xBR algorithm tutorial

[Sp00kyFox]

oh, I see. well I was curious if it even makes a difference so I did a little benchmark with both variants. turns out it doesn’t matter. calculating the difference individually or doing 4 at once gives me the same performance. anyways, seems weird that the blue factor in your chosen default triplet is so low. makes me wonder if it doesn’t make more sense then to completely throw the blue channel out of the window and forget about the whole trick with taking the average red value. just calculating the following shouldn’t make a huge difference then:

sqrt(17*(A.r-B.r)^2 + 20*(A.g-B.g)^2)

well I tried both triplets in ScaleFX and they seem fine. (3,6,1) has a hard time though with ScaleFX-hybrid on the DKC intro screen, notice the yellow lines inside the big letters: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/164649

I think I stay with the original triplet, for ScaleFX it seems it is the most balanced choice.

[Hyllian]

Even if blue is low, it needs to be there, otherwise some artifacts appear.

Anyway, I think due to the algorithm used, some triplets are better than others. It isn’t absolute I think.

[belmont1990]

Hylian I have a question - I’m using preset of 2xbr hybrid v4 (2x, nearest) + crt hylian (don’t care, nearest) and this is by far the best looking shader combo that I have ever saw (the character models are smoothly filtered and looks natural with crt shader) BUT I have noticed that almost every xbr shader gives me some weird jittering visible on the edges of fonts, character models, backgrounds etc - something like the clouds from the .gif from last page. It seems when something is moving or there are some flashing behind, sprites in front gets disorted on the edges a bit - why is that? Xbr hybrid have this much more visible than standard xbr, but hybrid in my opinion looks superior due to preserving original outlines and curves. Maybe the problem is related to this point filtering that You mentioned before? I don’t have a clue where even I can see this option in RA.

[Hyllian]

Hylian I have a question - I’m using preset of 2xbr hybrid v4 (2x, nearest) + crt hylian (don’t care, nearest) and this is by far the best looking shader combo that I have ever saw (the character models are smoothly filtered and looks natural with crt shader) BUT I have noticed that almost every xbr shader gives me some weird jittering visible on the edges of fonts, character models, backgrounds etc - something like the clouds from the .gif from last page. It seems when something is moving or there are some flashing behind, sprites in front gets disorted on the edges a bit - why is that? Xbr hybrid have this much more visible than standard xbr, but hybrid in my opinion looks superior due to preserving original outlines and curves. Maybe the problem is related to this point filtering that You mentioned before? I don’t have a clue where even I can see this option in RA.

Have you tried the preset crt-super-xbr.cgp inside ‘crt’ folder? For me it looks superior to any hybrid. The hybrid versions are obsolete now, I quit its development because the transition between xbr and reverseAA isn’t seamless. Maybe this is the cause of some artifacts you’re seeing in some edges. Super-xBR replace hybrids in any situation.

[belmont1990]

Have you tried the preset crt-super-xbr.cgp inside ‘crt’ folder? For me it looks superior to any hybrid. The hybrid versions are obsolete now, I quit its development because the transition between xbr and reverseAA isn’t seamless. Maybe this is the cause of some artifacts you’re seeing in some edges. Super-xBR replace hybrids in any situation.

Yeah, I actually tried this before and today just to make sure - it looks messed like hell for me, just look at pictures [

My settings in RA are integert scaling OFF, full screen stretched (but tried also with integer ON and scrreen ratio was okay, but the artifacts still existed as shown above) HW bilinear filterin ON (setting this OFF gives me no better image at all) and of course all settings from preset crt-super br.cgp left untouched by myself, just apply and go. Ratio is set to 16:9 and my screen display is set to its native resolution 1360x768 Samsung TV.](http://postimg.org/image/f2obyumw1/)

[Hyllian]

Some questions:

1- Does it happen only in gba games? Could you try a snes game and tell me if the same artifacts happen?

2- Turn hw bilinear OFF, integer scale ON, aspecto ratio CUSTOM, and tell me if the same artifacts happen.

3 - What’s your system? HW and SW.

[belmont1990]

1-Tried snes game “Hyper Metroid” on settings that You mentioned above, the results are even worse (same warped graphics, but the aspect ratio is a garbage right now, some shots below): 2- Again, the screens shows it all : / 3- Intel Xeon 3ghz, dual core (same as well known core 2 duo E8400), Radeon HD7770 1GB GDDR5, 4gb RAM ddr2, Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, screen display is Samsung TV 28" 1360x768, also set to this native resolution in Windows.

[Hyllian]

I don’t have that hack.

Anyway, I tested Super Metroid here and couldn’t reproduce those artifacts:

It tested with many aspect ratios and didn’t find any of those artifacts. I can’t reproduce it.

