New CRT shader from Guest + CRT Guest Advanced updates

12 posts were split to a new topic: NTSC shaders redux

2 posts were merged into an existing topic: NTSC shaders redux

Hey @guest.r, a couple of questions.

What would be the way to achieve a ā€œ3-2-3 pixels per scanlineā€ pattern, instead of the 2-1-2 of your slot? I’ve tried various combination, with different masks, but haven’t found the right one.

Do you think it would be possible to further reduce the visibility of the other subpixels when the predominant colour is used? Like, for a full red, make the green and the blue even less noticeable ?

I would like to achieve something like this photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl86a1vI9Vw/

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In general, slotmask width should match the current mask width. Density of slotmask is determined by the Slot Mask Height parameter.

Scanline saturation is to be used exactly for this, can be nicely combined with vertical deconvergence for positioning. Depends on the mask mitigation technique though (oridinary, bloom, mask bloom, halation) and scanline shapes which ammount or/and type looks best for you.

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Thatlooks a-ma-zing. Thank you so much for the hard work, man. Your shaders are truly incredible.

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Thanks @Squalo. :smiley:

Meanwhile i tried how good the HD version is at downsampling and was pleasantly surprised.

Downsampled 3x:

The procedure is quite simple.

  • Increase emu-core internal resolution to, let’s say 3x
  • load the crt-guest-advanced-hd shader
  • increase first internal resolution parameter to 3.0
  • increase the ā€œInternal Resolution Y: 0.5…y-dowsampleā€ to 3.0

Also texture filtering can be used.

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I don’t understand what the actual purpose of the first internal resolution parameter is. All I’m seeing at first glance is that it makes the image blurrier, which seems counterintuitive?

You can match the increased internal resolution of the core with it or with possible pre-scalers added. So it’s referencing the actual (increased) internal resolution used. It’s a tradition in parameter naming scheme @Hyllian invented for the aa-shader 4.0 etc. … :grin:

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I actually also don’t quite understand how the downsampling parameter works. I mean, obviously I can achieve a look I prefer but what is actually happening in this scenario:

I’m running at 5x PS1 resolution so =1200p (matches my monitor). If I set the parameter at 5.0 then I get normal scanlines and a look where I would suppose it’s downsampling to native (=240p).

Now when I set the parameter lower, the scanlines become thinner, and I think the scaling isn’t quite clean (expected). However, when I set the parameter to 1.0, the scanlines become thick again, the output is different from 5.0 though.

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You must really match the internal resolution here or pixel alignment is off. Parameter value 1.0 means downsampling to 224.0p, because 1.0 is a ā€œneutral dividerā€ and would otherwise bring no effect.

You can maybe get more playing room with cores which aren’t that pixel sensitive, for example N64 or Dolphin core, maybe PCSX2.

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Well, some minor scaling artifacts I could live with. I like a look that’s based on 2x internal resolution (no downsampling) for games that are mainly 3D, but that doesn’t go cleanly in 5x of course.

The cores mentioned do their own weird scaling things, e.g. the PCSX2 core seems to be fixed to 640x448. Not a problem for most NTSC games I suppose, but it’s likely suboptimal for the 512px stuff, not to mention PAL games, which why I’m only going for standalone and reshade now.

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Wow! I love it! :smiley:

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Hello Guest, meanwhile congratulations for your fantastic work and thanks for sharing it with us. Assuming that I’m a noob in terms of shader customization, I wanted to ask you what value I had to act on to try to smooth the image and make the pixels less harsh. Thank you very much for your attention.

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Look under the ā€œ[ FILTERING OPTIONS ]ā€. Different shader variants have different options here, but it’s the place to look in you want to adjust pixel sharpness or smoothness.

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Thanks for the advice, do you have any particular item you can recommend? I would like to use your standard Guest Advance as a reference shader. Maybe there is some guide to your shader entries, so I can study them?

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It should be enough for most configurations to adjust the horizontal sharpness and substractive sharpness:

Horizontal sharpness // This setting determines the overall image sharpness mostly. Higher values create a sharper image.

Substractive sharpness // This is a nice "hack" that may be used in combination with "horizontal sharpness". Higher values give more sharpness to pixels and mask.

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Well I’ve come out of my comfort zone and given CRT-Guest-Advanced-NTSC (via HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader) another try and I must say that I’m really impressed!

When I first tried Slot Mask shader presets I didn’t get through the first time either.

So these tools are a bit technical and require a bit of time and understanding until mastery.

I don’t think that there’s any need to rewrite any NTSC Shaders from the ground up.

Thanks again for these amazingly awesome works of art!

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Hello Guest, first of all happy holidays to you and to the whole community, and thank you always for your work and your availability. Thanks to your advice I found exactly what I was looking for. Unfortunately however, with the Mega Bezels I have some performance problems in its standard form and without reflection, the ideal would be to use the potato preset, where I have seen your gdv-mini being used. Would there be some way to act on horizontal sharpness and subtractive value on this preset, even accessing with text file? A thousand thanks.

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Specifically my question is related to the work of Duimon, where his preset potatoes only use the gdv-mini.

The parameter name is ā€œHorizontal sharpnessā€, it works differently as with other shaders and there is no substractive sharpness. More is still more sharp and less parameter value more smooth though.

Best look at the bottom part of the parameters for it.

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