New CRT shader from Guest + CRT Guest Advanced updates

sonkun · 19 February 2023 16:40

Had a feeling it would come down to that. There’s only so much you can do with 1080p, I’m still surprised at what I’m able to pull off now with your shader at that resolution. It’s still cool that I’m able to pull off so many types of masks regardless, your shader can pull off the 3 common masks Aperture, Slot and Shadow and those are the 3 I plan to have all in my pack eventually. Thank you for the detailed answer.

Cyber · 19 February 2023 17:12

You know CRT Shaders intended for 4K displays actually look good on lower resolution displays using nVIDIA DSR or AMD VSR. Maybe that’s something you can explore or experiment with. It may not be ideal from a creation standpoint but might bring some interesting results from a consumption standpoint.

guest.r · 19 February 2023 19:29

New Release Version (2023-02-20-r1):

Notable changes:

Magic Glow wide glow improvements. The overall image is cleaner and less de-saturated.
Special effects of bullets, explosions… are better pronounced.
Better integration of magic glow with scanlines.
Existing presets which use magic glow for better contrast (lower sigma values) shouldn’t be affected.

Download link:

https://mega.nz/file/E4gzjTCL#yGENFxn_4I4kcdQMj-aZZAS0r_wkOXqkrHwAIHEg0rA

sonkun · 20 February 2023 13:52

You just keep making this shader better and better. I already got a new update coming just for this update. Good stuff man.

ProfessorBraun · 20 February 2023 16:45

I couldn’t agree more

lfan · 20 February 2023 23:04

Ordinary Glow

Magic Glow

Photo

uzernaem · 21 February 2023 05:03

Hi! A quick question: I’ve been using an older version of the shader and it looked perfect on basically every game. I have updated recently and now games like Tekken 3 (384x480 resolution, interlaced) are extremely blurry and no amount of tinkering makes it look good. I see there is HD version which looks sharp but it looks blurrier on standard 240p games. My preferred way was to set a single global shader for everything instead of having a different preset for every game. Is it not possible anymore? Thanks!

guest.r · 21 February 2023 11:51

Hey there!

You are right, changes were made with filtering and interlaced mode. The filtering is somewhat stronger with interlaced mode activated, so it looks similar when the game is running standard or laced, regarding the increased horizontal resolution with interlaced mode.

There are exceptions though with the games you mentioned. To increase sharpness you must simply increase the horizontal sharpness value and you are good to go. Maybe this means you can save another preset for such games, unfortunatelly there are no other workarounds unless you download and use an older version of the shader (see first post in the thread).

uzernaem · 21 February 2023 19:42

Thanks, but unfortunately increasing the horizontal sharpness value makes non-interlaced content (FMVs) too sharp. Also, some Namco games use even more non-standard resolutions (320x480) in the menus - Rage Racer, Ridge Racer Type 4, Ace Combat 2 and 3 (the latter makes you spend half of the time in the menus due to it’s visual novel style storytelling).

If I am understanding correctly, the coefficient is governed by this variable:

float fdivider = max(min(mix(prescalex.x, prescalex.y,TATE), 2.0), 1.5*float(interb));

and changing this to

float fdivider = min(mix(prescalex.x, prescalex.y,TATE), 2.0);

removes the increased filtering for the interlaced mode?

Would adding here an additional check for low horizontal resolutions be against your current goals for the shader?

uzernaem · 22 February 2023 11:49

Or maybe, instead of constant 1.5 for all interlaced content, something like this: (assuming 1.5 is our desired value for horizontal resolution of 640 px and we don’t want to go over 2.0)

float icoeff = min(global.OriginalSize.x / (640 / 1.5), 2.0);

float fdivider = max(min(mix(prescalex.x, prescalex.y,TATE), 2.0), icoeff*float(interb));

guest.r · 22 February 2023 12:59

It should function indeed. Meanwhile you can use such a solution if it works for you. But something similar will be included in the next release.

lfan · 22 February 2023 14:29

@guest.r, was the “prescale-x factor” function removed?

guest.r · 22 February 2023 14:41

Not removed, it’s now automated, based on the pre-scale ratio. Works really well, no need for manual tuning tbh.

ProfessorBraun · 23 February 2023 15:09

@guest.r

Feedback:

When using slotwidth 6.0, mask size 2.0 with shadowmask 2 and 6, instead having black bars with that pattern RRGGBB you get BRRGGB.

Mask looks like number 2 or 5 on background with only one color/shade.

guest.r · 23 February 2023 16:01

That’s really weird and is fixed in newest versions:

Perhaps, if someone else confirms the discrepancy also, i’ll have to take a closer look.

Settings:

shadowMask = "6.000000"
maskstr = "1.000000"
masksize = "2.000000"
slotmask = "1.000000"
slotmask1 = "1.000000"
slotwidth = "6.000000"
double_slot = "2.000000"