Anyone want Working VGA CRT shaders? Helix -> Retroarch -> Megabezel -> Your eyes to play

[Chico Rodriguez]

I want to purchase but would like to know in advance if any of these three, so I can use my own custom CRT shader injectors to simulate that authentic 80s VGA CRT feel.

[Chico Rodriguez]

Edit: Direct 3D 9

Coming along now...

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3196262970

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3196263288

[Chico Rodriguez]

Okay, that stuff above... Child's play with what I have working now. BEHOLD:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3196411804

[Chico Rodriguez]

Realtime footage:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2098403648

Note: The vertical scanlines don't exist on your local display. OBS capture is really terrible through Twitch, so those are artifacts from the capture.

[Fierman]

mm. I have a lot of monitors, and my 31Hz VGA ones generally don't have the fisheye distortion and other artefacts like my 15Hz ones.

[David Walters]

I had an Iiyama Vision Master with the flat Trinitron style tube and it was actually more often concave / hourglass shaped ! Was a great monitor , RIP

[David Walters]

Originally posted by Chico Rodriguez:

Edit: Direct 3D 9

Coming along now...

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3196262970

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3196263288

Sorry I didn't get to you in time to reply before you figured it out - but yes D3D9. Good work - all my CRTs died so I'm using a typical LCD for my development now :'(

[Chico Rodriguez]

Originally posted by Fierman:

mm. I have a lot of monitors, and my 31Hz VGA ones generally don't have the fisheye distortion and other artefacts like my 15Hz ones.

My crustier late 1980 and early 1990s VGA CRTs all had the fisheye bulge. One even had a fine, crystalline graininess.

My later Viewsonic from 1998+ was a nice trinitron tube that was nearly perfect.

But my 1980s RGB CRT was .67 dot pitch awesomeness.

[moto_sapien]

.. so the dev mentioned a DOS version is not in the plans, but the new dosbox-staging 0.81 can automatically add CRT scan lines and looks great with old games. just sayin..

[Chico Rodriguez]

Originally posted by moto_sapien:

.. so the dev mentioned a DOS version is not in the plans, but the new dosbox-staging 0.81 can automatically add CRT scan lines and looks great with old games. just sayin..

dosbox-staging looks okay but is very limited, CRT wise, compared with Retroarch + their shader suites or especially + MegaBezel shader suite and additional bezels. For one thing, staging cannot properly emulate phosphor glow, bleed and inheritance.

[moto_sapien]

Originally posted by Chico Rodriguez:

Originally posted by moto_sapien:

.. so the dev mentioned a DOS version is not in the plans, but the new dosbox-staging 0.81 can automatically add CRT scan lines and looks great with old games. just sayin..

dosbox-staging looks okay but is very limited, CRT wise, compared with Retroarch + their shader suites or especially + MegaBezel shader suite and additional bezels. For one thing, staging cannot properly emulate phosphor glow, bleed and inheritance.

The Retroarch shaders sound interesting, if not too involved in setting up. But the dosbox-staging option is just so easy. It does have several CRT options, which are based on shaders. I've not felt the need to mess with any yet. Perhaps some of the Retroarch features will be implemented in the future. But just running under dosbox says .. "old game". I'm getting to like those old games more and more.

[Chico Rodriguez]

Originally posted by moto_sapien:

Originally posted by Chico Rodriguez:

dosbox-staging looks okay but is very limited, CRT wise, compared with Retroarch + their shader suites or especially + MegaBezel shader suite and additional bezels. For one thing, staging cannot properly emulate phosphor glow, bleed and inheritance.

The Retroarch shaders sound interesting, if not too involved in setting up. But the dosbox-staging option is just so easy. It does have several CRT options, which are based on shaders. I've not felt the need to mess with any yet. Perhaps some of the Retroarch features will be implemented in the future. But just running under dosbox says .. "old game". I'm getting to like those old games more and more.

Well, to be fair Retroarch is quite a bit of a learning curve unless you download some premade shaders.

By default, Retroarch never came with VGA monitor shaders, or RGB PC monitor shaders, for that matter. I have spent hours upon hours refining and enhancing settings of shaders to get the look right, all the way back to Dosbox-SVN(think 9 - 10 years ago), and every time a newer shader stack/pipeline comes out, I try and add in missing monitor effects that i never could quite achieve before.

An out of the box installation of Retroarch + Megabezel suite + TheNamec's Bezels + my shader profile could get a user up and running in a matter of minutes, provided they also
install the WindowCast core and are able to set up their controls inside the Retroarch interface and launch a text file.

I'd say the interface is the hardest part, which takes a little getting used to. I may post a guide here soon enough + a link to a shader file so folks can try themselves. After playing over the weekend the experience is hardly any different from my running of Dosbox-core through Retroarch(command prompt and all) to play DOS games. You literally feel like you're sitting in front of an ancient monitor.


We have come a long way from having to launch a opengl capable version of DOSBox with a Sweetfx injector on top of the package.

[Eldur]

I'm always impressed how people like those effects. I used a CRT until 2014 and never had seen anything those shaders resemble except for the curved glass on my first PC monitor that I had with the 486 (the others were all "Flatrons"). Been gaming since C64/Amiga 500 days, but never had a console plugged to a TV, which might be more like what those shaders typically do.