What Retroarch shaders do you use ?

[Lordmonkus]

Doing a quick search I couldn't find any threads on the shaders people here use so I thought I would start one up with a couple of screens of the ones I like and use. None of these shaders I use are stock default of the built in presets but are instead modified based on reading through the Retroarch and Shmups forums. It's crazy how different shaders look on different displays, the differences can be quite drastic. For example the PVM lookalike shader at the bottom looks amazingly good on my 22" monitor which just an average run of the mill Samsung but on my 42" Samsung TV it looks absolutely atrocious. Also the PVM vs the Hyllian-Glow look very similar but the performace difference is drastically different. This is a modified CRT-Lottes shader with a 4xBR layer and tweaked a little. This is not my daily driver shader but I do like the way it looks. This a modified CRT-Hyllian-Glow which I use on my lower end laptop outputting to my TV. This shader is extremely performance friendly. This is a heavily modified CRT-Royale which is supposed to mimic a PVM. This is my preferred shader to use on my main gaming PC and it is not performance friendly at all. My poor laptop slows to about 15-20 fps with this preset

[SentaiBrad]

Edit: Images are there now. We actually were just talking about this in a thread where a user couldn't get them to work. Yea, a while back I started getting obsessive about how my 2D games look, I love pixel art. PVM's and RGB modded consoles are a dream of mine. Short of that, the Pixellate Shader in RA works really well, but not so well for 3D. RGB equivalence shaders, (so the PVM-like shader) might do the job but "RGB" quality doesn't shine through as much in 3D. I would love an HDMI or RGB modded N64 ran through a Framemeister. my PS1 games on my PS3 are the easiest equivalent I can get. Tests show it's not perfect, but it is a lot cheaper and way way more modern. I need to mess around with shaders a bit more though. I hate any shader that makes pixels rounded, so XBR, HQ etc shaders, and I am not a stickler for scanlines. I get the want and need for scanlines much much more than I do rounded pixels though. I also do know about scanlines and how some consoles / games account for them and utilize them, but i'd rather a sharp image than one with scanlines. CRT-Royale, If I can get the scanlines to go away might be a good choice for early 3D.

[SentaiBrad]

Oh, and don't get me wrong, I love high resolutions, I love increasing internal resolutions and use big displays, I just prefer the pixels to be intact. A proper upscale vs mathematical guess work.

[Lordmonkus]

Yeah these pixel / scanline based shaders do not work on 3D games at all. You are best using internal resolution scaling for those types of games. I agree with you on the rounded pixel shaders, they just aren't my cup of tea. Thats why the first screenshot I posted isn't my daily driver shader but as far as a shader that does do some rounding it actually isn't terrible. As for the scanlines, the reason I love the scanlines is because it just breaks up the harsh edges that just straight scaling brings without doing any of the smoothing stuff I don't like. I also agree with you on the proper mathematical upscale, that's why I set integer scale to on in retroarch (these screenshots were taken with it off though). The other important factor in shaders and how they look is the calibration of the display. I went through the calibration on my TV and it made a fairly significant difference in how my games looked on it. Bad calibration can totally wreck the way a shader is supposed to look. After calibration the modified Hyllian-Glow shader looked way better.

[SentaiBrad]

I only do these on my IPS Monitor I bought a few months ago, but calibration on the wide array of stuff sucks and is stupid hard. The reason I want a good shader for early 3D games is because there really is no internal resolution upscaling. There is in standalone emulators, but I like RA too much. :P The other problem with early 3D (and even still so till this day) everything is not made up of the same things. In-game is Polygonal, but UI and menu's are still 2D. In a lot of early cases menu's are still pixel art. So I can either account for the 2D, or the 3D but not both easily; Well, unless there are internal scalers like for PS2 and PSP.

[fromlostdays]

On the other hand, I like the cartoony look. Never really got the scanlines either, EXCEPT on games like Super Mario Kart and Donkey Kong Country. I know it isn't as popular, but here's a showcase of Sabr v3: Compare that to XBR and for SNES at least, SABR wins: You can see the difference in the path leading to the cave. For Nintendo 64, I find 2 passes of linear Advanced-AA to be awesome: I am never satisfied with shaders for PS1. Oddly enough, I don't want to dull the edges fo this system, and would prefer some crisp polygons, but I have no idea how to go about it.

