How does the shaders know which phase to use when set to “auto”?
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It’s entirely dependent on the current core output resolution.
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Technically I assume that the shader code was written that when a certain output resolution is on the screen it triggers one of the phases. Whichever way it was put together I gotta say it’s ingenious.
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Very ingenious indeed. Is there a way to make it default to Mixed if a 2-Phase resolution is detected?
Not that I know of. I don’t think guest implemented such a feature. From the information I do know now about I see what you’re aiming at. That setting is pretty much tailored more towards 2-phase outputs. I guess it would be nice if the “mixed” phase setting worked like the auto setting but instead of it just swapping between 3-phase and 2-phase it can function where 3-phase doesn’t use the mixed part of the setting at all and the mixed setting would only “activate” for 2-phased content only. I’m not sure how such a feature would work together though or if it would cause inconsistencies if a game had to swap between phases on the fly.
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ok i think it’s time to discuss about something i had observed since i first started sonkun over at my setup, this is earthworm jim 2 running over at guest advanced ntsc, and the second one is sonkun aperture grille ntsc just to let you know too my setup is a bgr tv 1080p
this is rgb
you can notice how in sonkun most of the things looks a bit more pixelated as they would look like over at rgb rather then looking smoother and linear just look over at jim, i don’t know if the same is visible over at 4k but my theory is that maybe it doesn’t comparing to how the preset looks like over at retro crisis video, maybe is because the phosphors are bigger and noticable over at 4k that such pixelation close to rgb doesn’t exist or maybe is just phase 2 i don’t know
and by the way here it is your rgb preset with cyberlab ntsc turbo duo snes composite filter, you can notice there is less pixelation and more linearity over the image similar to how most of the ntsc effects and the ntsc shader itself works, idk if this is a BIG MISLEAD from my part and i could be so wrong about this too as i know these effects can be tweaked to get a sharper or blurrier image but idk i would like to know your opinion over this
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Funny you bring this up cause I was wondering since last night if I should further try smoothing out my presets. Currently I don’t mind where they are, I think it strikes a nice balance between both sharp and blurry but I do see your point as well so I did a little playing around.
Here’s my current rgb slot mask preset:
Here’s after raising the “Horizontal Filter Range” to 1.50:
Here’s raising that setting even further to 2.00:
I definitely like how it looks with the 1.50 settings.
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ok i think i had found something interesting, i think ntsc composite at least on ntsc phase 3 is not following horizontal range filter and it’s doing nothing at all
Ntsc presets use different filter settings altogether from the rgb ones. You have to mimic all the other filter settings from rgb onto the ntsc presets and then you can try raising that horizontal setting to get a similar look.
hmm, ok i think i get it, but idk how sorry i’m not an expert doing such, had you consider making a smooth variant of your presets?
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I’ll post the rgb filter settings then u can change the numbers on one of the ntsc presets.
Horizontal Filter Range: 1.50, Horizontal Blur Sigma: 0.77, Subtractive Sharpness: 1.60, Sharpness Definition: 0.00
Everything else you can leave as is and yeah I was considering since last night. Still on the fence about it.
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just give it a chance, it might be fun
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I guess you like how it looks with the 1.50 setting lol. Well if I was to do it I wouldn’t make any separate variant presets, I’d just make the main default look, or maybe it would be good to have both “smooth” and “sharp” type variants, dunno. I’m currently trying out random different games with that setting and everything I throw at it indeed does appear smoother looking.
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So it seems @guest.r is the man for this. Consider this for the next updates, guest.r. A little toggle to prioritize mixed-phase when the resolution is of 2-phase (leaving 3-phase resolution behavior unchanged). A hell of a specific request, I know, but it’s useful. 
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Ehe, that would definitely smell suspicious. 
Mixed-phase is a nice “bonus” and most probably not historically correct for NTSC devices.
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To tell you the truth I literally wonder how you would even pull that off if you was to attempt it. Maybe a better situation would be to extend the chroma scaling/bleeding setting past the 2.25 limit?
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You can do a small test and extend the parameter ranges in the ntsc shader files…color artifacts are produced at about “2.5” strength. Otherwise, I would gladly make this change.
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Yeah I don’t think that’s a good idea. Raising that setting to 4.50 helped get rid of that artifact residue that @Millisar mentioned in this post but then a whole bunch of new issues arise with it like the color artifacts you mentioned.
Regular preset:
Preset after raising chroma scaling to 4.5
Not looking too good there.
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Then I’m off to find other solutions to make it work well in 2-phase mode. Speaking of which, maxing NTSC Resolution Scaling got rid of that artifact from the SEGA logo. Do you have any idea why? What does this do, and what aesthetic side effects can I have by altering this value? I didn’t notice anything odd yet.
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no blend and transparency effects, or not correctly you are scaling the image above,
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