[belmont1990]

It looks just amazing! This is the effect that I’m looking to achieve - but what could be wrong on my end? Don’t have a clue sadly… BTW - this is hack called HYPER METROID, and as a gamer I strongly reccomend trying this out as it is (yes, I;m a fan of metroid series) by far the best 2D metroid game to date, sorry for little offtop but You just have to try it out, it’s like a powered up sequel to gaming godness - super metroid.

Hmm maybe I should change some RA specific graphic options in some way to get proper working effedt? Right now using opengl video driver, could this be the culprit? Or maybe You can think of anything else on this end?

[Hyllian]

No problem with Hyper Metroid too:

I’m using OpenGL too. No idea what’s the problem.

[belmont1990]

Tried d3d mode, but it crashed my RA xp I had to manually switch back to gl option in notepad settings file to even start up again. Ehh such a great shader and thats annoying as hell that I don’t even know why something is messed up - maybe my radeon gpu doesnt have some function/ instruction set to properly coop with super xbr? Every from this shader family is giving me same artifacts - I don’t know what is handled there so differentely that regular xbr’s works and super in not as it should.

[Awakened]

[QUOTE=belmont1990;38113]It looks just amazing! This is the effect that I’m looking to achieve - but what could be wrong on my end? Don’t have a clue sadly… BTW - this is hack called HYPER METROID, and as a gamer I strongly reccomend trying this out as it is (yes, I;m a fan of metroid series) by far the best 2D metroid game to date, sorry for little offtop but You just have to try it out, it’s like a powered up sequel to gaming godness - super metroid.[/QUOTE] Off topic, but I finished Environmental Station Alpha yesterday and it’s a great notmetroidbutit’smetroid game: http://store.steampowered.com/app/350070/

[ismajo]

Hi, i’m trying to load crt-super-xbr.cgp, but nothing happens, others like crt-easymode-halation, are working.

edit:I’m in lubuntu 16.04

[Hyllian]

It seems latest builds are presenting some problems. Look at this thread: http://libretro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5554

I can assure you that preset is working as intended. I use it often. MY build is at least two months old, though.

[ismajo]

thx for the link.

now works, but “weird” (maybe resolution problem?)

my .cfg

http://freetexthost.com/gv65psxign

tomorrow I will try in windows, good night (in Chile).

[Hyllian]

[QUOTE=ismajo;38309]thx for the link.

now works, but “weird” (maybe resolution problem?) [/QUOTE] Yes, this is the same bug reported by Belmont. I’ll test the latest RA build to see if I can reproduce it.

[Hyllian]

Sorry, that bug was my fault. I forgot to update some params before uploading to the repo. Now it’s correct and already there.

The error is that the scaling is swapped between passes 0 and 1. Pass 0 should scale only by 1x and second pass by 2x.

Could you two update your presets and test it?

The fixed preset should be like this:

shaders = "5"
shader0 = "../xbr/shaders/super-xbr/super-xbr-pass0.cg"
filter_linear0 = "false"
wrap_mode0 = "clamp_to_border"
float_framebuffer0 = "false"
scale_type_x0 = "source"
scale_x0 = "1.000000"
scale_type_y0 = "source"
scale_y0 = "1.000000"
shader1 = "../xbr/shaders/super-xbr/super-xbr-pass1.cg"
filter_linear1 = "false"
wrap_mode1 = "clamp_to_border"
float_framebuffer1 = "false"
scale_type_x1 = "source"
scale_x1 = "2.000000"
scale_type_y1 = "source"
scale_y1 = "2.000000"
shader2 = "../xbr/shaders/super-xbr/super-xbr-pass2.cg"
filter_linear2 = "false"
wrap_mode2 = "clamp_to_border"
float_framebuffer2 = "false"
scale_type_x2 = "source"
scale_x2 = "1.000000"
scale_type_y2 = "source"
scale_y2 = "1.000000"
shader3 = "../windowed/shaders/jinc2-sharper.cg"
filter_linear3 = "false"
wrap_mode3 = "clamp_to_border"
float_framebuffer3 = "false"
scale_type_x3 = "source"
scale_x3 = "1.000000"
scale_type_y3 = "source"
scale_y3 = "0.500000"
shader4 = "shaders/crt-hyllian.cg"
filter_linear4 = "false"
wrap_mode4 = "clamp_to_border"
float_framebuffer4 = "false"

[ismajo]

thank you very much! Not the same frame, but you can see the differences.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/171858

[Hyllian]

Now that I figured out that bug, it reminded me that the fast-bilateral+super-xbr preset was wrong too. So I fixed it too and added another crt combination to the ‘denoisers’ folder (very good for pre-rendered games like Resident Evil).

Some screens (without the crt portion, though): Super-xBR

Fast Bilateral + Super-xBR

Super-xBR

Fast Bilateral + Super-xBR

Super-xBR

Fast Bilateral + Super-xBR

[Hyllian]

Now the new crt preset: Fast-Bilateral + Super-xBR + crt-hyllian. This preset is already in common-shaders.