New CRT shader from Guest + CRT Guest Advanced updates

the gap between the phosphors is only like 1/8 the size of the phosphor itself, so it would need to be something like RRRRRRRRXGGGGGGGGXBBBBBBBB to get the spacing right (and would need like a 20K screen).

If you did just RXGXBX, it would be super-dark, as the subpixels of your monitor would be like RXXXXXXGXXXXXXBXXX, or almost 85% reduction in brightness, and the subpixels would be spaced unevenly.

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OK. Just wondering, because the black gaps seems to be half subpixels… mask 10 for me looks the closest look alike, but lacks of black spacing… mask 12 looks brighter, but I feel that the black spacing is less pronunciated…

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Why not adjust the deconvergence to create some more separation? Also keep any setting that increases horizontal blur to a minimum? If you move the outer colour stripes to the left and right respectively, I can see a little more space being created in between the phosphors and a reduction of horizontal space being created between the triads.

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What would it be the correct setting for deconvergence for that. Some settings a really difficult. And the correct gamma In-Out for an lcd 4k?

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There isn’t really a correct setting. You expressed that there were black gaps between the phosphors in your Sanyo TV that weren’t present in the shader so I suggested this because I know that each colour can be moved left, right, up or down independently. Hopefully this might allow you to get things even closer to your Sanyo.

It just takes some patience, reading, experimentation and asking for assistance like you’re doing now.

I don’t think there’s any one correct setting for that either. Sometimes you might need to adjust those things differently depending on the core/system you’re trying to emulate.

Adjusting one setting elsewhere like full strength Masks or dark scanlines can alter things so much that you might feel the need to increase the gamma In-Out.

You can use games and also the 240p Test suite as a guide and of course your Sanyo CRT as a reference.

As @guest.r has mentioned how useful Gamma Correct (Gamma_c) is, you can also get very far by leaving Gamma In/Out as default and making adjustments to that instead.

You seem to have things pretty close to your reference so it’s probably just a little fine tuning that needs to be done from here but many times when you push in one area, you can get some artifacts in other areas which might require tweaking even more settings until everything comes together nicely.

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Ok. Thanks a lot…:smiley::+1:

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I think I’m almost there, it needs a bit of tweaking. Thanks to all for the advice…:smiley:

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I would just like to say how incredible it is that this kind of realism can be achieved, and the versatility is amazing!

When I first encountered CRT-Geom (Has it really been 10 years?) I would have never dreamed of this.

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It’s looking real good! Very close! I encourage you to share your preset with the rest of the community as this is approaching reference level stuff that I am sure can benefit others as well.

One thing I might try if I were you is to try a Slot Mask Height setting of 3 instead of 4 because the Sanyo triads look a little stubbier than the CRT Shader’s.

You can also try a higher GSL Scanline Type which will enhance the appearance of the scanlines which can be more distinctly seen in the Sanyo photo.

Then you can lower the gamma_c a touch, just very slightly so the triads can more closely match the TV’s. Make sure you’re not using too much bloom. More than 0.15 might be too much.

You might also want to add a hair of vertical deconvergence just to take away the digital exactness of the vertical alignment of the “phosphors”.

Don’t forget you can control the Deconvergence Strength as well.

Remember a very little goes a long way.

I’m using HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader so at this point I might have added a little Simple Sharpness.

You can probably try bumping the Horizontal Sharpness and maybe the Subtractive Sharpness just a tad to simulate TV circuitry.

And the final icing on the cake can be a very subtle high resolution (setting 1), low strength (0.18 or less) of noise, again to simulate the analog circuitry.

Other than that, the saturation in the shader photos appears ever so slightly higher than the Sanyo CRT but it’s no big deal in my opinion.

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I’ve tried lots of gamma combinations for my NTSC slotmask preset, but using gamma_correct is out of the question, as it creates lots of ugly artifacts. Or maybe I’m using it wrong, but I don’t think it’s working as intended. Same goes for Bright Boost Dark Pixels. :slightly_frowning_face:

Maybe it’s because I’m using a 4K mask?

The only way I managed to get the colors and gamma to look the same as the no-shader original picture was to leave gamma input at 2.0 and gamma out at 3.0, but I see you recommended against such big ratios because it alters how things are processed.

I could lower gamma input instead of increasing gamma out so much, but you said it affects how gloom and glow are distributed too.

I’m sorry for bothering you so much with this, but if you had to fix the gamma of this NTSC preset, how would you do it?

