Official release thread for WindowCast core

[Cyber]

Well it’s working so even if updates aren’t as forthcoming, you can just use it as it is.

[jim74130]

Hello guys, i dont know if other people have this issue too but i have this

You can see my OBS window has not entire in the CRT maximus royale shader (i dont know for what because this is the only shader with this issue) somebody have a fix at this ?

[soqueroeu]

Maybe I’m late to the party, but why don’t I see more posts about this?

This seems to be the evolution of Cast Core and it’s free on Steam.

[Jamirus]

They’re two different programs, you don’t need Steam or Retroarch for Shader Glass.

Releases · mausimus/ShaderGlass

[JHorbach1]

I don’t think it is the evolution, WindowCast is better IMO.

[2mg]

@JHorbach1

I don’t think it is the evolution, WindowCast is better IMO.

Why, is it latency related?

[JHorbach1]

IMO, shaders work better within RetroArch and it is better to get they working with games from Windows Cast than from ShaderGlass.

[2mg]

So both will have some lag?

I just download the links at the top, Gitlab has no builds, just source code and dependencies?

[MrBlastman]

For whatever reason this runs less than 1 FPS with the latest Nightly Build of Retroarch and the latest Nvidia drivers.

I have “Preferred DXGI Swapchain” selected.

If I turn shaders off, everything is smooth. Using Vulkan, double checked, with HDR.

I did notice this in the text log output:

swap_interval 0 (vsync off) overridden to 1 because VK_DATA_FLAG_EMULATE_MAILBOX requires non-zero swap_interval.

Edit:

Solved partially, Retroarch was set to 60 hz refresh, when monitor was set to 120, so I had to manually override refresh to 120.

Now a new problem:

When I try and load Megabezel shaders with WindowCast, it isn’t looking in the standard /retroarch/shaders tree for shaders.

Instead, Windowcast is looking in /config/WindowCast/shaders , etc., for everything!

What gives?

I ended up making a symbolic link to the shaders_slang folder under config\WindowCast…

Now I can load shaders, but everything still crashes. And even when I don’t have a shader loaded, when I press ctrl + alt + t, the video freezes in Retroarch, but I hear sounds.

I noticed that the " | | " pause symbol is in the top right whenever I do this. This shouldn’t be pausing. Something has changed in the latest Nightly Build that is breaking this.

Help! Please!

Shaders work fine in everything but this core.

note: the pausing was due to a interface option within Retroarch: “Pause when window not active.” Set that to “off” to fix the pausing.

Other issue remains. Nonstop Vulkan malfunction when using any slang shaders such as MegaBezel.

[MrBlastman]

Okay, Windowcast works perfectly fine in 1.19.1 on this PC.

In the latest builds, however, it constantly spits out:

[Vulkan] Failed to allocate texture memory (VkResult: -2)

This core must be dead and buried, unless someone else can prove to me otherwise.

[Cyber]

It doesn’t have to be the Core causing issues. It could be a bug introduced by other changes to RetroArch itself. Why not report it?

[MrBlastman]

Yep, I have on github.

[MrBlastman]

After further investigation, it seems as if this core is hitting my VRAM limit of 12 Gigabytes on this particular PC, and causing a hard Crash to Desktop in Retroarch.

Event viewer confirms this crash in Windows 10.

I never had this issue before. Why is this core now creating 12288x12288 framebuffers?

Those are not needed.

Particularly when trying to capture a 320x240 or 640x480 game window.

No other core does this.

[Cyber]

@MrBlastman

Why is this core now creating 12288x12288 framebuffers?

Those are not needed.

Particularly when trying to capture a 320x240 or 640x480 game window.

No other core does this.

It’s not the WindowCast Core that’s doing this…

@MrBlastman

shaders such as MegaBezel

Use a Standard Preset, don’t upscale or use a DREZ preset.

[MrBlastman]

Found it!

shader21 = “shaders_slang/bezel/Mega_Bezel/shaders/scalefx/hsm-scalefx-pass4.slang” alias21 = “” wrap_mode21 = “clamp_to_border” mipmap_input21 = “false” filter_linear21 = “false” float_framebuffer21 = “false” srgb_framebuffer21 = “false” scale_type_x21 = “source” scale_x21 = “3.000000” scale_type_y21 = “source” scale_y21 = "3.000000

the 3.00000 was the culprit!

Not sure where the scalefx shader is manipulated within the MBZ shader settings options, but I manually edited this from 3.0 to 1.0 in the preset file and the problem went away. VRAM usage dropped significantly.

[Cyber]

Why are you doing all of that when the shader has already done that for you? That’s why there are different performance tiers. It’s one of the reasons for the DREZ presets as well. I already gave you the recommended solution.

Mega Bezel Reflection Shader! - Feedback and Updates

I think it is very likely that you are running out of video ram because of the increased core resolution and this is crashing it. This is a bigger problem with the SMOOTH-ADV presets, and would be less of an issue with the STD presets. What res is your monitor? If the option is available and you can increase internal resolution and then set downres (both in the core) then you may be able to get a nicer antialiasing but still with a not too high resolution. Basically anything over 640x480 goin…

Mega Bezel Reflection Shader! - Feedback and Updates

Thanks, it’s a fun thing to work on, Yup, this will work for the N64 preset as well . EDIT: Since in the N64 preset the last scalefx pass increases the initial resolution to 3x.The core sampling res multiple is set to 2, so that it samples the scalefx pass at 2x the core res, so something like 640x480.

Mega Bezel Reflection Shader! - Feedback and Updates

The reasons for the scaling up in the preset is for two reasons, one is scalefx and the other is GTU, a 3X scale is required for scalefx, and GTU normally uses a 2X scale, so each full pixel does not have to be blurred. Both these types of effects and all the MDAPT passes are really effects which are the most effective at probably max 640x480 core resolution. For golden age video games this isn’t much of a problem because the core resolution is low, e.g. 256x224. This is the stuff I tend to en…

[MrBlastman]

I had never messed with the DREZ stuff, til now. You gave me an idea, actually, as for the longest time I was stuck with whatever input res Steam games fed into Windowcast. DREZ settings are brilliant, and now the higher res games are looking proper NES-like @ 224, with a few tweaks in my 1980s Slot Mask presets.

Thanks!

[Cyber]

Screenshots/Photos/Videos or it didn’t happen!

[MrBlastman]

Alright, here’s a few…

First is a 1980s style RF connection NES TV that is rather typical of the TV set handed down to kids from their parents:

The next two are your failing late 1970s TV sets that kids were sometimes stuck with, complete with all the color distortion and noise:

All of these were generated with HDR on in Retroarch, so the colors won’t look right in SDR.

I had friends with the ultra shitty set, and the top one is pretty close to what we gamed on in college.

I’m old.

[Cyber]

Looks good to me, I only do HDR. Wish I could zoom in though, but I guess I’ll have to download first.