New CRT shader from Guest + CRT Guest Advanced updates

[Cyber]

@tigerstyle

does anyone have any tips or tricks with this stuff to share?

CyberLab Death To Pixels Shader Preset Packs

[CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels Preset Pack Title] [Screenshot_20220408-113722_Chrome] [Screenshot_20220408-114931_Chrome] [Screenshot_20220408-114949_Chrome] [Screenshot_20220408-115001_Chrome] [20220825_100739] Disclaimer: I present these to you without making any claims, representations, warranties nor acceptance of any liabilities including any arising out of the use of this software whatsoever. They are just my presets that I use and I’m sharing with you in the hope that y…

New CRT shader from Guest + CRT Guest Advanced updates

This thread is about two shaders, namely crt-guest-sm and crt-guest-advanced. The first part of the thread is about crt-guest-sm (now only available as a fast GLSL shader). The end of the thread contains updates and feedback on my continued development of the later crt-guest-advanced (former crt-guest-dr-venom(2)) - slang shaders. Newest version (2025-08.24): https://mega.nz/file/xsgxTKAR#93dvbv-3KTr0dQoI56TAQrzHJw1Gr7FVtJ1JR0MejJk Current repository version (2025-03.30): https://mega.nz/fi…

RetroGames4K's Mega Bezel screen pics, gameplays & custom settings

Welcome to RetroGames4K’s thread. Here I will post every screenshot, gameplays and custom settings from Mega Bezel and other Retroarch’s shaders. My main objective is to post screenshots from my custom settings and hope you enjoy it. Here are my custom settings. This setting is based on my 14" CRT Sanyo CE14AT08-C These images are real photos taken from my Sanyo CRT for comparison purposes: [image] [image] …

CRT shader debate

EDIT (8/4/2019): I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things said in the below post, but keeping the original post intact for the sake of the discussion. In particular, I now find that a certain amount of blur, when used with the right mask effect and scanlines, more closely approximates a CRT than the nearest-neighbor scaling used in the below images. Additionally, the mask effect has to take into account the LCD subpixel structure, which the mask pattern used in the below images fails to do. My…

[guest.r]

Hey! Don’t forget to also include bloom and (magic)glow pass settings, can make a big difference. I’m also a fan of the dual_filter_bloom shaders in blurs folder, which can be appended to most crt shaders.

[guest.r]

Currently i’m trying some PSX games with increased internal resolution + NTSC version of crt-guest-advanced. Some less pronounced features can give very good results without much tweaking.

[Nesguy]

Composite video is so essential for PSX/N64…

I like the lower TVL mask for composite video, too. Hides a lot of stuff you don’t want to see. It’s almost like composite video and consumer-grade CRTs were made for each other.

[PU786]

It is. And it’s a shame it’s so hard to go and set those emulators up to display the graphics how they were actually displayed. Both PSX/N64 emulation defaults to smoothing out all the dithering and little quirks of the OG graphics.

Which, yes that at least makes them look like we remember them. And makes them look nicer for the new generations coming in to experience them. But also it’s not honest. I feel. ;p

[md2mcb]

@PU786

And makes them look nicer for the new generations coming in to experience them

Frankly, that’s it. I had lots of in-person gaming-related interactions with younger folks and they almost always have an initial shock with retrogaming, even if they’re genuinely interested. The general style, looks, progression, mechanics, difficulty and feeling of those games are already different enough for youngsters, and if you also throw in a vastly unique display simulation to them it will certainly be a “double shock”.

With that in mind, I can’t really blame emudevs for trying to “smooth out” first impressions, at the expense of the (fewer) old-enough players. Personally, as long as both options are readily available, I don’t mind. Still, it would be nice to have some kind of encouragement for the new players to try out a more classic look, even if just as a curiosity.

[PU786]

Elegantly written. Respect.

[guest.r]

@PU786

Which, yes that at least makes them look like we remember them. And makes them look nicer for the new generations coming in to experience them. But also it’s not honest. I feel. ;p

At the beginning of modern emulation, like 20, 25 or more years ago, those remembering pete’s plugins, ePSXe, 2xSaI, HQnX etc. would say enhancement were the way to go. The main difference regarding actual state is that all was displayed on crt tube monitors and the user could viably choose from a set from availible (fullscreen) resolutions. Totally different experience. How it happened, i like FF7 Cloud’s hair a bit more defined now, please take no offence.

