So then if I orient the monitor the way its supposed to be, then I should use the 4k version of the shader?
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You could and you’d also be able to see the effects that I wrote about properly. I don’t want to clutter @sonkun’s thread but since it seems like something you were not aware of before you can research subpixel aware shaders or subpixel CRT masks if you would like to get more information on the topic.
Increasing the Mask Strength would also allow you to see this effect more clearly and it’s a pretty easy way to get a darker image as well because nothing darkens an image like replacing pure colours with RBG and the black lines which make up the mask structure. You might also have to adjust your Mask Layout to match the subpixel order of your screen.
Many LCDs are BGR, while some are RGB.
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Did you grab the latest guest.r shader update? It’s not the one that I linked on my main page as that pack is outdated as well.
I always keep the mask strength at 100 percent max.
I’m not sure exactly how my presets look on this guy’s display, he posted up cam shots instead of just taking a standard RetroArch screenshot. From the Mortal Kombat pic I saw above it looked like the Slot Mask preset and it seemed to look ok as far as the mask looking the way it should. Cases like this is a grey area for me since my presets are pretty much just meant strictly for 1080p, 1440p and 4k only, things get complicated once odd resolutions get thrown into the mix.
Just for sure, the preview presets should be placed directly into the shaders folder. It’s different compared with the full release of @sonkun’s presets.
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Okay, that means it’s the other mitigations that are lowering the visibility, opacity and saturation of the Mask while brightening things up but I was trying to keep things simple for @johnny5126’s sake.
This is exactly what you need to see how your presets look on someone else’s display. A GPU screenshot doesn’t take the characteristics of the display and the effects that they have on the presets into account at all so a good quality photo should give a better idea of what the user sees as opposed to a GPU screenshot unless they have an almost identical display setup to you.
What matters most is that he has the same or better vertical resolution as a 4K display so the 4K presets should look as intended on his display once the screen is at it’s native orientation. On a 16:9 or wider display there would be pillar boxed black bars on either side on 4:3 content, while on his display he should have enough horizontal resolution to display the full image while maintaining the correct aspect ratio.
In his case the pillar boxes might just be reduced or even non-existent but he might end up with letter boxing on the top and bottom of the screen.
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If can be of any help also on my display your presets are way too bright resulting is some washed out colors.
on the left your screen from few posts above, on the right one of my presets
Sonic’s blue look more like a light blue on my monitor, also the red of the “band” and the blue of sky and water look very “light”.
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Perhaps. I did raise the gamma correct setting up in guest to a number I’ve never used before I believe, that could have played a role in things. I’m not one to compare presets because everyone here has their own style and look. I’m still messing about so who knows maybe I’ll play around with brightness settings again. All that brightness tinkering started because of some clouds in OutRun lol, that might even be the reason for what you see as well, I had a setting in grade “crt-contrast” lowered but ended up having to raise it which caused me to retweak glow/halation settings.
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not comparing presets, just monitors!
I mean, maybe on your side colors look correct, and the blues look deeper on you display with this settings. Probably my shot will look darker for you!
How do you see the sonic blue skins?
If it looks good on your monitor then the presets are ok and is just a monitor difference! 
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Indeed lol.
To be honest I’m not sure if I’m going for “correct” anything lol, more like just a new “look” if I can even call it that. I mean I definitely want the right colors to get the point across to the viewer but I’m also not too bent on making sure it’s 100 percent accurate either.
I gotta load it up again I haven’t been in the lab since I posted that shot. Maybe I’ll see things from your view with a fresh pair of eyes.
@Hari-82 does things look different (better) on your display with the gamma correct lowered to about 1.30? Also for the blue and red in Sonic it could also be from the tint settings in grade I’ve been messing around in. Those tint settings is a new field for me, I’m literally experimenting as I go along.
There’s a tint setting called “Blue-Green Tint” that I raised to 2.00. Lowering that will darken the blue a bit. Also if you don’t mind can you post up your preset?
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Is it version 2024-05-18-r1? Because tried that and still cant use it.
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Yes it’s that version. You also have to copy my presets out of the folder and put them directly into just the shaders folder.
Yea did that, says the same error. Your previous version works fine though.
Setting Blue-Green Tint from 0.02 to -0.01 greatly improve colors on my side.
Setting Gamma correct from 1.45 to 1.00 improves contrast.
This is from 1080p-guest-advanced-hd-slot-mask-rgb-sample-07-14-2024
Blue-Green Tint -0.01
Blue-Green Tint -0.01 & Gamma correct to 1.00
The preset still too bright for me but I think that’s probably due to monitor’s brightness difference.
here my aperture preset, most probably will look dark on your monitor but fine on mine.
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I see the look you’re going for. From what I see we’re aiming for slightly different looks. If you notice the blue sky in my preset shot you can kind of see the little small “greenish” subpixels popping out, in your shot it’s a strict blue sky. Same for my reds, if you look close between those dark “squares” you can see the subpixels popping out there too, I guess you can call that the rgb subpixels? But yeah I’m aiming to bring those out.
As for our displays that’s a whole different wild card. I’m sure both mines and yours differs from not only each other’s but probably every else’s on here. I tweak on a standard plain old 65 inch 4k TV with all the settings left at factory settings. I try not to turn on or off anything within the tv menu settings. With that said I don’t know the brightness difference between mines and yours, it might not even be much of a difference. I just go out of my way to brighten up my presets because things look dark on my end after maxing out crt mask strengths, using the scanline mode in guest at 2.00 etc and other things that darken the image up.
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Yes, those are popping out to allow the “blue” to go to a lighter tint -> light blue
also notice that in the raw image coming from the core the sky is actually more purple then blue!
So yes, at the end is all about personal preference/interpretation and the display tech we see those images on!
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That blue green tint setting actually helped me solve a case I’ve been having literally since the beginning of making presets. In the game Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter I specifically remember on the night time stage where it has the police on the right side of the stage there was this dark purplish area but the mask looked like a pixilated mess in that area, simply tweaking that one setting up two values fixed it to where I can actually see the “mask” there. I’m not home atm so I can’t show you a shot of what I mean. But that’s what got me started in really messing around with those tint settings.
You may have to show me a screen shot of how you got everything set up, I’m not sure why you’re having errors if everything was placed where it should be.
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Ok round 4 of my tweaking craziness on the hunt for a new look. Couple of changes for this pack is I re arranged the sharpness in composite presets, made them, from what I see just a tiny bit sharper, lowered bloom distribution (they’re still bright as hell but has been lowered nonetheless) and retweaked saturation settings in grade plus other minor tweaks.
All images are composite:
Try the pack here:
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, you can also simply update your slang shaders through RetroArch as guest.r’s updated pack has been added to the repo as of this posting), so please make sure you have that first before using this pack.
Also one other thing I should probably have mentioned since the beginning is make sure your pc (or whatever you use) display dynamic range is set to “full” or “Full RGB” or whatever it’s called on your system and not set to “limited”. My presets are made in that display mode so that will help in making all the difference on how they’ll look on your screen.
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There are good news about the guest-advanced version. The official Libretro slang repository was recently updated to the latest, so the users can update it through the Retroarch online updater and are set to go.
Just to mention it to the users which could struggle a bit with manual updating.
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That’s excellent especially when for when I’m ready to release a full pack. Users will be able to just dive right in. I’ll probably still tag the release that I’m using though in case you release a update in the future.
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Damn man that looks c r i s p 
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