Simply amazing work on these preset, Sonkun.
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One thing I tend to notice is that different OS’s seem to have different issues, like Linux users with the “black screen” contrast setting from before and now this user is on a Mac with this specific issue. Or maybe it’s not as simple as just “different OSs have different issues”.
These random occasions sometimes throw me off because I expect my presets to “just work” for everyone that loads them but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Thanks I appreciate it, since I’m playing games a bit more lately I’m noticing myself that all that tint and saturation tweaking really brings a different look this time around, I probably over did saturation a little but I like it. I was also wondering last night if I should do one more minor tweak and put out a new pack but meh I guess. I’ll let this one ride out for a while unless guest.r brings something juicy and exclusive to the table in a new update.
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I logged a try. See https://pastebin.com/BhYvnE5M
I think the interesting part is:
[INFO] [Vulkan filter chain]: Using framebuffer feedback for pass #2.
[INFO] [Vulkan]: QueuePresent failed, destroying swapchain.
[ERROR] [Vulkan]: Failed to create swapchain.
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Hmm. If I’m not mistaken I believe pass 2 is the “afterglow” pass in my chain. @guest.r is this what you meant by checking the passes?
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Saturation can make games seem much more CRT like to me and strangely enough even adds brightness to a certain extent even though it’s supposed to darken the colours.
What I’ve found useful in balancing it is loading up games like Street Fighter II and Marvel Super Heroes and looking at the internal lines in the sprites as well as some of the different shades on characters clothes for example Ken’s Gi in Street Fighter II or Shuma Gorath’s skin in Marvel Super Heroes.
If the creases and lines start to fade or disappear or if some of the shades are lost or blend into one, then you’re know you’re going too far.
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Try replacing pass2 (afterglow0) with stock shader, see how it goes.
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That’s exactly how I see it as well. At first I kept trying to match the “raw colors” that the LCD was giving me foolishly not even knowing even those colors are “wrong” as guest.r pointed out a few posts above. Once I stopped trying to do that that’s when my imagination started to run wild hence the reason for me even tweaking all those tint settings in grade. So basically my latest preset pack is me just letting my imagination run wild a bit, at least color-wise.
Yeah I was pretty much using all the Capcom Street Fighters and VS series as tests, Marvel Vs Capcom is so colorful it’s just fun to look at.
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Yeah, replacing pass2 with stock shader fixes the issue! What is the issue with afterglow that Snes9x, Beetle PCE, and Genesis Plus GX struggle with?
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When I start a game and change the shader to one of sonkun’s shaders and replace pass2 with stock shader while the game is running, the issue is fixed. Once, I run a game with the shader being applied from the start through global.slangp for example, the issue persists. See https://pastebin.com/f8XSPwGU
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[INFO] [Vulkan filter chain]: Creating framebuffer 2048x2048 (max 1 level(s)).
[INFO] [Vulkan filter chain]: Creating framebuffer 2048x2048 (max 1 level(s)).
[INFO] [Vulkan filter chain]: Creating framebuffer 2048x2048 (max 1 level(s)).
[INFO] [Vulkan filter chain]: Creating framebuffer 2048x2048 (max 1 level(s)).
[INFO] [Vulkan filter chain]: Creating framebuffer 8192x2048 (max 1 level(s)).
It’s a good question why your input framebuffer size is 2048x2048 (should be more like 320x224), that’s from the first 5 passes, last being the ntsc-pass1 which horizontally scales by 4x.
The horizontal resolution might be to large and it supposingly crashes RA. Dunno if it’s a bug, RA setting or system setting.
You can check that you don’t have any video filters or strange core options enabled, otherwise this is a good question for someone also familiar with the Apple ecosystem.
Edit: see the framebuffer sizes get updated, but it looks it gets stuck in the process (framebuffer creation and updates).
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The log is from a freshly installed Retroarch with no video filter and default core options. Only global.slangp is loaded.
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Hey sonkun, I’ve been doing a lot of test with your shader in the latest days and it’s really awesome. But unfortunately it’s too heavy to be used on Android… while on some cores it still works ok on other cores it makes things too slow even with simple games (I am using a high end phone, S24 Ultra). Is there maybe a “lighter” version of this shader?
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What resolution are you running it to? Given the “tiny” screen, I’d try to go with 1080p.
Also what cores are problematic? Do they upscale?
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Yeah, I already tried with 1080p and same results… Anyways the MAME core (current) is especially problematic… I know that core is “heavy” but unfortunately some arcade games only work on the current MAME core. They look awesome with the sonkun shaders but they are too slow to play… Btw your shader is also fantastic, I use it a lot (and is faster) 
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Uhm, probably the phone is reaching high temps and it is throttling its speed and that affects the gpu too.
Happens everytime on my s10 with exynos to the point that i need to use 720p.
If you can stand some added latency, I’d try with threaded rendering turned on.
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An S24 can’t handle my presets? That’s interesting. Does the guest advance hd shader and ntsc variant from the crt folder run fullspeed by itself? If so then maybe you can use those versions without the “grade” shader that I’ve added onto my presets (assuming that’s what may be causing the slowdown) and then copy the settings from my presets over to those?
You just reminded me I also have a “lightweight” glsl shader I was working on in 2023, haven’t tweaked it in a while though, looks nowhere as good as my presets either but it’s usable and it’s only for 1080p:
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Was in the mood for some crt gaming when I realized I still haven’t tried RetroArch with the new crt I got my hands on a few weeks ago. I also remembered that I had a hdmi to AV converter laying around with two way male composite cable so I hooked it up to the tv. Now I just opened up a world where I can play 100’s of games on this tv. Here’s some composite shots for you guys:
I also wanted to show the rainbow effect in real time action so I recorded a few videos, the fringing is crazy. @guest.r your rainbow implementation is about as close to the real thing as it can get. @RetroCrisis the people that were leaving comments on the YouTube video talking about the flickering probably don’t know that the flickering they see actually happens on a real crt, actually it’s even more severe here:
Videos expire in 2 days but I’ll re-upload upon request if anyone wants to see them.
Also from what I’m seeing this converter I’m using seems to display all games in “2-phase” only, tried it with Ninja Gaiden:
I only get the vertical rainbows not the 3 phase diagonal ones.
On my current preset pack I lowered the fringing on my composite rainbow presets, now after seeing it on a real tv I kind of want to put the fringing back lol.
Edit: I just put up a new pack with that fringing setting defaulted so you all can grab it if you want.
Even RetroArch itself has some rainbow artifacting on the crt:
One more shot:
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Hi, sonkun. Which resolution are you setting RA to send to your TV?
I’ve spot graphical differences between real hardware and some alternative setup to connect emulators to send 240p to crts AV inputs. Depending on horizontal resolution, the rainbow effects may be different from real hardware.
Here’s my case using a Wii: When NTSC filter is mandatory?
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Converters are obviously their own configuration, normal ones don’t output 240p either.
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I didn’t set it to anything at all. I just connected my Shield TV to this converter and then to the tv then it was off to the races. What I do see in my RetroArch config file is “crt switch resolution” set to 0, “crt switch resolution super” is 2560, “crt switch resolution use custom refresh rate” is false and “current resolution id” is 0 if that information helps.
This may be the case, I don’t have the actual systems to cross compare, I was just happy to get some kind of composite video at all on an actual tv.
This was the converter I used, had it laying around for years:
Couple more pics from last night:
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