Believe me when I say I know all about those bad rf days, I had the snes and genesis both hooked up to two tvs sitting side by side to each other playing with my brother back in 91. He was a Nintendo fanboy and I’m a Sega whore until the day I die so we played both Sonic and Mario World next to each other trying to outdo and show which system was better while both of us being impressed by both games, bad rf signal and all lol.
I guess I’m just trying to switch things up a little bit here.
If there’s something I could appreciate these days about presets and the wonderful type of work guys like you do, is to give some more love to RF presets.
It’s a bit confusing that there’s way more content about RGB rather than RF that is the most basic way to play these 90 games. It’s like the most fundamental way to play them back them, aside of the CRT TV looking.
If there’s something I think could be missing around here, its those video signal artifacts (Not rainbow) that only disturb video image and make them look so much worse. The Noise feature is good but not enough I think to bring actual justice to how Bad an RF signal can look into these games…
I mean, in the name of nostalgia!
Composite video gives sort of bad screen image because the dithering but RF is on a next level I think.
I still do have a Nintendo console with RF hooked up, even on a 1920x1800 screen and I still can see big artifacts with Rainbow colors but not like with Genesis games. The static is overall around the screen image. This is a whole different level of blurry bad image screen. This could potentially give a way better looking of the old experience. Just my opinion.
I’m considering everything you’re saying in these posts, kind of makes me want to retweak and dirty up my rf presets when I get home later and put out a new pack. Its true that every 8 and 16 bit system I’ve owned in the early 90’s came prepackaged with the rf cable, it was pretty much standard in the US. I only started using composite on actual hardware when PlayStation and Saturn came on the scene along with all the other systems that followed after them.
For now though I’m just waiting to see what guest.r is about to present to us, sounds like he’s going to switch some things up concerning the md rainbow setting or maybe something else entirely. If I’m not home before he releases it hopefully you’ll test it out before me.
if there is something even greater to give more 90s old school experience, would be adding up more Love in these projects for RF looking. That’s just my opinion. Like said above, Noise is Good but not enough.
RF by default, SHOULD BE the way to play these classic consoles but there’s so little content to find around, though… and of course, effects to embrace that experience. At least with the Mono output and very low Output rate in options, this is greatly achieved for audio department, at least.
I appreciate this conversation, thank you. I forgot you were the one that even got me started on going for the “mega drive rainbow” look months ago so you’ve been helping me along this journey for a while now. I’ll see how things go later when I get back in the lab, might even go with your settings above who knows. The RF presets will become my guinea pig to experiment on, gonna drag it through the mud and see how bad I can make it look lol.
you’re the hero on here bud 
I just have a very modest camera to record, but this is some proof of what I say, with NES Kirby’s Adventure.
Even on a 1920x1080 flat screen, there’re plenty of Screen artifacts with RF cable, even to this day.
Not sure how much can you see. I wish could get you here to see them 
There’re rainbow lines, but they’re all over the screen and with different angles. It’s different than Genesis games, that’s for sure.
But its what I try to say that RF BAD looking is on a next level compared to Composite video. Yet, a bit surprised how very little content is about RF on the forum
There’re 3 videos in there as a proof:
See look at that I was even around in that thread back then too lol. But yes I saw the videos. I’ll try some things out later though, let’s wait on guest.r first in the meantime.
Great update as always, sonkun. The 1440p presets look really nice on my computer.
Unfortunately, I’m here to report about the Xbox again 
. The colors now look hosed up on Series S through D3D11
However, by playing around with the settings, I found out that the issue seems related to Phosphor/Diplay Color Space. Setting Diplay Color Space from -1/709 to 0/sRGB fixes the corrupted colors, but also makes the colors slightly darker, so it’s not quite the ideal fix. Any ideas of what could be causing this?
By the way, do you have any recommended settings combination for playing Dreamcast? Or plans to make a VGA preset for systems like it? I’m currently using Aperture Grille + S-Video with Flycast set to TV Composite, but I’m wondering if there’s anything better for it.
You’re the one that messaged me on reddit about this same issue lol? If so I was trying to ask you if the Xbox had some display/Video setting that would let you change the color space or something of the sort. I honestly don’t know what’s causing that craziness and I don’t play on Xbox at all. I would like to know though as I have a feeling other xbox users might be coming here to ask this very same question.
