Tired of Pixels? Try this fix for perfectly smooth looking graphics!

[v00d00m4n]

This is just a mirror for thread on Shantae Risky's revenge
http://steamcommunity.com/app/277890/discussions/0/611704730315321516/

Please leave comments in original thread only, i dont want to fragment discussions at least until pirates curse specific version will be made once ill have the game.


Disclamer: This fix is my configuration for Reshade, SweetFX 2.0 and Framework effects. Some shaders (such as CRT, ordering of effects) was a little bit altered by me to suit Shantae and other pixelated games, rest of credits goes to authors of mentioned shaders and injectors, which are displayed once you start game.

Some history:
Ok, so game as we see it not supposed to be pixelated, actually this pixelated look is direct result of lazy porting, on original Nintendo platforms thanks to small screen, scanlines and natural interpolation it actually looked smooth.

I was messing with old and even new versions of SweetFX but still had bad results, since CRT shader was not really that good for CRT emulation, it still missed smoothing, but recently gauss shader was added to framework and i decided to try it with Shantae. As expected Gauss shader fully removed pixels and smoothed out everything, but game was looking not right, so i decided to combine gauss and CRT shader, spent few days configuring and testing, until i achieved best look, with scanline configuration that perfectly match original Nintendo resolution.

To compensate a little bit of bluriness and keep texts readable i played a little with luma sharpen configuration and order of effects applied, and this gave me good results as well, and in the end i decide to apply a little bit of chromatic abberation to achive that color shift seen on tvs, and this also smoothed out scanlines.

So, after all this:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=431159960


turned into this:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=431161238

WARNING: this is screenshot from old pre-release version, it does not represent current version results, i just have no time to mess with steam to upload externally capture post-effects screenshot that steam cant capture.

Most recent version looks like this:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/128994


and thats how this game is supposed to be played!

With all the shaders applied menues now also have similar low res but yet smooth look, so it kind looks in one consistent style not like original high res cutscenes art and pixel art in game sequences.


Download preconfigured modded pack here:
https://mega.co.nz/#!NNIT1RKL!YfMlnXruqykqec6d-IsvNqejt5O5-K_3YFH2Yc9CAEA

(before you can download file, press SKIP button in RIGHT-UPPER corner, dont download anything until you skip ads twice. File you need will be displayed as Shantae_Riskys_Revenge_Reshade_Frame…tly_Smooth_GFX.zip not anything else, not exe or stuff like, dont let ads to cheat you by pretending as download link!)

Unpack to:
SteamApps\common\RiskysRevenge\executable


To save you from messing with configs i bound each effect on separate button, so you can toggle any of them and achieve preferable look (keep in mind that this is order in which they are applied):

F9 - Gauss
F10 - Sharpen
F11 - Scanlines
F12 - Chromatic

you can use only one effect, 2, 3 or 4 of them in any combination. I prefer to press F10 to turn off sharpen since while it makes more detailed look, it makes some some gradients and edges not so smooth as i prefer,

If default look is not so smooth for you, open Reshade\CustomFX_settings.cfg in Notepad and change this

#define GaussQuality 0

to this
#define GaussQuality 1


P.S - you can try this pack with more pixelated games, but you have to know their pixel perfect original resolution and set correct one in SweetFX_settings.cfg via these values

#define CRTResolutionY 192 //[1 to 2048] Original input height of the game (ie. 240)

Shantae original resolution is exactly 256x192, for other games it could be different. Wrong resolution for scanlines will look wrong. so just use google to find out original resolution.

For Shantae Pirates Curse (does not work at the moment, waiting for Reshade fix, please read page 3 post about this issue!) you have to change resolution of CRT to this:

#define CRTResolutionY 240 //[1 to 2048] Original input height of the game (ie. 240)

Also keep in mind that reshade require good video card and cpu, so it may be slow on old pc. Another thing to keep in mind in case of usage in other pixelated games or emulators - reshade32.dll (in case of x86) or reshade64.dll (in case of x64) can be renamed to d3d8.dll d3d9.dll dxgi.dll d3d10.dll d3d11.dll and OpenGL32.dll - all of these apis supported.

I have tried all known CRT injectable shaders, including stock sweetfx, gedosato, dosbox and few more, and none of them gave properly looking results, so this little modification to existing shader packs and combination of gauss and crt is probably the best you can find. Try it with other games (especially those retro indie games from devs who still dont get idea how retro games actually looked and that they looked smooth on old displays and tvs) and tell me how it looks.

[dirtywhirlwind]

how long can you withstand before you get a headache?

[robomagon]

Can you do one with just a nice crisp scale4x shader?

[Xodan Rot]

Is there something like HQX for SweetFX/Reshade?

http://www.hiend3d.com/hq4x.html

I wouldn't use it, though. Shantae games have a really nice pixel look.

[v00d00m4n]

Originally posted by ShenWolf:

Originally posted by dirtywhirlwind:

how long can you withstand before you get a headache?

Well, I myself am not a fan of scanlines or CRT monitor effects but it looks better for some people. Can't blame them, it's like how 3D graphics fans look down on 2D graphics fans, different tastes in the end.

there are toggle buttons that allows to use gauss filtered image without scanlines but yet without pixelation.

[404]

Well, that looks terrible.

[Biomechanoid]

That looks much worse than the original.

[Meat Miracle]

Originally posted by Drakogarnus:

how is this game popular its basicly weeb sanic the game with softcore nudes and is quite sexist towards males considering it looks like half the male chars in the game are either fat dumb stereo typical males who are either evil or need to be beat down.

Because it is none of the things you just said.

