The RetroArch Shader Thread

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lui
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by lui »

Xyga wrote: EDIT: very different, with settings closer to my previous, and this time on a 1200p display;
Image
This is quite an aesthetic image.
What number of lines is this setting showing may I ask?
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Xyga
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by Xyga »

I'm not sure in what resolution Star Ocean was displayed here in Snes9x and upscaled to 1600x1200, integer scaling was OFF anyway.
Does RA have an OSD/hockey or whatever to show like 'current properties' or something ?
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Exidna
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by Exidna »

Xyga wrote:I'm not sure in what resolution Star Ocean was displayed here in Snes9x and upscaled to 1600x1200, integer scaling was OFF anyway.
Does RA have an OSD/hockey or whatever to show like 'current properties' or something ?
I'm not sure that it does, unfortunately.
Xyga wrote:If you look at my own screenshots you should notice they're significantly sharper, forget about the halation effect in the SO one, those were my previous settings before I had completely removed it.

Keep in mind consumer trinitrons indeed show rounder and plumpier spots made of more crude phosphors, less defined of course, but they're by no means 'blurry' except when a particular spot is bright enough so it blends in the specific area.
And I'm not trying to use any blur to mask non-integer scaling errors,

Also quite naturally the SNES looks much blurrier than the MD even though it's not really fair to call it 'blur' (most available SNES around were coming w/ RGB scart but weren't the late revisions with sharper video).

You screenshot indeed looks way too blurry and soft, here's part of my settings that should look sharper (I'm trying to get that even sharper without killing the round shaping);
Well thank you for persisting.
I did try the settings you suggested but it still did not fix things for me.
As I had suspected, once you start to remove the blur, it begins to reveal other artifacts that basically require a lot more resolution to properly eliminate. The blurring is there to filter them enough to not be a problem at lower resolutions.

However, when returning to trying CRT Royale again, this time I was actually able to see what all of the settings were changing in real-time now that I'm using GLUI instead of the RGUI/XMB menus.
This let me figure out what everything was doing, and which of the settings it was that I actually dislike: it's the levels_contrast parameter which is screwing up the colors and adding all that horrible haze/glow to everything!

Reducing that from 1.00 to around 0.20 made all the difference.
This does lose a lot of brightness, but that can be made up by increasing the display's backlight.
And I'm sure that you would not want it reduced that low, as it probably doesn't "bloom" enough for your tastes.
Having something displaying white text up on the screen while you are adjusting it seems ideal.

After that, all I had to change was:
  • Reduce the gamma from 2.50 to 2.35 (where do people get the idea that CRTs were 2.50?)
  • Change the mask type from a slot (1.00) to an aperture grille (0.00)
  • And get rid of the diffusion and the border around the image.
Everything else can be left at the defaults.

It doesn't seem to change the fact that CRT emulation really needs at least 6x on the horizontal and 4x on the vertical to look any good though.
Once you get beyond those ratios, you can start using non-ideal scales without too much artifacting, but to get most systems to at least 6x while keeping close to a 4:3 aspect ratio is going to require 4K.

What I did think was interesting though, is that once you get rid of that bloom, CRT Royale does begin looking like CRT Easymode, only with the addition of the variable beam width, and a bit of horizontal filtering.

Easymode
Royale

As you know, it's very difficult to get a decent photo of these filters, the color looks all wrong. But if you look at the lower-right area, you can see that there is very little difference between them.
The main difference is that the bright areas have far less visible scanlines due to the variable beam width. As I said above, just about all the other settings in Royale are at the defaults.

I'm still not sure that I'll actually be using Royale, as I have a 1080p screen and it's very demanding to run, but at least now I know that it is possible to fix the main issue that I've had with it, so I may return to it once I get a 4K screen.
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Xyga
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by Xyga »

Yeah it really demands a higher resolution to shine, I'm still trying to get it to look as good as possible on my full-hd TV though (KDL-42W650A), until the kind of 4K monitor or TV I wish for actually hits the market.

