Please show off what crt shaders can do!

[Nesguy]

Using a free light meter app I compared pure white (no shader) on my screen to the white test screen in 240p Test Suite and found that the shader settings I’m using actually result in an increase in brightness vs no shader. Conclusion: this app is garbage, lol. Eyeballing it, it looks bright enough to me. Lottes mask strength is around 85%.

Be sure to view at original size as downscaling of the mask/scanlines makes the image appear much darker than it actually is. I’m viewing this on a monitor with a sustained brightness of 250 nits. More nits probably wouldn’t hurt.

Just for the sake of comparison, here’s the raw image. I think anyone who prefers raw pixels is insane.

[ROBMARK85]

You are absolutely right, in fact I lowered the Glow to 0.8 to give poor Dhalsim more color lol. As for the curvature, I kept the DariusG settings unchanged, but in hindsight it should be lightened. I’ll give myself some time, starting from those settings, to make some small adjustments, but nothing more. This shader is really good, light and effective. Seems like the right solution for me. Is there a guide or a Readme to better understand how it works?

[Nesguy]

No guide just a lot of trial and error. Guest-fast is also very lightweight and flexible. Guest is probably the closest thing to a “community shader,” Guest has been updating it for years with input from the folks around here. He’s our shader granddaddy. Megatron is also great for those who are concerned with accurate mask emulation, but requires a very bright display to compensate for the lost brightness from the mask. All the shaders have something different to offer, it’s quite a rabbit hole. Some of us have been at this for over 10 years, lol.

Here’s a good introduction:

https://docs.libretro.com/shader/crt/

[hunterk]

Those look plenty bright to me, yeah.

[Cyber]

2023 - The year of the Shadow Mask

Tap on image then zoom in for best viewing. Desktop users, right click then Open in New Tab, then press F11 for FullScreen. Non 4K users, zoom in until it looks correct.

CyberLab_Turbo_Duo_Shadow_Mask_IV_OLED_II_for_CyberLab_Blargg_Video_Filter.slangp + Blargg_NTSC_Turbo_Duo_SNES_S-Video_CyberLab_Special_Edition.filt

CyberLab_Turbo_Duo_Shadow_Mask_IV_OLED_II_for_CyberLab_Blargg_Video_Filter.slangp + Blargg_NTSC_Turbo_Duo_SNES_Composite_CyberLab_Special_Edition_II.filt

CyberLab_Turbo_Duo_Shadow_Mask_IV_OLED_II.slangp

[ROBMARK85]

Hi @DariusG , first of all thanks for sharing your CRT-Consumer shader settings, they are great, I just tweaked the Glow and the color temperature a little for personal taste. but everything is really nice and light. Since I just wanted to go deeper into the masks topic, and I saw that there are 8 choices, could you tell me what they specifically refer to. Thank you so much again for your work, I’m really appreciating it.

[DariusG]

0 cgwg, 1 lottes 1, 2 lottes 2, 3 gray-white stripes, 4 cgwg as slot mask, 5 and 6 iirc is for 1440p slot masks, 7 is cyan magenta yellow for extra brightness, 8 is another slot mask

[hagelslag5]

What a huge difference it makes to adjust the gamma curve, I’m impressed with how good everything looks. Probably going to call it and say this is my final release.

Download here: https://github.com/frankschoeman/kyubus-shader

[Nesguy]

Personally, I’m finding this mask to be pretty harsh on the eyes. This reminds me of the 5" CRT that Jamirus posted a photo of not too long ago. Would be nice to have an option for a more typical shadow mask. Most of these were fine-pitch, since shadow mask was typically only used in computer monitors.

[Cyber]

@Nesguy

Personally, I’m finding this mask to be pretty harsh on the eyes.

These look absolutely gorgeous to me on a 55" from 8ft to 10ft away! It’s actually the type of look I’ve been searching for since I had to give up the original Death To Pixels for Analog Shader Pack 3.0 cgp preset.

CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels Shader Preset Pack

Wow! Can’t believe I just randomly stumbled upon this! This is a video from @Birm, who created the original “Death To Pixels” Analog Shader Pack 3.0 *.cgp Shader Preset which I would say was a precursor to my CyberLab Mega Bezel Death To Pixels Shader Preset Pack. Thanks again for the inspiration and endorsement @Birm! [The Year is 199X, The Future | a TV shader showcase (updated)]

@Nesguy

Would be nice to have an option for a more typical shadow mask. Most of these were fine-pitch, since shadow mask was typically only used in computer monitors.

These aren’t intended to resemble a 90’s or 00’s high res computer monitor.