It is a vanilla kid-friendly platform game with some metroidvania elements (eg. getting an upgrade allows you to backtrack some locked parts of the map), that rides primarily on the gorgeous artwork. Honestly, the entire series is mediocre (always was), and the storyline has the seriousness of a saturday morning cartoon, but the presentation is great which makes it a joy to play. Well, other than a couple of really difficult platforming elements, which are unexpected for such a kid-friendly title.

And the gameplay is absolutely nothing like Sonic.

[v00d00m4n]

Guys, can you just ignore offtopic and trolls? This is thread about pixelated graphics fix, go discuss other things in other threads please.

[Drakogarnus]

Originally posted by Voodooman:

Guys, can you just ignore offtopic and trolls? This is troll about pixelated graphics fix, go discuss other things in other threads.

iam not a troll :/ i have an opinion about what i see iam not asking for you to agree with me i may be wrong to some but also i could be right either way atleast iam not calling people trolls off the bat.and for all that my idiot self knows it could be an amazing game! and iam glad to see people like something. and have passion for it i was wrong in my assumption and ill gladly take down my stupid post, so i apologise for my blind view ive been rather down lately.

[Red]

You can't expect to say something like "and thats how this game is supposed to be played!" and then think you'll be able to avoid all the (Deserved) flak such statement will obviously bring to you.

It looks simply awful and totally ruins the beautiful sprite artwork this game has. I will never understand how can people tolerate playing with this kind of filters turned on.

[v00d00m4n]

Originally posted by Red:

You can't expect to say something like "and thats how this game is supposed to be played!" and then think you'll be able to avoid all the (Deserved) flak such statement will obviously bring to you.

It looks simply awful and totally ruins the beautiful sprite artwork this game has. I will never understand how can people tolerate playing with this kind of filters turned on.

I see a modern kid here who never played real retro games an never saw how Nintendo DS games looks like.

You have to look trailer and see this game on NDS\N3DS to get idea how it supposed to look. Of course game that has original resolution 256x192 or 400x240 would be looking not clean and sharp upscalled to modern high resolutions like 1920x1080. But this game is not intended to look pixelated, these pixels are supposed to be smoothed by low resolution of screen and the way pixels rendered there. Pixels there are not actually square, they are sort of circles if its a single pixel and ovals if its a row of pixels. Just look at UI of screenshots above - in original non filtered look left upper corner has some pixelated figure which is sorta squared circle, but now look at filtered screen - same figure now looks like it supposed to look - almost perfect circle.
Effects i enabled also smoothing out edge aliases, yet again to make those pixels look as they supposed to look on consoles!


You have to read threads on Neogaf
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=921436
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=630556
to understand why playing with sharp pixels is wrong.

Also read this
http://scanlines.hazard-city.de/
http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de/
http://www.tested.com/tech/gaming/456719-best-crt-retro-games/

and that:
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/KylePittman/20150420/241442/CRT_Simulation_in_Super_Win_the_Game.php

Oh and this is example with Metal Slug show exactly the difference between what you and many indies think retro games looks like and who they really looks like on original displays:

http://timothylottes.blogspot.ru/2015/04/indie-vs-real-slug-fest.html
http://timothylottes.blogspot.ru/2015/04/pixel-art-and-slot-mask-pitch.html

[negostrike]

Congratulations, it looks like shıt.

[Sir Yoshka]

Thank you for introducing me to this program! BOI Rebirth works perfectly!

[Red]

Originally posted by Voodooman:

I see a modern kid here who never played real retro games an never saw how Nintendo DS games looks like.

Are you freaking kidding me? First you call me a "modern kid who has never played real retro games" and then you proceed to tell me that I've never saw a DS game, a fairly modern device modern kids would've been more familiar with than the "old school" people who are over 21 by now? You gotta pick one. I either only ever played modern games INCLUDING the DS games (Which aren't even "retro" at all) or I never played the DS or any modern games at all.

I'm a 90's kid at heart and I grew up with the freaking arcade machines (They were THE only way for me to play games back then when I was a kid, I didn't have my own console until far later!). I'm ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 26 soon to be 27. Thank you very ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ much for that ♥♥♥♥♥♥ attitude of yours. It's good to know that you know absolutely EVERYTHING about my past when it comes to gaming with just one single damn post.




Of course I'm not against filtering and I'm well aware of these old effects and whatnot and how pixel artists took advantage of the output devices from back then to create effects and illusions (Basically, playing a NES on your super high definition is definitely not the way to go at all. You really really NEED a CRT) but this particular filtering you posted for the PC version of this and the previous game is just way too... ugly.

For someone who's so hellbent on "the way it was meant to be played" you sure went out of your way to make it unplayable with how much of a mess the screen looks like. That filtering does wonders on a freaking SMALL screen but for a bigger output device? Eeeeeeh... You might as well get a CRT monitor to get much better results at this point. This doesn't cut it at all. Either tone down the filtering a bit or get a CRT.

Also why are we even talking about "retro" games? Shantae is not a retro game, it's a 2D game with (Obviously) pixel art. It doesn't really use any of the tricks old games had to use back then. All these links are freaking irrelevant. The DS and 3DS aren't old consoles and have far cleaner LCD screens, they don't have to deal with limitations from the 90's and neither the Shantae games. Using filtering techniques from previous eras to try to make this game look better just doesn't work at all and never will. ShenWolf's explanation says a LOT of what I wanted to say so I'm not going to repeat it.

[DAVOS CENSORSHIP 2030 FTW!!!]

The only thing i'll say is that LCD's can only dream to achieve the black levels of my old CRT. I hate scanlines.