New CRT shader from Guest + CRT Guest Advanced updates

[sonkun]

Nice, that fixed the issue right up when I loaded up my integer scaled preset but then I noticed the Integer Scaling parameter no longer does anything at all from modes 1-4. You shut integer scaling off completely for laced content? It definitely still works for non laced content. I figured you would make it so that with each mode the scaling on laced content would match up to how it looks with non laced content. I haven’t had a situation yet but I figure it would look weird on games where a scene will be non laced and the screen is stretched accordingly then it switches to a laced scene where it shrinks to non integer scale then zoom back out again when it goes back to a non laced scene, or something like that lol

[guest.r]

This should not be an issue with modes 3-4 at all, since both fill the screen completely in vertical direction. Otherwise you can have old or the new handling, there is no simple regular middle ground.

If we think about the main purpose of integer scaling - even scanlines, there is really no need for it with laced modes, so i guess it will stay like in the most recent version.

[sonkun]

Got it. If anything that was a more of screen “consistency” thing I pointed out, but the screen doesn’t stretch absurdly anymore on laced games and that’s all matters to me in the end. Thanks once again guest

[Fab]

Hey everyone! Quick question: which mask would you use as a base to try to replicate the image you see below? I’m quite happy with my arcade preset (basics: 1440p, mask 9, slot mask, width 3, height 2, 121 pattern), but for post 1995 games (600TVL, like) I think I should try something else (deeper scanlines, 232 pattern and some sharpening), for a more modern look. The 232 pattern is the first thing I can’t seem to replicate convincingly. Time for some brainstorming.

[DariusG]

I would use mask 2, BGR subpixels cause my screen is RGB, mask dark 0.1, slot mask bright 0.7, slot mask dark 0.9, slot mask width 3, post brightness 1.3 or so.

[Fab]

Ah, of course, there are Lottes masks too! I was trying to reach that result with Trinitron masks turned into slots, gonna try your solution first.

[Nesguy]

I would also give mask 10(?) a try, 1440p should be just enough.

I can whip up some settings real quick a bit later.

Have you confirmed the subpixel layout of your display?

EDIT: now I’m not sure what mask I’m referring to, looks like 10 is another aperture grille

[Cyber]

@Fab

Lottes masks

I don’t think that Lottes looks like any actual TV’s mask pattern.

[Fab]

I have a RGB W-LED monitor (Asus MX27AQ). Here’s what I’ve achieved with mask 10. The overall effect is what I was looking for but I need to tinker a little more with the scanlines. I always have the problem of finding the right width and height for the right slot mask effect, @guest.r I think a little guide for each mask (with size, subpixel layout, things like that) would be cool.

P.S.: the image compression kills the mask, hope you can still appreciate it.

[Nesguy]

@Fab

Use these settings with mask 10

shadowMask = "10.000000"
slotmask = "1.000000"
slotmask1 = "1.000000"
slotwidth = "4.000000"
double_slot = "2.000000"

[Fab]

Lottes mask 1 is a TV style shadow mask, mask 2 is an aperture grille which you can turn to slot mask like guest’s Trinitron masks. Ideally mask 3 would be an arcade monitor (which I’m trying to achieve, not TV) but…I don’t like it.

[Nesguy]

mask 3 doesn’t really resemble any CRT mask but it kinda works at a distance.

I think mask 10 needs HDR to look bright enough, or a ridiculous amount of bloom. Not surprising, it results in a full 75% reduction in the active subpixels (only 1/4th are on at any given time) when it’s at 100% strength.

[Fab]

Yeah I use 0.60 bloom and 1.10 bright boost because my monitor has a luminance of 300 cd/m2, at least the double would be needed to have an optimal image. I’m quite happy, still.

[Rincewind]

Hey @guest.r

First of all, thanks for your excellent WinUAE CRT shaders you posted to the English Amiga Board forums a while ago. I’ve been using CRT-A2080-HiRes-SmartRes with great satisfaction (with increasing the sharpness settings a bit), I just love it!

I’ve stumbled upon this thread by sheer luck when looking for some good (S)VGA shaders for DOSBox, and since you only seem to be active here these days, I thought I’d take the opportunity to contact you through this forum.

