What Is the Most Accurate CRT TV Shader and Accurate Aspect Ratio?

[ChristopherNeff]

I have no idea where to post this as I did not see a "General" option when selecting where to post this so I hope this is the right/best area. Hi, I have been using Retro Arch for a few years now, but I am new on the forums and am starting to get serious about accuracy. I hope this is the right spot to put this thread in. If not, then feel free to move it to the appropriate area. I also should probably break this up into separate threads, but I’m going to try to put this all into one. This is going to be a very long post, so please bear with me, and I hope that my questions aren’t stupid or annoying to any of you guys. Thank you.

1. My first questions are that I noticed that Retro Arch takes over a minute to launch, reset, load games, etc. I read that it has to do with having a Corsair Keyboard plugged in and also the Corsair iCUE software running. I have to constantly unplug my Keyboard and then start Retro Arch and then plug it back in. Is there any fix to this yet?

2. What is the most Cycle Accurate Cores in Retro Arch right now? There are 18 systems that I am currently emulating. 1. Atari Jaguar. 2. TurboGrafx 16. 3. Sega Genesis. 4. NES. 5. SNES. 6. GB. 7. GBC. 8. GBA. 9. N64. 10. PSX/PSONE. 11. PSP. 12. Sega Dream Cast. 13. PS2. 14. GC. 15. Wii. 16. Arcade. 17. DS. 18. 3DS. What is the most Cycle Accurate Cores for these systems? I know for example, that BSNES is the best one for SNES, or so I’ve heard anyway. Also, are the default settings for the cycle accurate cores perfect out of the box, or do I need to change/tweak any of them? Like for example, the N64 Core: Parallel is the most accurate from what I’ve heard, but the default settings on it are far from accurate. I had to change the GFX plugin to Angry Lion, and the RSP plugin to CXD4, and the Glide 64 Texture Rendering to N64 3-Point etc.

3. What is the most accurate aspect ratio for the systems? I hear some people say Core Provided, and others say 4:3. Could I just manually set Retro Arch to 4:3 to force every system and game to be 4:3 and be done with it or is it not that simple? Note: I don’t care about Pixel Perfect crap or what the developers intended the correct aspect ratio to be. My idea of accurate is the nostalgic version, meaning, whatever the aspect ratio was for Consumer CRT TV’s back in the day. Not professional ones either, consumer.

4. Why is it that some games and systems seem to be different aspect ratios when I have everything set to forced 4:3 in Retro Arch’s main settings? What I mean is that in some games and consoles, the game perfectly fills the entire CRT TV Overlay/Border, whereas in other games and systems, there are black bars on the tops and bottoms or slightly on the sides. Or in Paper Mario for example, on the intro, main menu, file select screens and the little prologue that plays if you let the screen sit there for a while, the entire screen is filled, yet when you go to actually play the game and select your file, the actual game itself has black borders all around the entire game. I don’t remember it doing that when I played the game as a kid on a real CRT TV.

   https://imgur.com/a/RiHLFpY Ape Escape has everything fill the entire screen.

   https://imgur.com/a/K66BqH1 Spyro the Dragon has a slight black bar on the top of the screen.

   https://imgur.com/a/DhxqqwH The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has everything fill the entire screen.

   https://imgur.com/a/8fpI3ux Super Mario 64 has a slight black bar on the top of the screen.

   https://imgur.com/a/bj5Kl7D Paper Mario has everything fill the entire screen on the main screen, menu select, intro, prologue etc.

   https://imgur.com/a/JtwmIke However, start the actual game and now there are black borders all around the entire screen. On the top and bottom, and slightly on the left and right.

