New sonkun crt guest advanced presets thread

[Cyber]

@thingsiplay

Basically being a RetroArch Shader is all it needs to be.

HSM Mega Bezel Reflection Shader is now an official “RetroArch Shader” since version 1.10.3 by the way.

The following video filter presets are also a part of RetroArch as of the latest 1.11.0 release!

• Blargg_SNES_Custom_Psuedo_MD_Composite.filt
• Blargg_SNES_Custom_Psuedo_MD_S-Video.filt
• Blargg_SNES_Custom_Psuedo_PCE_PSX_SNES_Composite.filt
• Blargg_SNES_Custom_Psuedo_PCE_PSX_SNES_S-Video.filt
• Blargg_SNES_Custom_Psuedo_PCE_PSX_SNES_RGB.filt

These are identical to my Custom Blargg Video Filter Presets that I recommend for use with some of my Shader Presets which are:

• Blargg_NTSC_Genesis_Composite_CyberLab_Special_Edition.filt
• Blargg_NTSC_Genesis_S-Video_CyberLab_Special_Edition.filt
• Blargg_NTSC_Turbo_Duo_SNES_PSX_Composite_CyberLab_Special_Edition.filt
• Blargg_NTSC_Turbo_Duo_SNES_PSX_S-Video_CyberLab_Special_Edition.filt
• Blargg_NTSC_Turbo_Duo_SNES_PSX_RGB_CyberLab_Special_Edition.filt

So no pressure, just letting you know that things have changed since your last roundup and these which were separate downloads before are now a part of the official RetroArch experience.

[thingsiplay]

Hi, I know HSM Mega Bezel is very popular and part of RetroArch now. I wanted to cover this already! The problem is, that I use an automated script for that and these preset require some settings and extra care, because of the bezels. It is definitely doable, but at the moment does not work well with my setup. I want to give them a shot in the future. Will have a look on these later.

BTW did not expect so much interest.

[sonkun]

@Hyllian and @thingsiplay those shots look amazing. I’m glad everything turned out good, I came up with the idea to mix sgenpt-mix and the checkerboard dithering shader last minute. Basically I was looking for an exact gdapt shader replicate because I liked how it handled dithering, not only does this combo do exactly what gdapt did but without the false positive vertical lines, I now also get the bonus of the checkerboard dithering. I could have just used sgenpt-mix alone to achieve both affects but using that shader at default settings wasn’t really giving me a look I was satisfied with, the image ended up looking too blurry than what I originally had it as even though it solved the dithering issues.

That’s when the idea of combining those two shaders came up, wasn’t sure I would pull it off but it came out looking amazing

[Hyllian]

cboard from sgenpt-mix isn’t so advanced as the one in checkerboard-dedither. So, it’s better combining both shaders, setting sgenpt-mix to blend only VL (jailbar dithering). You chose it correctly in your presets.

[sonkun]

Nice. I’m happy everything turned out good. I don’t see any other issues so far with any of the 3 types of presets so far, I think they all ended up getting a nice revamp over time. With this update I think I can just chill out and do some gaming now

[sonkun]

Quick update:

I went and tweaked my svideo presets, I noticed the vertical line dithering blending was too sharp almost giving it a rgb like look because I set the sgenpt-mix blending level setting down to 0 when I should have put it to 50.

Sgenpt-mix Blending level at 0:

Sgenpt-mix Blending level at 50:

New link posted at the same post.

@thingsiplay I know you just finished putting up your amazing article but that same article is where I noticed that dithering blending in those s-video pics, I should have noticed it earlier please forgive me lol. Promise that’s the last update for a while.

[thingsiplay]

s-video related images are now updated in the post. If I am honest, I found the previous version a little bit too sharp. But thought it is meant to look like that as a preference of you. In short, the new updated version looks better. s-video is my preferred option for most systems, so this is good for myself too. Before I forget on a related note: Also clarified some information in the Conclusion section.

And don’t hesitate doing changes in the future, if you think something can be improved. Such a blog post should not hinder progress. Overall a nice set of presets.

[sonkun]

Man you work fast, I notice the difference in those svideo shots right away. One thing I notice about svideo presets on RetroArch (mainly the two popular ones crt royale s video and guest advanced ntsc version in svideo mode) is that they come preloaded with a certain amount of blurriness. I could have took that route and duplicated that exact amount of blurriness but I chose to sharpen the overall image up a bit to give it a different twist, not to mention it just looks clearer. Might not be “accurate”, but I like it that way.

At the same time I also don’t want it as sharp as the rgb presets so there is a slight amount of blur to the svideo presets if you load both that and the rgb ones back to back to see the difference most likely due to the fact I used some deconvergence on those svideo sets.

In any case if I ever do need to update my sets I will definitely do that for sure but as of right now, I’m completely satisfied with how everything looks at this point so I see no need to update this pack for a good while unless guest himself brings in a new update to his shader that has some new feature that I must have. Right now I just want everyone to enjoy their gaming with this latest pack. Once again I thank you for the support.

