Please Help Troubleshoot Retroarch Launching CPS games

[Lordmonkus]

Ahh, I haven't used easymode in forever since my early days of Retroarch and trying to find the right shader for me. I have been stuck with Kurozumis edit of Royale on my main gaming PC and CRT-Pi on my lower end laptop. Some shaders do rotate properly and I think in the case of CRT-Pi I believe there is a vertical specific version of it.

[Zombeaver]

Yeah I like Kurozumi's Royale quite a bit as well, and it does indeed look like complete garbage on vertical shooters :( CRT-Easymode works in any orientation because of how its aperture grill is setup - basically it's squares rather than scanlines so it works either way. CRT-Easymode-Halation is actually my preferred CRT shader overall for Retroarch, even over Kurozumi, but it does not look correct when rotated unfortunately. The thing that's always bugged me about Royale (including the Kurozumi version) is how overblown and generally pretty ugly the glow effect is. It almost looks like an additional sprite or something that's slapped on top. I remember you posting some screenshots from the Ghouls 'N Ghosts menu screen so I'll use that as an example. Obviously these all need to be viewed fullscreen... No shader: CRT Royale: CRT Royale Kurozumi: CRT Easymode Halation: Take a look at the text in the lower portion of the screen in these. Notice the glow? See how garish it is on the two Royale shaders? I generally prefer Kurozumi over normal Royale but for this particular issue it's worse - there's almost no gradation at all and it just looks like somebody opened up photoshop and took a circular brush, white color, and about 10% opacity and just smeared it over the text... Now look at the CRT Easymode Halation screenshot. The glow is still there (compare to the shot with no shader) but it's much more subtle and doesn't look like a photoshop paintbrush. If I were sitting halfway across the room from my monitor, I'd prefer Kurozumi, but I'm using a 40" Vizio TV as my monitor and I sit about 2' away from it so that glow is just so garish and over the top that it bugs the hell out of me. Just for giggles, here's a shot from MAMEUI with my HLSL settings:

[Lordmonkus]

The Ghouls N Ghosts screen I posted in that other thread was from my Mame HLSL setup. There is definitely a layer of personal preference when it comes to shaders, everyone has a different look that they like. Something else to take into consideration with Royale and Royale-Kurozumi is the monitors resolution, they work best at >1080 because of pixel density. Also a displays colour calibration can effect them a fair amount. That glow you are talking about with Royale-Kurozumi is really noticeable and offputting on screenshots and even more so when it's on a pure black background like in the screenshot but once you are actually in game with lots of colours in motion and a quick response monitor it becomes unnoticeable. I do agree with you on the Easymode-Halation though, that does look really good. I will have to give that one another shot for an extended period.

[Zombeaver]

lordmonkus said The Ghouls N Ghosts screen I posted in that other thread was from my Mame HLSL setup.

Yeah, I know - that's why I posted my MAME HLSL in the last image.

lordmonkus said Also a displays colour calibration can effect them a fair amount.

True. I use a THX calibration tool for calibrating all of my TVs. I usually spend a couple hours whenever I get a new one tweaking color balance, temperature, contrast etc.

lordmonkus said That glow you are talking about with Royale-Kurozumi is really noticeable and offputting on screenshots and even more so when it's on a pure black background like in the screenshot but once you are actually in game with lots of colours in motion and a quick response monitor it becomes unnoticeable.

Ehh...less noticeable? Yes. Unnoticeable? No, not for me. It's distracting enough that it made me look for alternatives in the first place.

lordmonkus said I do agree with you on the Easymode-Halation though, that does look really good. I will have to give that one another shot for an extended period.

Out of everything, I prefer my MAME HLSL settings the most, but Easymode-Halation is actually pretty similar and has been the one that I keep coming back to in Retroarch. Like you said, it's all subjective, but to me it's just the most consistently good looking for all situations (other than vertical shooters of course).