5. Or some games barely have anything cut off on the edges of the screen when I have my CRT TV Overlay/Border in place, whereas some other games seem to have more cut off to the point where some of the letters are slightly cut off on the bottom or some of the letters or image is slightly cut off to the sides or the top.

   https://imgur.com/a/WnxuLgk Tomba! has the bottom of the letters slightly cut off. Where it says Village of All Beginnings, the second one, not the first one, the bottom parts of both of the g letters are cut off.

   https://imgur.com/a/UnxYYcO Same game, on the left, the letters themselves are not cut off, but the blue selection circle, or square or whatever that weird shape is, has the left part cut off. Also, the green leaves around the menu selections are also slightly cut off to the left.

   https://imgur.com/a/p4OUwcd Kirby: Super Star has the green bar at the top of the screen slightly cut off.

   https://imgur.com/a/O1GujS1 Illusion of Gaia: This one is harder to notice but on the right part of the huge word Gaia, you will notice that there are two little letters next to it that says TM. Half of the letter M from the TM are cut off.

   https://imgur.com/a/Kn5uYsl Spyro the Dragon again: On the bottom part of the screen, where you see where it says the studio info stuff, on the left where it says Spyro, the S is slightly cut off. On the right where it says INC, half of the letter C is cut off.

6. Which leads me to this: Are there any CRT TV Overlays/Borders as awesome as the one in my screenshots and videos but that perfectly fits 4:3 so that way, nothing is cut off on the edges of the screen? I don’t want to have to use custom to make them fit, because then it won’t be exact 4:3 anymore and I don’t know the exact numbers to fill in to make sure it’s even on all sides if that makes sense. When I say perfect fit, I don’t mean literally everything as I understand that developers deliberately left the edges blank or put the important info stuff lower down or more centered most of the time because most consumer CRT TV’s back in the day cropped the image and cut off some of the edges. But they never cut off bits of the actual image or letters like they are in my screenshots. That’s what I need help fixing.

7. Also, how do I make it so that every single system and game all has the same exact 4:3 aspect ratio and all completely covers the CRT TV Overlay/Border screen without having any sort of black bars or borders? When I played my games on an old CRT TV as a kid, I don’t remember there being any black bars or borders on anything. I remember every game and system perfectly filling in the entire screen. I also don’t remember having to constantly change my TV’s aspect ratio for different games and systems to make them fill the entire screen either as I would not have known anything about that back then as a kid. I want everything to be consistent across the board and be the same exact aspect ratio of 4:3. Having it set in Retro Arch’s main menu settings should have enabled that, but apparently not. I’m tired of different systems, and even different games of the same system all looking slightly different aspect ratio wise when I have the same setting applied across the entirety of Retro Arch to prevent exactly that. I need help fixing that.

8. What are the most accurate overlays/borders for the different systems? I know I have that CRT TV Overlay/Border set for the old retro systems, but what about newer ones such as GC, PS2, Wii etc.? Or handhelds such as GB, GBC, GBA, PSP etc. Or for Arcade/MAME.

9. What is the most accurate CRT TV Shader for the systems? This is the real meat of my thread, and the one I need help with the most. When I say accurate, I don’t mean as in developer accurate or professional monitor accurate. I mean as in old consumer CRT TV accurate that you would see in the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s. Nostalgia. I don’t necessarily want blurry or snowy/foggy, but I also don’t want the crisp, sharp look that most professional CRT monitors look like and that most shaders emulate. The reason I ask is this: Most everyone on the internet claims that CRT-Royale is the most accurate shader for CRT TV’s. But is it, and if so, is it the most accurate as in professional monitors or as in old, consumer CRT TV’s? It just doesn’t seem to be what I remember a CRT TV looking like back in the day. It seems almost too crisp and sharp. It’s not that I want blurry, but the shader just doesn’t seem to be what I remember. Perhaps my memory is just off? Is it that default settings in the Shader Parameters aren’t what I want them to be, and that I need to adjust them to make the shader emulate an old consumer CRT TV accurately? If so, then what are the exact settings that I need to put in if anybody knows? If not, and CRT-Royale isn’t what I want, then does anybody know what CRT TV Shader I need to use?

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDDOVCTKj_0&ab_channel=ChristopherNeff Here is a video I uploaded to YouTube showcasing the CRT-Royale in action.

   What I remember being the most accurate are some of the shaders in the old Analog Shader Pack that no longer works for newer Retro Arch versions, so I have a 1.9.0 version as well since that is the last version that worked. In that Shader Pack, I used one in the Vintage TV section known as Dirty Atari TV Shader. I customized the parameters too in order to make it look like what I wanted. I set halation and diffusion from 27 both to zero. I set brightness from 75 to 90. Then I took the CRT TV Geom Target Gamma setting and set it from 2.40 to 1.40. It may not be perfect so that’s where any other advice will come in really handy here.