[sonkun]

Another quick update as of 10/06:

I had to make one more update to the svideo presets, I turned off the linear gamma setting in the sgenpt-mix and raised the blend level to 80 as well, the previous settings was causing extra blurriness on the pixels that I wasn’t liking, here’s an example of how I had it before:

Here’s how it looks after:

Notice Mario’s eyes in the before pic, you can hardly see the black dot eyeballs and it was like that for a lot of games I tested.

With that gamma setting now turned off it also made dithering in the Sonic waterfall more transparent as well.

Before:

After:

I also added in new pal presets to the set bringing the total number of presets to choose from 24 instead of 18 in each folder

Grab the new link in the same post.

[Hyllian]

@sonkun

I had to make one more update to the svideo presets, I turned off the linear gamma setting in the sgenpt-mix and raised the blend level to 80 as well, the previous settings was causing extra blurriness on the pixels that I wasn’t liking, here’s an example of how I had it before:

Hi, sonkun. Did you tested it only in stills or in movement during gaming?

I ask this because when in movement, some of these things can’t be seen so clearly as in stills. So, it’s important to do a final test in movement to see if maybe relaxing some params wouldn’t hurt picture quality. I’m not saying stills aren’t important, on the contrary, they’re a very important to tunning params, but it’s important to do a final test in movement to see if that’s the ideal set.

[sonkun]

Yes I tested it out in motion as well and let me tell you that it looks way better than it did before, Mario literally looked like he was blinded by pixel “skin” over his eyes. Guess I wasn’t quite used to settings on sgenpt-mix since I just added it in. I don’t know if I can tweak it to look any better going below blend mode 80, if I go to 70 or below I start to get the jail bar lines in the Sonic waterfall.

How does it look from your end? I’m always down to hear critical feedback.

[Hyllian]

Well, dunno if using s-video you should see a bit of the jailbars (never saw a real genesis through s-video). Using composite, yes, it should all be blended.

[sonkun]

I’ve never seen a real genesis through s-video myself. My inspiration comes from the two most popular shaders here which aim for accuracy which is crt-guest-advanced-ntsc and CRT-royale-ntsc-svideo so I look at them as my “televisions” lol.

But for comparison’s sake here’s a pic of guest advanced ntsc with svideo mode turned on:

Here’s my svideo preset:

The vanilla pic is definitely more blended than mines, I turned the blend levels down in sgenpt-mix from 100 to 80 so that the dithering looks a little more loose and less blended. It’s not “accurate” per say but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to accept to have a somewhat sharper image. Same goes for my composite presets, they should look way more blurry by nature than what I’ve put out but that was also by choice to make them slightly more sharper than your average composite game image.

Another thing I noticed with sgenpt-mix is that it has this somewhat ghost trail while in motion (load up Super Mario 3 for nes, get a mushroom and simply jump up and look at Mario’s eyes to see what I mean), none of the settings I tweaked can get ride of it except by turning the Blend levels down more (which will ruin the sonic dithering waterfall effect and have it looking sharp like rgb vertical jailbars) or turning the whole sgenpt-mix shader off, so that’s another sacrifice right there if I want to keep the vertical line dithering setting in the mix. A few users here mentioned that sgenpt-mix isn’t perfect and I see some of the reasons but it still gets the job done for a few trade offs here and there

[Fab]

As I recall S-Video actually shouldn’t blend…I’ve found a couple of links which seems to validate this:

r/crtgaming - Trinitron + S-video modded Genesis = a thing of beauty

Sega Genesis (Generation 1) - S-Video Mod

For what it’s worth, that’s why I use composite on all my presets.

[sonkun]

Hmm interesting footage. That genesis is modded though, and if we compare that to guest’s advanced ntsc shader in svideo mode and crt royale’s ntsc svideo shader which both are pretty much blended and more blurry by default, what does that say about those shaders? That they have the wrong look?

[hunterk]

svideo and RGB are very close in quality. On a decent-to-poor-quality TV, the only real giveaway is some chroma smearing.

[sonkun]

If that’s the case then I had the look right on my previous pack before I went and changed my svideo presets to look more blended. Oh well I don’t feel like updating them anymore. Interesting information here though

[hunterk]

yeah, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Just go with something you like. There’s enough variation among individual displays and console outputs that no single preset is going to look “right” to everyone.

[Fab]

The modding shouldn’t be a thing. Genesis natively supports S-Video, modding is just because the connector isn’t physically there. Like RGB on SNES. You’re not changing/adding anything, it’s already there, if you know what I mean.

On your question about shaders. I think they “understimate” S-Video. Ideally, s-video has no artifacts, no fringing (composite has both) and chroma resolution is higher. So, way less blending. I know it’s a different function, but by raising NTSC resolution on guest’s shaders you should remove both artifacts and fringing. And, by doing that, you achieve something which is close to the examples above.

For a reference about the different characteristics of the different cables, there’s a handy image at this link: https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/NTSC_filters

[sonkun]

I see. And if I compare your pic here to my latest pic a few posts up my waterfall definitely looks more blended than your pic but like I told hunterk, I don’t feel like updating anymore lol. At least I still retain a good amount of sharpness on those svideo presets I guess.