Adding Scanlines to games?

[Jinx]

I've run into some retro-styled games lately that don't have any filters available. Specifically, Freedom Planet, Shantae: Risky's Revenge, and Shovel Knight. Shovel Knight looks pretty solid anyway - no scanlines but I think there is a filter - so I'm cool with that. But Shantae is low-res and blocky (DS port) so some scanlines would be really give those big old pixels some flair.

Now, I know that SweetFX has an Advanced CRT option. That does work with Freedom Planet, and I even made a tutorial on Steam about getting it working. SweetFX doesn't seem to be compatible with Shovel Knight or Shantae, though. The former crashes, the latter process starts but can't be accessed.

So, are there any other options? It doesn't have to be anything complicated. I was looking to see if there was a general overlay you could use in Windows to add scanlines, since you could then run the games windowed borderless to get the effect in-game. But no luck. I know MAME and emulators have these options, but I don't know of any way to extract those effects and apply them to anything else.

So... any ideas?

[Perrywinkle]

is better if you buy a supercheap old ctr monitor,otherwise the only option is pray for that option in those games,but if you like old or retro games the pixels are allways wellcome.

[Zelmaricaroid™]

Seriously, I would pay good money for an easy to use scanline generator program for windows. Something that I could just toggle on or off just like a hardware based generator.

[But I AM CALM!!!]

Messaggio originale di Funkalodon:

Seriously, I would pay good money for an easy to use scanline generator program for windows. Something that I could just toggle on or off just like a hardware based generator.

That doesn't exist yet? Program one yourself.

And sell it a million times at 1$ a piece.

[Zelmaricaroid™]

Good idea. I'll be rich!

[Jinx]

DO EET!

[Zelmaricaroid™]

In the meantime, I found an old post on the interwebs mentioning a program call RainMeter and adding scanlines that way (rainmeter.net) I'm tinkering with it now, and it seams like a good solution if you run games in fullscreen windowed mode. It requires creating and setting up of an ini file, but once thats done, your set. First step is to make a transparent scanline background image in photoshop or gimp at whatever resolution you want. So I made it past that step, but I can't figure out how to display the image in rainmeter. I have to invest more time into learning that program. I'll post instructions once I figure it all out. Too busy tonight. Seems like the solution we are looking for tho.

[Jinx]

That's very cool. Please do share if you work something out!

[Zelmaricaroid™]

You bet!

[Zelmaricaroid™]

So I mangaged to get my scanline image overlayed with Rainmeter. Tested shovel Knight and King of Fighters XIII. Both looked great, but framerates were in the 40s. My GPU is an 860m so it should be able to handle it. I don't get it, maybe some sort of vsync issue? So from there I decided to try other image overlay programs. I tried this http://imageoverlayutility.bitbucket.org/ and this one http://customdesktoplogo.wikidot.com/download. Which also both ran in 40-50fps range. The CustomDesktopLogo program actually is the easiest to use. You have to create your own transparent scanline image to use any of these. Here's mine if you guys want to use it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz2IHkT4XKOpeldJMHFVVWFjQW8/view?usp=sharing

I feel like we're heading in the right direction. I'll keep searching for a 'lighter' program or solution. In the meantime, you should try the last one I mentioned. Maybe it'll work better for you.

[Zelmaricaroid™]

Just tried it on my desktop pc (280X) which is hooked up to my TV. Works at 60fps! Looks decent, not as good as my vga scanliner tho. Might have to adjust the thickness of scanline image. Might look different depending on your TV or monitor.

[Jinx]

I'll try this a bit later, thanks for the work

[Krabbe]

Rainmeter insturctions?

[Isaac Clarke S-laughter]

So, which is THE best option to use?

[G1]

Interesting

[Jinx]

Guys this post is ancient. Look at the tutorials on my profile for adding scanlines to Iconoclasts or Dead Cells with ReShade. Should work in most other games as well. My Freedom Planet tutorial is out of date.