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3fOaYo19M0&ab_channel=ChristopherNeff Here is a video I uploaded to YouTube showcasing the Dirty Atari TV Shader from the Analog Shader Pack with my customized settings in action.

   Which one is the more accurate looking? Is it really still the CRT-Royale shader one, or my customized Dirty Atari TV shader one? Do my custom settings look good for it, or are there any other tweaks I should make in the Shader Parameters to make it look as close to perfect as possible? If anyone knows any settings I should change/tweak, please let me know. If it is the CRT-Royale Shader that is the most accurate, then is it really the most accurate out of the box as shown in my video, or is there any settings I need to change/tweak to make it look more like what I remember an old consumer CRT TV looking like? If neither one is what I want, then I would greatly appreciate it if someone can tell me what Shader I need to get and what settings I need to change/tweak in the Shader Parameters to make it look like an authentic, old consumer CRT TV. Also, if there are any shaders that work with the newest version of Retro Arch or if I will have to stick with the older 1.9.0 version. Also, is there any way to make the Analog Shader Pack work with the newest Retro Arch? Will anybody convert the pack to GLSL or Slang for example?

10. What are the most accurate shaders for handheld systems such as GB, GBC, GBA, PSP, DS, 3DS etc.?

11. What is the most accurate CRT Arcade Monitor shader for arcade games such as MAME? I hear people say CRT-Lottes, but it just doesn’t seem to be what I remember arcade games looking like either. Unless my memory is wrong here too, I remember the games having more over blown out colors which the Lottes Shader doesn’t seem to do. I like some of the Arcade Monitor shaders that were found in the Analog Shader Pack. So, I would appreciate it if you can tell me the best shader and any parameters I need to change/tweak. Note: I would like to make the arcade versions of Gauntlet Legends and Gauntlet Dark Legacy in particular look as much like the old Arcade Cabinet versions as possible.

12. I hear that Integer Scaling is something that you want to have turned on and enabled for games because it makes the scan lines even. Is that true, and if so, is Integer Scaling for the professional monitor look or the old consumer CRT TV look? In other words, is perfect even scan lines what an old consumer CRT TV would have had or is wobbly scan lines what it would have had? If it doesn’t make it look like what the old, consumer CRT TVs would have looked like, then I am going to leave it off as I don’t want anything that will ruin the purity. So, should I enable it or leave it off?

13. Is 4K and Integer Scaling really needed for CRT-Royale? I have Integer Scaling turned off and am running on 1080P, 1920x1080. Wouldn’t 4K and Integer Scaling ruin the purity of the old consumer CRT TV look I am going for? I want the OG resolutions of those games.

14. I tried Integer Scaling and it seems to make it a small window on my games with black borders surrounding the games. How do I make it fill the entire CRT TV Overlay/Border while still keeping the 4:3 aspect ratio? If I try to change the size config, it’s either the small screen or it’s so huge that almost all of the game is cut off and it’s so zoomed in that I only see the character’s feet for example if that makes sense. They must have changed something in the Retro Arch settings, because at one time, you could change those settings and only have a little bit of the image cut off, but now it seems to be all or nothing. I am on 1080P, 1920x1080 as when I try to set my Desktop resolution to 4K, the Integer Scaling then fills up the entire Overlay/Border like I want but Retro Arch halts to a snail speed when I load it or a game while I have CRT-Royale enabled with screen curvature. My PC specs are: 8 GB DDR3 RAM, Intel 4790-K Quad Core CPU, and Nvidia GTX GeForce 750 TI GPU.

15. What should I have my actual TV settings on? The reason I ask is this: From what I remember, old, consumer CRT TV’s back in the day that were not calibrated were set to a more blueish look, whereas calibrated sets were set to a warmer look. Well, I calibrated my TV to be as close to the D65 Color Standard as possible, but when I am playing old games, I want the purity uncalibrated look if that makes sense.