The issue with reducing the bloom and blur is indeed that it makes the picture darker, and also as you mentioned under certain values some settings will screw up the picture.
But for me who's trying to get a consumer trinitron 'pixel form factor' it should be more manageable. I'm convinced there is 'sweet spot' somewhere that will give me satisfaction, I just need to find it.
Everything else can be left at the defaults.
Have you tried switching between the first two mask_sample_modes ? it changes the look A LOT. To me it is one of the most critical parameters.
Also please note many of the shader passes can be configured individually to use different resizing algorithms and strength. I've noticed changing values here do affect the results like some additional parameters would.

I'll post my new settings in a few hours.
I couldn't do it yesterday so it will have to be today because after that I'm away for two weeks without a good computer.

PS: on the computer topic my current build is i5-4690k, GTX 750 Ti, handles everything emulation like it's child play.
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Xyga
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by Xyga »

Wtf is libretro down ? why now...

Edit: NO NEED ! I have finally found how custom integer scaling works in RA ! (RGUI) *explosion in the background*

It was so simple I hate myself, but at the same time there isn't one single place where it's explained.
If there is... it's well hidden !

1. while ingame access the video settings
2. turn integer scaling ON
3. then go to custom ratio -> it now allows you to set the H & V ratio by integer increments like you've shown me the OGL mode can.

It works perfectly, now I will have fun reviewing my Royale settings and post screenshots. :D

Thanks Exidna your input led me to it. 8)

EDIT: Sonic 5x5 on a 1920x1080 screen, sorry the settings aren't optimal and it's too dark, but that's primarily to show it's now filling the screen without the wrong scanlines distribution;
(watch full size or it doesn't work)
Spoiler
Image
Same with TF IV
Spoiler
Image
Axelay in 6x5
Spoiler
Image
Before criticism of the screenshots remember it's displayed on a 42" screen with very different pitch and brightness/color compared to the monitor you're using right now.
*sigh* Really for some reason the shots look off. For sharing I think it would be required to completely redo the settings so the shots 'look good everywhere' and not just on my TV.
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Exidna
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by Exidna »

Glad you figured it out. The menu options in RetroArch can be a bit cryptic in places.

For me, those shots are clear examples of why you absolutely must use a scale which is divisible by 3 on the horizontal axis if you're doing any kind of sharp mask simulation.
There are a lot of ugly artifacts in those Genesis images - particularly obvious in the sky and on the text in Thunderforce IV, where there are random bright/dark lines.
I'd also say that you really need 4K to do slot mask emulation, and at lower resolutions you should settle for using the aperture grille option. It doesn't take much away from the 'look' but does fix a lot of the artifacts.

When you do some form of mask simulation, it often does hide scanline problems caused by the scale of the vertical axis not being divisible by 2 (which in itself is a lot better than non-integer scales) as long as it is at least greater than 4x.
I really think that the defaults for CRT Royale are quite good other than tweaking the gamma, changing it to an aperture grille if your screen is <4K, and switching off the diffusion/glow effects. It was mostly down to that glow which ruined the look for me - of course that is also how it achieves its 'CRT Look' without being really dark.
Almost any other change from the defaults seems to have a detrimental effect on image quality.

The only other change that I've seen to work quite well for non-ideal scales such as 5x is to adjust the mask triad size.
Reducing it to '1' basically switches off the mask simulation while retaining the variable beam width. It loses a lot of the 'charm' of CRT Royale, but also gets rid of the ugly artifacts when you just don't have enough resolution to do it right.
Using non-integer values like '2.5' for a 5x scale don't seem to render cleanly, but increasing the value, thus lowering the resolution of the CRT you're trying to emulate, can have fewer artifacts at something like 5x scale. Depending on the system and the scale you might have to play about with that value to get something which results in a uniform mask brightness.
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Xyga
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by Xyga »

The artifacts are not visible in practice, there is something wrong with the screenshots as I've specified, this is not what I'm seeing.

Until I figure out why I will just mention I've been playing with beam_max_sigma & beam_spot_power and set new values.
Also reduced beam_max_shape.
But triad size is definitely the thing to work on indeed !

Below my current parameters, clearer and sharper than my previous, but also more fucked up on contrast and colors (didn't have time for that).