[PU786]

No yeah of course not! ^^ I myself enjoyed some Ocarina Master Quest at 1280x960 on those monitors.

A huge upgrade over actual N64 hardware. I think people go through emulation phases. I had my naked pixels phase with Genecyst and Nesticle back in the day.

[guest.r]

New Release Version (2025-09-14-r1):

Notable changes:

• ntcs: small optimizations and cleanups
• ntsc: mixed phase mode 5 added, preserves chromatic effects of 3-phase mode better
• ntsc: number of TAPS increased to 48, viable for 2-phase and chroma bleeding
• ntsc: smart dithering deblur mode added, doesn’t deblur blended dithering
• ntsc: Speedup with increased internal Resolution options added, removes ntsc horizontal shader bottleneck greatly, can be also used with pre-scalers for performance reasons. Total speedup can be up-to-2x. A word of wisdom, some edge-smoothing presets scale to viewport resolutions, which is a great deal especially for guest-advanced-ntsc. Now the speedup mode can be used, there are also included faster pre-scaler presets with the shader pack.
• ntsc: speedup mode is not neccessarily cool for ordinary resolution usages, just to mention it.
• ntsc: some testing and feedback is welcome.

Download link:

https://mega.nz/file/x85zDZ6R#fEq4VBlQWHgcTM6NyfwHGlCGWoCcgejIkEWoIpXiyDM

[Jobima]

cool! thanks for “Speedup with increased internal Resolution options” do I need to set it to 4 if I scale to 4x in the core?

@guest.r

ntsc: mixed phase mode 5 added, preserves chromatic effects of 3-phase mode better

is “mixed phase” alternative to “Auto”? what’s the difference between the two? What is better for general purpose use?

[guest.r]

@Jobima

cool! thanks for “Speedup with increased internal Resolution options” do I need to set it to 4 if I scale to 4x in the core?

The more the faster. You can also do without, it’s purely optional. Bigger resolutions can handle more of it without quality loss though.

@Jobima

is “mixed phase” alternative to “Auto”? what’s the difference between the two? What is better for general purpose use?

Mixed phase will not be triggered by “Auto” mode, this is only for 2-phase or 3-phase. Mode 4 has been around for a long time now, with pretty much neutral chroma handling. Mode 5 has full 3-phase chromatic effects. Mixed phase modes 4 and 5 can blend dithering, where pure 3-phase cannot, so you can use them with 3-phase games to blend dithering or with some cores like for Amiga, Saturn, PCE…

[Jobima]

@guest.r

The more the faster. You can also do without, it’s purely optional. Bigger resolutions can handle more of it without quality loss though.

I did a test and seems work so good! thanks! I will use it in my preset in the next update

[psxlover]

@Nesguy

Composite video is so essential for PSX/N64…

@PU786

And it’s a shame it’s so hard to go and set those emulators up to display the graphics how they were actually displayed. Both PSX/N64 emulation defaults to smoothing out all the dithering and little quirks of the OG graphics.

I was using a good Scart cable with my PSX/PS2. The emulators should smooth out all the dithering, I don’t know about you but I was not seeing any dithering when I was playing, nor “staircase” edges and pixels wobbling like crazy. It’s not that they were not there, it’s just that viewing them via a CRT that was also way smaller that today’s TVs made them imperceptible. Unless you are using a good CRT shader, displaying games enchanced/upscaled is actually closer to the original experience. There are also many details in 3d models that are not visible at native res on PSX.

That being said, I cannot stand the fonts when games are being upscaled which is why I want a good CRT emulation, plus there are some effects (e.g. bloom) that without a CRT are being lost in 2D elements, especially notable in 3D games with pre-rendered backgrounds.

@guest.r

Yes, vanilla mask 12 is good for 4k.

@guest.r is it possible to have a mask option that automatically chooses the “best” (an appropriate one) mask implementation based on screen resolution?

[Nesguy]

SCART is basically exclusive to Europe, so it’s unlikely that artists working on games in Japan or America intended for them to be displayed this way. The low res textures and dithering definitely benefit from composite video- the fog in Silent Hill is a famous example. The quality of the composite video can be adjusted in shaders. You can actually completely disable the “pixel wobbling” if desired. To each their own of course, but IMO composite video is even more essential for 5th generation consoles than some older consoles like SNES and NES (which rarely made use of dithering).

