Lordmonkus

Yeah, I got a G27 as well and it's probably the best bang for buck wheel out there at the time not sure what's out there now. Wish I had the money for a fancy Fanatec setup but those things are stupidly expensive. $150 for a game pad is bit much though but at least it does seem like you get a damn nice controller.

Pshh, $150 is chump change on a controller :P I have spent more on flight sticks and racing wheels.

I should have added that if you try out the Kurozumi edit of Royale and you like it and want to apply it to other cores the best way to do it without reloading the Royale shader and manually editing each setting again is to do the following. Not sure if per core settings affect this or not. Load up whatever core you are going to try first, let's just use the Sega Genesis for example. Load in the CRT-Royale shader and if things change then you are good to go. Make the changes I outlined above using the Retroarch menu. Now there should be a file in your "shaders" folder called "genesis_plus_gx_libretro.dll.cgp" Make a copy and rename this file to something you like, I called mine Kurozumi-BVM.cgp. Now when you load up another core such as any of the SNES ones and you want the same shader setup just load a preset and instead of drilling down to the CRT-Royale shader and changing all the parameters just load the preset you renamed above. It just be right there in the first menu of the "load preset" menu.

Alright. I certainly don't want to do anything you guys don't want done.

Would you guys care if I setup an "Unoffical Launchbox" server in the mean time until you guys get your stuff completed ?

I figured you did but I had no idea how far along you guys were and this is so ridiculously easy to get setup.

I know this has been mentioned and something in plans and I have no idea what Jason and Brad have in mind or if you guys have anything really thought out and planned out as of yet but I thought I would direct you guys to something that I recently stumbled upon in the last couple of weeks and could be a really good and simple solution. Discord (https://discordapp.com/) is a voice and text chat program and can also be run through the web browser so people do not have to download and install anything if they did not want to but it does have the option to have the app on their PC or phone. I have been using it for the past couple of weeks and I have to say it is really good and extremely quick and easy to get it setup. An administrator would setup the main channel and any sub channels required and then all you would need to do to have people join it is post a link generated by the app on the website / forum for people to click on and they would be brought into the channel either in the browser or the app automatically. Anyways, just something I wanted to direct you guys towards as a very simple, easy and cheap (free) solution to the talked about chat for the site.

I made the following post a couple of months ago in its own thread but I thought I would just copy / paste it in here for more people to see. It gets into the more advanced but important settings of Retroarch that everyone should have. These aren't really personal preference because they really do objectively make the performance and enjoyment of playing much better. I have also made a few edits in this post so it's not an exact raw copy / paste job. These settings should be applied to every core where possible. ***Disclaimer*** These settings are based off my personal experience with each setting and my understanding from reading what I can find scattered throughout different places. The first settings you should be looking at are in the Video section of the Settings tab. For testing purposes turn on "Display Framerate", while playing you want your games to be running at a constant 60 frames per second. Aspect Ratio should be set to Core provided or Custom depending on your personal preference. Personally I use core provided but Custom is just fine too but then adjust the Custom Viewport Width and Height settings to adjust the screen size to what you like. Start out by setting each number at it's lowest setting then bump up each by one til you get what you want. Integer Scale is another personal preference and I use this with Core Provided aspect ratio. This setting however will give you black bars across the top and bottom of your game. This setting scales the game image at equal steps. The purpose of this is to maintain the proper aspect ratio at bigger sizes. If you leave this setting set to off with "Custom" aspect ratio when you adjust the Viewport Width and Height you will either get black bars or your screen will probably just slightly be larger than the height of your screen. Integer Scale set to "On" is my recommendation if you choose to use some sort of shader which uses scanlines. With it off your scanlines may look a little off. HW Bilinear Filtering is a personal preference, basically this just adds a slight blur to the output image. I like this one on to help break up the sharp pixels but it is purely personal taste, try them both and you decide. (I have since turned this off because I have made the switch to the CRT-Royale shader so I leave the base image as raw as possible and let the shader do all the work) Threaded Video should be left off if you can help it but if you are running on a low end system and you need to squeeze out a little bit more performance you can turn this on but off is preferred. Vsync is another setting that should be left off when possible. Off can cause some screen tearing depending on your display but the downside to having it set to "On" is it can cause some input lag which is something no body wants. Turn Vsinc on only if your screen tearing is really bad and you can live with some input lag. Hard GPU Sync is an amazing setting, just leave this set to "On". This is a feature that drastically reduces input lag. Input lag = bad. (I bolded the above because this is probably the single biggest reason to use Retroarch over all other emulators when possible.) Frame Delay is another setting that can help with input lag. Set this as high as you can before getting audio distortions like crackling or a frame rate hit. 0 is an ok setting but higher than 0 is better but don't go too high. Crop Overscan should be set to On. What this does is it crops a few pixels off the image output which on an old fashioned CRT would be hidden by the bezel but on new wide screen displays and using the Integer Scale setting above you may see. You don't want to see those garbage pixels do you ? (If you choose to use Iteger Scaling above and custom port size and have part of the screen outside the edges of the screen setting this to "Off" could be a good idea", it's just garbage pixels anyways.) That should be it for the Video section so now we move on to the Audio section where there really isn't too much to mess with here but you should set your Audio Latency to as low as possible without hearing crackles in your sound. The best thing to do here is set the latency all the way down then bump it up one notch at a time til you no longer hear any crackling.