Integer scaling ON, custom 5x5 (for MD)

diffusion_weight 0.00
bloom_underestimate_levels 0.18
beam_max_sigma 0.22
beam_spot_power 0.37
beam_max_shape 3.00
mask_type 0.00
mask_sample_mode 0.00
max_triad_size_desired 3.00
(border parameters -> disabled)


Won't be able to work on those for the next couple of weeks, so until next time...
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Exidna
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by Exidna »

For what it's worth, I did some more testing with CRT Royale and actually verified things rather than eyeballing it.
On a 1080p screen, setting levels_contrast to 25 is about as high as you can go without the potential for clipping with the Aperture Grille, and 20 for the Slot Mask/Shadow Mask - though my testing was more limited with those.
So far, the brightest RGB value I've seen that output is 250 - so it's ever so slightly not as bright as it could be.
You can maybe push it up a couple of notches depending on the game, but I have seen cases where that would push the brightest values into clipping, though I doubt most people would notice anything.

So that's a small but noticeable brightness increase over the value of "about 20" I had been using before.
Of course that means it's still going to look dull in screenshots, but you simply cannot make up for that loss of brightness any other way without inaccurate color/brightness.
You will still need to compensate for that using your display's backlight, but I prefer that to blowing out the contrast of the image and the color shifts that introduces.

As before, most other settings in Royale are fine.
The other main change would be reducing diffusion_weight to 0, and I still recommend the aperture grille (mask_type 0) over the slot mask (1) on anything less than a 4K screen.
At non-ideal scales (e.g. 5x horizontal) you might want to use the shadow mask (2) as it seems to have a lot fewer artifacts.
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Xyga
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by Xyga »

levels_contrast to 25
Mmh.. I wish there was a better way to do this.

Did you try actually messing with the shader passes ?

Also IIRC there was a more tolerable 'fake bloom' .cgp which looked much less unbalanced.
(can't double-check here)
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Exidna
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by Exidna »

I'm really not that well-versed in pixel shaders. Just tweaking the options they make available in the RetroArch GUI and seeing what they affect.
But white pixels hit RGB values of ~255 (100%) when levels_contrast is at 25 with the aperture grille simulation on a 1080p screen. (as you scale up, it seems like you can push that value higher)
You can't go brighter than 100% so you're just blowing out the bright pixels, similar to over-exposing a photograph, if you go higher than that.

To take your older example, I think this really is a fantastic image.
But only if you can ignore all the brightest parts which are "over-exposed" and have a "hazy" look due to the high levels_contrast value.
The only way to not over-expose the image like that and keep everything else at the same brightness level is to make the display physically brighter - because that does not affect the color values of bright pixels.

That's the thing that I don't think people realize.
Though CRTs as a display were "not that bright" compared to a regular LCD image, they were "not that bright" because they were losing so much brightness due to all of this.
That's why you have to max out the backlight when doing proper CRT simulation, because the structure of the CRT itself is throwing away so much brightness.
If you do "perfect" scanlines where ever other line is black, you've just lost half the brightness of your display. And then you're adding RGB mask simulation on top of that.
Adding imperfections like variable scanline width can eke out a bit more brightness, but overall you're still going to lose a lot if you want to truly recreate the look of a CRT.

That's partly why I previously said that a lot of these shaders replicate the look of a "photograph of a CRT" and not a CRT itself - because they have that "over-exposed" look to try and keep the brightness high.
Ultimately, you're going to need a CRT if you want something which looks just like a CRT. But I think these shaders are getting pretty close these days, it's just that using them requires so much brightness from the display in order to do it right. And that's still only gets you halfway there.
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Fudoh
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by Fudoh »

To take your older example, I think this really is a fantastic image.
definitely. Certainly one of the best CRT-emulations I've seen. Now this along with the contrast ratio of a OLED and we're set.
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Xyga
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by Xyga »

Yeah my Sony W6 with maxed out backlight couldn't hold to my Trinitron at about 50~60%, that's really a problem.

Also the inferior response time of the panel (compared to CRT) make it that when in motion the details we've struggled to obtain just fade-away along with the smearing.
I want an OLED too. :|

Turning the strobing mode on makes things much better but it becomes so dark I can't see shit.