PSX emulators are actually not that difficult to configure for an authentic look- N64 is more of a headache.

I also don’t like what upscalers do to fonts and small details. You’re absolutely right that CRT shaders at native res are the way to go. These games were intended to be seen and played on CRTs.

[PU786]

@psxlover

Unless you are using a good CRT shader, displaying games enchanced/upscaled is actually closer to the original experience.

I totally agree with this too. Like CRT shaders make me enjoy using the original dithering stuff now. For instance, in this video the CRT shader hides the gray pixels in Diddy Kong’s sprite, it makes all the pre-rendered sprites look like legit 3D models in motion…things feel so much more like I remember them back when they came out.

Donkey Kong Country - Aquatic Ambience [Restored] [2023 Mix]

[guest.r]

@psxlover

@guest.r is it possible to have a mask option that automatically chooses the “best” (an appropriate one) mask implementation based on screen resolution?

It’s a viable request, indeed. OTOH diving into masks is very worthwile and “rewarding” for crt-guest-advanced and other crt shaders with appropriate mask options, like crt-geom-deluxe, newer crt-hyllian, royale, especially megatron etc. A good argument for manual tweaking is, that the users display resolution is more or less fixed for a longer period of time. But this doesn’t mean i’m discarding the idea, just that it isn’t trivial and a good ammount of consideration would be needed, since it’s a major change.

@PU786

I totally agree with this too. Like CRT shaders make me enjoy using the original dithering stuff now.

NTSC shaders have a nice option called “NTSC Resolution Scaling”. Should be 0.5 for 2x, 0.33 for 3x, 0.25 for 4x and 0.20 for 5x internal resolution. Or a notch less and downsampling + filtering options tweaked. I must admit i didn’t play “hide and seek” with dithering situations on some systems, but someone might explore this aspect too, i guess it could just work, especially with scanline mode.

[PU786]

When I’m done with my next work project, I’m going to finish up my presets I’ve been working on the last year and release them.

Technically I think they’re ready for an initial release, but I want to do one set with Color Grading so I expect that will take a couple weeks when I eventually get back to it.

[Cyber]

@guest.r

OTOH diving into masks is very worthwile and “rewarding” for crt-guest-advanced and other crt shaders with appropriate mask options, like crt-geom-deluxe, newer crt-hyllian, royale, especially megatron etc. A good argument for manual tweaking is, that the users display resolution is more or less fixed for a longer period of time. But this doesn’t mean i’m discarding the idea, just that it isn’t trivial and a good ammount of consideration would be needed, since it’s a major change.

I completely agree. This is already handled by the community shader preset pack scene, where less inclined or less technical users can use these for easy mode, while more serious users may not mind having the control offered by delving deeper into mastering the CRT shaders themselves.

I’m so much into trying to master CRT-Guest-Advanced-NTSC and trying to get the most out of it that I’m still using version crt-guest-advanced-2024-10-27-release1!

[guest.r]

New Release Version (2025-09-15-r1):

Notable changes:

• ntcs: small optimizations and cleanups
• ntsc: mixed phase mode 5 added, preserves chromatic effects of 3-phase mode better
• ntsc: number of TAPS increased to 48, viable for 2-phase and chroma bleeding
• ntsc: smart dithering deblur mode added, doesn’t deblur blended dithering
• ntsc: Speedup with increased internal Resolution options added, removes ntsc horizontal shader bottleneck greatly, can be also used with pre-scalers for performance reasons. Total speedup can be up-to-2x. A word of wisdom, some edge-smoothing presets scale to viewport resolutions, which is a great deal especially for guest-advanced-ntsc. Now the speedup mode can be used, there are also included faster pre-scaler presets with the shader pack.
• ntsc: speedup mode is not neccessarily cool for ordinary resolution usages, just to mention it.
• ntsc: some testing and feedback is welcome.
• UPDATE: after some consideration ntsc-pass3-features are enabled with “speedup” mode and source resolutions up-to 800p (not! display resolutions). Previously, pass3 was disabled with “speedup”.

Download link:

https://mega.nz/file/o0RQ3QZT#CHVw86oT6TfWyWMasSdmWUv0dm9p2xHKKFVtKJ2R_1s