    I have the Samsung KU7000 UHD 4K TV and I followed this guide to set the TV to the D65 Color Standard: https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/samsung/ku7000/settings As you can see, it shows all of the menu selection items. So, what should I tweak in those to make it look like the old, consumer, uncalibrated CRT TV’s? Should Sharpness be at 0 or not? Should Dynamic Contrast be on or off? Should Color Temperature be at Warm 2 or Standard, or Cool? Should Color Space be Auto or Native? Native makes the colors more vibrant and overly saturated as an example. Out of all of those menu selection items on that site, what should I tweak everything to in order to get that perfect old, consumer, uncalibrated CRT TV look?

16. How do I get the BIOS splash screens to play on all of the cores when launching a game? I have all the BIOS files for my cores, and they are all in the System folder of Retro Arch, but not all the cores will play the splash screen. Like, GC for example, doesn’t do the purple, spinning GC logo when launching a game like it does when you turn on a real GC system. PSP doesn’t do the white and green splash screen with the little da-ding jingle that plays when launching a game like it does when you load a game from the XMB Menu of an actual PSP system.

Thank you for answering my questions and I am sorry if my post is too long and/or detailed and annoying or the questions are stupid et cetera.

 

[SiriusVI]

I don't know if I can help you, but I've been struggling with similar problems. Take everything I write with a huge grain of salt, because I don't really know what I'm talking about, I just have a lot of experience due to trial and error, haha.

3. The most accurate aspect ratio for retro games is 4:3 if you don't care about pixel perfect resolutions.

4. I also noticed that N64 games have various different video screen sizes. You could try using a game like Mario 64, which has black bars and zoom in until the black bars disappear. That means that in other games, more of the video screen will be "cropped" (e.g. Mario Kart 64), but I guess this is normal, since I also don't remember there being black bars on a CRT TV. But my memory might be playing tricks on me as well.
I guess if you do this, you should also disable any type of image cropping in Retroarch and in the N64 emulator core options, because you will be doing the cropping manually via zooming. But again, I'm not sure.

5. Again, this might be due to cropping settings in retroarch's video options emulator core cropping options. Try disabling them.

6. & 7. I don't think the problems are the overlay, I think it's cropping settings.

8. I reccommend @Mr. RetroLust's lights out bezels for consoles. They require however that you manually move the game screens around, so that might not be what you are looking for. He also offers Mame bezels, but you need a 4k TV for them. If you are on a 1080p screeen, you can use @Orionsangel's bezels for mame. They work and look great as well.

9. I never liked CRT Royal, but this might be due to my not having a 4k screen. I like CRT Geom, but the curvature effect makes me nauseous in fast side scrollers like Donkey Kong Country. At the moment I use a combination of an ntsc with s-video preset found in (... shaders/shaders_slang/ntsc/shaders/ ...) and aferwards CRT Geom without the curvature. I don't know if this is authentic, but it looks and feels nice to me.

10. For handhelds there are amazing presets in the Retroarch handheld shader folder. They come with bezels, too. 

11. I don't know, I have little experiences with arcade machines.

12. & 14. from what I've read, integer scaling is required when using CRT shaders. However, you can't customize the screen when using integer scaling. Since I use @Mr. RetroLust's bezels, I cannot use integer scaling. My sort of compromise is leaving the vertical resolution on an integer-corresponding value and then adjusting the horizontal screen size and the size of the bezel itself to make the screen fit. It's kind of a hack to be honest, but it works. If your vertical screen size is not a multiple of an integer, the scanlines will look terrible.

13. from what I've read, yes.

16. Some emulators support loading the bios splash screen before running the games, some don't. I don't think that's something you can force.

[Mr. RetroLust]

6 minutes ago, SiriusVI said:

I don't know if I can help you, but I've been struggling with similar problems. Take everything I write with a huge grain of salt, because I don't really know what I'm talking about, I just have a lot of experience due to trial and error, haha.

