Now presenting my old school analog TV shader pack

RetroArch Additions Shaders
#21

Thanks for the tip on helping anyone with resolution Sp00ky

Here is a new version 2 of my shader pack, hopefully this looks a bit less “dirty” and more natural, just alot of little tweaks to get a better overall picture I also adjusted the colors to get to what I think is a more accurate color representation based off NTSC colors. I think with this I probably won’t tweak it to hell anymore until more shaders come along to do different things like maybe phosphor trails if that is ever possible. I welcome anyone to pick up and run with it and improve it though :slight_smile:

http://www.mediafire.com/?zbnn7cq2gn2snqq

#22

thanks for the shader solid12345, its pretty sweet! and thanks to Sp00kyFox for the help, succesfully running this on 720p now :slight_smile:

#23

I’m new to retroarch and the whole shader thing. Can anyone tell me what I need to do to stop the tv from being cut off running in 1080p?

#24

I think you’ll need to set the aspect ratio to 16:9

#25

thank you, that solved my problem.

#26

Hi I’m looking for some help or advice on resizing this shader to a 1680x1050 display. I’m using Retroarch 1.22 but if I select 16:10 aspect resolution the image is just a little to zoomed in. There does not seem to be an option to unlock the aspect resolution and enabling other aspect ratios simply buts black bars over the image without resizing. Making a custom resolution simply moves the image around but never resizes. Any help would be appreciated.

#27

Nobody? I’ve searched this forum and the web to my question but all answers are via P.M

#28

I believe you would need to change the actual image to match. Shaders with borders don’t do any sort of stretching/scaling on their own, they just map the image as a lookup-texture.

#29

[QUOTE=Spaceman;27188]Nobody? I’ve searched this forum and the web to my question but all answers are via P.M[/QUOTE] I actually posted the solution in this thread on the previous page: http://libretro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=481&p=8013&viewfull=1#post8013

#30

I’ve actually been working on an updated version based on some of the enhancements in shaders over the past year, should work alot better with any monitor dimensions and be more natural looking and hopefully less resource intensive. Will try and post it soon after a bit more tweaking.

#31

Cant wait to see this, as I am a big fan of your “old” pack and like it a lot :slight_smile: .

#32

Figure i’d throw a teaser out there, the gif may have a bit of color loss due to compression but it shows the 4 flavors/signal quality you will be able to select from when its completed. Unfortunately screenshots don’t do it justice as you need to see it in motion but at least you get a good idea :slight_smile:

The best part though is no more CPU filters, NTSC strictly done with shaders and works across all consoles.

Also here is a shot with Pitfall through the 1970s TV shader, this should those old-school games look a bit less blocky

The Legend of Zelda 2 for NES

#33

Ohhhh yes, this looks very promising. The Dot-masks are close to real ones. I also like, that there is less fisheye/barell-distortion. The old version was a little to high for my taste. If you want to include the TV-Overlay again, then i would recommend to remove the dropshadow for the screen where the game is placed in. This is unnatural, a real CRT looks more like this: http://i.imgur.com/yovHcf5.jpg At least i would make the shadow softer. All in all this looks awesome… good job.

#34

[QUOTE=u-man;27612]Ohhhh yes, this looks very promising. The Dot-masks are close to real ones. I also like, that there is less fisheye/barell-distortion. The old version was a little to high for my taste. If you want to include the TV-Overlay again, then i would recommend to remove the dropshadow for the screen where the game is placed in. This is unnatural, a real CRT looks more like this: http://i.imgur.com/yovHcf5.jpg At least i would make the shadow softer. All in all this looks awesome… good job.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the feedback, I still need to tweak it a bit, hopefully will have a release by the weekend. While I do enjoy big thick scanlines, I feel on LCDs the resolution isn’t quite there that they end up darkening the picture too much or removing key pixel detail. The dot-masks are a better compromise and more closer to the American style TVs I grew up with. I’m sure Europeans with their superior SCART connections would remember things differently.

Here is a good comparison of a standard S-video tv v.s RGB on a Sony PVM. I have a PVM stashed away somewhere and I do enjoy the bright and crisp picture, but there is still something about the inferior s-video and composite signals creating a more “natural” picture through visual trickery of the dot pitch, take a look at the detail in the grass for instance. Alot of the old developers really knew how to exploit the weaknesses of cable signals to do some amazing things…

https://ancientelectronics.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/bvmcomsgg.jpg

Also everyones monitor in this world is totally different and everyone has different brightness and color settings, I just logged into my work PC and I think my screenshots are a bit too dark already compared to mine at home. I was thinking of using an iPad to final color correct as it is a pretty good industry standard IPS, any thoughts on that?

#35

Blimey! It looks almost perfect.

#36

Great work, yeah it’s odd that depending where you grew up you have an nostalgia tendency weather something looks ‘right’ from your childhood where shaders are concerned. I look at these ntsc shaders and think they look completely wrong but then someone from the USA would think the absolute opposite!!.

I’m in an odd situation where ever since the snes I’ve had an ntsc consoles using a UK TV with UK RGB scart cable…I guess I got the best of both worlds

#37

[QUOTE=BlockABoots;27803] I’m in an odd situation where ever since the snes I’ve had an ntsc consoles using a UK TV with UK RGB scart cable…I guess I got the best of both worlds[/QUOTE]

Exactly :wink: … But i am with solid12345. People underestimate the “weaker” signals. If you take a C64 for example, then you know how usefull a composite signal / shader can be. As the maximum you can get out of a real C64 is S-Video and only if you are modding it. I like to have and to use those “weaker” signal paths, as there are many consoles (atari 2600, coleco etc.) and home computer stuff from my childhood memories, that used those signals.

But i found the comparison example from solid12345 not really good. First the Sony is a BVM which is a difference to PVM and i even believe that the picture is fake, because there is nearly no slotmask at all. It looks more like a LCD with shaders screenshot, then a BVM monitor. Both pictures are not scaled equally etc. I understand what solid12345 wants to explain here, thats important, so no offence here :slight_smile: . I have a NEC 3PG (XM29 equivalent) monitor for my own fun and it looks a lot more different than this Sony BVM picture, but still awesome of course :smiley: .

#38

I appreciate the feedback all, I had forgotten it was a holiday weekend but did find some time to adjust more, almost ready to release it. It’s hard to describe how much better it looks in motion but hopefully these screens will do justice, I’ve used Mario 3 as an example, its a bit more colorful and “pixelly” than latter era PS1 games so it should show off the differences more.

#39

New version looking nice, though I find it funny how it looks kinda similar to the results I got after taking the previous version of your pack and customizing it a bit.

#40

Where can I download this shader?