Switching to Srgb seems to be a “fix” but it indeed darkens the colors especially on dark background games so it’s not really a fix, that’s the reason why I switched to rec 709 in the first place plus my setup uses that color space as well.
For Dreamcast I just use composite or rgb. I thought about using that “doublelined” setting in the interlaced settings (forgot the exact name of it but it turns 480i content into 240p which gives a game like MVC2 scanlines), only reason I didn’t is because it makes some 240p content look funky where the scanlines look weird on some games. It’s been a while since I used that setting though.
@guest.r do you have an idea on what could be causing that? Then again this could be some issue with the grade shader just like that black screen contrast issue from before.
It’s reproducible with d3d11 drivers on Windows machines. There must be some lines of code which don’t get properly translated to D3D HLSL, as OGL/Vulkan GLSL and D3D HLSL have their own sets of oddities.
It’s known that HLSL and GLSL handle matrices differently, most probably it something related to these.
Oh wow Windows as well? If @JosepMC is the same person that messaged me on Reddit he also said that the colors displayed correctly using my old preset pack from March using that same driver.
I’m not whoever messaged you on Reddit, I can also confirm your presets from March didn’t display this behavior. If it can’t be resolved on D3D11, then so be it; I can always stick with the presets from March for that. I’m merely reporting the issue in hopes that it can be addressed. I like using the Xbox as an emulation machine; using your presets from far away from the TV and while lying in bed makes for a pretty comfy gaming experience. 
Thanks for the tips about Dreamcast. I think I’ll stick to S-Video for the time being, as a solid compromise between the sharpness of RGB and the blending of composite.
The blue on mega man and the blue on sonic look almost perfect to what they look in their modern games today. However, mega man in the nes picture doesn’t look the same as the mvc picture. Even though the teal looks brighter, and the blue looks darker I suppose you can call this Nes nuances.
What is the color palette that you are using for the nes?
Since that wasn’t you I guess that makes you xbox user number 2 to tell me about this lol. Does the Xbox series x/s have some kind of display/Video setting that let’s you change the color space?
A quick Google search shows me this? I haven’t played on xbox so I don’t know how the video settings look. Or maybe the latest RetroArch release has some new video setting that needs to be tweaked that could possibly fix it?
Nice. That’s exactly what the S-Video presets were made for.
You’re right. Even in the raw image the the “blues” slightly differ from each other.
I doubt Capcom were trying to keep an exact 1 for 1 consistency in colors with a Mega Man sprite from 1988 to a Mega Man sprite from 1998.
In Mesen I use the Original Hardware pallete, it’s the only pallete I’ll ever use and what I suggest everyone else to use if using my presets. My presets were pretty much tailored with that pallete.
On another note I’m thinking if I should dial in a little more overall brightness, was thinking of adding a little more “gamma correct”. I have it set to 1.50 was thinking of raising that up to 1.60 or somewhere around there. Maybe you guys can try it out yourselves and see if that’s a good idea.
Hey there again, buddy.
I’ve got another cam with a bit better recording so you can see a 35 years old NES RF recording on Kirby.
4 videos kirby adventure nes 35yo videos
Not sure if the cable is too old but this has always been an issue for me with another cable as well. It always brings this type of static or interference or “Noise”. I dont know how people really call it. But this RF connection combines all the effects from Composite video + crazy static all over the screen + Rainbow lines moving very fast around it as well.
At least with this quick CRT guest advanced NTSC preset @guest.r I can get somewhat the result on Screen: 1920x1080 flat screen HD.
Certain values are still needed to be set on Core (this case was Mesen) for Color palette + overscans.
Maybe can get something done about the rainbow lines moving very quickily but need to test a bit more:
The static being shown up in here its not 100% accurate, but I think its better than nothing. Like stated before, RF connection is a whole next level in getting artifacts on screen. It’s by far way worse to look at rather than just getting Dithering or Rainbow banding for Composite video… I mean, if this could ever be achieved with RF presets on RetroArch, it would be the pinacle of accuracy… Yet, its still unfortunate that there’re so few RF presets around, considering that this connection was the one by DEFAULT that came back then with 90s consoles.
