MAME / RetroArch: Set different shader for vertical games

[8Phantasm]

What would be the best way of setting the vertical games to use a different shader in RetroArch when I load those?

I am currently using a MAME romset in Launchbox (Arcade Platform) set to launch RetroArch MAME 0.170 core.
The shader I like to use for horizontal games is crt-royale-kurozumi.cgp. This shader does not work for vertical but I found
one that does. I just don't really know the best way of going about configuring all the vertical games to use another shader.

If anyone knows, Thanks for the help!
 

[Lordmonkus]

The easiest way is to use stand alone Mame.

To do it for Retroarch you will need to find a shader that works for vertical games or one that is smart enough to auto rotate and generate a new config file. Then in Launchbox use a custom command for all your vertical games to use that config you generated for vertical games.

With stand alone MameUI you can just use the vertical and horizontal filters on the left hand panel and bulk set them to use Lottes CRT vertical shader and normal shader. Or do what I do and just use HLSL settings which is smart and doesn't care if a game is horizontal or vertical and looks great. It's even really easy to tweak for your personal tastes.

[8Phantasm]

Thanks bro. What is the custom launchbox command to use a different config, though? I agree standalone MAME is better at the moment, but I can't get the HLSL to look as good as crt-royale-kurozumi.

EDIT: I suppose I could just set the vertical games to load standalone MAME also. That might be a better solution as HLSL is probably better than any of the vertical shaders I can find in RetroArch.

Edited August 19, 2016 by 8Phantasm

[Lordmonkus]

-L "cores\core.dll" -c "conifg\Config.cfg"

That would be the command you would need.

Here is a screen shot of Ghouls N Ghosts using my HLSL settings.View it full size. Personally I actually like it better than Royale-Kurozumi and I use Kurozumi for all my console emulation.

[8Phantasm]

Looks good enough but I don't think it looks better than crt-royale-kurozumi. I think you have the wrong aspect ratio also cause the game is squashed horizontally.

Thank you for the command!

Edited August 19, 2016 by 8Phantasm

[Lordmonkus]

Aspect should be correct I have keepaspect set to 1 in the mame.ini file. Unless I am missing some other setting somewhere.

I agree Kurozumi is tough to beat though.

Edit: There is something off with the screen shot aspect though. In game it is fine but taking a screen shot messes with the aspect. I just tested it out and something is getting screwed up in the screen shot.

[Lordmonkus]

Here is a zip fie with a couple of txt files containing my HLSL settings if you want to try them out. There are 2 txt files because there are 2 files you will need to edit. There is also a readme.txt that should explain what you need to do.

mame hlsl settings.zip

[8Phantasm]

Thanks for sharing that lord, I'll check it out and compare it to MAMEUIFX default raster.ini. the UIFX default is setup pretty good, I don't think it can be improved much beyond overbrightness.
I just noticed certain games, I guess something 3D like 1 on 1 Government... in RetroArch with crt-royale-kurozumi it doesn't work right cause it "jitters". I've seen it before in other 3D stuff like
Fighter's Megamix on Saturn.

Edited August 20, 2016 by 8Phantasm

[Lordmonkus]

Actually the default settings are pretty bad. They don't need drastic changes to get them better but they do need tweaking.

[8Phantasm]

Are you referring to default MAME or default MAMEUIFX or default MAMEUI? Those are three different things. I'm talking about MAMEUIFX.

Edited August 20, 2016 by 8Phantasm

[Lordmonkus]

Well I use just the standard command line version of Mame but MameUI is the same. I can't say for sure with MameUIFX since I don't know the differences if there are any at all.

[8Phantasm]

MAMEUIFX is definitely different as they tried to make it look good with default settings. Anyway I'm probably gonna switch to standalone MAME instead of RetroArch.
Their current 0.174 core is bugged and the working one is 0.170. I was really just using it for crt-royale.

Edited August 20, 2016 by 8Phantasm

[DOS76]

The default shader appearing nice to one of you and needing work to another could just be differences in opinion over how you like your games to look. I find shaders to be a very subjective matter and if you asked a room full of people which image they preferred you would probably get a myriad of answers. Could also be influenced by monitor differences and other variables too.

[8Phantasm]

That's true. I'm not really completely satisfied with any shaders, to be honest. I would much prefer using an actual SD CRT TV or Sony BVM/PVM setup.

EDIT: But... He was talking about MAME's default HLSL settings, which I agree are not good. Default MAMEUIFX HLSL settings looks similar to what he is currently using.

Edited August 20, 2016 by 8Phantasm

[8Phantasm]

19 hours ago, lordmonkus said:

Here is a zip fie with a couple of txt files containing my HLSL settings if you want to try them out. There are 2 txt files because there are 2 files you will need to edit. There is also a readme.txt that should explain what you need to do.

mame hlsl settings.zip

I tried them and it's pretty much the same thing as MAMEUIFX default for the most part. There are some slight setting differences but it looks the same. I like to just make the scanlines a little darker and remove a little bloom so it doesn't change so much of the colors and drown out scanlines. I also like to add a touch of convergence and hum bar.

[Lordmonkus]

Ok. well like I said I haven't used MameUIFX and looked at it's default settings so I cannot comment on them at all. The nice thing about HLSL is that it is so easy to tweak to personal taste by using the sliders in the UI with a game running and keeping track of what you like and just editing the ini files accordingly. The default settings ones at least from 172 and newer aren't super atrocious but they have too much bloom and the gamma settings are too high washing out the blacks.

Like DOS76 said, shaders are extremely personal preference and individual monitors affect their appearance. Royale-Kurozumi and HLSL shaders really like resolutions >1080. In the end it comes down to what you like and what looks good to you on your display.

HLSL just makes it a set it and forget it deal, no messing around with setting different settings for vertical and horizontal and with some tweaking you can get the luck that suits your tastes.

[8Phantasm]

I keep hearing about > than 1080p, which I'm sure is true. Unfortunately my 47" is 1080p, but I make sacrifices for the size. I'd like to see royale on 1440p, but honestly it still looks great on 1080 even though others say use a different shader. Nothing else I tried seems to look as good, though.

[Lordmonkus]

Yeah it looks good @ 1080, I used to play on a 1080 monitor but since upgrading to a 1400 monitor it looks nicer.

It's all about the pixel density being high enough to convincingly achieve the CRT look. Royale and HLSL from what I have read from various sources really shines on 4k displays.

If I wasn't using Royale-Kurozumi I think my next choice would be Easymode-Halation.

[8Phantasm]

I've been screwing with HLSL all day yesterday (and this morning). I just can't get it anywhere near looking as authentic as crt-royale-kurozumi, even though that's not really an arcade monitor but a Sony PVM-like shader.
It's still the only thing that looks realistic to me, but that's my opinion and preference of course. So this means I have to use RetroArch for the horizontal games, which is unfortunate because they don't really keep it up to date often.
I'll either end up using the custom config in RetroArch for vertical games, or standalone MAME with HLSL. I guess this just depends on if I can find a shader that looks better than HLSL in RetroArch for vertical games or not.
I'll have to try easymode-halation to see if it even flips the scanlines for vertical games.

[Lordmonkus]

Yeah Kurozumi looks amazing no question about it but it doesn't work with vertical games.

So in the end you got 4 options.

1. Use Kurozumi for horizontal games and find a shader for vertical games and set up each vertical game to use a custom shader which is time consuming.

2. Find a Retroarch shader that works for vertical and horizontal games.

3. Use MameUI and using the vertical and horizontal filters bulk edit each section to use lottes and lottes-vertical.

4. Use HLSL.