3. The most accurate aspect ratio for retro games is 4:3 if you don't care about pixel perfect resolutions.

4. I also noticed that N64 games have various different video screen sizes. You could try using a game like Mario 64, which has black bars and zoom in until the black bars disappear. That means that in other games, more of the video screen will be "cropped" (e.g. Mario Kart 64), but I guess this is normal, since I also don't remember there being black bars on a CRT TV. But my memory might be playing tricks on me as well.
I guess if you do this, you should also disable any type of image cropping in Retroarch and in the N64 emulator core options, because you will be doing the cropping manually via zooming. But again, I'm not sure.

5. Again, this might be due to cropping settings in retroarch's video options emulator core cropping options. Try disabling them.

6. & 7. I don't think the problems are the overlay, I think it's cropping settings.

8. I reccommend @Mr. RetroLust's lights out bezels for consoles. They require however that you manually move the game screens around, so that might not be what you are looking for. He also offers Mame bezels, but you need a 4k TV for them. If you are on a 1080p screeen, you can use @Orionsangel's bezels for mame. They work and look great as well.

9. I never liked CRT Royal, but this might be due to my not having a 4k screen. I like CRT Geom, but the curvature effect makes me nauseous in fast side scrollers like Donkey Kong Country. At the moment I use a combination of an ntsc with s-video preset found in (... shaders/shaders_slang/ntsc/shaders/ ...) and aferwards CRT Geom without the curvature. I don't know if this is authentic, but it looks and feels nice to me.

10. For handhelds there are amazing presets in the Retroarch handheld shader folder. They come with bezels, too. 

11. I don't know, I have little experiences with arcade machines.

12. & 14. from what I've read, integer scaling is required when using CRT shaders. However, you can't customize the screen when using integer scaling. Since I use @Mr. RetroLust's bezels, I cannot use integer scaling. My sort of compromise is leaving the vertical resolution on an integer-corresponding value and then adjusting the horizontal screen size and the size of the bezel itself to make the screen fit. It's kind of a hack to be honest, but it works. If your vertical screen size is not a multiple of an integer, the scanlines will look terrible.

13. from what I've read, yes.

16. Some emulators support loading the bios splash screen before running the games, some don't. I don't think that's something you can force.

8. If i'm not mistaken the 4k bezels would work on a 1080p screen as well, they should auto resize.

[SiriusVI]

2 minutes ago, Mr. RetroLust said:

8. If i'm not mistaken the 4k bezels would work on a 1080p screen as well, they should auto resize.

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear, because I've already typed so much. They do work fine on mame standalone. I was referring to the lights out mame bezels for retroarch. The only work on a 4k TV. On a 1080p screen, you have to manually resize the screens unfortunately.

I love your bezels, they add so much atmosphere to playing retro games. I would very much like to also use your retroarch mame bezels, but I cannot bring myself to manually resize the screens (yet). I guess I could just use mame standalone, but I really like having the all in one in all solution that retroarch offers. I might change my mind in the future though =).

[Lordmonkus]

Wow, what a first post, a total wall of text but i'll try and answer what I can.

1. Loading times are system dependent, who knows what you got going on but RA doesn't take that long to load for me.

2. Damn, just ask for accurate cores for every single system when a lot of those only have 1 core. We have threads here on the forums with recommended cores and emulators. Retroarch isn't the best at everything though it is for a lot of things.

3. 4:3 is the most accurate aspect ratio of course because that is what old CRT TVs are. I use Core Provided personally and it works great. "Pixel perfect crap" isn't about what the devs intended, it's about having 1:1 aspect ratio on the pixels themselves to prevent shimmering when games scroll. This shimmering is something many people find extremely annoying but generally speaking it is only something that is a problem when not using any shaders, shaders hide the shimmering.

4. Some games are just that way, has nothing to do with the system, it's just how the game was.

5. Same as #4.

6. Bezels / borders are a subjective opinion. What I find good you may not like and vice versa.

7. With a lot of manual tweaking.

8. There is no such thing as "most accurate overlays/borders". This is not something that was in the game, you just use whatever suits your personal taste.

9. There is no such thing as "most accurate crt shader". Every TV was different, some people like the more lower grade consumer TV look while others prefer a more higher end TV look like a Sony Trinitron or even a commercial grade PVM / BVM. Also personal preference.