#reference "shaders_slang/crt/crt-guest-advanced-ntsc.slangp"
cust_artifacting = "2.000000"
cust_fringing = "0.000000"
ntsc_phase = "3.000000"
ntsc_sat = "0.900000"
ntsc_rainbow1 = "1.000000"
ntsc_cscale = "3.350001"
addnoised = "0.760000"
noiseresd = "5.000000"
noisetype = "1.000000"
The image… would describe it as permanently being on vibration. I could not find any other feature around aside of the so called " Noise ", but this is next level of poor quality, beyond the Dithering that already comes from Composite video. I dont know this type of vibration on screen its what causes to showcase HORIZONTAL rainbow lines the whole time. Its wonderful.
Just replicated to an extent the effect with very fast horizontal rainbow lines with this “new?” NTSC preset that I dont know who did. But it allows through the options to set horizontal rainbow lines with fast speed. It’s a preset called as: patchy-genplusgx
Still, it doesn’t have NOISE available so can’t get close enough to the RF effect. In case you may be interested on this effect @guest.r - Indeed, the rainbow effect is different on NES. But it behaves quite differently with these artifacts on RF.
The static or Noise i get on screen, its more likely about grey-black lines next to each other, instead of the usual “squares” i can get with Noise that’s being avaiable on CRT guest NTSC preset… or some other shaders as well.
one more video: 2015_0318_214917_174.MP4
same overscan + color palette from above
shaders = "8"
feedback_pass = "0"
shader0 = "shaders_slang/ntsc/shaders/patchy-ntsc/patchy-ntsc-pass1.slang"
filter_linear0 = "false"
wrap_mode0 = "clamp_to_border"
frame_count_mod0 = "1000"
mipmap_input0 = "false"
alias0 = ""
float_framebuffer0 = "true"
srgb_framebuffer0 = "false"
scale_type_x0 = "source"
scale_x0 = "8.000000"
scale_type_y0 = "source"
scale_y0 = "1.000000"
shader1 = "shaders_slang/ntsc/shaders/patchy-ntsc/patchy-ntsc-pass2.slang"
filter_linear1 = "false"
wrap_mode1 = "clamp_to_border"
frame_count_mod1 = "1000"
mipmap_input1 = "false"
alias1 = ""
float_framebuffer1 = "true"
srgb_framebuffer1 = "false"
scale_type_x1 = "source"
scale_x1 = "1.000000"
scale_type_y1 = "source"
scale_y1 = "1.000000"
shader2 = "shaders_slang/ntsc/shaders/patchy-ntsc/patchy-ntsc-pass3.slang"
filter_linear2 = "false"
wrap_mode2 = "clamp_to_border"
frame_count_mod2 = "1000"
mipmap_input2 = "false"
alias2 = ""
float_framebuffer2 = "true"
srgb_framebuffer2 = "false"
scale_type_x2 = "source"
scale_x2 = "1.000000"
scale_type_y2 = "source"
scale_y2 = "1.000000"
shader3 = "shaders_slang/ntsc/shaders/patchy-ntsc/patchy-ntsc-pass4.slang"
filter_linear3 = "false"
wrap_mode3 = "clamp_to_border"
frame_count_mod3 = "1000"
mipmap_input3 = "false"
alias3 = ""
float_framebuffer3 = "true"
srgb_framebuffer3 = "false"
scale_type_x3 = "source"
scale_x3 = "1.000000"
scale_type_y3 = "source"
scale_y3 = "1.000000"
shader4 = "shaders_slang/ntsc/shaders/patchy-ntsc/patchy-ntsc-pass5.slang"
filter_linear4 = "false"
wrap_mode4 = "clamp_to_border"
frame_count_mod4 = "1000"
mipmap_input4 = "false"
alias4 = ""
float_framebuffer4 = "true"
srgb_framebuffer4 = "false"
scale_type_x4 = "source"
scale_x4 = "1.000000"
scale_type_y4 = "source"
scale_y4 = "1.000000"
shader5 = "shaders_slang/ntsc/shaders/patchy-ntsc/trilinearLUT-switchable.slang"
filter_linear5 = "false"
wrap_mode5 = "clamp_to_border"
frame_count_mod5 = "1000"
mipmap_input5 = "false"
alias5 = ""
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/ntsc/shaders/patchy-ntsc/linear-to-srgb.slang"
filter_linear6 = "false"
wrap_mode6 = "clamp_to_border"
