I’m biased, of course, but here’s my two cents:
Just like darkstar6 said, they both look good! The added brightness in some areas is nice. However, I feel like the Mitigate parameter does a disservice to contours (they get thinner), which isn’t just a general drawback but could also affect more stylized graphics a lot more. Taken together with the colour artifacts, I personally don’t feel that the pros outweigh the cons.
I would leave the setting enabled and just users know that if they experience issues, they can turn this off. Maybe include that in the description? I’ve personally have not had any issues with this setting specifically and i’ve found your preset to actually work better than most for an OLED screen.
The thing is, that setting isn’t the culprit. At least not the only culprit. My layman’s analysis is that something else is causing the problem, while the settings we’ve identified so far only exacerbate the root issue. See my comparison pics above.
Well then, guess now would be a good time to throw up round 4 of my lab experiments. This time you’ll have a little extra to play with, I included both Aperture Grille and Shadow Mask presets to go along with the Slot Masks.
Few 4k screenies:
Aperture Grille:
Slot Mask:
-260906-134101.png)
Shadow Mask:
-260906-141118.png)
Shadow Mask Composite cause why not:
-260906-141133.png)
https://www.mediafire.com/file/y6mr64x3hruy3s3/new-sonkun-preset-samples-09-06-2026-v2.zip/file
Make sure to have guest.r’s latest update before using my presets.
Unzip, copy and paste all presets directly into the shaders folder and delete the previous ones if you have them.
Be sure to use any cores (pc systems should be at default) in 4:3 aspect ratio and do not use interger scaling, also disable any hdr features if you use them they’re not needed here.
@guest.r I forgot how insane things can get trying to find the right settings for Shadow Mask lol, I remember a few tips you’ve told me in the past though. For 4k presets I went with crt mask 10 and for 1440p presets I used mask 6 and just adjusted the mask sizes and stuff from there etc.
Can’t go wrong with that lol. I wonder how you’ll like this latest sample pack then especially if you’re on a 4k display.
Can you give me an example of a stylized game to try out?
I’ve yet still to determine exactly which setting does that screen effect. I think the only way to pin it down is to go one by one down the list and default each setting hitting start until that effect dissappear.
I guess leaving some kind of description could work, I need to add a few things on the 1st post once this pack is ready.
Yeah when you get the chance please try defaulting some settings, starting ideally with any and all brightness, glow or bloom type of settings, I bet the culprit will reveal itself that way.
Edit: Did a small edit to the pack, replaced it with “version 2” so regrab it if you did already.
Love playing games with it so far. Really flipping through a lot trying out the new aperture and shadow mask. Just took these comparisons seems to really show off the difference the dithering makes. 
Before:
https://photos.fife.usercontent.google.com/pw/AP1GczMuu9K8kCtzvPwvs7cqiS7Y3v9r-3xolRP-CwtCmsXyoeb25hr3ZfuP=w2615-h1961-s-no?authuser=0
Composite slot mask
after:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczNFsxuXDxR8EnNBYe5UOpiJG9-4nvmSt2kHU5PTvwQXZWM4zbCIFip8NddsF5hEUZJA_FB_wxM6rdU3RkS2EW-uLUEGDjrIYsdkv9Sz7jG3kmPUEYvbTcXnGLm1vYTuZVWBZp65d8ZwmwgoPtSOr_W4=w2615-h1961-s-no?authuser=0
Nice. For some reason the first image won’t load, I definitely see that sexy blended dithering in the second pic though lol. Maybe I should put up one more sample pack, I pretty much have new “rf” and “svideo” presets done meaning I already have 1/3 of the new pack completed in full.
The only ones missing are the Japanese and PAL presets. Speaking of PAL I’m unsure how I should go about them, I know guest.r recently added in an actual PAL version shader so I don’t know if I should keep things the way they are already or switch over to guest.r’s new PAL preset.
I also have a request on putting together “uborder” presets which I have no idea how to do lol. I’m trying to get this next release to cover all corners.