[Lordmonkus]

Here's a screenshot in game Streets of Rage, I don't see any of that glow that you see in the Ghouls N Ghosts title screen and it's a static shot not in motion. The glow is definitely noticeable and ugly on a static screen with black background but like I said in a game with colour and motion it becomes unnoticeable for me. I don't know if the response time of the display would have any effect on a game in motion or not but for what it's worth I use a high end gaming monitor with a 1ms gtg response. http://imgur.com/tyMFSiP I would love a way to try my HLSL settings in Retroarch to compare to its shaders though.

[Zombeaver]

So after doing some testing, I think you've discovered a very real bug @chicomandell. For some reason LB seems to be mixing up cores/configs among CPS1, CPS2, and Arcade. I created a new emulator entry that I just called "Retroarch - Test". I wanted to test some CPS-2 roms with this. So the first thing I did was add associated platforms for only CPS-2 and Arcade: Based on this setup, using this emulator entry for a game that's in the "Capcom CPS-2" platform in my library shouldn't actually do anything at all because I don't have a core associated with that platform in the emulator entry. But... it loads up fba_libretro... which I have as associated with "Arcade". That's... not supposed to happen. So then I tried swapping the core over to CPS-2 and leaving the Arcade one blank. Based on the previous test, I actually expected this scenario to not load at all...but it did load...with fba_libretro. Which...is what's supposed to happen. This left me a little perplexed... So then, just to make absolutely certain something odd was going on, I added in a config modifier specifically for "Arcade" only. I launch the CPS-2 game...and it's using the custom config... So then I swapped the custom config position over to the CPS-2 platform and left the Arcade one as the base core... ...and it didn't load the custom config in Retroarch. Again...not what should be happening. So I went and checked my primary Retroarch entry and looked at the CPS-1, CPS-2, and Arcade entries. They're all using fba_libretro core, but I noticed... The config that it's loading for CPS-2? It's the config that I have associated with CPS-1 in the emulator entry... @Jason, I definitely think you should take a look at this if you get a moment. There's something clearly amiss here... EDIT: Also, @lordmonkus I see them all over that screenshot haha. It is less obvious than with bright color on top of a lot of complete black (like in the Ghouls N' Ghosts screenshots) but all you have to do is look at any areas that are particularly dark and you'll see them. The effect also tends to move/shift in a way that's different from the way graphics on the consoles themselves move...almost like it's too smooth. It's hard to describe. It's especially noticeable when stuff is fading in and out. I know it's picky but it's one of those things where it's like once I've seen it and noticed it, then I look for it, and I can't unsee it and it ends up bugging the crap out of me EDIT 2: Looking at this same image on my work monitor I can barely see it at all. My home monitor is obviously setup with higher contrast because it's really apparent there; it's also about twice the size so there's that too...

[DOS76]

This was talked about yesterday in the live stream something to do if you are using the scrape as function it is assigning it that platforms parameters or something along those lines. I don't remember if it was fixed or not.

[CriticalCid]

It was fixed. Quote from the changelog of the latest beta:

- Fixed: Scrape As platforms were using command-line parameters for "Scrape As" platform in the associated platforms for emulators instead of the proper platform name

[Zombeaver]

Ah, okay. That's really good to hear. Honestly, I read that note in the changelog and it didn't even occur to me that it had anything to do with this. I've had the CPS platforms in my library prior to the existence of scrape-as functionality; before the Games DB even existed for that matter. For some reason I interpreted that as an issue affecting new imports to the library. I'm not on the newest beta so I'll update tonight. Thanks for letting me know! This is definitely the source of the OP's problem.

chicomandell said I actually got it to work by setting FBA as the default core for Arcade as well. It seems to use that instead of the Capcom CPS1 settings for some reason.

