I have an LCD panel, that’s honestly what I’d consider glossy (not glass level glossy but it’s definitely not matte.) Idk man, lol.
One of these is with the mask at 50% strength, the other is no mask. Can you tell which is which? I can’t. Answer is below!
Answer: the first one has the mask, second is no mask. Only discernible difference is brightness, as far as I can tell.
This is the Samsung LED-LCD. My other displays are in storage atm.
Edit: needless to say, there’s no discernible difference at normal viewing distance, either.
The first image has more of a green tint to my eye but besides that no not really. (But that may be due to the camera distance, between the two shots.)
Also can I just say that display has a weird ass pixel display.
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It is weird. I think all of the displays I’ve recently used had something weird going on, lol. This one has BGR subpixels but in theory the mask should still work so I don’t know what else is going on.
One easy way to tell if the mask is working is that the subpixel order should be reversed. Since the subpixels on this display are BGR then it should look like regular RGB if the mask is working. You can see in both shots that it’s still BGR, though 
I haven’t even mentioned the terrible motion artifacts that result when I try to use masks on this display- the screen starts flickering rapidly when it scrolls, probably because the mask is making the subpixels do something they weren’t designed to do. So there’s also that…
Edit: I’d still like to see some photos from you guys if you get a chance. It seems really strange to me that all three displays I recently tested with masks gave similar results despite being very different displays. I know the mask is being applied because it shows up in a screenshot.
Now that’s something that does get in the way, matte and antiglare filters! Grainy milky pieces of crap. I understand and appreciate them in working environments, where you can’t control light and reflections, but for entertainment? Glossy all the way. Semi at least. I have successfully removed the matte layer from my old monitor, by the way. Piece of cake job in the end (still risky). That screen was never bright at all (140 nits uncalibrated and 90 calibrated, you had to choose between low brightness or horrible color), so in its case the improvements are even more obvious. It really is worth it.
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I may look into removing the antiglare on my TV, as it’s normally night when I use it anyway. And there’s no natural light where it’s at as well.
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I hope you can do it, it really is night and day and it will bring new to life into your games and films. Be very very careful though, a lot things can go wrong. I used a wet towel, left it there for 5 good hours and the AG came out effortlessly. Getting to the actual panel was the most difficult part, I had never opened up a monitor before.
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This is true only if the display you’re using is compatible with the mask effect being used and the display doesn’t do anything weird when you start messing with the subpixels, which is honestly a bit of a crapshoot (at least in my experience).
Now here’s something we can definitely agree on. Congrats on the mod! I remember people used to do this to their CRT monitors, too. Matte screens are absolute crap when it comes to CRT emulation. Glossy ftw.
Now, regarding objective picture quality- it’s undeniable that masks have a detrimental effect. The improvements to mask technology in CRTs were all about making the mask less noticeable and improving brightness and color- basically, CRTs had the same problem with masks as LCDs do regarding brightness and saturation. Take any screenshot with a mask effect and remove the mask effect and voila! You just improved the contrast, saturation and dynamic range of the image. There are only a handful of displays currently on the market that have the maximum brightness needed to do masks and scanlines without sacrificing huge amounts of contrast and brightness. It really all comes down to personal preference and what your priorities are when it comes to CRT emulation. Even in examples I’ve seen where the mask is working as intended, we’re talking about extremely fine details that are mostly unnoticeable at normal viewing distance, which is as it should be since these things weren’t noticeable on a real CRT at normal distance, either.
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I much prefer the corrected Sonic, yes. And SC looks terrific, so smooth. Well done!
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@Nesguy - We absolutely can agree on that, matte kills all the illusion. Thank you, by the way!
The screen that I modded won’t see much use, since I got a much better one for the computer. The poor thing, mod came too late 
I will see if I can sell it or give it to a friend that needs it. Or maybe I can go the very overkill 3x monitor route…
On your last paragraph, you see, all that is precisely why you want to use a more or less subtle mask. A balanced compromise between the good stuff (increased perceived resolution + more accurate reproduction of a real crt) and the bad stuff (signal loss). Again, it’s the same with scanlines. You don’t have to choose between thick black opaque bars from hell or nothing at all. How about blur, there’s a healthy middle ground between razor sharp square pixels that will cut through your corneas like diamond shards and a fuzzy mess. Virtue tends to line up with the golden mean.
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Looks nice, which shader is this?
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@HyperspaceMadness - This is easymode halation, a bit of AA, image adjustment and color mangler running at 1440p (looks fantastic at any res though).
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Normally I would agree, but mask settings below 100% just don’t seem to do anything with some displays for whatever reason (see the example I posted), so it becomes an all or nothing thing in some situations.
Regarding the scanlines, the thinner gaps don’t give nearly the same sense of depth to the image and reducing the thickness of the gaps reduces the dynamic range in the image because you’re essentially adding a bunch of white to the image (compared to the thicker gaps)
I think the black lines get too sharp once you get above 600-700 TVL or so, with 500-600 being the sweet spot for me. NES can look good with a lower TVL setup but medium-high TVL looks better for just about everything else (all just my opinions).
I’m starting to think that the reason why masks are acting weird on this particular display is because of a significant green push coupled with a lack of both red and blue saturation. The lack of red/blue might be enough to explain it.
Here’s the mask (cgwg aperture) at 100% strength. Notice how the subpixels making up the green strips are always fully lit up, while the subpixels over the magenta strips are a lot dimmer. I’m going to attempt a new calibration later.
Edit: Lagom color bars show a lack of red and blue post-calibration, so I think I need to create a custom color profile just to use with CRT masks. I’ll see how that works out.
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@Syh - in this particular case, just desaturation. IA is always in the chain though. Resource-wise invisible, yet very handy!
@Nesguy - yeah for the xBM look, I guess 500-600 is plenty (even if 500 is already too high a TVL count for my taste, at least when it comes to emulation). It also depends a lot on the size of the screen, and as you mentioned, whatever you are displaying on it.
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@Squalo Have to tried Dogway’s Grade shader? You may be able to swap color-mangler and iA from your chain with it. As it’s basically suped-up color-mangler and it has a vibrance/dull vibrance setting that might do just what your using iA for.
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No I haven’t dammit. I think it came at a time when I was away from the internets dealing with some real life heavy stuff and I’m afraid I missed it! Sounds amazing though, is it official?
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Official as in the repo, no. Official as in it’s awesome and alot of technical knowledge went into for sure, lol.
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Haha well, where can I find it then!
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