Ok could this be the last sample pack? Let’s find out. Switched a few things around with the Grade shader mainly switching the “color space” setting from “709” back to default “srgb”. Included in this pack are now rf and s-video presets, basically if you only used my US presets you already have a full completed set right here. This should give you guys something to play with while I finish things up and start working on uborder presets.
RF screenies:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/kgqhnc2noc7z070/new-sonkun-preset-samples-09-12-2026.zip/file
Just like before make sure to have guest.r’s latest update before using my presets.
Unzip, copy and paste all presets directly into the shaders folder and delete the previous ones if you have them.
Be sure to use any cores (pc systems should be at default) in 4:3 aspect ratio and do not use integer scaling, also disable any hdr features if you use them they’re not needed here.
Been nice playing around with the different presets I think my favorite is aperture grill composite. RF looks great for atari. Was playing around with RGB slot mask and wondering is dithering not suppose to be on cause it’s so sharp maybe?
Nice I’m glad you’ve been enjoying them. I can’t even pick a favorite because I constantly switch between them depending on the system and game but yes RF is perfect for those really old systems up to snes/genesis. S-video presets I designed them with PS1/Sega Saturn in mind.
That’s correct, RGB is basically like my “arcade monitor” preset so there’s no blended dithering going on there.
On another note I think I finally managed to put together a uborder preset:
That’s a 1080p preset, I had to change from using crt mask 6 to 11 because the mask was looking too “chunky” on 6 to me on that smaller screen. I guess I’ll run into similar issues when trying to make 1440p and 4k versions.
Looks like things have been made easier to create them though as there’s a option to just append uborder under any preset you want, although I dread having to do this one by one for each preset. Maybe I’ll figure out a way to “multi-append” them using notepad++ or something.
Yes, 1440p needs Mask 9 and 4K needs like, Mask 13/14. Depending on the size of your screen. Higher TVL is needed for bigger screens because they become unrealistically spaced out for what a CRT would have done at that size.
Ah ok. Thank you that already saved me some time troubleshooting and guessing. Adjusting the mask size seems to be the only hassle dealing with uborder so far, I also turned off most of those “lighting” settings uborder comes pre enabled with, my presets are already bright as it is don’t need any other brightness. I guess users will just tweak things to how they like it when the time comes.
also hope uborder will fix this
sadly i already did those settings
Yeah there’s a bunch of options in the parameters to lower or raise the reflection effect to your liking, I left those settings at default. My main concern if nothing else is making sure the masks on each resolution type fits the screen properly and reducing that moire effect as much as possible from too many “curving” effects.
the defaults are good enough
I like mega bezel and uborders. But I think I’m with you on just having more game screen instead.
Changed Output to Vulkan, Updated slang shaders, updated to latest @guest.r shaders, and implemented @sonkun shaders. Still, I get the error “Failed to load preset”. This only happens with sonkun shaders and no other shader.
OS: Windows 11 Latest Portable Retroarch.
Welcome to the forum. Even though I’m currently working on a new pack to replace that old outdated pack I’ll go fix that real fast. That failure is due to a extra shader pass I’ve included that has now been moved to a completely different location but my presets are so old that it’s still trying to find that shader pass in the old location which is probably what’s triggering the failure. It’s a really easy fix I just never fixed it but I’ll do it today.
Honestly I’d rather you try out the new samples I’ve been working on that I’ve posted above instead, I’m currently switching things up experimenting with new looks and have been posting sample packs for everyone to try out as I go along my journey.
You can try that last sample pack here:
In order to use them though you’d have to also gey guest.r’s latest shader update here:
After installing guest.r’s update, unzip, copy and paste my presets of your choosing into just the root “shaders” folder not “shaders_slang” then load them up from right there.
Edit: Just put up a new working link in the first page, those should work however that old pack will most likely only work with that corresponding old guest.r shader update I also have linked on the first page, I’m not sure if they’ll work with guest.r’s latest update. I didn’t test anything at all just replaced that shader pass I was talking about so just letting you know.