NB: on that Star Ocean screenshot please note 'diffusion' was turned ON (0.04 or 0.08 don't remember go back to my old settings) otherwise it wouldn't be that 'hazy'.
Also yeah 1200p w/ integer OFF, even though it's not ideal it's still more detailed than 1080p with x5.
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Exidna
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by Exidna »

Just saw an image which was a good source for comparison - at higher resolutions in particular, CRT Royale is looking pretty close to an old shadow mask CRT now:
CRT Royale
Real CRT
(must be viewed at 100%)

Color is a bit different because it's a screenshot vs a photo - though I did try to tweak it a little, and I suppose I should have enabled the geometry options to make the comparison even closer, but it seems pretty good to me.

I actually think the shadow mask emulation may be better than anything else in CRT Royale now.
The Aperture Grille seems to require a lot of resolution to match the look of a real CRT, especially since most of the Aperture Grille CRTs I'm used to seeing must have been fairly high-end, and the Slot Mask seems to require even more resolution than that even though those were arguably the lowest resolution CRTs.

Still, it's nothing at all like the PC CRTs I'm used to - which would be more like Fudoh's photographs here - particularly the last two, and I think that is - at least currently - best emulated by using simple black scanlines of equal width.
You end up with hard square edges on everything, but while you can remove the mask from CRT Royale and just have it simulate the beam width, that's just too soft and doesn't look right at all in my opinion.

Edit: Didn't touch the colors for this one, but did have a play about with the geometry and convergence settings.
The settings which would be required to actually match the angle and geometry of that photograph don't exist, but I thought it was an interesting result.
It also seems like you can push the brightness of the image higher when you have some amount of geometry adjustment in play. I'm not sure if it applies another anti-aliasing pass or what, but it seems to make quite a difference here.
Above settings plus geometry adjustments. (settings)
Note: to save time, I used Photoshop to brighten up the image rather than tweak levels_contrast. It's just that previously the brightest values were almost 255, when they were quite a bit lower after the geometry correction.

P.S. The difference in brightness between these two screenshots is the difference that I typically am able to make up by cranking up the backlight - which is why I have said many times that screenshots look bad, because simulating the CRT throws away a ton of brightness, but it looks good in person when you adjust the backlight accordingly.
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Shogun
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by Shogun »

I've spent way too much time messing with crt-royale but starting with people's settings here and elsewhere I messed with it and ended up with a setting that works really well on my 55 inch Plasma tv. I don't really care about accurate replication of a CRT and am more interested with getting an acceptable picture that isn't pixelated like crazy on a big display. I've included the settings from my preset cgp file below. One thing to note is it looks fantastic on my tv but not nearly as good on my 22 inch PC LCD monitor. This applies to screenshots comparing the various settings as well - The results vary quite a bit. The lack of documentation on this shader and RetroArch in general is a shame. I've used this preset on just about every system from PS1 to Doom in DosBox. It also works really well with the imageviewer libretro. I can open up pixel art, add the shader to it and take a screenshot and it looks great. I really hope other programs are able to implement this shader soon. I've compared quite a few and it blows them all away (depending on your tastes).

Code: Select all

crt_gamma = "3.000002"
lcd_gamma = "2.200000"
levels_contrast = "1.000000"
halation_weight = "0.090000"
diffusion_weight = "0.005000"
bloom_underestimate_levels = "0.550000"
bloom_excess = "0.655000"
beam_min_sigma = "0.020000"
beam_max_sigma = "0.205000"
beam_spot_power = "0.330000"
beam_min_shape = "2.000000"
beam_max_shape = "2.500001"
beam_shape_power = "0.799999"
beam_horiz_filter = "0.000000"
beam_horiz_sigma = "0.350000"
beam_horiz_linear_rgb_weight = "1.000000"
convergence_offset_x_r = "0.000000"
convergence_offset_x_g = "0.000000"
convergence_offset_x_b = "0.000000"
convergence_offset_y_r = "0.000000"
convergence_offset_y_g = "0.000000"
convergence_offset_y_b = "0.000000"
mask_type = "0.000000"
mask_sample_mode_desired = "0.000000"
mask_specify_num_triads = "0.000000"
mask_triad_size_desired = "3.000000"
mask_num_triads_desired = "480.000000"
aa_subpixel_r_offset_x_runtime = "-0.333333"
aa_subpixel_r_offset_y_runtime = "0.000000"
aa_cubic_c = "0.500000"
aa_gauss_sigma = "0.500000"
geom_mode_runtime = "0.000000"
geom_radius = "2.000000"
geom_view_dist = "2.000000"
geom_tilt_angle_x = "0.000000"
geom_tilt_angle_y = "0.000000"
geom_aspect_ratio_x = "432.000000"
geom_aspect_ratio_y = "329.000000"
geom_overscan_x = "1.000000"
geom_overscan_y = "1.000000"
border_size = "0.000000"
border_darkness = "0.000000"
border_compress = "2.500000"
interlace_bff = "0.000000"
interlace_1080i = "0.000000"
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SGGG2
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by SGGG2 »

