If it’s good, I’ve already tried it, I’m always testing shaders. lol
Another interesting combination could be hq2x with one that allows to lower the resolution, like crt-hyllian-3d, and maintains good sharpness.
4 Likes
Here is a Framemeister captured Genesis composite signal
3 Likes
By looking at the skin tone, it is evident that not every developer designed (or adapted) the graphic by taking how it would have looked into account…
That game is a good example of “when NTSC filter is NOT wanted” imho.
3 Likes
Usually the graphics AFAIK were drawn on Deluxe Paint (Amiga-PC) on European and American games (Deluxe Paint is an American program) and art programs on X68000 in Japan so they looking into how it looked on Amigas-PCs etc. Probably just testing a while on a CRT and that’s all. I think “how it would have looked” should be between RGB and Composite here. Clearly there is an orange-ish tone on skin on RGB, while it should be more pink-ish but not as much as it is seen here.
Early Amiga games (and a few later ones, mostly Ocean) were drawn on Degas Elite on Atari ST and straight-ported.
1 Like
RGB is a mod, in some cases it damages the original artwork, changes the colors and pixel blurring is lost.
If it was a low budget game or a homebrew it’s possible, at this level that doesn’t happen.
These people work with perfectly calibrated dedicated hardware, and this is the importance of the ‘color profile’, the game designers saw on their monitor exactly the same colors that would be seen on a TV with an original Genesis, plus they had TV and monitors to check the output. Of course, they did not take into account an RGB modification.
In some cases it was a PC with specialized software, in others, and in the beginning it was a special hardware to make ‘pixel arts’.
And one feature of the TVOut shader is very important, the ‘TVOut Composite Enable’ normalizes the colors of the RGB output to what they would look like on a real TV.
This is the same case with CGA, EGA of a PC monitor. Colors changed dramatically whether viewed in RGB or composite. This set has a single video configuration, there were sets that had custom outputs RF, Composite, RGV, etc.
2 Likes
In the first games they used specialized hardware, I don’t remember the names, you can see them in any old game documentary, it was a device with a special dot matrix to make the pixel art.
Then they used several design software, many created by them and customized, Nintendo had their own totally private one and I haven’t even managed to get the name. In general they all handled color profiles, different for each console.
And they always had next to them one or two TVs, a conventional CRT and a PVM type monitor (although I have seen more Pionners and Mitsubishi than Sony). To check the output, they did that in real time.
In a very early era for DOS games Amiga was used, then DOS itself and with the introduction of multimedia, the mac gained a lot of ground.
1 Like
You can probably fix this with the TINT control that’s usable on displays once NTSC is in play. I’ve tried this game yesterday with my RGB to composite converter via PC and also the PS2 via the (buggy, but usable) Retroarch port, and the skin tone is alright. However using the TINT control, it’s possible to make it as awful looking like in the vid.
I also recall a case where TINT adjustment is explicitely mentioned in the manual of a computer game to make it look correct. “Never the same color” you know 
1 Like
For Gen/MD and SNES, at least, RGB was available out of the box without any modding.
I think it’s also worth mentioning that Framemeisters have funky colors sometimes. Some of the greens on SNES-via-RGB-to-Framemeister are absolutely eye-searing.
2 Likes
Is the image on the right the same source image as the CGA looking one on the left?
Is it running through a composite filter or composite input?
I’ve only seen CGA images look like the one on the left via playing MS-DOS games on a VGA/SVGA monitor.
Probably the left image is on emulator and the right is on color monitor with composite cable, CGA or Apple II?
check this out too
“artifact-colors” and “ntsc-xot” work as in these CGA composite screenshots
2 Likes
The image on the left is an emulator and the right is a Tandy, CGA 16 Colors.
In this case the video configuration is the same in both cases. Each game or program could be configured for several video outputs, and each one generated different colors.
DeluxePaint was the most used program on Amiga to create graphics for games, this is the PC Tandy version.
This is called “Extended artifact colors”, it combines pixels and frequencies to generate more colors, even this was applied to monochrome MDA adapters, they could generate color on a CGA monitor. In console words, this is what SEGA invented, but in reality it already existed since the CGA. 
From MDA to VGA, the amount of video modes is wild, there are about 300. They are not compatible with each other, you need an EGA adapter to configure and view EGA, but you can use a monochrome monitor or a CGA/EGA graphics. Which multiplies the amount of graphics variations in the video modes.
There is no shader that even represents CGA/EGA, and I doubt very much that it will exist, the IBM-PC is a wild world.
Please don’t show me that, eXoDOS version 6 gives me 500 ulcers, they couldn’t make it any messier.
Something similar happens in PC-98. Pixels blur and generate new colors, red and blue tones change.
And on console, when people say, “a shader what it looked like”, what they are looking for in RF, component, nobody had a super high resolution PVM in their house, nor saw the original pixel matrix, this is what it looked like.
Even, I dare to think, that the designers used the flaws of the time to generate effects and atmosphere, the noise generated by the RF, in the dark sky of Metroid is amazing, it looks like turbulence, in component is lost, but keeps the images blurred and the contrast, in RGB it all goes to the…
And the pixels were combined to generate smooth and detailed images, this is really the “pixel-arts”.
7 Likes
Let me add a few to the mix:
This was probably already mentioned in the thread, but if you (like me) don’t like the big NTSC color bleed, and you’re using Guest’s shader, or any derivative, you can use the NTSC Chroma Scaling setting to get rid of it while keeping the dithering and transparencies intact.
4 Likes
That’s good analysis. I believe every system created it’s own style of artifacts, so blargg-ntsc is the most accurate one, at least on the systems it exists. Because every system created the composite signal internally and then send to TV, different pixel clocks etc, only the “decoder” part is the same, and not at all cases, some good TVs have the “comb” filter while others not, creating a more fuzzy image (?)
1 Like
Yes, but the tvout-jinc-sharpen+interlacing has ‘Windows Sinc Param’, to mimic the low dithering of the monitor and that sloppy blurred effect is fantastic. And I think it is the only one that has it.
High resolution CRT images are not plentiful, but there are a few that have wonders. The absent ones are the IBM-PC ones, there are none.
Thanks for the tip Guest does amazing things.
Rather, excuse me for not knowing the technical terms. My technological jargon comes from old times, when one used to call the game “the ninja with the dog” (Shadow Dancer). lol
The blargg-ntsc filter is nice, but I think there are shaders that do the same thing, what would be nice is to have a shader with all the artifacts and imperfections of the signal, like the “comb” filter, along with things like the bezel, and other small details like the reflection on the screen, all that creates a very nice retro experience.
2 Likes
I would guess that Mame HLSL is the most accurate, since you can replicate rainbow effects, or monochrome into correct artifact color with the right values e.g. Apple II
If this possible with another shader, I’d like to know how. With HLSL I have a vague understanding what parameters to change to get some desired effects that are easily verified like above, but I don’t know how exactly it’s derived from, like, what is the “scanline duration” of the SNES?
1 Like
Even though I like it in colour, I like it better without colour artifacts, the black and white one looks sharper and less blurry.
CRT-Guest-Advanced-NTSC can also create “Rainbow Artifacts”. Not sure if it’s the same thing you’re referring to.
1 Like
That slightly blurry, color one with artifacts, is the type I remember when I got my first computer, an Atari 65xe with a tape deck. It does has it’s charm. Depends if you want some nostalgia
3 Likes