The Hyllian CRT shader is indeed one of the best CRT shaders out there, especially when you consider how relatively performance friendly it is. If you have a decent GPU however give Royale a try, your mileage with it may vary though because the way it looks can vary wildly depending on the screen you are playing on. You will need a proper colour calibrated display and preferably at least a 1440 resolution to get it looking the way it should look. Out of the box it looked like garbage on my older 1080 monitor but on my new 1440 it looks glorious. One other thing when you try out CRT shaders is to turn on integer scaling otherwise because of how 240 does not divide evenly into 1080 it messes up the spacing of the scanlines and it will cause it to look weird. You can also try out the Kurozumi edit of Royale which I had luck with on my old 1080 monitor and I used it over Hyllian before I got my new monitor and started using the base Royale. I don't believe that the Kurozumi edit is in the selection choices but all you need to do is load up Royale then in the quick menu go to Shader Options > Menu Shader Parameters and check all the settings to match the following. Make sure to apply shader changes after. crt_gamma = "2.500000" lcd_gamma = "2.400000" levels_contrast = "0.840000" halation_weight = "0.000000" diffusion_weight = "0.010000" bloom_underestimate_levels = "0.800000" bloom_excess = "0.000000" beam_min_sigma = "0.02000" beam_max_sigma = "0.200000" beam_spot_power = "0.370000" 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 = "900.000000" 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 = "3.000000" geom_radius = "3.000000" 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" This edit was made to mimic the look of a high quality PVM / BVM display. Again how well this looks on your display may vary depending on your monitor and its colour / brightness and contrast settings.

I haven't tried using the stand alone FBA through Launchbox before. I have used the stand alone on its own but I didn't see any compelling reason to use it over Reatroach since RA was easier to set up controls, had better shaders and easier to manage save states. Just out of curiosity why would you rather use the stand alone ? Is there some feature of it that makes it superior ?

Use Retroarch and the FBA core.

G-Sync is so awesome, no screen tearing and no need for v-sync.

Ahh.

What kind of monitor are you using right now ? I recently pick up an Asus PG278Q ROG Swift and let me tell you its freakin awesome for gaming and emulation. The G-Sync, 1440 resolution and extremely low input lag make it amazing for emulation. I noticed a fairly big difference on input delay and I was not an input lag whore like some purists out there. I know it isn't cheap but if you are interested and in the market for a significant upgrade this things is worth the money.

I have 5 hard drives and DVD rom and a ton of USB devices in mine with a 970 and my power supply is only 500W and runs flawlessly. But if you are planning on adding a 2nd card somewhere down the line then the 850w is fine to have. If not then 850w is overkill.

Looks good. Are you planning on going with an SLI setup on your graphics ? If not why go with an 850w power supply ? Check this tower out. http://www.ncixus.com/products/?sku=75044&vpn=FD-CA-DEF-R4-BL&manufacture=Fractal%20Design&promoid=1130 I have this one and it was an absolute pleasure to build in with all the room to work and it is so nice and quiet.

Like I said one of those people :P Just teasing lol.

Yeah it's a clean upscale if that's your preference and it does that job excellent. But like I said up in my long winded post the original art work was done with the CRT characteristics taken into account as part of how the final look of the sprites was supposed to look. The scanlines and shadowmasks were meant to give the illusion of smoothness and blending of colours that weren't actually in the sprites themselves. The problem with a lot of scanline filters and shaders though is that they are either just simple basic scanlines which are just simple black lines which don't do anything but the black lines or they are a crappily done shader and darken the overall image which is bad too. The best CRT shaders are Hyllian which is good on lower end systems and Royale which is very hardware dependent and requires a higher resolution monitor and properly colour calibrated otherwise it looks terrible.

SentaiBrad said then on 2D games I use RetroArch's Pixellate Shader. It gives me bold lines and I can see the beautiful Pixel Art. It's the equivalent of turning up the internal resolution on PCSX2 or PPSSPP. You're one of "those" people :P I know it's all about personal preference and if that is what you like that is fine but I just cannot tolerate that pixellate shader at all. To me it doesn't look anything like cranking up the internal resolution on a 3D game and looks more like blowing up a jpg picture in photoshop and seeing all the giant pixels in all their jagged glory. I suppose it could worse though, you could be one of those people that try and emulate the look of an old 70s or 80s TV with RF hookup and all the fuzziness and crap.