Shogun wrote:One thing to note is it looks fantastic on my tv but not nearly as good on my 22 inch PC LCD monitor.
I noticed this as well. CRT Royale looks fantastic on my 51" 1080p plasma, and alright on my 24" 1080p IPS, not only that, the scaling's slightly uneven with artifacts.
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Xyga
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by Xyga »

Same here, clearly CRT-Royale requires per-display settings/profiles.
It seems to be more than just a matter of resolution, I bet several of the display's specs (pitch, brightness, panel type, etc) and handling by the GPU influence the actual 'live' results, which screenshots don't always properly translate.
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Tatsuya79
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by Tatsuya79 »

There is some great work that has been done recently to emulate GBA/DS colors and I added some borders for various handheld systems.
You can check those here if you're interested.

GB Pocket
Spoiler
Image
GBA
PNG Big size
justice99
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by justice99 »

Thanks for your fabulous parameters Xyga, I'm using them for most of my console in RetroArch 1.2.1. I've lowered the bloom and increased contrast (my LCD is kind of old and bad):

Image

Image
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lettuce
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by lettuce »

I find, crt-easymode to be the best shader, doesnt have any uneven scanline issues either so no integer scaling is needed!...

Image
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Xyga
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by Xyga »

Yeah easymode looks good like that, but I find the shaping of the spot/pixel less realistic (looking a bit too 'square') in comparaison crt-royale lets you customize it incredibly well.
I think you should turn off halation completely, IMO in the end crt's in good shape don't have any, or so little it's not obvious like that.
And a little bit of boom doesn't hurt as the brightest areas normally pop-out more with more luminosity and a degree of blending.
Not needing integer scaling is cool indeed.

What still bothers me in any case is that no matter how far we go to fine-tune the little details, th moment things get moving all those get blurred away...on our standard lcd's at least. :/
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scorpius.milo
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by scorpius.milo »

lettuce wrote:I find, crt-easymode to be the best shader, doesnt have any uneven scanline issues either so no integer scaling is needed!...
I,

How do you enable "halation" in easymode i'm very interested about that

Thanks and sorry for my bad English
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by sub_atomic »

This has been an awesome discussion to read. Thanks for putting all this effort in and sharing it in a way that even a layman like myself can understand. Or at least I can appreciate it vicariously.

I really want something like a CRT shader, but I just don't have it in me to spend weeks tweaking settings and testing. Not to mention I don't have a CRT to compare against. My take-away from this is that shaders like CRT-Royale get you damn close to a CRT, depending on how much time and effort you want to put into it. But if you’re the kind of person for whom ‘close enough’ is good enough, what can you do? What’s the best “beginner’s CRT replication,” something that your average retro gamer can use that doesn’t require too much fiddling? Is it even possible to agree on such a thing?

Thanks!
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Xyga
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by Xyga »

Late reply but here's my 2c, just repeating though;

- CRT-Royale is the one that can get us the 'closest' at the time, yeah... though it's really a black box, hard-to-crack-open.
- But it's only really working with static images, because most flat panel displays suck at motion/response, and simulated grid or mask details as well as plenty other little things get blurred away as soon as there's movement.
Personally I have yet to try it with high-refresh monitors and blur-cancelling techniques. Maybe those make Royale worth, dunno.

For easy and not-too-bad simulation check other shaders like CRT Easy Mode, CRT Geom (flat), CRT Hyllian...those are much lighter, easier to adjust and arguably do almost as well as Royale since flat panels limit realism anyway.
We have a limited number of pics and settings here, but there are more on the neogaf RA thread, or just google.
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Kurozumi
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Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by Kurozumi »

Hi there, i'm new on the forum, but a silent reader since ages i guess.
I stumbled on this thread a few days ago and read about CRT-Royale. Since i'm personally more happy with my emulated Scanlines, than ever before, i thought i share the settings, maybe, they are useful for some people.
I tried to achieve kinda HR-Trinitron/BVM scanlines, found some settings somewhere on the interwebs and tweaked them a bit to my tastes. At least i get better results than with plain "dark lines" or the Hyllian shader.

