New CRT shader from Guest + CRT Guest Advanced updates

[sonkun]

@guest.r

Thanks for some good test cases. Personally, i was always getting mad at the FF5 menu text with 3-phase. But that’s really more a chroma issue. Adaptive sharpen currently works on luma only, but i guess it’s a good idea to try it with chroma too some day.

You’re welcome. If trying it with chroma will help to make an even sharper image then by all means try it out, preferably today lol.

@guest.r

If number of taps is 16 out of total 32 (2-phase) then base bleeding value is already like 2.0, 4.0 becomes 8.0 etc. There is no need to crank 8 taps to 4.0, as it’s considered an extreme value and similar (like 16.0). This might only work with merge or s-video ‘presets’, just to mention it as the artifacted side effects are already mitigated as far it can go.

This whole area caught me by surprise yesterday. I thought things would be simple using a “1 tap size fits all” approach, so far for my composite, composite rainbow and rf presets I had to switch up all my tap/phase combinations for each of them.

Here’s what I got for composite at the moment, this is my current preset from my pack:

Here’s what I’m working on:

Current preset:

New settings:

Even the water looks a bit different, seems more “blended”.

Current preset:

New settings:

Screen capturing rainbow images never seem to come out right but I’ll post it anyway, new rainbow settings:

Speaking of rainbows I have a request. Would it be possible to change the “rainbow effect” settings so that no matter which value you pick it auto disables itself when “3-phase” games are being played?

I ask because that rainbow setting benefits 2-phase games and doesn’t seem to be meant for use during 3-phase games at all. While technically it “does” also work with 3-phase games I noticed a difference between having that setting on and off.

Here’s how it looks with the rainbow setting on at a value of 1:

Here’s how it looks with it set to 0:

At first glance it might not look like a major difference but if you look close the diagonal rainbow artifacts look more pronounced with the setting off, the brick wall colors also seem to pop a bit more.

If by chance you can slip in a “auto deactivate 2-phase rainbows” switch whenever 3-phase games are being displayed it would be perfect.

Also if anyone wants to try out the new settings I’m working on simply load up one of my composite presets and change:

CRT Brightness: 0.40
Ntsc color saturation: 1.02 
Ntsc filtering gamma correction: 1.30 (1.32 Slot Mask only)
Ntsc taps: 6.00
Ntsc chroma scaling/2phase: 2.00
Ntsc chroma scaling/3phase: 3.00 (you need to edit this yourself in a editor, Parameter settings stop at 2.25) 
Ntsc sharpness: 10.00
Fsharpen strength: 0.50
Fsharpen contrast/ringing: 0.05
Fsharpen deblur: 1.00 (default)

For rainbow settings load up a rainbow preset then use the settings above with Rainbow Effect at 1.00 and “taps” at 13 with 3phase chroma/bleeding at 2.25.

@RetroGames4K you should check out these new ntsc sharpness settings. I think these are even better than the ones I told you about before.

[guest.r]

New Release Version (2024-09-18-r1):

Notable changes:

• NTSC shaders optimizations, cleanup.
• Improvements on NTSC coloring/rainbowing implementation.
• Two new NTSC coloring/rainbowing modes.
• Low-tap count behavior improved (NTSC).
• Internal resolution option added to NTSC shaders, similar to the HD feature.
• NTSC Sharpen changes to the ‘positive’ mode, now both modes dissolve dithering patterns, positive mode preserves more details. Use resolution scaling feature if missing the ‘old positive mode’.
• Pre-scaler presets included in the ‘guest’ folder. They are optimized for prepending to crt presets. Usually regular scaler presets scale to viewport, which can be very slow and also excessive.
• Edit: luma fix with gamma corrections and adaptive sharpen (thanks @sonkun for testings).
• Edit2: clamping bug fix.
• Edit r2: ‘glowing nose’ problem mitigation/fix, some code improvements.
• 09-18-r1: rainbowing now only works with 2-phase mode.
• 09-18-r1: some general NTSC passes code improvements.
• 09-18-r1: adaptive sharpen improvements, some artifact mitigation was also desired (2-phase).

Download link:

https://mega.nz/file/t4B3VIxI#GaQ8m5QCJjGOU7xlGTOXmyBerrKmce2gE0d36MwuxUI

[sonkun]

This update came right on time. Testing it right away will report back soon.

