Adding a new ‘phase’ mode to the NTSC shaders:
What do you guys think?
Also need some popular vote on keeping the sharpening pass in the NTSC preset. Speak your oppinions… 
5 Likes
I like the sharpening pass unless there is a significant hit to performance or it is redundant.
3 Likes
Looks good to me. It kinda looks like what one would go for if trying to reproduce that famous NES CRT screenshot featuring the rainbow effects. For the NES shot it looks correct but I’m not so sure about the others but then I’m not an authority on these things. I merely make CRT Shader Preset with limited technical knowledge and regard for accuracy.
Does it make it easier or more practical to recreate things like “rainbow artifacts”?
I think I must agree with @BendBombBoom. I know many of my older (but not obsolete) Mega Bezel presets rely on this heavily.
After a while I started using it less, then when I recently tried standalone CRT-Guest-Advanced-NTSC I had started using it again.
But if it has to go and there are better alternatives then you would be the best judge of that.
3 Likes
Ntsc looks really good. About the sharpness, keep the setting, I like sharpness, I prefer sharpness than blurry. Apart it would be a good Idea to implement Pal Scart RGB mode. I don’t think how this works, I’m just giving Ideas 
3 Likes
OK, the sharpening pass will stay included in the preset. It’s quite light and i’m glad to hear that it’s being utilized.
The idea behind the new ‘phase’ is mostly to being able to resolve dithering/bar patterns on Nintendo systems and systems like Amiga while keeping the color artifacting.
Ofc. it’s not prohibited to use it somewhere else.
I also think that i should remove some workarounds in the ntsc shaders, every setting should be directly appliable without choosing the -1.0 (custom) preset first. It’s quite confusing now if someone doesn’t directly know the trick. It’s just changing two values against one in previous implementation, i guess nobody will get their fingers burned.
5 Likes
This is beautiful! If time permits can you also implement a setting/preset that does the same for TurboGrafx16/PC-Engine?
This is something that I’ve somewhat managed to accomplish by sheer trial and error, experimentation and perhaps luck?
I’ll post a couple example screenshots below. This should help get some additional shades/colours.
Of course these are after my somewhat successful attempts at blending the dithering while maintaining sharpness but the raw versions have some very obvious dither patterns.
Then there’s the Lord’s of Thunder waterfall which doesn’t really bother me that much to be honest but it is a classic case of dither patterns being used to simulate transparency/translucency effects on the Turbo.
3 Likes
Yeah, dithering patterns should get dissolved with other system games too, no worries here. Meanwhile i’m doing some kinky stuff regarding color artifacting:
10 Likes
Speaking of phosphors being the source of all light effects, I’ve been using a preset driven primarilly mask boost.
I’m away from my computer as of writing this but here are the key settings.
Mask = 11
Mask Size = 2
Mask Strength = 1.00 (both)
Mask Scale = -2
Mask Boost = 2.00
Mask Gamma = 1.15
Dark Boost = 0.40
Bright Boost 0.50
Halation = 0.25
NOTE: I have not updated the shader since my last post.
EDIT: Fixed typo caught by @Cyber.
4 Likes
A little typo here.
These settings definitely look balanced towards preserving the Mask (and emulated phosphors) and letting them do the work while still getting sufficient brightness without resorting to any exotic techniques like turning up the brightness on the display for example. (Chuckle)
I guess that’s trending these days. @Nesguy would be proud.
3 Likes
Yep, definitely looks NC-17 to me.
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New Release Version (2023-07-29-r1):
Notable changes:
- Deconvergence tweaks and improvements.
- Masks in scanlines are more nicely cleared with this option selected.
- Small mask parameter section reordering.
- Mask shift/stagger option now works differently and is renamed. Now it always tries to produce the shadowmask effect. Compatibility with older shadowmask presets should work fine.
- NTSC 3-phase filter tweaks.
- NTSC horizontal filtering tuned.
- NTSC menu improvements. Preset mode removed. Compatibility with older custom (-1.0) presets should be maintained.
- NTSC Sharpness looks a bit softer, more natural now.
- NTSC new phase mode (Mixed) added.
Edit: small menu bug fixed
Download link:
https://mega.nz/file/Y1J0DbDQ#QBisx7BSpX0ee4ncoC3ahFihvRrmTStzpiLh-vcgkrM
17 Likes
You’ve been busy! 
I’m excited to try this out 
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“* Masks in scanlines are more nicely cleared with this option selected.”
Do you mean clearing those dots in between the scanlines when they are fat? l’ve been working on that too!
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I’ve heard that this shader can look good even when using non-integer. What option would I pick for that? SNES games in 4:3 don’t fill the screen on my 4K monitor.
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There is no option for RF (2.0).
When Merge Fields Auto (-1.00) is changed, it cannot be returned.
Thanks for yet another awesome update!
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Hey! Yeah, i had some successful takes on the code and stuff. 
Many times the old code is still better lol.
It’s hard to miss when something look as artificial, true. 
You can try overscan from the Screen Option menu. Otherwise any set of balanced settings should look just very nice on a 4k screen, much without integer scaling. If you look for some inspiration then you can look at @sonkun’s , @Cyber’s, @Zombeaver’s presets etc…
Yeah, this parameter line is just informative, for RF you must set Artifacting and Fringing to 2.0. This is a major change how to setup the NTSC shaders, everything should apply directly now.
Yeah, this was a bug indeed. I already uploaded a fixed version. Thanks.
4 Likes
Always happy to try out a new Guest shader update.
One question: the new Shadow Mask parameter doesn’t seem to work with masks 0 and 5. The old mask shift/stagger parameter would turn them into extremely low dot pitch shadow masks.
3 Likes
Fantastic!!! You always surprise me😁
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Yeah, 2.0 width masks didn’t transform (and mask 4 converts back to aperture )…thanks for the bugfind anyway. Will probably post a fixed version in a couple of hours.
3 Likes
New Release Version (2023-07-30-r1):
Notable changes:
- 2-width masks now shift to a shadowmask layout.
- Small NTSC code tweak.
- “Keep Mask effect with clipping” functionality removed. A derelict feature from early days.
- Finer bloom and glow passes parameter steps.
- A new “Bloom Substract” mode for finer tuning of bloom and halation effects.
Download link:
https://mega.nz/file/Uw5ynbgK#e_pkI9zW2Sdhk1d0P65NKX8H4uovgjNgTh21qK3HLfA
15 Likes