Agree. Most of the scanline filters look like shit IMO. Sometimes it makes the game look better but I find that a rare occasion. This is for modern retro games. I play my oldschool console games on a CRT on their original systems.Sharp raw pixels unless there's a good filter and I may shift back and forth depending on how I feel.
I never got that filter or why anyone enjoys it.I couldn't care less if other people like filters, I just don't understand it, lol.
On the left, each pixel has been carefully placed to convey visual information. On the right, microwaved crayons.
This is really interesting. I've never seen this filter before, but it reminds me of the simple interpolation option that a lot of older emulators used to use before GPU-driven bilinear filtering became the standard. I like it a lot.You should pretty much never be using unfiltered pixels.
Unfiltered pixels mean that you are either displaying the game in the wrong aspect ratio - likely with black borders instead of filling the height of the screen, or there will be pixel crawl/flickering artifacts when anything moves across the screen.
At the very minimum, you should be using something like the Pixelate shader.
This shader retains virtually all of the sharpness of unfiltered pixels, but prevents flickering artifacts caused by non-integer scaling - whether that is to fill the height of the display, or to correct the aspect ratio.
Here's an example of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, scaled to 1080p.
Unfiltered pixels - displays in the wrong aspect ratio, and the image does not fill the display:
Bilinear filtering - displays in the correct aspect ratio and fills the display, but the image is significantly blurred:
Note: this is bilinear filtering in linear light rather than gamma light, as most filters will use. Bilinear filtering in gamma light will dull the picture (look at the health counter).
Pixelate shader - displays in the correct aspect ratio and fills the display with minimal blurring:
If you zoom in close on this image, you can see that the blurring is generally constrained to a single pixel width around every pixel, and at typical TV/monitor distances it should not be noticeable.
My preference is for a good CRT shader - though not one which adds distortion. I have a tweaked CRT Royale preset that I like.
One thing that is very important to note about scanlines or CRT filters however, is that any filter which brightens the picture is not displaying color accurately.
If you have a really basic scanline filter, one which just draws solid black lines every other line, it is supposed to make the image dimmer.
Half the screen is now black, therefore the brightness should have dropped by about 50%.
Scanline filters which try to brighten up the image are distorting it by lowering the gamma or doing something even worse. You end up with ugly and washed-out colors.
What you need to do with a scanline filter like that is to double the brightness of your display. If your backlight was at 5, raise it to 10 (assuming the control is linear).
This way you restore the brightness/vibrance that was lost by adding the scanlines without affecting the color reproduction.
Even with the most basic scanlines, doing this can start to make the picture feel a lot more like a CRT which had a very high intensity light output, but only for a very short amount of time.
With better scanline implementations or CRT shaders - ones which do not do brightness compensation or can have it disabled - you probably don't need to raise the brightness quite so much, as the scanlines are likely taking up less than 50% of the screen.
As a owner of a PVM I find all "CRT filters" to be horrible and not representative of the real thing at all.
Damn. You're running that on an OLED display? It looks perfect.I love the Retro Mode on the UltraHDMI.
It's the best replication of CRT I have seen to date.
Together with perfect OLED blacks, it looks almost like the real deal.
You should pretty much never be using unfiltered pixels.
Unfiltered pixels mean that you are either displaying the game in the wrong aspect ratio - likely with black borders instead of filling the height of the screen, or there will be pixel crawl/flickering artifacts when anything moves across the screen.
At the very minimum, you should be using something like the Pixelate shader.
This shader retains virtually all of the sharpness of unfiltered pixels, but prevents flickering artifacts caused by non-integer scaling - whether that is to fill the height of the display, or to correct the aspect ratio.
Here's an example of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, scaled to 1080p.
Unfiltered pixels - displays in the wrong aspect ratio, and the image does not fill the display:
Bilinear filtering - displays in the correct aspect ratio and fills the display, but the image is significantly blurred:
Note: this is bilinear filtering in linear light rather than gamma light, as most filters will use. Bilinear filtering in gamma light will dull the picture (look at the health counter).
Pixelate shader - displays in the correct aspect ratio and fills the display with minimal blurring:
If you zoom in close on this image, you can see that the blurring is generally constrained to a single pixel width around every pixel, and at typical TV/monitor distances it should not be noticeable.
My preference is for a good CRT shader - though not one which adds distortion. I have a tweaked CRT Royale preset that I like.
One thing that is very important to note about scanlines or CRT filters however, is that any filter which brightens the picture is not displaying color accurately.
If you have a really basic scanline filter, one which just draws solid black lines every other line, it is supposed to make the image dimmer.
Half the screen is now black, therefore the brightness should have dropped by about 50%.
