Additional Apps - Shader Glass - Not Working As Expected

[ghettowario]

I've been trying to use Shader Glass with Launchbox but my results have not been what I want.  There are no tutorials on how to correctly set this up on YouTube or here in the forums.  My goal has been for Shader Glass to open and apply itself full screen to each of the games I want automatically when I choose a game in Launchbox.  I have tried using the Additional Apps option when editing a game, but that only opens the program and then when the game boots, Shader Glass is nowhere to be seen.  I know that it is working though because I initially see a Shader applied to the Launchbox game boot up splash screen, but a few seconds later, when the actual game boots, the Shader effect and all of Shader Glass disappears.  I tried reversing this also, by putting Shader Glass as the game and then putting the game as the Additional App, but this only results in a black screen with just the game's music playing.  Obviously I can get this to work just fine without Launchbox, but I don't want to have to manually do that each time.

[e2zippo]

Interesting that this has no replies.

Shaderglass has been heavily updated this past couple of months, allowing import of any .slang shader, and most of Retroarchs shader library is in there by default.

It would be awesome to have it auto launch on specific emulator / games.

 

 

[Johnny T]

Did you ever get to the bottom of this? I just watched a Video Game Esoterica video last night showing the use of Shader Glass and it looked awesome. Unfortunately the video just showed it being used and not set up? I'd like to set it up in LB/BB too? Did you manage to work it out? Thanks

[SkyHighGam3r]

I haven't spent a lot of time on this, but I was able to get this to 'kinda' start working. 

I had ChatGPT write a script that I could set at the emulator level, instead of doing additional apps for single games: 

; Start ShaderGlass before launching Xemu
Run, "C:\Program Files\ShaderGlass\ShaderGlass.exe"

; Monitor for Xemu process
SetTimer, CheckXemu, 1000
return

CheckXemu:
IfWinNotExist, ahk_exe xemu.exe
{
    ; Kill ShaderGlass when Xemu closes
    SetTimer, CheckXemu, Off
    Process, Close, ShaderGlass.exe
}
return


Now, that said, I wasn't able to get it to close when XEMU closed with this, so further tweaking would be needed.

In any case though, it open's ShaderGlass and it's in front of my XEMU window this way. 

[Johnny T]

Thanks for this - that's a great starting point. I'll hopefully get a chance to have a play about with this over the weekend. If I do, and if I manage to build on it, I'll post back here. Cheers

[skizzosjt]

I recommend to be creating a profile in shaderglass. The github and manual included (same as all notes on the github) give excellent documentation on how to use and troubleshoot. 

 

No surprise chatgpt sucks and spits out a non working script. A script should be formatted something like this. launch shaderglass fullscreen and load a specific profile, wait for the game/emulator, wait for it to close, close shaderglass. 

Run, D:\Utilities\ShaderGlass\shaderglass.exe -f D:\Utilities\ShaderGlass\Profiles\RA_MB_TV2_16-9.sgp
WinWait, ahk_exe xemu.exe
WinWaitClose, ahk_exe xemu.exe
WinClose, ahk_exe shaderglass.exe

 

[SkyHighGam3r]

On 6/13/2025 at 9:47 AM, skizzosjt said:

No surprise chatgpt sucks

lol no joke. I wasn't expecting it to do much, just having some fun with it. Your script worked really well, though I did have to add some quotations as my preset has a space in the filename. (naturally). So thank you for sharing it. 

I need to dig through ShaderGlass features/configuration more in general, but at this point the only thing It's not doing that I would love is apply the shader to a 4:3 area in the center instead of across the whole screen. Mostly pointless and niche, but my shaders use screen curve, borders, and vignette. 

Anyway, thanks again for sharing,