10. There are some handheld specific shaders, you just have to look through the shaders and find the one you prefer.

11. Same as the previous responses and the reason shaders don't look like how you remember is because shaders are not perfect recreations. A lot of how a shader looks is very much dependent upon the display you are using. Typical monitors and TVs are not capable yet of replicating a CRT TVs look. They are getting better though with 4K and 8K OLED displays.

12. This is true though it can depend on the shader. Some shaders are better suited to non integer scaling, it will adjust the scanlines to they are even but generally speaking you should have integer scaling on. It is a shader by shader thing though.

13. CRT-Royale is designed to look best at 4K and with integer scaling on. Obviously you can use it at lower resolutions but you won't get its full intended look, 1080p just doesn't have the detail required for the shader.

14. Yes, integer scaling on a 1080p display will have a small border at the top and bottom or cut off the image. This is due to how math works, typically these old games are 240 pixels high. If you scale 4x that equals 960 pixels leaving you a border, if you scale 5x that gives you 1200 which pushes the image off the top and bottom edges. Scaling at 4.5 will give you 1080 pixels high but now you end up with uneven pixels. It's all a trade off on a 1080p display, if you want integer scaling and going to the edges of the screen you need either a 1440 or 4k display.

15. Another personal preference and your display question. You set it up to your preference.

16. Depends on the emulator, check its settings.

[ChristopherNeff]

"There is no such thing as "most accurate crt shader". Every TV was different, some people like the more lower grade consumer TV look while others prefer a more higher end TV look like a Sony Trinitron or even a commercial grade PVM / BVM. Also personal preference."

 

I was saying in my first thread that I wanted something NOT of the professional CRT monitor accurate, but rather the old consumer CRT TV accurate you would see in the 70's, 80's or 90's.

A lot of people say that CRT-Royale is accurate to a CRT TV. Is it, because unless I am remembering wrong, I remember CRT TV's back in the day having overly blown out colors and contrast but the CRT-Royale almost seems too sharp, and crrisp like it's HD or Modern or something.

 

Did you look at the 2 YT videos I linked in my first comment? Which one did you think looked more accurate to an old consumer CRT TV? The first one using CRT-Royale, or the second one using the Dirty Atari TV shader from the Analog Shader Pack with custom Shader Parameters?

Edited January 14, 2022 by Christopher Neff

[Lordmonkus]

CRT-Royale is trying to replicate a PVM / BVM, not a consumer grade TV.

Again, there is no "most accurate" TVs all looked different, you just have to go through and decide on the look you want and like. There are many shaders replicating all sorts of different styles of CRTs and then on top of that many shaders are tweakable to customize it even more to your taste and the display you are using. A shader that looks great on one modern display may look completely different on another display.

You are asking for "what is most accurate" when the answer is "there is no most accurate", only what you want and like. It's subjective. Some people want a pristine high grade consumer grade TV or PVM / BVM while others want to replicate a janky 1970s TV with horrible colours and fuzzy picture and everything else in between the 2 ends of the spectrum.

Another thing to consider is how good a TV looked back in the day came down to the video connection, RF, composite, s-video, RGB. RF had a lot of noise in the signal, composite had less but still had some, s-video was a big step up but RGB looked amazing.

[ChristopherNeff]

So you're saying that there are piles of different consumer CRT TV's too that all look different?

Could you at least tell me what shaders I should look at that replicates the lower consumer CRT TV's? I know you say there is no most accurate, but when I ask that, I mean one that replicates a real CRT TV as much as possible. I think I may want to replicate a 70's, 80;s or 90's.

The reason I say most accurate is because there are shaders that try to accurately replicate a real CRT TV, and then there are shaders that do their own thing and don't look anything like what a real CRT TV would look like.

So by most accurate, I want a shader that replicates an authentic CRT TV as closely as possible. You say it's subjective but it can't be completely subjective because I want something that OBJECTIVELY replicates a REAL CRT TV as close as possible to the actual TV.

I want a shader that just shows me what a real CRT TV would have looked like that tries to replicate everything as close as possible without doing any sort of weird alterations or enhancements etc. I just want a shader that gives me the correct, PURE experience. I don't want subjective. I want the correct look to what a CRT TV looked like back then.

