crt-pi shader users - reduce scaling artifacts with these configs in lr-mame2003, lr-fbalpha, lr-nestopia (and more to come)
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sigh...I thought about replying to your comments about my comments but I know it's kinda like going down a rabbit hole creating constant doubt with comments, code or methods you understand little to no more than I do from reading your replies. It just seems you always have a retort to everything but sometimes not knowing is ok. I kind feel like you'd stand at the pearly gates and kick St. Peter right in the teeth...before you'd let somebody play you.
From the get go Andrew not only answers questions but backs them up with the math. I could never even get you to explain two lines of code let alone get you to confirm you coded the whole script yourself out of curiosity.
Collaboration requires communication but you would never explain any of your script which lead me to doubt the validity of it's authenticity. It's not just waiting for someone who knows more to come along and do the work. There's no way I could have done better then Andrew but I was willing to try and would have learned a good bit. In fact I offered to help Andrew right away in a prior post but as it turns out he's a one man show that needs no help.
I don't imagine that you would be accountable and own it but the side poke was really unnecessary. You discretely closed the other thread, ignoring the post & encouraged everyone back to this post. Then promptly started challenging and trashing every comment I was writing. For what?! To show folks how smart you are at the expense of others. It does no one any good or help them learn to make them afraid or second guess what they don't know.
I was sincerely hoping for a bygone as I enjoy being part of this community. I was here on good faith to learn a bit about the process of the configs. I know I asked a lot of questions but it's how I learn and absorb information. I like to understand to the last detail. Truly understanding all aspects is the only way to write code or scripts. In fact you can't write code that works unless you fully understand the challenge at hand.
Honestly now I don't really care about the configs at this point due to the endless conflict. While they show a slight enhancement zoomed in they don't offer much un-zoomed. DaveJ's vertical shader fixed most of the issue. The slight artifacts I can live with. Not to mention they are completely incompatible with HD overlays.
Anyway If you had something to say about what I wrote I would had rather you addressed it directly instead of acting out with backhand comments. There's just a point where someone has to be the bigger person and walk away. Not that I am the bigger person but I am ok with walking away.
@AndrewH - Yes I did confuse pixel dimensions vs PAR. I still hope the same idea holds true. Porting from old arcade monitors to modern displays is a fundamental challenge the requires several different techniques to overcome PAR/DAR discrepancies from one to the other.
Just out of curiosity are you the same Andrew with a page full of utilities JavaScript & CSS experiments? Who's #1 app is about aspect ratios? Github account. I was wondering how you were picking this & Github up so incredibly quick. If so it's nice to see someone of your caliber leading the project. Your work looks pretty incredible with many helpful utilities!
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@riverstorm Hey, I read your above note and think you probably don't need to feel the way you do. I have been on the outside of this discussion injecting my own observations/comments here and there, but also learning from your more specific attempts to understand the details.
I think it is easy to read into responses that are written to be very direct and interpret them as offensive. It's one of the problems with text, as you cannot truly detect the tone. That said, as I read through Dank's notes, I find them to be short, meaning they are pointed and brief, not necessarily impolite. I expect the original intent of this thread was to provide technical guidance to scripting the construction of custom viewports to avoid shader artifacts and not as much of a training guide for understanding DAR, PAR, AR, scaling algorithms, github, and so on. When you started the other thread, I was hopeful it could serve as the place for friendly discourse about all of that. The fact is, these custom configs are connected in principle to a very long list of side topics worthy of discussion that would produce (and has produced) tidbits of detail that many folks will benefit from. Yet, much of it distracts from Dank's original intention for opening this thread, while Andrew's efforts to enhance the script do not.
I guess I am saying, don't feel bad about this. I'd like to discuss some of the side topics. For example, I have a few notes to share about bilinear interpolation that I think will bring the idea of scaling vs. smoothing to a conclusion.
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@riverstorm said in crt-pi shader users - reduce scaling artifacts with these configs in lr-mame2003, lr-fbalpha, lr-nestopia (and more to come):
@AndrewH - Yes I did confuse pixel dimensions vs PAR. I still hope the same idea holds true. Porting from old arcade monitors to modern displays is a fundamental challenge the requires several different techniques to overcome PAR/DAR discrepancies from one to the other.
It's not completely straightforward - I think we can all agree on that. Even with the helpful fact that digital pixels are square, optimizing for a wide variety of aspect ratios and trying to get the best results for each takes a bit of work. And then there's the fact that there's not universal agreement on what 'best' even looks like. For some it will be accuracy, for others filling the screen, and for others... who knows.
Just out of curiosity are you the same Andrew with a page full of utilities JavaScript & CSS experiments? Who's #1 app is about aspect ratios? Github account. I was wondering how you were picking this & Github up so incredibly quick. If so it's nice to see someone of your caliber leading the project. Your work looks pretty incredible with many helpful utilities!
No - that would be just coincidence, and I'm most definitely not that guy. I've had to dust off my long-dormant Perl memories in order to get sufficiently to grips with Python to do what I did, and then had to learn how to interact with Github along the way. I'm Andrew-H2O on there, and my contributions to date are only towards this script.
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@caver01 - very well said, and supremely diplomatically put too. I don't want to find fault anywhere, but I can understand (I think) the perspective of Dank, who probably felt that his script was long since done and dusted. A new problem arose (4:3 aspect ratio screens), and there's been a lot of discussion since - some was directed towards addressing it through script change, and some has been a quest for greater understanding. Personally I feel that it's all been useful, but as you note, some of it has been tangential to the original purpose or intent of the thread.
Anyway, given that there's an interest in further discussion on some of the 'side topics', but that this mightn't necessarily be the best arena for it, maybe your or @Riverstorm would consider starting a thread in the General Chat section?