#reference "crt/guest-advanced/crt-guest-advanced-ntsc.slangp"
quality = "0.000000"
ntsc_sharp = "-8.000000"
mask_bloom = "0.950000"
gsl = "-1.000000"
shadowMask = "12.000000"
maskstr = "1.000000"
slotmask = "1.000000"
slotmask1 = "1.000000"
slotwidth = "7.000000"
double_slot = "3.000000"
mclip = "0.000000"

I will share it soon, when I finished the tweaking :grinning:. I use the HD version, has it got the same options as you mention? I will try your advice. About mask height of of 3, I already use it for 8 bit,Nintendo 64 and 128bit, I use height size 4 for 16 and 32 bit, because the horizontal scanlines looks more separated in sega saturn, like in the pic of the Saturn Bomberman that I posted above loos like size 4, I don’t know why that happens, because My CRT “pixels” look like size 3. About GSL Scanline, do you mean the “scanline type option”? I will follow your advice. Thanks… :grin:

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What I noticed is that with directx 12 artifacts are less pronunciated or gone. Try and see if it works… At least for me did. I was using vulkan.

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I’m not sure as I’ve never used it.

Perhaps when you try a darker, thicker GSL Scanline Type the scanline gaps on the top and bottom of the “phosphor” triad might shave enough off the vertical and make it appear closer in height to the Sanyo TV.

Yes, HSM MegaBezel has it listed as GSL Scanline Type.

It can’t hurt to try and see. You’re already so close. Differences in photography might skew my perception and assessments though.

You’re most welcome. I’m looking forward to seeing the results. Just remember that sometimes less is more when adjusting.

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Must be something else as i always used gamma correct at ‘required’ values and the results were pretty much neutral.

Here is an example with a hefty ammount of gamma correct.

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Lovely screenshot @guest.r! New default settings in the making?

I use whatever I can that is available to me in order to get things to look right. If there’s something wrong with Gamma_Correct and it’s fixed, I’m afraid it’s going to break all of my presets. Lol

@nfp0,

Maybe you can post some screenshots/photos of your screen along with your settings to show us what you’re seeing and maybe that might help in getting things where they need to be.

Sometimes too much of a certain setting can use up all of your headroom, then you can’t adjust another setting.

Sometimes we might boost multiple settings that all do some similar things creating clipping and stuff like that.

Maybe something needs to be lowered to create some headroom.

Feel free to share what your goal is and we might be able to assist you in reaching there.

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Not really, no. Just an example where gamma correct might be needed and is applied in larger ammount. The implementation of gamma_correct didn’t change since beginning though. Always worked as now.

With ntsc composition gamma correct might indeed amplify the ringing from horizontal filtering. Ringing is nice, because it creates local contrast, but it might be tuned down a bit with these situations.

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Indeed I don’t see any ringing in your picture. Maybe it only manifests on slot masks? How much Gamma Correct and Boost Brighness are you using for that screenshot?

Yeah, I really need some help. Thank you guys! I’ll try and explain it as best as I can.

For reference, here’s the original picture:

Here is an example of an NTSC 4K slot mask base preset with all gamma settings at their defaults:

#reference "crt/guest-advanced/crt-guest-advanced-ntsc.slangp"
quality = "0.000000"
ntsc_sharp = "-8.000000"
mask_bloom = "0.950000"
gsl = "-1.000000"
shadowMask = "12.000000"
maskstr = "1.000000"
slotmask = "1.000000"
slotmask1 = "1.000000"
slotwidth = "7.000000"
double_slot = "3.000000"
mclip = "0.000000"

As we can see, the colors are over-saturated and the picture is overall darker. This is because the triad mask and slot mask makes things darker on the low end, while bloom keeps things bright at the high end.

We then increase Gamma Correct to try and compensate for the loss of gamma. The previous preset with a value of Gamma Correct of 1.6 gets us this picture:

Mario gained a lot of ringing around him. And the sky is still over-saturated compared to the original.

Here’s another comparison:

Original:

And the above preset with Gamma Correct at 1.6:

As you can see, the low range is way too over-compensated compared to the original, but if I lower Gamma Correct, then the midrange will become darker.

This only seems to happen with strong masks and slot masks, because the base crt-guest-advanced-ntsc.slangp has good gamma tracking at default settings.

That’s weird. The picture should be the exact same in both drivers. I’m on Linux, so I can’t test DirectX, but thanks for the suggestion anyway!

Looking forward to it! I want to see how you handle gamma.

That might help! :slightly_smiling_face: What parameter should I use to reduce ringing?

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@guest, looking at the first screenshot, small vertical white lines appear in the sky.

I reduced the “Scanlines Shape Bright Pixels” option to 0.70 and the strokes disappeared.

Is this the correct way to fix it?

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Are you sure you want this at 0?

I leave this at the default 0.50 because it messes with the bloom in an undesirable way.

Also, why are you using Mask Bloom with a Slot Mask preset? You can probably try the regular Bloom for Slot Mask.

I don’t use this particular shader, I use HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader which has several other shaders integrated. In addition to that I use custom Blargg NTSC filter presets for my NTSC effects so I won’t be 100% familiar with the behaviour and even the names of some of the Guest-CRT-Advanced-NTSC settings that I’m seeing here.

To me the gamma doesn’t seem too far off from the original considering 100% Mask settings are being used.

I wonder what @Nesguy or @sonkun might have to say since they are much more experienced with this particular implementation of the shader than I am?

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My approach to moire mitigation is, “By any means necessary”.

Whatever works.

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