[Lordmonkus]

@SentaiBrad The latest Mednafen_PSX core for Retroarch now has 2x, 4x and 8x internal resolution settings in the core options. Just be aware that it is software driven and not hardware so it can be demanding, my AMD 8350 @ 4.0GHz can handle the 2x but not the 4x or 8x with all shaders off. As for a shader that works well with both have you seen this thread over at the Retroarch forums ? http://libretro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4964 It seems Hyllian is working on a shader setup to handle just this scenario you are talking about. Personally I have not messed with it because as I stated in the epsxe 2.0 thread I can't stand the 3D games of the 32-bit era so all I play on the PS1 is 2D based stuff. @fromlostdays Shaders are most definitely a personal taste / preference thing, that's why there's so many different shader options in Retroarch and finding that exact one you like can be so problematic. I know people that prefer shaders I cannot stand and at the same time they cant tolerate the shader that I think looks best, just like how some people love to streatch their games to 16:9 instead of playing a game in its natural aspect ratio. The smoother shader styles like xBR and Sabr do have a neat effect on cartoonish games like Mario and Zelda (Super Mario World 2: Yoshis Island looks really cool with a smoothing shader). But games that have a more "realistic" look like Final Fantasy 3 and Contra 3 those shaders really start to look bad IMHO. The first screen shot I posted above to me is a good balance between a smoothed shader with just enough scanline to help break it up a little. I hope this thread gets some more screenshots and discussion to hopefully help some new people find that right shader look they like in their game.

[fromlostdays]

But games that have a more "realistic" look like Final Fantasy 3 and Contra 3 those shaders really start to look bad IMHO

I absolutely agree that one set of shaders per SYSTEM doesn't really cut it. Not to get too tangential, but is there a way to have RA launch Shaders per game? As of right now, I have RocketLauncher launching a per System config, but I'd be willing to go another route, at least for some games like you mentioned that SABR etc. doesn't work well for. Lastly, is that true about internal res scaling on the medafen core?! I did a lot of searching recently about it, and I mostly found posts by the mednafen devs saying they would never do it. (I don't blame them, they make a good point on some emulators should be accuracy based, some should be "best experience" based.) If so, I'm really excited about that. It must be an update of the core that was released after the new version of RA, as I haven't updated the core since then and do not have the options.

[Lordmonkus]

There is a "Use per-game core option if available" in the Config menu but I have not messed with it so i'm not sure if that would work. I'll fiddle with it some later and see what kind of results I can get out out of it. I can only imagine the vast amount of .cfg files on a per game option could get way out of hand in a hurry on larger game collections. Edit:After testing out the "per game" setting it seems that it does not work for shaders which is unfortunate. I turned on the per game settings and then loaded up 2 games and for each game went into the core options and generated a game config file for each with a different shader. I then loaded each game hoping to see each game with the shader I had saved with it. This however was not the case, they both loaded with the same shader. I then looked in the configs folder in retroarch and there was a folder generated with the 2 cfg files, after looking at them in notepad I couldn't find any shader settings. It looks like the per game settings is just for different core settings on a per game basis. Different shaders may be a feature to be implemented somewhere down the road though, it shouldn't be too hard of a thing to implement. Yes, the current Mednafen-PSX core has internal resolution scaling in it right now, update your core and it should be there. They added into the core just a couple of days prior to the ePSXe release. I think I read somewhere the Retroarch guy that maintains the core was working with the ePSXe guy to get this feature working. Just as a heads up depending on the shader you use for PSX there may be some odd graphical effects if you combine the internal res scaling with a shader. I know with my choice of CRT based shader it gets super funky and slow. Your results may vary. My understanding is that the bulk of the Retroarch cores are done by separate people from the actual emulator they are based off. I believe the way it works in most cases is that the standalone version guys give access to their emus code and then the Retroarch guys take that code and work it into Retroarch.