I'd gladly participate, as I'd hope you both would too.
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@andrewh said in crt-pi shader users - reduce scaling artifacts with these configs in lr-mame2003, lr-fbalpha, lr-nestopia (and more to come):
No - that would be just coincidence, and I'm most definitely not that guy. I've had to dust off my long-dormant Perl memories in order to get sufficiently to grips with Python to do what I did, and then had to learn how to interact with Github along the way. I'm Andrew-H2O on there, and my contributions to date are only towards this script.
Ah ok, there's another AndrewH that has a site full of utilities and his #1 app happens to be about aspect ratio's and of course that's the topic. It's a small world.
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this isn't my first rodeo with riverstorm, though. this weird vendetta has been going on for quite some time. my meagre changes to mame2003 were met with a similar questioning of my ability as a programmer, my understanding, etc.
can we go back to talking about aspect ratios, now? :)
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@dankcushions said in crt-pi shader users - reduce scaling artifacts with these configs in lr-mame2003, lr-fbalpha, lr-nestopia (and more to come):
Questioning of my ability as a programmer.
Correct.
And this:
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/14257/correcting-scaling-artifacts-in-lr-mame2003
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we are almost ready to release the new .zips with @AndrewH's improved algorithm!
a check has been added to make sure that the scanline shader is NOT used in situations where the screen does not have sufficient resolution for the game. i forget the official figure from @davej, but I believe it was 3 or 4 pixels per scanline for good results. you can see an extreme example of the problem when you use the shader in games like darius, which has a very wide, high resolution image. the scanlines just appear like a grey haze... not ideal!
so, **a question for 720p users! **
following this change, the following games will NOT have the crt-pi shader applied for your resolution:- nba jam
- mortal kombat (all)
- smash tv
- r-type
- donpachi
(this isn't the complete list, which is 100s, just some popular games)
can you check these out on your screen with the crt-pi shader on? do the scanlines look acceptable? if so, maybe we could reduce the threshold, or make it optional or something like that.
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@dankcushions Will this update fix or reduce rainbow banding issues? I only get them on an old Samsung 720p tv when using any emulator with the crt pi shader. It might be an isolated issue with these old TVs being 1366x768 or whatever res it is when using the vga port, but the hdmi ports only output 720p.
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@darksavior said in crt-pi shader users - reduce scaling artifacts with these configs in lr-mame2003, lr-fbalpha, lr-nestopia (and more to come):
@dankcushions Will this update fix or reduce rainbow banding issues? I only get them on an old Samsung 720p tv when using any emulator with the crt pi shader.
are you already use the script's configs?
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@dankcushions Not in a while. It’s a problem I’ve had forever and given up on it. If the scripts have been updated recently, I’ll give them a try when I can. It might be a combo of the shader itself with the tv...
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@darksavior said in crt-pi shader users - reduce scaling artifacts with these configs in lr-mame2003, lr-fbalpha, lr-nestopia (and more to come):
@dankcushions Not in a while. It’s a problem I’ve had forever and given up on it. If the scripts have been updated recently, I’ll give them a try when I can.
eliminating the rainbow effect is exactly the script's function :) that part of things hasn't changed a great deal. i wonder which ones you see the effect?
following the next update it will not bother applying shaders to certain higher resolution games on lower resolution screens, but for the majority of games you will still get the shader on a 1366x768 display.
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Hi folks,
I have a native 1600x1200 TFT. Although I read most of the posts about this resolution here, I don't really understand what I should do for the best results with this resolution or if the latest version is "4:3 ready" by now. Could someone please enlighten me in a few words? Thanks. -
@clyde You would have to generate the configs using the script yourself, since I have not created a set for that resolution in the initial post. However, I am probably going to re-generate all the configs soon using a different shader, and could do you a 1600x1200 pack then. this probably won't be soon, though!
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@dankcushions Thanks, that would be very kind of you. I can wait, it's not an urgent issue for me, as the rainbow effect is not more than a little nuisance. In addition, I'm testing @ghogan42's curved shader at the moment, which seems to have no rainbow effect in vertical games – or at least none that's noticeable to me.
Which different shader will you be using for the new configs?
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@dankcushions said in crt-pi shader users - reduce scaling artifacts with these configs in lr-mame2003, lr-fbalpha, lr-nestopia (and more to come):
my plan is to use @ghogan42's non-curved shaders :)
I'm looking forward to that. :)
Thanks for the clarification about curved shaders.
edit: Repaired the quote. :*)
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@clyde : it's pretty simple stuff to use @dankcushions's script to generate the files you need. Definitely worth a try, and the results are really nice (one of the systems I have is 1600 x 1200, as mentioned above somewhere).
You can get the current version here : https://github.com/dankcushions/crt-pi-configs
..and it's got full instructions, so even if you're not a Linux command-line wizard, you should be fine.If you do run into problems, let us know and we'll either lend a hand, or I'll see if I can post some zip files at that resolution somewhere public.
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@andrewh Thanks very much for your offer. I'm using Linux for more than eleven years now, so that should be no problem. :) I'll look into it in the next few days. Alas, my free time at workdays is very limited.
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@andrewh Okay, I've used the script with the command
python crt_pi_configs.py mame2003 1600 1200to create a folderMAME 2003full of .cfg files for all of MAME 2003's games. I then put this folder into/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/configso that the full path is/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/config/MAME 2003. But vertical games in lr-mame2003 still have the shader crt-pi.glsl, not crt-pi-vertical.glsl.Before doing that, I used @ghogan42's shader zfast_crt_curve.glslp. To test @dankcushions' script, I changed it back to crt-pi.glslp and chose "Save Core Preset" in the Shaders menu of retroarch.
What am I missing or doing wrong?
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