I used to think that the loss of the mask detail during background scrolling or sprite movement was a by product of slow response times or from the sample and hold technology but I’ve put this to the test and confirmed that this is all happening in our eyes and brains and not at the display level. So in other words it’s an optical illusion.
Depending on how you focus on the screen or if you deliberately try to follow the scrolling, you’ll see that in fact the mask never disappears.
You mean the mask never disappears at 60Hz? Someone better inform Blur Busters that sample and hold blur isn’t real
It doesn’t disappear but it gets blurred together and loses definition.
Respectfully, there’s a large branch of display science dedicated to this very thing, I highly doubt this is all in our heads.
For masks, at least, they’re static content, so they shouldn’t really get blurred, right?
Ok so I can finally see this. I had to use a mask size of 2, black and white aperture grille (1080p). If you look at the edges you can still see the mask while it appears to disappear if you’re looking at the entire screen, so yes there is some kind of persistence of vision optical illusion thing going on. I retract my previous comment! Does it work the same on a CRT?
In any case we still need BFI or something to mitigate the blur with moving objects. When eye tracking an individual object on a CRT, it’s crystal clear. Even BFI @120Hz isn’t enough to completely match the CRT’s motion clarity.
oh yeah, hundred percent. Motion clarity is definitely still an issue.
…And the results are in:
13 got it correct, while 16 didn’t!
Most folks seemed to have really enjoyed the challenge though!
Thanks @RetroGames4K! That was something I was experimenting with a very long time ago that I decided I would share with the community.
It’s probably a good idea to test your presets with video as well as games because you might notice things that you otherwise might have missed using games alone.
If only the FFMPEG core could work as well as something like MPC-HC/LAV Filters.
I think we’re lacking a bit in the video playback category. Hopefully at some point someone can give it an overhaul or develop a new video playback core that just works like any other normal media player.
That’s damn near a 50/50 split. Mission accomplished.
ha, I guessed correctly just based on the blue-push in the second pic that always happens to photos of CRTs. I’m glad to see so many people guessing wrong over silly stuff like curvature and reflections 
Now that my latest shader pack has been released I can stop tweaking for a bit and go back to just enjoying some games. First game I chose was Ninja Gaiden for Sega Master System, cool little game and challenging as hell. I took shots of each stage all the way up to the final boss battle. Preset used: Shadow Mask ntsc 3-phase neutral.
How do I test videos?
You can download the FFMPEG Core and load them up using the Load Content Menu.
In my experience, compatibility has been hit or miss though.
You can also use the new WindowCast Core.
Can Find FFMPEG Core in Retroarch, also I don’t know how to make windowcast work. I tried it, also read the description, but still doesn’t work.
I managed to make FFMPG work. This is how it looks…
It’s a bit tricky sometimes. You can try posting in the thread and see if you can get some assistance or following what seemed to work for others.
Excellent!
Wow! Impressive!
Have you considered adding the smallest smidge of glow/magic glow? Using the negative values, from what I can see, very subtly lights up the mask phosphors even in pitch black areas, much like a real CRT would. Not sure if that would fit with the look you’re going for, but it came to mind looking at your pics above, which look great, but I was drawn to the black square area in the bottom left part of the pic, which is entirely devoid of anything, so it stands out a bit IMO. Adding that teensy bit of glow might be interesting. Just saiyan.
I actually did add a bit (0.01), but it’s only noticeable in certain situations. Here’s what it looks like currently:
And here’s with -0.01
Yeah, you can barely see it. Maybe increase the radius a bit?
It’s very interesting that you would mention this at this time because this is exactly one of the things I’ve been working on over the past 24 hours.
I also came full circle while playing around with some of the mask settings and ended up making a new Trinitron preset and couldn’t help but admire those pronounced and uninterrupted scanline dynamics once again.
The Magic Glow seems to help with transitions as well, giving a nice taper to the vertical edges of the phosphors allowing them to fade out more gradually and gracefully.
If you zoom in on these screenshots and focus on brighter graphical elements you can see this especially where they meet darker backgrounds.
Don’t forget to take in the scanline dynamics while you’re at it.