My inspiration for this is more of an old Zenith “Boob Tube” Shadow Mask. If you look at most of my presets they’re around the 300TVL mark.

Lowest TVL shadow (dot) mask CRT?

This is pretty good info. I think the original Death To Pixels *.cgp preset by @Birm might have been based on something like this. It was and still is a beautiful preset.

Based on user feedback as well as an effort to match certain reference material, I created a new folder for those who prefer a less harsh flavour which I dubbed Le’Sarsh_4K_Optimized.

With that said, my inspiration for this particular set of Shadow Mask Presets originated out of a sort of challenge, which you can read about here.

The most accurate CRT experience possible - call to all shader pros

I was unsure where to post until I saw this topic. The topic can be endlessly debated but I wanted to post this [image] This is a 1960s Vacuum Tube General Electric Shadow Dot Mask CRT running on R from somebody on Reddit I’ve never seen Chrono Trigger look so smooth before Everytime somebody posts some trinitron or pvm with CT running on it you see the scanlines and an aliased picture far from the smooth picture from this 60s TV I wonder if this 60s TV could be simulated with Shaders?

Lastly, my presets are not designed to match any particular reference CRT verbatim. Instead I just make them to match whatever imaginary TV models I have in my head or in other words, I’m just manipulating the pixels to get the games to look the way I like in a fun and relaxing manner with no pressure whatsoever.

[Nesguy]

Yeah, you’ve done a good job of emulating the General Electric TV. Personally I don’t find that to be a pleasant image at all, but to each their own of course.

[Cyber]

@Nesguy

Yeah, you’ve done a good job of emulating the General Electric TV.

Thanks

@Nesguy

Personally I don’t find that to be a pleasant image at all, but to each their own of course.

I’m not sure if it’s just about differences in personal preference of a particular type of image you know.

It might be possible that the type of image I might be seeing at a lower TVL on much larger and higher resolution screen might be similar to what you see on a smaller, lower resolution screen, using higher TVL presets at a much closer viewing distance.

With that said, I’ve tried my 1080p_Optimized aperture grill presets (Mask 6, Size 1) on a 40" 1080p TV and absolutely adore them and I have also tried my 4K_Optimized Presets on a 28" 4K monitor and found the translation to the higher PPI to be quite exceptional.

This Shadow Mask thing is a new frontier for me and I’m just getting my feet wet so at some point I might get around to making optimized presets for lower resolutions, which is actually the same as making higher TVL, less harsh presets for higher resolutions.

[DariusG]

A carefully adjusted preset for all around

shaders = "1"
shader0 = "shaders_slang/crt/shaders/crt-consumer.slang"
filter_linear0 = "true"
wrap_mode0 = "clamp_to_border"
mipmap_input0 = "false"
alias0 = ""
float_framebuffer0 = "false"
srgb_framebuffer0 = "false"
blurx = "0.800000"
warpx = "0.020000"
smoothness = "200.000000"
scanlow = "4.000000"
scanhigh = "6.000000"
beamlow = "1.500000"
beamhigh = "1.249999"
brightboost1 = "1.500000"
MaskDark = "0.200000"
glow = "0.070000"
Size = "1.499999"
sat = "1.150000"
contrast = "1.149998"
nois = "8.000000"
WP = "-25.000000"
inter = "0.000000"
vpower = "0.120000"

[ROBMARK85]

Great work ! Thanks !

[Nesguy]

A kurozumi-like preset for guest-advanced:

GitHub - Patrickdroid/Retroarch-Shaders

[ROBMARK85]

Hello @DariusG , I would like to ask you a favor : do you have a configuration optimized for 1080p of your “gdv-mini” to use it to the maximum ? Heartfelt thanks for the help

[DariusG]

I use this

shaders = "1"
shader0 = "shaders_slang/crt/shaders/crt-gdv-mini.slang"
filter_linear0 = "true"
wrap_mode0 = "clamp_to_border"
mipmap_input0 = "false"
alias0 = ""
float_framebuffer0 = "true"
srgb_framebuffer0 = "false"
brightboost = "1.599999"
sat = "1.200000"
scanline = "10.000000"
beam_min = "1.300000"
beam_max = "2.400000"
h_sharp = "2.499999"
shadowMask = "10.000000"
mcut = "0.400000"
maskDark = "0.700000"
CGWG = "0.600000"
warpX = "0.030000"
warpY = "0.040000"
vignette = "1.000000"

[ROBMARK85]

Thank you very much, very kind, I’ll try it right away!

[Nesguy]

Have you hard-coded a particular color temperature?

Here’s raw

Here’s your preset

[DariusG]

No as far as I know lol. The way mask works affects colors a bit. But you get a somehow convincing effect in return.