• First of all, while CRT-A2080-HiRes-SmartRes is awesome, it doesn’t handle interlaced modes quite correctly when movement is involved (e.g. smooth scrolling credit screens in 640x512 keep jumping around a bit; still images are fine though). Your other shader CRT-Guest-SM-Hires-SmartRes-Interlace handles these situations perfectly well, so I was wondering if it would be possible to add the same good interlace support to CRT-A2080, as I really prefer the look of that shader personally? While this is not super important, it makes a difference in some demos and game intros that use hi-res interlaced. (As a stretch goal, it would be also nice to have an option for interlace flicker for that extra retro feeling, but that’s really really down on my wishlist )

• Have you considered porting your new work back to WinUAE or DOSBox Staging? Especially in DOSBox land, we’re in dire need of some good subtle VGA and SVGA shaders.

I understand if you don’t want to touch those old shaders and don’t care about DirectX & HLSL anymore, but I thought there’s no harm in asking! In any case, you’ve done more than enough already with those stellar WinUAE shaders of yours, so thanks again! Cheers!

[Cyber]

@Rincewind You might want to take a look at these CRT Shader projects as well.

CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels Shader Preset Pack

[CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels Preset Pack Title] This is a moment some have been waiting for. By popular request, I’m moving my CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels Shader Preset Pack to it’s new home in it’s own thread! In commemoration of this significant milestone, I’ve included 2 updated versions of my venerable CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels (Composite - Sharp) and (Arcade - Sharp) presets! In my opinion these latest versions are some of my best work to date but they couldn’t …

HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader! - Feedback and Updates

[Mega_Bezel_Logo] This thread is about the HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader for Retroarch! Here you can tell me what’s working for you and what could be better The shader is in a beta state, getting close to a V1, there will be some changes coming here and there as we tidy up for the V1.0 Try adjusting the shader parameters to change the look, as most things are adjustable for personal taste. SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PARTNER ON THIS PROJECT: I want to thank @Duimon, my tireless partner on this…

TheNamec - Mega Bezel Packs Amiga, Sony PVM & BVM, JVC, Ikegami

This thread is about my collections of original overlays and ready-to-go CRT presets powered by @HyperspaceMadness Mega Bezel Reflection Shader technology. Collection are organized in out-of-the-box thematic packs: Mega Bezel Commodore Pack focuses on famous Commodore hardware, including Amiga, Monitors and soon to come Commodore 64 and Vic 20 Mega Bezel CRT experience simulates “holy grail” professional monitors selected by the r/crtgaming community for top quality pixel-art retrogamin…

[guest.r]

@Rincewind

First of all, thanks for your excellent WinUAE CRT shaders you posted to the English Amiga Board forums a while ago. I’ve been using CRT-A2080-HiRes-SmartRes with great satisfaction (with increasing the sharpness settings a bit), I just love it!

I’ve stumbled upon this thread by sheer luck when looking for some good (S)VGA shaders for DOSBox, and since you only seem to be active here these days, I thought I’d take the opportunity to contact you through this forum.

Hey there!

NP to contact me here, i check this thread quite often. I’m also glad you like the shader. It’s not as sophisticated as the newer Retroarch ‘GDV’, but i also use it with WinUAE.

@Rincewind

• First of all, while CRT-A2080-HiRes-SmartRes is awesome, it doesn’t handle interlaced modes quite correctly when movement is involved (e.g. smooth scrolling credit screens in 640x512 keep jumping around a bit; still images are fine though). Your other shader CRT-Guest-SM-Hires-SmartRes-Interlace handles these situations perfectly well, so I was wondering if it would be possible to add the same good interlace support to CRT-A2080, as I really prefer the look of that shader personally? While this is not super important, it makes a difference in some demos and game intros that use hi-res interlaced. (As a stretch goal, it would be also nice to have an option for interlace flicker for that extra retro feeling, but that’s really really down on my wishlist )

You can check my github page, as i added the ‘interlace’ version. ‘Flickering’ interlacing can’t be done with WinUAE atm., since it lacks a frame counting uniform variable. Toni has mentioned that a new shader implementation is on the (distant) TODO list though, but i understand i could be a real pita to implement since it would definitely break existing configs or be at least a separate addon. But maybe there is a way…I might continue to develop nicer shaders with WinUAE if this happens.