Two sample screenshots:
Spoiler
Image
Image
The settings for CRT-Royale:
Spoiler
crt_gamma = "2.500000"
lcd_gamma = "2.200000"
levels_contrast = "0.950000" (more information below)
halation_weight = "0.000000"
diffusion_weight = "0.010000"
bloom_underestimate_levels = "0.800000"
bloom_excess = "0.000000"
beam_min_sigma = "0.015000"
beam_max_sigma = "0.200000"
beam_spot_power = "0.330000"
beam_min_shape = "2.000000"
beam_max_shape = "4.000000"
beam_shape_power = "0.250000"
beam_horiz_filter = "0.000000"
beam_horiz_sigma = "0.545000"
beam_horiz_linear_rgb_weight = "1.000000"
convergence_offset_x_r = "0.000000"
convergence_offset_x_g = "0.000000"
convergence_offset_x_b = "0.000000"
convergence_offset_y_r = "0.100000"
convergence_offset_y_g = "-0.100000"
convergence_offset_y_b = "0.100000"
mask_type = "0.000000"
mask_sample_mode_desired = "0.000000"
mask_specify_num_triads = "1.000000"
mask_triad_size_desired = "3.000000"
mask_num_triads_desired = "800.000000" (more information below)
aa_subpixel_r_offset_x_runtime = "-0.333333"
aa_subpixel_r_offset_y_runtime = "0.000000"
aa_cubic_c = "0.500000"
aa_gauss_sigma = "0.500000"
geom_mode_runtime = "0.000000"
geom_radius = "2.000000"
geom_view_dist = "2.000000"
geom_tilt_angle_x = "0.000000"
geom_tilt_angle_y = "0.000000"
geom_aspect_ratio_x = "432.000000"
geom_aspect_ratio_y = "329.000000"
geom_overscan_x = "1.000000"
geom_overscan_y = "1.000000"
border_size = "0.005000"
border_darkness = "0.000000"
border_compress = "2.500000"
interlace_bff = "0.000000"
interlace_1080i = "0.000000"
Some additional information about the settings:
For contrast i would not recommend to do more than 0.95, because it crushes the colors into saturation, which makes makes it kinda cheap looking, at least to my eyes. 0.95 has strong color saturation, if you don't like it, try 0.94. It doesn't sound much different than 0.95, but it makes a difference.
If the picture is too strong for bright parts, try contrast 0.8 or 0.75.
For the mask_num_triads i hope two triads equals the same number in TV-Lines (didn't do math on it). If that's correct, just put in 800, 900 or 1000 for that value for G, F or E -BVM.
The screenshots i did are with the "harshest" settings i tried (800triads, contrast 0.95)

Thanks, and again, hope you like it!
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kelvinml
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Jun 25, 2013 12:35 am
Location: USA

Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by kelvinml »

I want to thank you for these settings as these are the best I have used for crt royale! I have tried out royale before but never could get it to look like I wanted it to, so I quit messing and was not going to mess with it again until I got a 4K monitor. So I tried out your settings on my 1080p monitor and they look awesome and just how i like it,the only thing I changed was lowering the contrast to 0.8. This is my go to shader now thanks to you. Sadly though with the newer nightly retroarch's the royale shader has been updated with some new features and I could not get these same settings to look good especially when you change the mask type to 0.0 which is aperture grill so I went back to the old royale shader.
Kurozumi wrote:Hi there, i'm new on the forum, but a silent reader since ages i guess.
I stumbled on this thread a few days ago and read about CRT-Royale. Since i'm personally more happy with my emulated Scanlines, than ever before, i thought i share the settings, maybe, they are useful for some people.
I tried to achieve kinda HR-Trinitron/BVM scanlines, found some settings somewhere on the interwebs and tweaked them a bit to my tastes. At least i get better results than with plain "dark lines" or the Hyllian shader.

