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!
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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
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New Version Release (10-14-2023)
Changes Made
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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.
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Changed interlaced brightness settings on Shadow Mask presets from 0.30 to 0.25.
Grab the lateset pack in the first post.
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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?
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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.
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Here’s a thread about crt shaders on the steam deck which might be helpful
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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.
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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.
Roger that. Also, how is it that you were able to do RF and S-Video despite the NTSC input for guest came with Composite and RGB?
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for all 1080p to have the scaling of windowscast right with the shader
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For the rf presets I just used the guest ntsc shader where there’s a setting there to give you the rf look. For S-video since it’s not too much different from rgb I just used the same settings from rgb but added in the sgenpt-mix multpass shader to blend checkerboard dithering and some lite vertical line dithering.
Ah I’ve never used windowcast before but it should be 1920 x 1080.
Gotcha, you do such a good job at these presets. I’m trying to figure out how to do RF to RGB in reshade using Devilsingh NTSC-Guest. I’m having a hard time with it, smh.
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Thank you I appreciate, I just put my own little spin to it, I chose to make both composite and rf not too blurry looking, also I should be uploading a new update tonight, tweaked a couple of settings once again.
Yeah Reshade is another project I want to expand my presets to eventually, there’sa learning curve to it though. There’s a few members around here that could possibly help you get things going on Reshade.
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New Version Release (10-18-2023)
Changes Made
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Uses guest.r’s latest shader update version (2023-10-28-r2)
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Switched the LUT setting in the grade shader settings, gives the overall image more accurate ntsc looking colors.
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Adjusted saturation and contrast settings to go along with the LUT setting switch.
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Defaulted the ntsc chroma bleeding setting in all rf presets (Going for a sh*tty rf look).
Basically we’re going from this:
Previous preset settings:
To this:
Grab the link in the first post.
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Hi sonkun
Just stopping by again to say thank you for your shaders. I just went public with a youtube channel where I am showcasing various arcade artwork overlays along with megabezel and crt shaders. As of now my focus is on vertical overlays.
I’ve been using your shaders for a good 2 years or so. All 120 videos I have posted are using a variation of your shaders. I say variation only because I add a glass effect from duimo. I will be switching over to your newer shaders soon . But I didint want to do it until I finished this 120 wave of videos.
You are credited in each video for your shaders with a link to this thread. Please have a look at the channel a bit. There is a gallery for “shorts” and a playlist if you just want to let the vids cycle. They are less than 60 seconds each. On mobile, 2160p is available through the youtube app. Or directly on youtube on PC
Shorts gallery view:
Playlist and shuffle:
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