Sony Megatron Colour Video Monitor

[MajorPainTheCactus]

Yeah that’s to be expected as guest venom is just turning on more sub pixels - more sub pixels being turned on gives you a brighter image (think more tiny torches) i.e a pure white screen is brighter than a pure red or blue or green screen.

You’re basically trading brightness for accuracy though as a CRT doesn’t work like that i.e make it’s phosphors wider. Your display should be able to (roughly) match how a CRT works in getting brighter.

Btw have you watched the videos at the top of the page they should give you a good idea of what to expect - and your display is better than mine!

[Nesguy]

@MajorPainTheCactus

a CRT doesn’t work like that i.e make it’s phosphors wider.

Fat phosphors have always bothered me in all shaders, I’ve been complaining for maybe 5+ years lol. If you comb through the GDV shader thread you’ll see that it’s something I’ve mentioned more than once. It’s very difficult if not impossible to prevent this in conventional shaders. Yours (and maybe CRT Royale Kurozumi?) is the only one that doesn’t do that.

It’s not just an accuracy thing for me; I don’t like the way fat phosphors look, period. It’s like they have no finesse, or something, blobbing out all over the place like that.

Fat phosphors aren’t the worst of it, either- sometimes you’ll lose mask definition completely with some of these CRT shaders (see: just about every screen shot in the CRT shader show-off thread).

[Syh]

You need to start your own “cork sniffer”-style CRT shader thread, I’d participate .

[nfp0]

Now that this amazing shader supports SDR, is it supposed to run on Linux under Vulkan?

I’ve tried but it spews out this error:

[INFO] [slang]: Compiling shader: "/home/nfp/.config/retroarch/shaders/shaders_slang_nfp0/hdr/shaders/crt-sony-megatron.slang".
[ERROR] Failed to open shader file: "/home/nfp/.config/retroarch/shaders/shaders_slang_nfp0/hdr/shaders/include\hdr10.h".
[ERROR] [Vulkan]: Failed to compile shader: "/home/nfp/.config/retroarch/shaders/shaders_slang_nfp0/hdr/shaders/crt-sony-megatron.slang".
[ERROR] [Vulkan]: Failed to create preset: "/home/nfp/.config/retroarch/shaders/shaders_slang_nfp0/hdr/crt-sony-megatron-sony-pvm.slangp".
[ERROR] [Vulkan]: Failed to create filter chain: "/home/nfp/.config/retroarch/shaders/shaders_slang_nfp0/hdr/crt-sony-megatron-sony-pvm.slangp". Falling back to stock.```

[GPDP1]

[ERROR] Failed to open shader file: “/home/nfp/.config/retroarch/shaders/shaders_slang_nfp0/hdr/shaders/include\hdr10.h”.

Reverse the slash at the end. It should work then.

[hunterk]

@nfp0 yeah, that’s this thing:

@hunterk

However, I had to change all of the ‘include’ paths to use fwd-slash instead of the Windows-style backslash to get the shader paths to resolve. Just FYI

[MajorPainTheCactus]

Firstly thank you for your kind words and secondly apologies Ive mistakenly used the wrong slashes - I will fix tonight.

[MajorPainTheCactus]

Hi @hunterk just one more thing about Linux (I presume you know about these things). I’m trying to use my shader on Lakka but Lakka is asking for glsl shaders and mine is in slang.

I presume there’s some auto build process to convert? Or do I need to do this manually?

I’ve changed the driver to the Vulkan one but the HDR directory looks empty. Do I need to get something changed to automatically add my shader into the build?

[hunterk]

Hmm, it should show with vulkan driver… Porting to GLSL is a pretty simple albeit manual process. I have a template with some macros and instructional comments set up to make it easier still. However, the framebuffer formats may be a problem for you in GLSL as it only has a single preset-based “float_framebufferX = true” flag rather than the fine-grained #pragma format from slang. GLSL also does not support #include directives, which is a massive bummer.

[MajorPainTheCactus]

Ah ok so slang shaders are supported via the Vulkan driver. If that’s the case I’ll play around with it some more and just use the Vulkan driver. Is there a way to update the shaders on Lakka? I seem to remember a ‘update shaders’ option somewhere or am I imagining it (I couldnt find it but then again I didn’t have advanced mode in so maybe it’ll appear now.

[MajorPainTheCactus]

I did notice you’ve been banging on about it for quite some time as I’ve seen various comments whilst searching for stuff. You had a silent supporter even if I didn’t know at the time.

[BendBombBoom]

I took comparison pictures of my CRT, Megatron, and Guest. Turns out I have unreasonable expectations and I am fake news. My CRT isn’t as bright and vibrant as I think. Megatron stacks up very well. Somehow I perceive the whites as less vibrant and I think that is because I’m looking at a 50inch TV with larger offsets to the RGB to make white. My 15inch looks CRT looks bright white because it’s too small for me to see the RGB values making up the white color. (These shots are imperfect and I could adjust more in the shaders. iso200, Apeture 60,)

[hunterk]

lol great shots. If I saw the PC monitor vs Megatron in a thread, I’d think the monitor was the shader

[nfp0]

Aye, no problem!

I’m anxiously awaiting HDR support on Linux so that I can use this shader properly.

[Nesguy]

Looks fantastic. Almost too bright?

I agree with Hunter, the LCD shot here looks more “analogue” than the CRT shot. PC CRT’s are a like a poor man’s BVM, 1000+ TVL and razor sharp. The Megatron PVM mask is modeled on a lower TVL CRT (like 500 -600 TVL I think? @MajorPainTheCactus)

[MajorPainTheCactus]

Ah fantastic! I’m so glad this is finally working for you! Your display looks plenty bright as you can see major clipping in the whites at 200 ISO - it makes it look quite similar to guest venom, when at stock at least the two of them look very different (on my display at least).

I’d love to see these shots at 100 ISO if you have the time/patience. It’d also allow me to create a shader preset to match your CRT - if you do, can you let me know your make and model of monitor?

[MajorPainTheCactus]

Awesome! Love it, well it’s only taken LCD technology 30-40 years to overtake CRT quality.

[MajorPainTheCactus]

Yes I agree display is a smidgen too bright compared to the CRT. Mind you, you can never have too much brightness - time to turn on backlight strobing!!! .

The default setting is a mid 80’s Sony PVM “The Cube” 2730QM which I think is 600TVL.

[BendBombBoom]

I retook them at 100iso. 1st is my CRT, 2nd is my Megatron. (A 15 inch Apple Studio display.) I don’t think it’s worth replicating as I only see the phosphors if I’m right up against the glass. I’d need to buy a macro lens if I wanted to take a closer image. The lines are so tight it looks mechanical (as many have noticed from my pictures.)

Having a CRT pc monitor does allow me to do silly stuff like playing Elden Ring as it was mean to be played.

[MajorPainTheCactus]

Brilliant thanks for doing this! What’s the make and model of your CRT?

Didn’t you have a Samsung QN90A you were trying to get the shader to run on or am I imagining that?

The 5K apple studio display will give a few more TVL to the simulated CRT (but that’s probably a good thing)