@Rincewind

Have you considered porting your new work back to WinUAE or DOSBox Staging? Especially in DOSBox land, we’re in dire need of some good subtle VGA and SVGA shaders.

DOSBox is definitely easier to run as a standalone emulator, although afaik the main fork doesn’t support shaders, not sure about frontends. I think cool shader support comes with this version:

GitHub - duganchen/dosbox

dunno if there is anything newer.

The problem, as always, is that the shader support is rudimentary and doesn’t involve easier tweaking of variables, or preset support. In general i didn’t intend to develop more dosbox shaders, although some can be found in the fs-uae thread for the discontinued ykhwong fork. I guess i might also do some more stuff if there is a new fork with cool shader handling (at least similat to bsnes or mame).

@Rincewind

I understand if you don’t want to touch those old shaders and don’t care about DirectX & HLSL anymore, but I thought there’s no harm in asking! In any case, you’ve done more than enough already with those stellar WinUAE shaders of yours, so thanks again! Cheers!

I did a lot of crt shader development recently with ‘gdv’ progression, took most of my developing ‘resources’. Developing a complex shader for a simple environment is sometimes quite hard though as it can get quite slow and hard to tweak, some things are impossible to implement etc. I might find some motivation if a shader environment is advanced, although for now it’s a nice niche option to run DOSBox for example with Retroarch for the enhancing effects.

Anyway, i’m glad for the fedback and last but not least, the WinUAE github page:

GitHub - guestrr/WinUAE-Shaders

Best wishes,

guest.r

[hunterk]

While having the shader support built-in is obviously preferred, you can run many RetroArch shaders (including guest.r’s excellent work) on top of other programs via shaderglass and I know some of libretro’s shaders have been ported to Reshade, as well.

[Rincewind]

@guest.r

You can check my github page, as i added the ‘interlace’ version.

Thanks for that, it’s working great! In the meantime I realised that tweaking the sharpness of your A2080 shader was a mistake; when using your defaults (and if the image is properly antialiased) all sharp edges just melt away, as if by magic, just like on my 14" Philips monitor back in the day! I remember I was quite disappointed when I got my first PC with a much higher quality monitor, everything looked so blocky suddenly and I couldn’t understand why…

Here’s a few pics of your shader in action together with the mask+glow ReShade effects; as far as I’m concerned, I don’t think I need anything better, I’m in emulated Amiga heaven now! I only dialed back the brightboost a bit because there was too much highlight-crushing going on (e.g. most of the detail of the hair highlights on the Einstein portrait was lost) and just compensated it by increasing my monitor contrast. Now we’re cooking on gas!

@guest.r

You can check my github page, as i added the ‘interlace’ version. ‘Flickering’ interlacing can’t be done with WinUAE atm., since it lacks a frame counting uniform variable.

Hmm, I was convinced I saw interlace-flicker in some demos in WinUAE, but I must be confusing it with VICE, as that definitely can do it. Funny how back in the 80s/90s everyone wanted to get rid of the flicker, but now it’s a highly prized emulator feature for nostalgic reasons!

@guest.r

DOSBox is definitely easier to run as a standalone emulator, although afaik the main fork doesn’t support shaders, not sure about frontends.

Yeah that’s true, I’m using DOSBox Staging which is kind of a soft-fork of mainline DOSBox SVN that has rudimentary shader support (single-pass GLSL only, no oversampling, and no presets, like you said). Some nice bloke ported a bunch of single-pass shaders over, but it’s a pain to adjust the parameters…

@guest.r

I did a lot of crt shader development recently with ‘gdv’ progression, took most of my developing ‘resources’. Developing a complex shader for a simple environment is sometimes quite hard though as it can get quite slow and hard to tweak, some things are impossible to implement etc. I might find some motivation if a shader environment is advanced, although for now it’s a nice niche option to run DOSBox for example with Retroarch for the enhancing effects.

