What shaders do you guys use for Arcade emulation?

RedBatman

For me I used to use the 2xsal, but I have now found a new found love for barrel distortion phosphorus, when using the FBA emulator.

I love how it gives that arcade feel, especially for NEO GEO games. It looks really good for on them. Anyone else like phosphorus.

caver01

@redbatman most folks who use shaders for arcade games are using the excellent CRT-PI shader described here. This is actually a set of shaders for both horizontal and vertical games with the ability to also enable curvature. CRT-PI was designed by someone here who optimized the shader to provide a realistic effect without sacrificing performance.

RedBatman

@caver01 Crt-pi is good, but it's a little too dark for me.

caver01

@redbatman Fair enough, but you might be able to adjust the parameters to lighten it to your taste without changing the performance at all. For example, davej has provided some details about how you can lighten or darken the shadow mask and scanline effects which will have an overall effect on the brightness of various artifacts in THIS POST.

RedBatman

@caver01 I do use the Crt-pi shader for Nes games though, since it fits perfectly.

Capeman

Nearest Neighbor, the good ol default no-shader solution. Oh the delicious chunky pixels!

Addison

Was going to make a topic on this myself but the forum suggested that I come here instead.

But yeah, I wanted to say that I use Crt-pi myself.

I find it to be quite wonderful.

Was hoping for other opinions though, but it seems like most people here just enjoy the default video settings.

Darksavior

@addison I switched to the glcore driver in retroarch so I could use the slang version of the crt-pi shader. It's not as blurry as the gl version. You'll need to add the slang shaders to retropie yourself.

I actually prefer the crt-royale shader but it doesn't work on the pi. It would probably be too slow if it did.

davej

@darksavior said in What shaders do you guys use for Arcade emulation?:

@addison I switched to the glcore driver in retroarch so I could use the slang version of the crt-pi shader. It's not as blurry as the gl version. You'll need to add the slang shaders to retropie yourself.

The difference you're seeing between the GL and slang versions of crt-pi is because there's a bug in the crt-pi.slangp file. All the crt-pi shaders require the use of linear filtering to work correctly and the crt-pi.slangp file has the wrong setting. I've raised an issue to get it corrected.

If you find crt-pi too blurry, the 'official' solution is to edit the glsl/slang files to enable the SHARPER functionality.

Look for the

//#define SHARPER

line and change it to

#define SHARPER

davej

Addison

@davej
Where is that file located so I can use your edit suggestion?

Please and thank you.

davej

@addison said in What shaders do you guys use for Arcade emulation?:

@davej
Where is that file located so I can use your edit suggestion?

Please and thank you.

I'm not the best person to answer that because I don't have a normal retropie installation. I think it's in

/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/shaders/shaders/crt-pi.glsl

To guard against updates overwriting it, it might be better if you copy the file (calling it something like crt-pi-sharper.glsl) and make the change there. You'll need a corresponding crt-pi-sharper.glslp file - they are stored in the directory above the .glsl files.

Hopefully someone will provide the correct information if I've got it wrong.

Addison

@davej
I copied and renamed crt-pi.glslp to crt-pi-sharper.glslp

/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/shaders/crt-pi-sharper.glslp

shaders = "1"
shader0 = "shaders/crt-pi.glsl"
filter_linear0 = "true"
wrap_mode0 = "clamp_to_border"
mipmap_input0 = "false"
alias0 = ""
float_framebuffer0 = "false"
srgb_framebuffer0 = "false"

What is needed to edit this?

//#define SHARPER

That is not located here like you mentioned.

Cheers. :)

mitu

@addison said in What shaders do you guys use for Arcade emulation?:

That is not located here like you mentioned.

Are you sure ? You've actually edited the shader preset (.glslp) and not the shader itself (.glsl).

Addison

@mitu
I'm not sure what you mean.

I copied the file location folder and file names while in WinSCP.

I didn't type anything of those out by hand.

So I don't think I made a mistake.

Edit:

Ooh.

I read your message wrong, along with Dave's. :/

Going to go back and look again.

Thanks Mitu!

Addison

I missed that the folder was shaders/shaders and not just /shaders.

Sometimes I can be too stupid to live. :D

Anyway, I applied the sharper settings and it's absolutely stunning.

It makes the display I was using before seemed smudged as compared to now.

I'm keeping this Shader forever since it looks so good.

Thank you all. :)