Please show off what crt shaders can do!

[Cyber]

@kokoko3k

I think this looks like the kind of image I used to see on C64 Magazines like Zzap!

Remember those magazines would have employed half -tone dot effects which would do some blending of its own to the image similar to the effect the CRT Mask and Scanlines have on the image but in a different way.

Secondly, most likely the photos might have been taken slightly defocused to avoid moire e.t.c and that would have reduced the visibility of the Scanlines and softened the image slightly creating a smooth, anti-aliased look.

@kokoko3k

I wanted to play with those shots right on the magazine, they looked somehow much better than the real thing to me.

I wouldn’t say they looked better than the real thing. I appreciated the sharper, focused, saturated appearance of the Commodore 1702 in person. I could still see the screen door like effect being produced by the mask, scanlines and graphics while playing Ys Book I & II on the Turbo Duo!

It made the graphics look much better and that’s what I’ve been trying to recreate ever since I started doing this.

I love your preset for what it is though. I would love to see a tuned, sharpened version which looks closer to the actual C64 output on the 1702 monitor. I think you’re pretty close already!

[DevilSingh]

CRT-Guest-ReShade updated to the latest (crt-guest-advanced-2025-06-09-release1) version!

[soqueroeu]

Man, this Sparkster pic, is it real game?

[md2mcb]

No. It’s just a mock-up made by a pixel artist.

[kokoko3k]

When you wanna feel like a superhero playing your favourite videogames:

This just made me laugh loudly

[Obsolete]

Hey there,

I’m having a lot of fun playing DK64 again, with the “tag everywhere” ROM patch. I’m pleased by the look of xBRZ upscaled textures, smoothed and then having a CRT shader to regain some grain, thanks again for those great tools!

So Glide64 is running X4 internal resolution with 4xBRZ, Smooth 3 filtering, and then CRT-Guest-Advanced (with NTSC resolution scaling set to 0.4, some color correction, High resolution scanline and Internal Resolution Y = 1). The game is also one of the few in N64 with anamorphic 16:9 IIRC, and I cropped 7 or so pixels around each borders.

[oldpainless]

Who doesn’t love a bit of Powerdrift…

[Obsolete]

Hey there,

I was talking with the fine folks on the AbandonwareFR forum about Sierra’s old point and clicks in EGA, and finally started to play the Colonel’s Bequest (1989). This one went completely under the radar for so long for me, so blinded by the sirens of the Larry games… I totally missed Laura.

I wanted to try to prepend some dedithering and some scaler this time before CRT-Guest. So Jinc2 and ScaleFX. Also some color correction to get the skin tone less pink/red. The result is not accurate for an EGA CRT in any way (and we only got an old ugly CGA back then anyway), but I still like it. Preset for 1080p if you want to try it : https://mega.nz/file/LI4ACTwR#1_ioA2LuqbcpCInQapPh1bTP5aF84KXQbA2BMA2OWD8

[petran791]

this is an image of an actual ega monitor running the game

I tried the game on Scummvm at an actual 640x200 and 640x350 resolution on VGA monitor. Aside from brightness, result is rather close

[Obsolete]

Thanks for the pics! I went from CGA to SVGA and never owned an EGA or VGA monitor.

I think JINC2 could be replaced by “JINC2 sharper” for a dedithering effect that would keep more black checkerboards. But overall I think I got the grey levels close to what the EGA is showing. Grey pixels are IMO too white in the raw image, in the floor tiles on the pics those grey pixels are brightening the tiles. The blend is darker in the shader and the EGA pic. I also think the skin tones are less orange/pink and look a bit more natural.

Here’s a faster version of the shader preset running with CRT-Guest-fast. I’m still tweaking the aspect ratio, maybe it’s a bit too wide here but I think it’s close. https://mega.nz/file/CQZ2RSwL#g6YM8GeM_5_PYE4TXHc2WBs932o2qDXTRlcZU61yOYA

And raw and wet pictures for the comparison.

I’m running it on DOSBox-Pure but you may also be interested in the HD patch made by PlayerNone running on ScummVMX : https://playernone.blogspot.com/2021/02/colonels-bequest-high-resolution-mod.html

[petran791]

thanks. For Retroarch I am using your shader for EGA games. Unfortunately Scummvm standalone is not compatible with Retroarch shaders, so for EGA best option is mdapt that does the proper dithering without the dots. I’ll use mdapt on the VGA monitor too.

[Obsolete]

Hey there!

JINC2 + ScaleFX + CRT-Guest-Fast, but with NewPixie for the rolling scanlines… I should put a video instead but sadly Youtube’s compression is butchering Newpixie and CRT-Mattias. Those shaders are awesome tho, thank you so much for them… Here’s the preset : https://mega.nz/file/PEJiWLIC#rWEO57C8kuVRxYo_ZCBZgDZcDanpYoMjaHwaOy5Z0SY

[Cyber]

@Obsolete

I should put a video instead but sadly Youtube’s compression is butchering Newpixie and CRT-Mattias.