Man, GDV looks so cool! Although I’m more after the slighly defocused slot-mask Amiga monitor look, this is the best shader I’ve seen in this style! You’ve put so much subtle detail in it, it’s awesome.

I’ve perused the RetroArch shader architecture docs the other day and seems like they’ve given it a lot of thought, indeed. Don’t expect anything like that to come to DOSBox land anytime soon… But I’ve also realised that trying to emulate VGA/SVGA on 1080p is a fool’s errand; DOSBox Staging’s default “sharp bilinear” scaling filter is all you need for 320x200, then 2x integer scale for 640x480 and that’s it! Anything else I’ve looked at just makes the picture quality a lot worse (at least on 1080p), and to be honest, there is no “magic” in emulating double-scanned VGA…

For EGA games, I spent whole yesterday tweaking crt-hyllian-updated in conjunction with your ReShade glow+mask filter, and I managed to come up with something that I like. It’s remarkable how it’s quite hard to push the Hyllian shader into aliasing/moire territory even with non-integer ratios – just look at the checkerboard-pattern and the subtle 640x350 scanlines on white background on the Spellcasting screenshot, it’s flawless.

Anyway, probably enough of me derailing the thread already. Nice chat & keep up the good work! Cheers!

[Nesguy]

Not really sure what’s causing the black crush here? Didn’t seem to be an issue with previous versions?

