New CRT shader from Guest + CRT Guest Advanced updates

I am presenting this shader present…

Nothing.slangp

Op lacked clarity. From the above I prefer the later rather than the former. There is also a difference in aspect ratio. Idk if there was a difference in the resolutions between the snes and the, wild guess, the arcade version that might have an effect on something.

From above, I can’t tell which one is “more” faithful to the original design.

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Oof, this is awkward, those two replies were for

rob. From this

Please hold my L while I figure out how to quote rather than link a post.

It’s easy just highlight the words you want to quote then automatically you should see the word “quote” pop up on your screen. Hit it and it’ll appear in a new reply box where you can then type your response directly under the quote.

You can quote as many times in the same reply box by doing the same steps. Just space yourself (hit enter twice) for every new quote you want to add.

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As a test I added xbrz-freescale to the NTSC variant. The darker lines feel more illustrative and the extra color noise pulls it towards something more organic.

I also tired adding xbrz-freescale and sgenpt-mix but it mangles to much of the original image.

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I tried to adapt a xbrz preset that I have to give a similar vibe

this is my base xbrz4 + gdap

in this I added NTSC colors

this is the same but less saturated to be similar in tone to your screenshot.

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I always wanted to ask, do you ever plan to make a updated version of this preset here? This is still one of my favorite presets from you, it’s just wild and crazy and I love it lol.

Hi all. New to this CRT shader stuff. Really like this shader and recently became obsessed with replicating the CRT experience. I wanted to ask how Gamma In and Gamma Out work with our monitor gamma? Let’s say my monitor is calibrated to a relative (effective) 2.2 gamma. Should my Gamma Out be 2.2 as well? And what’s the point of Gamma In? Should Gamma In match the encoded gamma from the game console?

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I wrote about gamma more specifically in this thread, but it was quite a while ago. Absolute numbers don’t fit into the monitor gamma scheme as one may predict.

It’s more about the ratio between input gamma and output gamma regarding your monitor calibration. Ofc. input gamma values between 2.0 and 2.5 are desirable so we can say horizontal blending is done in linear space.

My advice is to leave both gamma values by default if you aren’t sure what you are doing. Maybe you can lower output gamma a bit to get more contrast and saturation and that’s it, more or less.

Because the shaders have other mechanisms which affect this aspect of the image, namely gamma correct, brightboost, scanline gamma, mask gamma, saturation, post brightness…

I won’t go into detailed explanations here, because one can test the parameter values and how they affect the image by themselves very easily.

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Thanks for your reply. I have been enjoying the NTSC preset. It is quite beautiful, but it’s just a bit dark for me at 100 nits. I guess I can just play with the output gamma and brightness parameters and get most of the way there with satisfaction. I appreciate the amount of control made, but some of it is definitely over my head. Thank you so much for your work!

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Yeah, seems so. I did fiddle around the last days but couldn’t achieve something spectacular different, so… I’ll leave it as it is. It looked good before for me and it is still the same on OLED so I guess “never change a running system”. :smiley:

Gonna edit my thread as the next step.

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There is also another option called “NTSC Filtering Gamma Correction”, which regulates horizontal interpolation brightness and is available in latest versions.

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I noticed that the under color tweaks the option for crt profiles have six options. I would presume one of them is off but what order are they in?

-1.0 is “matrix color altering OFF”, 0.0 is “identity” (no-change) processing. Then you can start counting profiles, the order in the parameter description matches the corresponding color profiles.

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When eyeballing -1.0 and 0.0 I don’t see a difference between the two. So if 0.0 is disable then -1.0 is?

0.0 isn’t “disable”, it’s neutral matrix processing (identity) with default settings, which also allows “prior” color space alterations.

-1.0 completely bypasses matrix color processing, as well color spaces alteration as color profiles.

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I’m curious if anyone that is creating presets with guest.r’s shader uses the downsample feature. I;ve been playing around with a lot of the options and I really like the look of the games using guest.r NTSC and then downsampling. It creates an image that I feel like I’m much more familiar with on my old TVs. I really enjoy it and I hope that guest.r keeps it as part of his shader. I’d like to know if anyone else who creates presets is using it and what they think about it.

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Hey there!

“Downsampling” with the NTSC shader makes good sense, as it is primarily a feature which works very well with higher resolution buffers and the ntsc buffer horizontal size is more or less already hi-res.

And no worries, the feature is very fast and useful, I’m not considering removing it. :smiley:

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I finally got a chance to post these screenshots which I had liked over at r/crtgaming

Here’s the feedback so far:

https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/xeecm2f3jy

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Somewhat predictable replies, it’s tough to appreciate these things sometimes without playing with them for hours and becoming intimately familiar with their limitations. Most probably don’t know the struggle of trying to make composite video look sharp, balancing the mask with brightness, etc.

Well, I just took the plunge and purchased a used RTX 3090 so I’m on way to 4K. The actual monitor is what’s bugging me now; I feel like 4K gaming hasn’t really arrived yet in terms of the availability of both the GPUs and the display devices. Getting off-topic, though…

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That must have been a hell of a deal I’m sure!

It’s still a game of compromises. At 4K you shouldn’t expect to be able to run every recent triple A title at high refresh rates at maximum settings but do you always need to?

Consoles/console games and devs tend to get this balancing act done pretty well. So what you usually end up with is gamers enjoying playing games with a usually smooth and stable and consistent experience.

I’ve tried to pattern my PC gaming experience around the console model to some extent.

There was a time when I sold my one and only GPU - a GeForce GTX 460 if I recall.correctly to a friend and was gaming in an Intel Core i5 2500K for a while.

When the nVidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti came to market offering exceptional value and efficiency, that was my incentive to return to the world of more serious PC gaming.

I used to use GeForce Experience as a starting point to automagically adjust my settings for every game I installed.

I had a grand time with my GeForce GTX 750Ti.

Always remember that there’ll always be a killer app (or rather performance killer) for GPUs so we have to be wise enough not to spoil ourselves too much over things that are always going to have diminishing returns.

As for the monitor/TV, well we have quite a bit of anecdotal information circling around these forums from users of various display types. You’ve done quite a bit of theoretical work as well trying to find the Holy Grail of CRT emulation centric display technology.

My gut feeling is that a decent Mini-LED screen might be where the sweetspot is right now. However, unfortunately, those types of displays probably have the least amount of real-world reviews for emulation use floating around so you might end up being a Guinea Pig.

Second to that might be a W-OLED Display with MLA technology.

Third might be a high end QD-LED display with excellent local dimming or a Mini-LED QD-LED Display.

You know all the other checkboxes that need to be filled. For example Peak brightness, high refresh rate for BFI e.t.c.

I’m not a big fan of the TCL brand but I remember watching a review where their very conservative dimming algorithm was able to pass the Star Wars starfield test without being excessively bloomy.

I’m not sure if I’d buy a TCL though. Maybe you can take a chance on one of those new MiniLED displays from lesser known brands that have making waves recently, KTC or INNOCN?

What display do you currently have in mind?

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