For YouTube to use the best codecs when recompressing your video, you should always upload at 4K, even if it means having to upscale your video from a lower resolution. Also try to use the highest bitrate possible.

[Cyber]

These are from my brand new CyberLab Megatron miniLED Epic Death To Pixels HDR Shader Preset Pack

Be sure to click/tap on Download Original Image to view them in the most optimal fidelity.

For a long time now, I’ve noticed while experimenting with lower scale factors that sometimes when the viewport is smaller the image looks more authentic and has a special vibrancy and sharpness to it which looks and feels better and more CRT like to me.

I’ve noticed every time I’ve switched back and forth between larger and smaller scale factors that there seems to be a sweet spot somewhere that may not necessarily be the largest possible image that the screen can display.

Then the possible reasoning behind this suddenly occurred to me. A lot of the improvement has to do with additional brightness output by the display when the viewport (window size) is smaller.

This leads me to believe that the higher tier miniLED TV on the market today for example the TCL QM851G, QM8K and the Sony Bravia 9 might be some of the best equipped displays for CRT emulation.

I have a TCL QM751G which is bright in its own right but I can imagine and get a taste of how useful the additional brightness headroom provided by the higher tier models might be. Not to mention the benefits of their increased dimming zones.

The brightest WOLED TVs might also fare well for example the LG G4 and G3. While the LG G5 and Panasonic Z95B might need some testing, validation and verification to see if current CRT shaders might need updating in order to support their novel subpixel layouts.

Note: One possible downside to using different scale factors is that it might interfere with the scanline and mask alignment

Introducing…

CyberLab Megatron minLED 4K HDR Game BFI SNES 3D Comb Filter Shadow Mask Epic.slangp

https://postimg.cc/gallery/8CCLJfz

https://postimg.cc/gallery/yzz9B7x

CyberLab Megatron minLED 4K HDR Game BFI Genesis 3D Composite Slot Mask Epic.slangp

https://postimg.cc/gallery/K1hQFCX

[Obsolete]

Oh I tried. Got several 4K60 fps videos on the channel, recorded in native resolution, only compressed in x265 with good quality, some of them 20+GB large. I even dabbled in stereoscopic videos and VR / 8K content.

For static aperture or slotmask effects it’s OK, but NewPixie and CRT-Mattias rolling scanlines and ghosting artefacts are destroyed by Youtube’s compression. They’re very noisy and gritty, wich is amazing. But I guess Youtube has filtering effects to remove that kind of dynamic noise, I wished there was a way to do them justice in motion…

[sonkun]

Wow, haven’t been on the scene in a bit but this combination looks amazing. It’s like I’m looking at 90’s gaming magazine scans or something.

[Obsolete]

Hey there!

In a deep nostalgia trip… I’ve tweaked a shader for GameBatte that’s upscaling while still trying to be faithful to the one and only GameBoy Fat. My take on a modern day shader preset equivalent of the LightBoy lense, I guess. XD So it’s Jinc2 + ScaleFX + GBPalette + CRT-Guest-Advanced-NTSC. Because why not.

Shader for 1080p here if you want to try it, but you could increase the size of the mask to fit your resolution in the parameters. https://mega.nz/file/iFxiAb6L#rduVyW2s4L9sjRTWRCxTAyfUvocF5GnFvq0BnQK7nzs

[Cyber]

@Obsolete

In a deep nostalgia trip… I’ve tweaked a shader for GameBatte that’s upscaling while still trying to be faithful to the one and only GameBoy Fat. My take on a modern day shader preset equivalent of the LightBoy lense, I guess. XD So it’s Jinc2 + ScaleFX + GBPalette + CRT-Guest-Advanced-NTSC. Because why not.

Oh I love this and it’s definitely unique around these parts when it comes to Game Boy Presets! It feels like this is how these games should be played from now on!

Great job!!! Have you tried the Handheld Border Shaders?

[Obsolete]

Thanks! I think I may add some LCD ghosting effect in a pass after the upscaling. I’ve not tried the handheld borders yet but I’ll sure give it a try at some point.

[agnosticNinja]

Have you maybe ever seen an unpleasant side effect of using the CRT shaders? It’s practically impossible to shrink the size of the resulting screenshots with no artifacts if the shader is already applied.

Imagine you want to make a screenshot inside a retro game or capture a video from an emulator. The video on YouTube or an image on Instagram may not always be displayed in its original size. Also, you often scale videos or screenshots during editing. I sometimes see comments on Reddit that some screenshots have to be shown only in 100% size, because the previews have ugly artifacts with big scanlines, which never appeared on the original image. It’s even worse when you apply a curved CRT shader, then your scanlines form curves or even circles, depending on the zoom value. I can attach screenshots if needed.