[Lordmonkus]

@Zombeaver Just out of curiosity what size resolution is your home monitor ? Just for reference I have the Asus PG278Q 27" 1440p monitor. It's obviously a display thing with what you are seeing in that screenshot because you said you can barely see it on your work display and looking at the areas you pointed out I don't see any of the outline blur that is really noticeable in the GnG title screen. Anyways since this is way off topic now I will just leave it at what I have said before. Royale and the Kurozumi edit really does vary in its look from display to display and they are meant for greater than 1080 monitors. Even 1440 can be a bit off because those shader presets were more or less meant for 4k displays. I have tried Royale on my TV and my old 22" monitor it looked absolutely hideous but on my new monitor they look really good. It's a good thing we have all sorts of shader options to get the right setup for personal tastes and individual display types :)

[Zombeaver]

It's a Vizio E371VA. It's a 37" 1080P TV and I sit about 2' away from it. I also have an E55-C1 in my living room which is a nicer TV; also 1080p. I can see the "bloom" there as well, although it's not very obvious sitting across the room on my couch. Both are thoroughly calibrated. I don't think it has anything to do with the resolution to be honest. That's something that certainly has an impact on scanlines looking correct, but that isn't my issue with either one. Higher resolution isn't going to make Kurozumi suddenly have gradation on its phosphor bloom. It's still going to look like a white smeared Photoshop brush...on a 4k image! *the sound of a crowd going "Ooooh" can be heard in the distance* If anything, that'd probably make it more noticeable. Sitting 2' away from a 40ish inch TV, at any resolution, with bright colors on top of a dark background...you're gonna see it. Meanwhile CRT-Easymode-Halation also has phosphor bloom but looks perfectly fine in that same scenario. I found this post by hunterk over at Retroarch about editing CRT-Royale-Kurozumi and noticed this:

// Blur all colors more than necessary for a softer phosphor bloom? static const float bloom_excess_static = 0.0; // range [0, 1]

That sounds like it has potential. I may try messing with that. We should...probably just start a "The Big Bag-O-Shaders Thread" ...thread. Haha

[chicomandell]

Just a followup on this issue from the OP. After I removed all the platforms that I could think that the lightspeed tool might have created and recreated the CPS1 and CPS2 from scratch all is working as expected. They point to the cores that I set them to and not to the Arcade core. Something in that utility must've hard coded a path in the XML somewhere. I haven't updated the Beta version that was mentioned in some of the other posts, so I don't know that this was the cause of my issue.

[Zombeaver]

Are you sure you're not just on 6.7 official now? Because it should be out and fixed now. I've never touched Lightspeed and it was misdirecting cores for CPS-1, CPS-2, and Arcade prior.

[chicomandell]

I'm still on 6.6 at the moment. I hadn't been prompted to update yet.

[Zombeaver]

Hmm. Have you closed out and reloaded LB? It prompts you on a new session. According to the Launchbox twitter 6.7 was put out about 2 hours ago.

[chicomandell]

I'm sure it probably will prompt me if I restart the app. I was just saying that since I was still on 6.6 I don't think it was that issue that you all were talking about before. Because I had added other "custom" platforms in the past and had no issue. Whatever it was it's working the way I wanted now, so I'm happy.

[Lordmonkus]

@Zombeaver Yeah another thread would be a good idea. I will have a poke around with that setting you mentioned and see what happens. I am by no means an expert in shaders and how they actually work or anything but I would think pixel density could have an effect if the shader is telling something to bloom a certain number of pixels. A larger display @1080 would bloom further distance than a smaller display @1440 (again I am no expert and just guessing here). Also the difference could be in the fact that my monitor is a TN panel when I assume your TVs are IPS which have more glow to them. On my 42" Samsung TV I wouldn't use Royale or Kurozumi even if the PC hooked up to it could run it because they look like ass on the TV. There has to be something to the type of display because like I said outside of those pure black background static parts of a game like the GnG title screen that bloom just is not noticeable on my monitor. You are seeing it in the SoR sceenshot I posted but on my display it just isn't there.

[Zombeaver]

I can confirm that after upgrading to 6.7 official the problem I was experiencing above has been resolved. Everything seems to be routed correctly now between CPS-1, CPS-2, NeoGeo, and Arcade for me. I have custom configs for two of them and when launching associated games it's launching the correct core with the correct custom config, and the ones that don't have custom configs are launching the correct core and just show "retroarch.cfg". That's a relief...