not–or on a platform that has trouble with multipass shaders, like PS3–there’s a single-pass version. The single-pass version was also written first and has simpler code, so it’s easier to work with if someone wants to see how the shader functions.

I would also like to mention that Libretro is a great (the best) shader repository and it’s quite often used as a reference for shader ports to other emu projects.

It’s also common that most other emulators don’t support multipass shaders.

Another yay for single pass versions is that they can be easily used for custom presets.

So IMO there’s a good reason to keep different versions in the repo.

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