Two sample screenshots:
Spoiler
Image
Image
The settings for CRT-Royale:
Spoiler
crt_gamma = "2.500000"
lcd_gamma = "2.200000"
levels_contrast = "0.950000" (more information below)
halation_weight = "0.000000"
diffusion_weight = "0.010000"
bloom_underestimate_levels = "0.800000"
bloom_excess = "0.000000"
beam_min_sigma = "0.015000"
beam_max_sigma = "0.200000"
beam_spot_power = "0.330000"
beam_min_shape = "2.000000"
beam_max_shape = "4.000000"
beam_shape_power = "0.250000"
beam_horiz_filter = "0.000000"
beam_horiz_sigma = "0.545000"
beam_horiz_linear_rgb_weight = "1.000000"
convergence_offset_x_r = "0.000000"
convergence_offset_x_g = "0.000000"
convergence_offset_x_b = "0.000000"
convergence_offset_y_r = "0.100000"
convergence_offset_y_g = "-0.100000"
convergence_offset_y_b = "0.100000"
mask_type = "0.000000"
mask_sample_mode_desired = "0.000000"
mask_specify_num_triads = "1.000000"
mask_triad_size_desired = "3.000000"
mask_num_triads_desired = "800.000000" (more information below)
aa_subpixel_r_offset_x_runtime = "-0.333333"
aa_subpixel_r_offset_y_runtime = "0.000000"
aa_cubic_c = "0.500000"
aa_gauss_sigma = "0.500000"
geom_mode_runtime = "0.000000"
geom_radius = "2.000000"
geom_view_dist = "2.000000"
geom_tilt_angle_x = "0.000000"
geom_tilt_angle_y = "0.000000"
geom_aspect_ratio_x = "432.000000"
geom_aspect_ratio_y = "329.000000"
geom_overscan_x = "1.000000"
geom_overscan_y = "1.000000"
border_size = "0.005000"
border_darkness = "0.000000"
border_compress = "2.500000"
interlace_bff = "0.000000"
interlace_1080i = "0.000000"
Some additional information about the settings:
For contrast i would not recommend to do more than 0.95, because it crushes the colors into saturation, which makes makes it kinda cheap looking, at least to my eyes. 0.95 has strong color saturation, if you don't like it, try 0.94. It doesn't sound much different than 0.95, but it makes a difference.
If the picture is too strong for bright parts, try contrast 0.8 or 0.75.
For the mask_num_triads i hope two triads equals the same number in TV-Lines (didn't do math on it). If that's correct, just put in 800, 900 or 1000 for that value for G, F or E -BVM.
The screenshots i did are with the "harshest" settings i tried (800triads, contrast 0.95)

Thanks, and again, hope you like it!
BONKERS
Posts: 417
Joined: Thu Dec 11, 2014 10:41 am

Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by BONKERS »

You know an interesting thing. Is that with 1080p and 240p sources, you can only get 4x scale with empty space.
BUT, if you have an Nvidia card. You can use DSR to run the emulator at 2160p and get a higher integer scaling factor that fits full height which can then be flat interger scaled back by half back to 1080p at full height! (1920x1080 X 2:2 = 3840x2160) :wink:
This even increases the quality of the rendered output with things like the bloom on many CRT shaders.


In my case, because even at an additional 2x2 scale I can't get full height without cropping some lines off. Doing this at a much much higher scale allows me to lose less lines when cropping.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/141712 (This is with the default 33% smoothness of DSR too. With lower values, it could become even sharper)
Kurozumi
Posts: 8
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2015 9:34 am

Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by Kurozumi »

