New sonkun crt guest advanced hd presets thread

[Cyber]

@sonkun

This one I may end up using:

This is definitely my pic of the two as it’s easier on the eyes as in sharper, clearer, more in focus.

@sonkun

Plus I notice the Slot Mask is a bit thrown off every two or three scan lines, I’m thinking maybe the deconvergence is doing that or something else.

Sometimes it’s just a lack of vertical resolution, non-integer scaling or the scanlines can’t be divided evenly or they intersect in different parts of the mask every other scanline. Sometimes it’s even the aspect ratio.

Ideally you want the scanlines to intersect the Mask at consistent intervals.

Look out for things like scanline (gaps) that look less dark than others or actual scanlines which appear narrower than others.

@sonkun

If I can brighten it a bit more without breaking the mask that could be a potential candidate.

You could go for lighter scanline (gaps) or reducing the scanline gaps over lighter areas as well as reducing them slightly over the darker areas as well.

[sonkun]

@Cyber

This is definitely my pic of the two as it’s easier on the eyes as in sharper, clearer, more in focus.

Yeah I might just stick with that one as that’s my usual style.

@Cyber

Sometimes it’s just a lack of vertical resolution, non-integer scaling or the scanlines can’t be divided evenly or they intersect in different parts of the mask every other scanline. Sometimes it’s even the aspect ratio.

Ideally you want the scanlines to intersect the Mask at consistent intervals.

Look out for things like scanline (gaps) that look less dark than others or actual scanlines which appear narrower than others.

I tried with interger scaling and the issue was still there. Didn’t try the other options as I just ended up dumping it to the side for now so I can focus on the other preset. I kind of liked that other look though, maybe I’ll come back to play around with it in the future.

After posting my last screenie I went back and played with tint some more.

Previous settings from last post:

After reducing the “white-green tint” setting:

To take some of that “greenish” look off of skintones. Still tweaking around.

[Syh]

Adjusting the white-green tint also fixed Ryu’s clothes. (There was a noticeable green hue, most noticeably on his raised leg.)

Also unsure if it was a different setting causing it or the white-green tint, but it also seemed to fix the whites from trying to blow out around Ryu’s neck.

It’s looking good tho.

[sonkun]

Thanks. At first I was using the white tint as a somewhat brightness booster since that tint seems to light up the image more but as you pointed out that’s all the sacrifices that comes with it so I lowered that, there’s always other brightness settings to use. I guess in a sense I’m aiming for neutral colors just on a more saturated level. I want the colors to pop while maintaining a bright image.

[johnny5126]

Hi I have a 16:18 2560x2880p monitor turned 90 degrees. Im using your shaders but chose the 1440 preset, slotmask crt-normal-RGB. Looks good, but was curious I tried the 4k version, and didnt look as good as the 1440. I know that this monitor isnt true 4k, but is there anything i can do like change my resolution, etc to improve the 1440 version or be able to use the 4k version?

[Cyber]

@johnny5126

is there anything i can do

You could get a monitor arm that supports rotation and just rotate your display to its normal orientation.

After that just select the appropriate Mask Layout (0 or 1) for your display in the Shader Parameters menu and you should be good to go from there.

It might be educational if you could somehow post some actual close-up photos of the screen to see how the LCD subpixels interface with the emulated phosphors on your particular display.

[sonkun]

Hard to tell. Like Cyber said maybe post some pics up to see how things look first.

[sonkun]

Ok here’s round 3 of me messing around in the lab. The first issue that needed to be fixed from the last sample pack was in OutRun where I couldn’t see any of the dark areas in the clouds, they’re now visible:

Next I went and tweaked tint settings in grade again, I reduced the white-red tint by a good amount taking some “red” off of skintones as well as the white-green tint by a little taking greenish tint off of light/white areas and reduced saturation a little (I cranked it high last sample pack just to try a new look). I also removed the contrast setting, I noticed that setting was causing weird color disfigurations literally “fading” out certain details, hard to explain unless you try it out on some games and turn it off and on. In the guest portion of the shader I put a little “scanline saturation” back into the mix (haven’t used that setting in months).