[RetroGames4K]

Let’s go with some new updated shots.

[sonkun]

Reporting back a little late. Besides putting together about 5 different presets and testing them all out I ended up settling on one.

Gotta say besides the new positive ntsc sharpness the new rainbow implementation is also a highlight for this update. Now composite rainbow presets look good for both 2phase and 3phase games:

I also like how value 3 in the rainbow setting is a little more “messier” and more blurry, would go perfect for rf type presets.

Other than that the only other thing I noticed was that pixel “jumpiness” again that I told you about a few posts up but this time in 3phase games, might still be in 2phase games as well. Can’t remember which games I noticed it in specifically but I believe I noticed it on some 3phase games literally right when I load a preset up. I would see a very small random pixel “flash” for less than a second then everything would look good again. Where that jumpiness happens at is random per game, could be on a character’s face, a piece of structure somewhere etc.

Edit: @guest.r ok here’s some video footage I recorded real fast. Look at the outlining of all the characters, it gives a quick white “flash” when I load up my rf preset twice.

[guest.r]

Try to lower color bleeding, with low taps and cranked up value cross-talk can cause luma artifacts, which are basically screen position fixed, not sprite fixed.

[sonkun]

Ah I see. I Stepped out real fast so I’ll test it when I get back. I do remember having taps set to 6, 2phase bleeding on 1.65 and 3phase bleeding on 2.25 the maximum.

Edit: @guest.r ok so I tried your suggestion first, I tried lowering the 3phase bleeding and that flash continued to happen, even lowered it down to the lowest number. I then defaulted the taps and both phase settings and recorded it. I also disabled the koko crt switchres shader so that you could see it better:

And it still happens everytime I hit “apply changes”. Not to mention I also updated to the latest RetroArch just in case. Not sure which combination could be causing this.

[guest.r]

Happens to me all the time with 2-phase and “Apply Changes”. The catch is that temporal blending normally blends out the differences, while pressing “Apply Changes” the shader gets stuck with odd or even frame for the compile time.

Otherwise rainbowing is a temporal effect and with “Apply Changes” it’s getting stuck to odd/even frame. This behaviour is present since the new implementation, nothing to worry about in general.

Try it without the rainbow effect to make sure it isn’t something else involved.

Edit: also please test with the prior version to see if it isn’t a regression.

[sonkun]

Ok here we go. Not only did I turn rainbows off but also the artifacting and fringing settings as well. Also still have the tabs/ phase settings defaulted:

Still happens.

Edit: I’ll try a older release

Edit 2: @guest.r ok I pinned it down to release 2024-09-16-release2 is when those flashes started appearing. On release 1 from that same day everything is good, no flashes at least in 3phase games regardless of the preset I load up. I believe you put out release 2 cause I noticed flashes like that in Sonic in release 1.

[guest.r]

I think found the root of the issue. With 3-phase chromatic differences changed with odd/even frames and this influenced how strong the sharpen effect turns out between frames. Putting the logic on luma only solves this specific problem.

Thanks to pointing it out anyway, guess will make some other changes beside this fix, probably soon.

[sonkun]

Glad I was able to help. I’ll be around for the next release.

[guest.r]

New Release Version (2024-09-21-r1):

Notable changes:

• 09-18-r1: rainbowing now only works with 2-phase mode.
• 09-18-r1: some general NTSC passes code improvements.
• 09-18-r1: adaptive sharpen improvements, some artifact mitigation was also desired (2-phase).
• 09-21-r1: adaptive sharpen improvements.
• 09-21-r1: adaptive sharpen “glowing” pixels mitigation.
• 09-21-r1: some general code cleanup.

Download link:

https://mega.nz/file/VphXnKpS#EEO_tvg71ztHmQzB_hzjn94fYUgkanqe5O5Cnrqq5j8

[sonkun]

Ran a quick test on this and right off the bat that “flashing” whenever I load up any of my presets is finally gone! This update also removed some “glowy” artifacts that I didn’t even know were there as well after loading up that Simpsons game again.

I think this update is the one guest.r, I’ll continue testing and playing around with it. If I don’t report back with any issues that means I’m probably getting my next preset pack ready lol.

Edit: @guest.r ok one thing I have noticed and maybe this was intentional by you I don’t know but I do notice a difference in this release compared to last release. I’ll just post up two screenshots to show you.