frame_count_mod6 = "1000"
mipmap_input6 = "false"
alias6 = ""
float_framebuffer6 = "true"
srgb_framebuffer6 = "false"
scale_type_x6 = "source"
scale_x6 = "1.000000"
scale_type_y6 = "source"
scale_y6 = "1.000000"
shader7 = "shaders_slang/crt/shaders/crt-lottes-fast.slang"
wrap_mode7 = "clamp_to_border"
mipmap_input7 = "false"
alias7 = ""
float_framebuffer7 = "false"
srgb_framebuffer7 = "false"
pn_genesis_jailbar_enable = "1.000000"
pn_genesis_jailbar_offset = "0.312500"
pn_scanline_dur = "47.699997"
pn_color_amplitude = "0.400000"
pn_color_init_offset = "0.700000"
pn_color_line_offset = "0.160000"
pn_color_screen_offset = "0.180000"
pn_modulator_luma_filter_type = "2.000000"
pn_modulator_luma_res = "220.000000"
pn_rgb_smear_enable = "1.000000"
pn_rgb_smear_rate = "1.150000"
MASK = "0.000000"
MASK_INTENSITY = "0.000000"
SCANLINE_THINNESS = "0.000000"
TRINITRON_CURVE = "1.000000"
textures = "PhosphorSamplerLUT1;PhosphorSamplerLUT2;PhosphorSamplerLUT3;PhosphorSamplerLUT4;PhosphorSamplerLUT5;PhosphorSamplerLUT6"
PhosphorSamplerLUT1 = "shaders_slang/ntsc/shaders/patchy-ntsc/P22_80s_D65.png"
PhosphorSamplerLUT1_linear = "false"
PhosphorSamplerLUT1_wrap_mode = "clamp_to_border"
PhosphorSamplerLUT1_mipmap = "false"
PhosphorSamplerLUT2 = "shaders_slang/ntsc/shaders/patchy-ntsc/P22_90s_D65.png"
PhosphorSamplerLUT2_linear = "false"
PhosphorSamplerLUT2_wrap_mode = "clamp_to_border"
PhosphorSamplerLUT2_mipmap = "false"
PhosphorSamplerLUT3 = "shaders_slang/ntsc/shaders/patchy-ntsc/P22_J_D65.png"
PhosphorSamplerLUT3_linear = "false"
PhosphorSamplerLUT3_wrap_mode = "clamp_to_border"
PhosphorSamplerLUT3_mipmap = "false"
PhosphorSamplerLUT4 = "shaders_slang/ntsc/shaders/patchy-ntsc/TrinitronP22_D65.png"
PhosphorSamplerLUT4_linear = "false"
PhosphorSamplerLUT4_wrap_mode = "clamp_to_border"
PhosphorSamplerLUT4_mipmap = "false"
PhosphorSamplerLUT5 = "shaders_slang/ntsc/shaders/patchy-ntsc/P22_J_D93.png"
PhosphorSamplerLUT5_linear = "false"
PhosphorSamplerLUT5_wrap_mode = "clamp_to_border"
PhosphorSamplerLUT5_mipmap = "false"
PhosphorSamplerLUT6 = "shaders_slang/ntsc/shaders/patchy-ntsc/TrinitronP22_D93.png"
PhosphorSamplerLUT6_linear = "false"
PhosphorSamplerLUT6_wrap_mode = "clamp_to_border"
PhosphorSamplerLUT6_mipmap = "false"
another link with 5 kirby RF videos: https://disk.yandex.ru/d/9XiNPOqXXRhYSg
Can you post these videos to a different site? They’re asking me to sign up just to watch some videos and I’m not doing that.
Yeah I came across that new shader the other day myself, it looks interesting.
Just for reference when I made my rf presets I took inspiration from this video:
Although my presets appear even sharper than that but you get the point.
Hi, I’m new to the forum and I’m trying to understand these CRT shader things. Quite a rabbithole 
On a 960p screen (handheld), will this shader work as well as the 1080p screenshots here ? Or event better since 960p is perfect x4 240p ?
Most likely won’t look exactly the same since 960p is not as detailed as 1080p but they should work.
That YCC setting does nothing and also is meaningless on my TV as only supports 8-bit color. And as guest.r himself said, it also happens on PC if you set the driver to D3D11.
I just went back to your March 2024 presets with crt-guest-advanced-2024-02-29-release1 on Xbox, and noticed that Diplay Color Space was also set to -1/709 back then without displaying this issue. Could it be some sort of regression along the way since then?
Yup, though I think I’ll stick with shadow mask instead of aperture grille. I’m digging the more softer/less sharp image quality.