[Drybonz]

crt-Hyllian-3d-glsl in the crt folder looks great on N64... lines are not uneven like many of the other scanline shaders.

[Lordmonkus]

I don't use the N64 core, I use PJ64 for the texture pack support but I took some screenshots of Klonoa for the PS1 since it's one of the few 3D games I have on that system. Here are the results. First its just using my hybrid Lottes / 4xBR @ native resolution (looks decent to me) Second is crt-Hyllian-3d at native resolution (not so good) Third is crt-Hyllian-3d at 2x native (looks much better than native) @drybonz Uneven scanlines are usually a result of not using integer scaling in the video options. It has the tradeoff of some black bars across the top and bottom of the screen however.

[fromlostdays]

I just got home and immediately tried the RA MEdnafen core upscale of the internal resolution. I see a slowdown at 4x, complete computer lock up at 8x, but at 2x I'm seeing Playstation like I've never seen it before. Its freaking gorgeous. Here's Chrono Cross with 5xbr+crt 2 passes linear, and 1 linear pass of Natural Vision (If you don't use this shader, try it, its in the misc folder, makes the colors pop, but does darken it a bit) However, seems like there's a cost. These anomalies appear regardless of 16:9 stretch, core provided ratio, or integer scaling on or off. Is there a way anyone can think of to fix this? I'm tempted to just leave it as the rest of the game looks so good.

[Lordmonkus]

Do those anomalies disappear with the shaders off ? Yeah 8x is definitely a no go for now, it's just way too taxing. 4x is doable depending on the system and shader in use but 2x runs very nice even with shaders thrown at it. My system is an AMD 8350 (not overclocked) and a GTX 970 graphics card and 8x is just crushing. Here are a couple of Banjo Kazooie screens running a 960x720 internal resolution with integer scaling off. I definitely prefer the Hyllian-3D on the N64. I might give it a try at higher internal resolution but I don't know yet, would be nice if somehow they could implement texture pack support (unlikely but I can hope) Hyllian-3D Lottes-4xBR Hyllian-3D Lottes-4xBR

[fromlostdays]

Yes, tested without shaders first. Still there. However, I turned "Dirthering Pattern" OFF (I think it was set to "1x Native" automatically and that fixed SOME of the issues. Mostly the broken background images, and if you look at the first screenshot in the bottom left box where they show the hit percentages, you can see a few little white dots. It fixed those too. I still have that dark bar across the center of the menu screens, unfortunately. Thankfully, it doesn't show up in game.

[Lordmonkus]

My best guess as to the cause of the black bar is because of how in some games menus and in game graphics are rendered at different resolutions. I've seen videos on upscalers like the Framemeister which people who use real hardware to run their games on modern tvs even have some graphic anomalies because of the different resolutions. I will grab a copy of Chrono Cross later and see if I figure something out. It's game I have been meaning to grab :) On a side note after doing some more messing with N64 I think I prefer just cranking the internal resolution way up to something like 1900x1600 and leaving the shaders off. If I were to use Retroarch for N64 instead of PJ64 that is

[fromlostdays]

Yeah, I'm in the midde of a playthrough and it just happened to be the first game I tested. I ran a few more and didn't see any problems. Its a fantastic game. I keep seeing you mention using a high internal resolution for N64... Do you mean in RetroArch? There is a core option in there for resolution, but if I put it any higher, the entire play screen shrinks and I can't find any setting to stretch it. We're a far cry from just talking about shaders now, but thanks for all the advice.

[SentaiBrad]

If I can get internal res up, I generally don't mess with shaders. Also those black bars could be a resolution mismatch. I know for a fact that Chrono Cross's menu uses a different resolution compared to the game, since the resolution and aspect ratio are locked when you launch a game it is probably causing black bars.

