Virtual console shader:

RetroArch Additions Shaders
#1

Nintendo also added a filter to their NES games on the Virtual Console that is supposed to emulate how the game would look on a TV from the 1980s, resulting in the screen looking like the brightness was turned down and the color palettes being washed out in darker colors. For example, compare the Virtual Console version of any Super Mario Bros. to the Game Boy Advance version and you’ll see how the GBA version has its colors a lot brighter and more colorful.

I’ve read this in a few different places. Does anyone know more about this? Does it just handle sautration and brightness levels? If it is just that, then it likely that the image adjustment shader could replicate that.

I’m also having issues even finding legit screenshots of VC NES games. Most news stories just pick pre-existing screenshots instead of making a screenshot specifically from the VC version.

#2

I would go ask over in the wii subforum. They could at least get you some direct framebuffer rips of VC games and you could compare them with PC screenshots. However, if whoever said this is comparing to GBA versions, they’re likely confused by the fact that GBA devs often tried to compensate for its crappy screen by cranking up the saturation and sometimes changing colors altogether.

#3

There’s a legit image of the VC version of an NES game:

Got it from the Dolphin blog from their last post. They mention that emulation of it is not perfect, but this seems to be how it’s supposed to look in the VC. Does look like the brightness is reduced a bit. That’s interesting, since the CRT style shaers so far seem to only increase the gamma a bit.

https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2014/03/15 … -problems/