Are you going to recommend the stand alone mGBA or the RA mGBA core ? My experience with GBA is very limited and I only use the RA mGBA core and have had no issues with it. No clue if there are better options when it comes to the GBA at all.

Hehe yeah there is a difference. Filters tend to just be overlays over the game image and that is what most emulators use like generic scanlines. Shaders work on more low level in the rendering and requires a decent GPU depending on the shader itself. To answer your question above though, Bizhawk does have some very basic filters like raw scanline and stuff but not the full blown shader effects like RA.

I have tried BizHawk in the past and it is interesting and once day could be the best but right now it simply is not any better than Retroarch at all other than maybe a slightly simpler to use UI. You still need to have the working bios files in the right place and BizHawk does have a nice window to tell you if you have the correct bios before you even try a game. But in the end BizHawks emulation is no better and no worse than Retroarch. They are both essentially working off of the same open source cores. For me and I am sure for a lot of other people too Retroarch has 2 extremely compelling reasons to use it, shaders and easy to manage save states.

If you simply ran the game in its native 240 resolution on a modern 1080 display without scanline shaders or adding lines through upscaling your would end up with a very tiny picture on your screen. So to answer your question about any emulators doing this and the answer is yes. Retroarch will do it by setting the integer scaling to on and reducing it to 1x but you will be playing on a tiny screen. Most every other emulator out there will stretch the image to fill a display whether it is a full 16:9 or top to bottom only with the proper aspect ratio. What settings and shaders people choose to use is all about personal preference and vary a lot which is why Retroarch has so many choices when you look in the shaders folder. Some people like the full stretched look to fill their full 16:9 ration screen, this distorts the image though. Some people prefer to keep the same aspect ration but fill the screen top to bottom with the downside of extra line being added in because 240 does not fit evenly into 1080 so the emulator will add line in there that do not belong and you will get some stretched looking pixels. Other people will use the integer scaling option which will eliminate the unnecessary stretching but does leave you with bars across the top and bottom. What I said above doesn't get into the shaders at all. When you get into the shaders now you get into the silly amount of options. Some people like to use the "smoothing" shaders such as the xBR shaders. The first time I saw this effect I thought it looked really cool but it got annoying to me really fast. While it looks very cool on extremely cartoonish looking games such as Mario and Zelda it looks really bad on more complex pixel art games such as Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger. Then you move into the CRT shaders which is where my personal preference lies. These shaders do their best to emulate the look of a proper CRT by breaking up the upscaling with artificial scanlines (and other effects depending on the shader itself). When you simply upscale an image on a modern display you are left with a very harsh picture which is not how the old school games looked on an old CRT TV. Some people like that look but many people like myself find it very distracting and not how the game was intended to look. When the artists on these old games designed the art they took into account the scanlines and the way the art would actually look on a TV and in essence used these scanlines and shadow masks to hide imperfections and give the appearance of more complicated art work. The one big downside to CRT shaders right now however is that most of them are designed to be on higher than 1080 resolution screens. 1080 just is not quite enough pixels to do the job the way it should be done. It can still look very good on a 1080 screen but it needs to have the integer scaling option turned on in Retroarch if you are using RA. If you don't have integer scaling on because of the uneven math of 1080 / 240 it can cause weirdness in the final output. If you have a 1440 display of better yet a 4k then the higher end CRT shaders such as CRT-Royale really starts to shine and look phenomenal. I recently upgraded to a 1440 monitor and 240 divides better into 1440 than 1080 and the pixel density is much better at showing off the effect of the shader. Supposedly it looks even better at 4k. I have done a lot of reading up on this subject over the last few months and even the hardcore purists are starting to come around on the modern displays. There is a lot of good reading over on the shmups forum boards about this stuff and they even agree that the newer high end gaming 4k low latency displays are pretty darn close to being equal to a good CRT. The pixel density is high enough to replicate the effect of a CRT and the response time and input latency are getting low enough to be imperceptible when compared to a CRT. Good quality CRTs are getting more difficult to find as they break down and are thrown away though some can be found still they will break down eventually. And the high quality PVM and BVMs are getting extremely difficult to find and expensive if you do find one but then you also have the added expense of putting out an image to that display through a specialized card for your PC or getting your original console modded for RGB. Bottom line is you either spend the money on real hardware and CRTs and console modding or buy a nice high end gaming monitor. I chose the high end gaming monitor ($1000 Canadian) and it was well worth the investment. Wow, this ended up being longer than planned lol.

It was either Pitfall 2 or Raiders of the Lost Ark for the Atari 2600 when I was like 9 or 10 years old. These were the first games I played that actually had an end to the game.

Childhood ? I'm getting more scarred by games now in my old age. I'm looking at you Souls series games, so muc swearing at the TV.