[SentaiBrad]

lordmonkus said There is a "Use per-game core option if available" in the Config menu but I have not messed with it so i'm not sure if that would work. I'll fiddle with it some later and see what kind of results I can get out out of it. I can only imagine the vast amount of .cfg files on a per game option could get way out of hand in a hurry on larger game collections. Edit:After testing out the "per game" setting it seems that it does not work for shaders which is unfortunate. I turned on the per game settings and then loaded up 2 games and for each game went into the core options and generated a game config file for each with a different shader. I then loaded each game hoping to see each game with the shader I had saved with it. This however was not the case, they both loaded with the same shader. I then looked in the configs folder in retroarch and there was a folder generated with the 2 cfg files, after looking at them in notepad I couldn't find any shader settings. It looks like the per game settings is just for different core settings on a per game basis. Different shaders may be a feature to be implemented somewhere down the road though, it shouldn't be too hard of a thing to implement. Yes, the current Mednafen-PSX core has internal resolution scaling in it right now, update your core and it should be there. They added into the core just a couple of days prior to the ePSXe release. I think I read somewhere the Retroarch guy that maintains the core was working with the ePSXe guy to get this feature working. Just as a heads up depending on the shader you use for PSX there may be some odd graphical effects if you combine the internal res scaling with a shader. I know with my choice of CRT based shader it gets super funky and slow. Your results may vary. My understanding is that the bulk of the Retroarch cores are done by separate people from the actual emulator they are based off. I believe the way it works in most cases is that the standalone version guys give access to their emus code and then the Retroarch guys take that code and work it into Retroarch.

Yea, that's true. It is a completely separate team that ports over the code to a core. It is astounding this works at all even. Also, you can use settings per game, I even covered this in a tutorial. So, I've shown off how to use settings per core in LaunchBox, because RA is buggy when it comes to that, so make sure any "per core" settings are off. Not to mention, that was per core not per game. Either way, you load up a game with a core and you go to the first menu and click "Save new config". It will save a new config based on the core name in your config folder. I have several of my emulators using specific config files. Load RA without a game, so close RA then right click a game in LB and click "Open RA". Back in the first menu load the config by going down to where it shows the RA.cfg name and load your new cfg. Make all the changes you want to this new cfg with it loaded, and when you are done click "Save current config" NOT "save new config". The new config option saves a new config based on the current config you have loaded. So if the cfg you just edited is for a system, but now you need a few of these for specific games, load that config after you've edited it and saved the changes to it and now "save new config". With several of these in your config folder, now you can name them really what ever you want. so take a mednafen_ps1 cfg file. Keep the first one you created for the entire core. Then rename the copies mednafen_ps1_Chrono Cross.cfg or something like that. In associated platforms there is the -L "cores\insertcorename.dll" line. Right after the " add the line -C config\insertconfigname.cfg". This will denote the core to load a custom config along side the core. Now for a specific game, go down to our example Chrono Cross, and right click edit Chrono Cross. Below the box where it shows the location of the cue sheet, there is a command line parameters box. Now here type -C config\mednafen_ps1_Chrono Cross.cfg" or what ever you named it. Now all of PS1 will load a custom config, and Chrono Cross will load another special config.

[Lordmonkus]

@fromlostdays If you bump up the internal resolution, then close the content and then reload the game it should now be displaying in that higher internal resolution without the shrunken size. If you notice beside the "Resolution" setting there is the word (restart), anything with that means the core needs to be restarted for that setting to take place. @SentaiBrad Oh yeah I forgot about doing the per game configs that way too. It's a lot of extra work but is the only way of doing it for now. Hopefully the RA per game setting gets expanded to shader settings in the future. Would be less work than doing it through Launchbox itself depending on how many games you got of course. I agree with you about not using shaders if you can scale the internal resolution. Right now there is no RA core that I use that uses internal resolutions other than the PSX and I don't play 3d games so its not a feature I use. For N64 i use PJ64, Dreamcast I use Demul and NullDC depending on the game, Reicast is still way too slow but it's early days for that core. Saturn core is equally slow so I stick with SSF or Yabause standalone. The PPSSPP core is good but I still stick to the standalone

[SentaiBrad]

I've actually heard the opposite about the PPSSPP core, but the standalone has more features anyways which is why I use it. It handles things a bit more gracefully.