I would want shaders that use RF as that is the most pure.

Can you give me at least a list of shaders that get close to a real CRT TV? I'm just tired of constantly switching them out and never being able to just settle on one because I can't seem to find any that 100% replicates a real CRT TV from back in the older days. I just want to be done with the search and find the correct one.

As one person once told me in regards to TV calibration: "There's reference and then there's preference. Only one of those is right."

[Lordmonkus]

I honestly couldn't recommend a shader based what you are describing what you want because it has been so long since I have messed with shaders that I forget the names of them all.

I like the dr-venom shaders personally, a good representation of an upper middle tier consumer grade TV with a good connection. I don't want to replicate the garbage of an RF or composite signal or an old 70s TV. I grew up on those TVs and they were awful.

[ChristopherNeff]

Did you look at my two YT videos I linked in my first comment of my thread? Do you think the second video, the one where I used the Dirty Atari TV shader from the Analog Shader Pack with customized Shader Parameters looks close to accurate of an old CRT TV, or is it off still?

[Lordmonkus]

It's probably close but I couldn't say for certain, it's been 30+ years since I have even seen a low grade CRT let alone a TV from the late 70s / early 80s. I have a 20" Samsung from the early 2000s that I use for my consoles (2600 using RF, Genesis and N64 using composite) and MiSTer using component and it does not look anything like that shader.

[ChristopherNeff]

If it doesn't look anything like that shader then does that mean that the shader with the custom shader parameters is not accurate to a real CRT TV or is it that the shader and settings are just replicating a different CRT TV from back then?

So you wouldn't be able to tell me any exact settings in the parameters I need to tweak to make it as close as possible or if that even is the right shader for the old CRT TV look I am going for?

[Lordmonkus]

It means it is trying to replicate a TV from a different era, we are talking TV tech that changed over a 20-30 year span.

Nope, I wouldn't be able to tell you at all.

Just go through the different presets in the CRT folder and see which one you like the most. Don't get hung up on what you think is "the most accurate".

[ChristopherNeff]

Wait, I "shouldn't" try to go for the most accurate to the TV look I am going for?

[Lordmonkus]

You aren't listening, there is no most accurate. So many TVs and so many evolutions of the tech means there are just so many different possible looks. Yeah, you can dial a shader into a very specific make, model and year of a CRT TV but that is only accurate to that specific TV and none of the others.

Try the different shaders out til you find one you like and you think looks authentic. A 1978 General Electric is gonna look different than an 1986 RCA and then a 1992 Sony will look very different again.

[ChristopherNeff]

I meant most accurate to a certain kind and style of CRT TV. Not to every CRT TV in existence.

[Zombeaver]

There are many different types of CRTs using different technology/techniques that, subsequently, look very different from each other. Whether it be an aperture grille, shadow mask, varying video connection types, different amounts of curvature... there's a huge amount of variance depending on the TV and scenario. I have three different CRTs and every one of them looks different from the other. The concept of "accuracy" in an otherwise non-descript void is essentially meaningless. There are different shaders that replicate different CRTs with varying degrees of accuracy but there is no one CRT so there is no one accurate shader, it just depends on what TV it is that you're trying to replicate. Because no one really knows what it is specifically that you want to see other than you only you can actually figure out which one is the best. Thankfully retroarch makes this extremely simple as you can just browse through and try them out for yourself.

[ChristopherNeff]

So I'd have to first figure out an exact make and model of a very specific CRT TV and then figure out what cable type I want to emulate, and then after that, go out and look for a Shader that 100% replicates that exact set up?

[Zombeaver]

If that's your goal, which according to you it is, then yes.

Alternatively you could just try them out and say "I think this one looks best," like most people.

[ChristopherNeff]

How about arcade? Are those all different too? Like for example, if I were to tell you that I want to make the arcade version of Gauntlet Legends and Gauntlet Dark Legacy look as close to the Arcade Cabinets as possible, then would you be able to tell me an exact shader that will make it look like what the games looked like on the actual Arcade Cabinets with their Arcade CRT Monitors?