All shots except OutRun are composite:

Try the pack here:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/exf0ri9f4rnnyw7/sonkun-crt-guest-advanced-preset-samples-III-07-14-2024.zip/file

Extract the pack, go into the folder and copy all the presets of choice and paste them directly into the shaders folder, not shaders_slang for them to load up. This pack also works exclusively with guest.r’s latest shader update (2024-05-18-r1) so please make sure you have that first before using this pack.

That OutRun issue was pulling my hair out, I already knew the answer to fix it would be the “crt-contrast” setting in grade. What I didn’t know was that instead of turning it down lower I actually had to turn it UP causing the image to become blindingly bright which caused me to rearrange glow, halation settings etc.

Not sure if I should keep tweaking or just go with this look but we’ll see.

Edit: To make colors “pop” a bit more in composite dial the “crt v multiplier” setting up from 1.08 to 1.15. Colors will pop almost about the same as the rgb presets with that change. That setting is near the top in the parameters just scroll down a bit.

[Syh]

Pics look (I think my favorite shot out of the batch is the Diddy Kong Racing screenie)

I was a big fan of the scanline saturation setting a few years ago, still haven’t had a chance to use any hardware that I can actually run guest on currently, so I still am iffy about giving any kind of setting suggestions outside of grade stuff.

[sonkun]

Thank you. Yeah something about that Diddy Kong pic I like as well. That saturation scanline setting is indeed nice, I just used a little though, using it at default settings makes things look really saturated. I’m not sure if I should keep tweaking or stop here, I always feel like I could improve on something lol.

[johnny5126]

Here are a few shots. Looks a bit too bright in person

[sonkun]

Try my latest sample pack above. I’m working on a new look. Turn down post brightness if too bright.

[Cyber]

@johnny5126

Here are a few shots.

Looks good. Are the first and second shots the same 16:18 display rotated 180° with the 3rd in its normal orientation?

By the way, what make and model display is this if you don’t mind me asking?

@johnny5126

Looks a bit too bright in person

Too much brightness is an easy problem to fix. You can push the Mask Strength, reduce some of the Mask Mitigations, lower Gamma_C, lower Post CRT Brightness and more.

[telepathos]

Looking good! Can we get a sample with aperture grill mask though?

[sonkun]

Thank you. For Aperture Grille it’s easy just change these few things in the pics:

Default that brightness setting in the grade shader settings by pressing start on it and default all settings in guest shader settings that has “slot mask” by pressing start on those and you’ll get the Aperture Grille look:

The last thing I’m trying to do is get the composite presets to look as “pristine” as the rgb ones like this Sonic pic which I used rgb for. I can somewhat get the ball rolling in that direction by lowering the “taps” setting in guest ntsc down to about .15 but then I lose a bit of the blended dithering effect. It might be an impossible task knowing the fundamental differences between the guest hd and guest ntsc shader but if I can pull that off somehow while keeping full blended dithering then I’d be good to go.

[johnny5126]

These are from the March 2024 presets. Is that what you mean by latest sample pack?

[johnny5126]

All photos are from the same display rotated 180. The monitor is an INNOCN 28 Inch 16:18 display. Rotating it 180 degrees is best for all games since it closely displays 4:3

[sonkun]

No. The March pack is the current release that’s on the main 1st page. As far as I’m concerned I already discarded those, I actually hate everything about that pack at the moment lol. I just haven’t replaced it yet because I’m still putting together a new pack that I’m working on at the moment. You can grab what I’m working on just a few posts up from this one where there’s a download link.

[johnny5126]

Downloaded them and tried to apply the preset, but says error applying the preset.

[Cyber]

@johnny5126

All photos are from the same display rotated 180. The monitor is an INNOCN 28 Inch 16:18 display.

Thanks very much.

@johnny5126

Rotating it 180 degrees is best for all games since it closely displays 4:3

While it may more closely match the aspect ratio of CRTs this way, you’ll be missing out on some of the finer aspects of advanced CRT emulation due to the emulated CRT Phosphor Mask not being aligned with the display’s RGB subpixel structure.

Also the additional vertical resolution of 2880 (which is even more than on a 4K display) can help immensely in reducing things like uneven scanlines and more at higher integer scale levels.

These are things that not everyone would notice, care about or be interested in though and depending on how strong the CRT Mask effect is presented in the shader presets, it may not matter as much.