Suggestions for a newbie?

RetroArch Additions Shaders
#1

Heya guys!

I’ve been emulating for YEARS… For the most part, it’s just been a matter of getting my emulating to the point where the emulator/core loads the ROM and it’s playable. I’ve not really messed with anything for tweaks/etc to get better performance or appearance. On my PC, it’s mostly been a performance situation, and I’ve basically left things as they are, given the system is running and stable. But then I learned through a forum I’m a member of about RetroArch, and somebody mentioned the best part about it is the ability to use Shaders. I’ve never heard of this term before, so I’m coming at it completely lost. Then he posted some before and after screenshots of some Shaders he was using, and I’m really impressed by what he was able to accomplish. Games that were pixelated due to the limitations of the consoles they were programmed on looked smooth and polished. Some things he posted that were from GBA games almost looked like they were HD current-gen games (like maybe an Xbox Arcade game/etc). So I’m interested in seeing what I can do.

I’ve read a few posts here, and it seems like the general consensus is that you need to find a balance between appearance and performance. Where some of the more heavily intense shaders require a lot more CPU and GPU power. Well, this is something I’m sort of lacking. I’m running RetroArch on a Raspberry Pi 3. It’s actually my little box I built for Kodi, and through online research I found a way to play emulators on it (via GameStarter addon which installs/runs…RetroArch!). So I’m very happy with the setup. I’m looking to start working on making the appearance better. But as I said, I’m completely new here. I don’t know what Shaders I should be looking at using, or what they do. All I know is, my buddy has some really nice looking screenshots and I’d like to get something close (probably not AS close since he’s using a beefy computer).

So is there anybody else here in this similar situation? Has a Raspberry Pi 3 and is getting decent results with Shaders? What are you using, and how do I set mine up to use them?

#2

I use an rpi3 in my arcade cabinet but it’s pushing 240p through a CRT, so I don’t need any shaders. Unfortunately, rpi3’s GPU isn’t strong enough to run many shaders, so it’s mostly a matter of finding ones that actually will run full speed.

The rpi can’t run Cg shaders, so you’ll use the GLSL shaders instead. You can get them from the online updater. Once you’ve done that, load up a game and then go back into the menu and look for ‘shaders’ at the bottom of the ‘quick menu.’ There’s a bunch of custom crap you can fiddle with but the easiest way to get started is to use ‘load shader preset’ and look for glslp files.

The crt-pi shader inside the ‘crt’ subdirectory is designed around the constraints of the rpi GPU, so it should be safe and looks very nice. You might also get good performance out of hq2x/hq4x in the hqx subdirectory. Also check out ‘dot’ in the ‘handheld’ subdirectory.

#3

Thanks for the suggestions. When I load a shader, do I have to restart the ROM for it to work? Also, if I like the shader, will it stay active the next time I run that core? Will the shader be active across all cores?

#4

No, you don’t have to restart the core, it takes effect immediately. It’ll stay active across all cores unless you set up a core config override for it.