shaders = "12"
shader0 = "shaders_slang/misc/grade.slang"
filter_linear0 = "false"
wrap_mode0 = "clamp_to_border"
mipmap_input0 = "false"
alias0 = ""
float_framebuffer0 = "false"
srgb_framebuffer0 = "false"
scale_type_x0 = "source"
scale_x0 = "1.000000"
scale_type_y0 = "source"
scale_y0 = "1.000000"
shader1 = "shaders_slang/stock.slang"
filter_linear1 = "false"
wrap_mode1 = "clamp_to_border"
mipmap_input1 = "false"
alias1 = "StockPass"
float_framebuffer1 = "false"
srgb_framebuffer1 = "false"
scale_type_x1 = "source"
scale_x1 = "1.000000"
scale_type_y1 = "source"
scale_y1 = "1.000000"
shader2 = "shaders_slang/crt/shaders/guest/advanced/afterglow0.slang"
filter_linear2 = "false"
wrap_mode2 = "clamp_to_border"
mipmap_input2 = "false"
alias2 = "AfterglowPass"
float_framebuffer2 = "false"
srgb_framebuffer2 = "false"
scale_type_x2 = "source"
scale_x2 = "1.000000"
scale_type_y2 = "source"
scale_y2 = "1.000000"
shader3 = "shaders_slang/crt/shaders/guest/advanced/pre-shaders-afterglow.slang"
filter_linear3 = "false"
wrap_mode3 = "clamp_to_border"
mipmap_input3 = "true"
alias3 = "PrePass"
float_framebuffer3 = "false"
srgb_framebuffer3 = "false"
scale_type_x3 = "source"
scale_x3 = "1.000000"
scale_type_y3 = "source"
scale_y3 = "1.000000"
shader4 = "shaders_slang/crt/shaders/guest/advanced/avg-lum.slang"
filter_linear4 = "true"
wrap_mode4 = "clamp_to_border"
mipmap_input4 = "true"
alias4 = "AvgLumPass"
float_framebuffer4 = "false"
srgb_framebuffer4 = "false"
scale_type_x4 = "source"
scale_x4 = "1.000000"
scale_type_y4 = "source"
scale_y4 = "1.000000"
shader5 = "shaders_slang/crt/shaders/guest/advanced/linearize.slang"
filter_linear5 = "true"
wrap_mode5 = "clamp_to_border"
mipmap_input5 = "false"
alias5 = "LinearizePass"
float_framebuffer5 = "true"
srgb_framebuffer5 = "false"
scale_type_x5 = "source"
scale_x5 = "1.000000"
scale_type_y5 = "source"
scale_y5 = "1.000000"
shader6 = "shaders_slang/crt/shaders/guest/advanced/gaussian_horizontal.slang"
filter_linear6 = "true"
wrap_mode6 = "clamp_to_border"
mipmap_input6 = "false"
alias6 = ""
float_framebuffer6 = "true"
srgb_framebuffer6 = "false"
scale_type_x6 = "absolute"
scale_x6 = "800"
scale_type_y6 = "source"
scale_y6 = "1.000000"
shader7 = "shaders_slang/crt/shaders/guest/advanced/gaussian_vertical.slang"
filter_linear7 = "true"
wrap_mode7 = "clamp_to_border"
mipmap_input7 = "false"
alias7 = "GlowPass"
float_framebuffer7 = "true"
srgb_framebuffer7 = "false"
scale_type_x7 = "absolute"
scale_x7 = "800"
scale_type_y7 = "absolute"
scale_y7 = "600"
shader8 = "shaders_slang/crt/shaders/guest/advanced/bloom_horizontal.slang"
filter_linear8 = "true"
wrap_mode8 = "clamp_to_border"
mipmap_input8 = "false"
alias8 = ""
float_framebuffer8 = "true"
srgb_framebuffer8 = "false"
scale_type_x8 = "absolute"
scale_x8 = "800"
scale_type_y8 = "absolute"
scale_y8 = "600"
shader9 = "shaders_slang/crt/shaders/guest/advanced/bloom_vertical.slang"
filter_linear9 = "true"
wrap_mode9 = "clamp_to_border"
mipmap_input9 = "false"
alias9 = "BloomPass"
float_framebuffer9 = "true"
srgb_framebuffer9 = "false"
scale_type_x9 = "source"
scale_x9 = "1.000000"
scale_type_y9 = "source"
scale_y9 = "1.000000"
shader10 = "shaders_slang/crt/shaders/guest/advanced/crt-guest-advanced.slang"
filter_linear10 = "true"
wrap_mode10 = "clamp_to_border"
mipmap_input10 = "false"
alias10 = ""
float_framebuffer10 = "false"
srgb_framebuffer10 = "false"
scale_type_x10 = "viewport"
scale_x10 = "1.000000"
scale_type_y10 = "viewport"
scale_y10 = "1.000000"
shader11 = "shaders_slang/crt/shaders/guest/advanced/deconvergence.slang"
filter_linear11 = "true"
wrap_mode11 = "clamp_to_border"
mipmap_input11 = "false"
alias11 = ""
float_framebuffer11 = "false"
srgb_framebuffer11 = "false"
scale_type_x11 = "viewport"
scale_x11 = "1.000000"
scale_type_y11 = "viewport"
scale_y11 = "1.000000"
g_crtgamut = "0.000000"
g_vignette = "0.000000"
glow = "0.000000"
brightboost = "0.500000"
brightboost1 = "0.500000"
beam_min = "1.600000"
beam_max = "1.500000"
shadowMask = "2.000000"
maskDark = "0.000000"
maskLight = "1.000000"
mask_layout = "1.000000"
mclip = "0.000000"
gamma_out = "2.000001"
post_br = "1.999999"
textures = "SamplerLUT1;SamplerLUT2;SamplerLUT3;SamplerLUT4"
SamplerLUT1 = "shaders_slang/crt/shaders/guest/advanced/lut/trinitron-lut.png"
SamplerLUT1_linear = "true"
SamplerLUT1_wrap_mode = "clamp_to_border"
SamplerLUT1_mipmap = "false"
SamplerLUT2 = "shaders_slang/crt/shaders/guest/advanced/lut/inv-trinitron-lut.png"
SamplerLUT2_linear = "true"
SamplerLUT2_wrap_mode = "clamp_to_border"
SamplerLUT2_mipmap = "false"
SamplerLUT3 = "shaders_slang/crt/shaders/guest/advanced/lut/nec-lut.png"
SamplerLUT3_linear = "true"
SamplerLUT3_wrap_mode = "clamp_to_border"
SamplerLUT3_mipmap = "false"
SamplerLUT4 = "shaders_slang/crt/shaders/guest/advanced/lut/ntsc-lut.png"
SamplerLUT4_linear = "true"
SamplerLUT4_wrap_mode = "clamp_to_border"
SamplerLUT4_mipmap = "false"

[guest.r]

You need to set the 10th pass float framebuffer to “true”. It’s an issue with older presets and new shader files.