Most likely moire patterns, they appear when using curvature presets. I’ve tried many different ways to reduce (get rid of) them but the truth is that they’re there to stay. You probably won’t see it if you view that same image with the flat preset.
If it’s not moire it might be that weird scanline pattern @Cyber brought up one time, forgot what he called it but it appears after every couple scanlines. I think that happens when using non integer scaling.
hmm the pattern is still present over at flat screen type preset, i guess if you can’t remove them is something related with guest r at the end, over aperture grille such pattern does not exist at all, even if the pattern can’t be removed isn’t that much of an annoyance as at some distances such thing seems to be little or non visible, i had seen mega bezel has their own ways to apply moire pattern to my guessing it must be independant of the preset, mask or curvature
flat slot mask
aperture grille
Yeah I had also edited my post right before you put yours. I believe it’s also because it’s not using integer scaling.
it seems so, i had also think in the past that maybe integer scaling could help mitigate this scanline pattern problem over at the masks which aren’t aperture grille, i’ll check if something changes with it
If you find a solution for non integer scaling let me know lol. Aperture Grille also has that issue as well just not as severe as Slot Mask.
I don’t know if it is related, but maybe it is the same kind of pattern i see:
seems like little vertical lines repeating over the whole screen, less evident on bright areas, and i’ve no workaround other than use different and not accurate methods of representing scanlines+slotmask at least on 1080p, or lowering the scanline gap -and- the mask effect.
If I remember well, switching from/to rgb/green magenta helps too.
Btw, given we’re talking about the same issue, it does not depend on the shader and the unfortunate thing is that not all are able to see it, and that makes everything even harder lol.
He mentioned horizontal lines instead of vertical. Either way this issue is one of the not so pleasant sides of shader tweaking at 1080p with non integer scaling. Non integer scaling was a decision I decided on by choice so I’ve accepted things like this that comes with it.
I will say though that if it were possible to get rid of moire and those funky looking scanline patterns that appear every view lines without integer scaling then it would be a perfect world.
Just wanted to stop by to say thank you! Your shaders have been my go to now for a couple years or so. I didn’t realize you had an active thread. I’m using some older version no doubt. Will take a look at your newer version. Funny, the one thing I tweaked a bit were glow effects. Never felt like I could get it right. Will be happy to see the subtle changes you made!
You’re welcome and yes this is the thread to see the latest happenings/updates concerning my presets. I don’t know which old pack you were still using but this latest pack is a brand new make over. One complaint I use to get was that the image was too saturated, I lowered that by a lot, in fact I turned off any kind of saturation settings.
For the glow I just reverted some settings back to default. Previously there use to be this weird “halo” effect around things especially on dark images but I see guest has given those glow settings a new makeover and it looks better now, it’s not too much but just enough where you can slightly see the glow reflecting off letters, characters etc.
Try it out and tell me what you think. All feedback is welcome good or bad lol
New Version Release (10-14-2023)
Changes Made
Tweaked all 4k presets, changed the crt mask and gamma settings. Lowered the crt mask zoom setting by 1 value, now masks don’t look so “chunky”. Also adjusted the mask gamma to bring some color back to the image, at 1.00 where it previously was on colors looked washed out. Should now look a lot better on 4k displays.
Changed interlaced brightness settings on Shadow Mask presets from 0.30 to 0.25.
Grab the lateset pack in the first post.
Hi everyone!
Just created an account to ask about CRT shaders, but since it’s a new account I can’t create threads. I figure this one is appropriate though.
Can someone explain to me, an end user (but who is a software engineer - just never messed with shaders though), the shader flow precisely?
This is what I understand needs to happen, at a basic level. If necessary, assume game native res is 240 vertical and monitor res is 1440.
first passes will work on game native resolution to render scanlines, including scanline spacing (dark lines), beam width, blurring…
these passes will upscale the image, because to add these details you need more resolution.
Question 1: to which resolution does it upscale at this point? RetroArch output resolution (aka monitor resolution)? Or is it something intermediate?
Question 1.1: is this behavior different among CRT shaders, for instance Royale vs Guest?
I suppose the CRT mask passes need to happen at output resolution, because it relies on pixel structure
Question 2: is this always guaranteed? Do I need to use Integer scaling and/or core provided aspect ratio? My visual testing seem to indicate I don’t need these for pixel accurate masks, but I’m not entirely sure.
Question 3: how badly does geometry shaders affect the mask? Is it even worth it using masks, at least on lower output res, in conjunction with geometry shaders?
Question 4: where does NTSC effects enter in this flow exactly? I suppose the mask pass still has to remain at the end, right?
Thank you!
Bonus question: the Steam Deck is a V-BGR (vertical BGR) panel with 800 pixels. I cannot see a way to make masks work properly in this layout and resolution, so when I emulate there I just use Guest with mask disabled. Would anyone suggest anything different?
Hello and welcome to the forum. I’m more an end user myself, I just tweak the knobs on these shaders until my eyes like what it sees so I’ll leave it to one of the guys to hopefully come in and answer your questions on a technical level.
I will say though that I don’t think the Steam Deck is good enough to run any of the advanced shaders at all, 720p just isn’t enough to display everything properly. I did see mention on here twice of someone making the guest shader work on it through some other wizardry, forgot where I saw it at though. It might be a post somewhere scattered in my thread.
Here’s a thread about crt shaders on the steam deck which might be helpful
Yup that’s the post.
is the res of the preset 1920 x 240?
For which preset are you referring to?
I can’t download the new version release for some reason.
What exactly happens when you try? I just went to download it right now to my phone and it downloaded with no issues.
I have to use another browser. Everything is A-ok, Sonkun. I love these new presets though.
Oh ok, nice that you managed to grab it. Thank you I’m actually tweaking settings again right now after I posted that royale preset earlier today in this thread. Playing around with the LUT setting and other settings as I liked what it produced for me in that preset.