kelvinml wrote:I want to thank you for these settings as these are the best I have used for crt royale! I have tried out royale before but never could get it to look like I wanted it to, so I quit messing and was not going to mess with it again until I got a 4K monitor. So I tried out your settings on my 1080p monitor and they look awesome and just how i like it,the only thing I changed was lowering the contrast to 0.8. This is my go to shader now thanks to you. Sadly though with the newer nightly retroarch's the royale shader has been updated with some new features and I could not get these same settings to look good especially when you change the mask type to 0.0 which is aperture grill so I went back to the old royale shader.
That's why i posted them with the comments underneath, i guess it really depends on the display and settings. F.e. my displays are all calibrated to 100cd, rec709 colorspace and bt1886 eotf/gamma (is more like 2.4). If i set the LCD gamma any different than 2.38, the dark colors just look stupid. Only contrast values that look good on my screen is 0.86 - 0.88.
As far as retroarch goes, i tried a new nightly, and can confirm it, try mask_sample_mode on a different setting, if my eyes aren't fooling me, "1" looks like before, "0" got these lets call them "phosphor imperfections" in it.
BONKERS wrote:You know an interesting thing. Is that with 1080p and 240p sources, you can only get 4x scale with empty space.
BUT, if you have an Nvidia card. You can use DSR to run the emulator at 2160p and get a higher integer scaling factor that fits full height which can then be flat interger scaled back by half back to 1080p at full height! (1920x1080 X 2:2 = 3840x2160) :wink:
This even increases the quality of the rendered output with things like the bloom on many CRT shaders.
That's an interesting thing right there, never tried it on retroarch, because it did some horrible lagginess to everything else! Somehow retroarch crashes everytime i want to try it...
User avatar
Xyga
Posts: 7181
Joined: Tue Nov 05, 2013 8:22 pm
Location: block

Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by Xyga »

I'm still using an old nightly (from March) and mask_type has since been an absolutely crucial setting.
Frankly depending on the source either 0 (aperture grille) or 1 (shadow mask~ish) make all the difference, although I tend to favor 0 I can't say 1 is useless.

Aside from that I'm curious about how DSR as well, will give it a try asap, it's hard to imagine it won't heavily change the looks of the mask effects !
Strikers1945guy wrote:"Do we....eat chicken balls?!"
BONKERS
Posts: 417
Joined: Thu Dec 11, 2014 10:41 am

Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by BONKERS »

Kurozumi wrote:
kelvinml wrote:I want to thank you for these settings as these are the best I have used for crt royale! I have tried out royale before but never could get it to look like I wanted it to, so I quit messing and was not going to mess with it again until I got a 4K monitor. So I tried out your settings on my 1080p monitor and they look awesome and just how i like it,the only thing I changed was lowering the contrast to 0.8. This is my go to shader now thanks to you. Sadly though with the newer nightly retroarch's the royale shader has been updated with some new features and I could not get these same settings to look good especially when you change the mask type to 0.0 which is aperture grill so I went back to the old royale shader.
That's why i posted them with the comments underneath, i guess it really depends on the display and settings. F.e. my displays are all calibrated to 100cd, rec709 colorspace and bt1886 eotf/gamma (is more like 2.4). If i set the LCD gamma any different than 2.38, the dark colors just look stupid. Only contrast values that look good on my screen is 0.86 - 0.88.
As far as retroarch goes, i tried a new nightly, and can confirm it, try mask_sample_mode on a different setting, if my eyes aren't fooling me, "1" looks like before, "0" got these lets call them "phosphor imperfections" in it.
BONKERS wrote:You know an interesting thing. Is that with 1080p and 240p sources, you can only get 4x scale with empty space.
BUT, if you have an Nvidia card. You can use DSR to run the emulator at 2160p and get a higher integer scaling factor that fits full height which can then be flat interger scaled back by half back to 1080p at full height! (1920x1080 X 2:2 = 3840x2160) :wink:
This even increases the quality of the rendered output with things like the bloom on many CRT shaders.
That's an interesting thing right there, never tried it on retroarch, because it did some horrible lagginess to everything else! Somehow retroarch crashes everytime i want to try it...
You can see more about this at the bottom of this page.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=178072118

With DSR activated, and 4k set as your desktop res. You just need to start RA and toggle full screen a few times to make sure it's using the right resolution.

I don't know if this would be more performance heavy on some CPUs/GPUs. My i7 950/GTX 980 don't seem to have any issues.

Though the crashes I can relate. Lately I can't capture screenshots from within RA. It crashes the program.
User avatar
Xyga
Posts: 7181
Joined: Tue Nov 05, 2013 8:22 pm
Location: block

Re: The RetroArch Shader Thread

Post by Xyga »

BONKERS wrote:You can see more about this at the bottom of this page.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=178072118
But does that work as good with details-heavy stuff like Royale ?
On that pic it's very simple graphics with very simple scanlines over, I'm curious to see how it does with complex pixel art graphics and ppi-demanding shaders.
Strikers1945guy wrote:"Do we....eat chicken balls?!"
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