Here’s my composite preset from the previous release:

Here’s how it looks loading the same preset up with this release:

Notice the white area by his ears, the area between all the letters, the two white “dots” on the left/right side of the house, the shadow under the grass. Is this intentional?

[guest.r]

Yeah, that’s a part of the glowing pixel mitigation. It’s consistent regarding to a non-sharpened image, the difference is prior some pixels are getting “to bright”, now they are limited in max brightness.

Good news is it can be anything in between “these two images”. I tried 25% of max mitigation, and it’s also a good compromise.

[sonkun]

Ah ok. Which setting do I tweak to get it between the two of them? I like how it looks more in the first one so I’d want it closer to that look.

Edit: Gamma Correction? Raising that seems to give me the look from the first image.

[bactino]

Hello, I am currently using the 0-hspack. I would like to slightly modify the CRT-Guest-Advanced-RGB shader. I would appreciate any feedback on whether this would be a good idea or not.

version with crt effect

Here is a version without any CRT effects.

• TNTC = “2.000000”
• wp_saturation = “1.000000”
• gamma_out = “2.200000”
• glow = “0.000000”
• bloom = “0.100000”
• mask_bloom = “0.100000”
• gsl = “1.000000”
• scanline1 = “0.400000”
• scanline2 = “10.000000”
• beam_min = “1.000000”
• beam_max = “1.000000”
• beam_size = “1.000000”
• scans = “1.000000”
• scan_falloff = “1.000000”
• scangamma = “2.200000”
• spike = “0.000000”
• h_sharp = “2.000000”
• s_sharp = “1.500000”
• shadowMask = “3.000000”
• maskstr = “0.400000”
• mcut = “1.000000”
• maskboost = “1.500000”
• mask_gamma = “2.200000”
• AS = “0.000000”
• sat = “1.000000”
• FINE_BLOOM = “1.000000”
• halation = “-0.100000”
• hmask1 = “1.000000”
• mask_layout = “1.000000”
• brightboost = “1.200000”
• clips = “0.000000”
• bmask1 = “0.000000”
• double_slot = “1.000000”`

[guest.r]

Edit: Gamma Correction? Raising that seems to give me the look from the first image.

Great, i also had gamma correction in mind, if you get the desired looks than it would be sweet. One of the culprits lies in 3-phase design and temporal blending…

[sonkun]

I’m still testing things out. Truth be told I love the first image I posted the most, that look is the cleanest sharpest looking composite preset I’ve made to date and is the look I want to put out in my next pack. Going from that clean white space to that fuzziness look between the letters was really rubbing me the wrong way, I actually went back to your previous update for a few minutes lol.

For now I’m playing with the gamma correction and going back and forth seeing if it matches that look from the first image. If I can get it like that again I’m good to go.

Edit: Yeah… I don’t know @guest.r , although gamma correction seems to do the trick but the more I raise it the more it starts to bring in a whole new set of issues. I might just go back to the previous release and just deal with it, I like how my preset looks on that one and I can’t get that look back on this one plus it feels like I’m nitpicking too much at this point especially since I’m essentially the cause of this current update you just released.

[guest.r]

New Release Version (2024-09-21-r2):

Notable changes:

• 09-18-r1: rainbowing now only works with 2-phase mode.
• 09-18-r1: some general NTSC passes code improvements.
• 09-18-r1: adaptive sharpen improvements, some artifact mitigation was also desired (2-phase).
• 09-21-r1: adaptive sharpen improvements.
• 09-21-r1: adaptive sharpen “glowing” pixels mitigation.
• 09-21-r1: some general code cleanup.
• 09-21-r2: “glowing pixels” improvements.

Download link:

https://mega.nz/file/ssYB1QQZ#fJxajSie_E2HlxWNyeTb07q8-bXseqTWY1HZdh5qJOU

[sonkun]

That’s crazy. I was literally about to bite the bullet and get started putting together my next pack using your previous pack from the 18th, something told me come here one last time before I get started and here you are.

guest.r you’re a mad man lol. Ok gonna test this right now.

Edit: And BOOM just like that, it’s perfect again:

None of that fuzziness between the letters anymore. The white outline on the Mario bricks no longer look dull but beaming once again.

@guest.r I can’t thank you enough for going back in the lab one more time. In return I’m gonna present to you one of the cleanest looking composite presets to date on my next pack.