Scanline filters which try to brighten up the image are distorting it by lowering the gamma or doing something even worse. You end up with ugly and washed-out colors.
What you need to do with a scanline filter like that is to double the brightness of your display. If your backlight was at 5, raise it to 10 (assuming the control is linear).
This way you restore the brightness/vibrance that was lost by adding the scanlines without affecting the color reproduction.
Even with the most basic scanlines, doing this can start to make the picture feel a lot more like a CRT which had a very high intensity light output, but only for a very short amount of time.
With better scanline implementations or CRT shaders - ones which do not do brightness compensation or can have it disabled - you probably don't need to raise the brightness quite so much, as the scanlines are likely taking up less than 50% of the screen.
Threadmarked for better visibility.
I tend to agree. Damn shame when an otherwise solid retro compilation release has poor image filtering options.Retro commercial compilations are a different story. I evaluate those on a case by case basis but I find most of them scale rather poorly and have bad filters.
Interesting to know, thanks. I've recently started playing SNES games on the Analog Super NT on a 1080p set. It gives me the option of setting it at 480/720/1080p. Is 480p recommended wherever possible?I generally try to play my retro games on a CRT. When that's not possible, however, I like to play on a 720p native display like the Switch's screen and do pure scanlines with no other filtering.
Bilinear filtering is, under no circumstances, acceptable to me. It looks worse than composite on a standard SD CRT.
Anything that attempts to soften the image has to be *very* carefully applied.
I generally don't play retro games on my 1080p display at all. But when I do, I use the Framemeister and set it to 480p with scanlines wnd turn up the brightness, or 720p with scanlines, or 1080p without any filters enabled.
Retro commercial compilations are a different story. I evaluate those on a case by case basis but I find most of them scale rather poorly and have bad filters.
Depends on the upscaling quality and speed on your TV. Most likely it's best to output to your TV at native res (1080p in your case) to minimize input lag add by your display's upscaler.Interesting to know, thanks. I've recently started playing SNES games on the Analog Super NT on a 1080p set. It gives me the option of setting it at 480/720/1080p. Is 480p recommended wherever possible?
I tend to agree. Damn shame when an otherwise solid retro compilation release has poor image filtering options.
I think 720p with scanlines will work the best.Interesting to know, thanks. I've recently started playing SNES games on the Analog Super NT on a 1080p set. It gives me the option of setting it at 480/720/1080p. Is 480p recommended wherever possible?
I couldn't care less if other people like filters, I just don't understand it, lol.
On the left, each pixel has been carefully placed to convey visual information. On the right, microwaved crayons.
You should pretty much never be using unfiltered pixels.
Unfiltered pixels mean that you are either displaying the game in the wrong aspect ratio - likely with black borders instead of filling the height of the screen, or there will be pixel crawl/flickering artifacts when anything moves across the screen.
At the very minimum, you should be using something like the Pixelate shader.
This shader retains virtually all of the sharpness of unfiltered pixels, but prevents flickering artifacts caused by non-integer scaling - whether that is to fill the height of the display, or to correct the aspect ratio.
Here's an example of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, scaled to 1080p.
Unfiltered pixels - displays in the wrong aspect ratio, and the image does not fill the display:
Bilinear filtering - displays in the correct aspect ratio and fills the display, but the image is significantly blurred:
Note: this is bilinear filtering in linear light rather than gamma light, as most filters will use. Bilinear filtering in gamma light will dull the picture (look at the health counter).
Pixelate shader - displays in the correct aspect ratio and fills the display with minimal blurring:
If you zoom in close on this image, you can see that the blurring is generally constrained to a single pixel width around every source pixel, and at typical TV/monitor distances it should not be noticeable.
My preference is for a good CRT shader - though not one which adds distortion. I have a tweaked CRT Royale preset that I like.
One thing that is very important to note about scanlines or CRT filters however, is that any filter which brightens the picture is not displaying color accurately.
If you have a really basic scanline filter, one which just draws solid black lines every other line, it is supposed to make the image dimmer.
Half the screen is now black, therefore the brightness should have dropped by about 50%.
Scanline filters which try to brighten up the image are distorting it by lowering the gamma or doing something even worse. You end up with ugly and washed-out colors.
What you need to do with a scanline filter like that is to double the brightness of your display. If your backlight was at 5, raise it to 10 (assuming the control is linear).
This way you restore the brightness/vibrance that was lost by adding the scanlines without affecting the color reproduction.
Even with the most basic scanlines, doing this can start to make the picture feel a lot more like a CRT which had a very high intensity light output, but only for a very short amount of time, and only for a small area of the screen at once.
With better scanline implementations or CRT shaders - ones which do not do brightness compensation or can have it disabled - you probably don't need to raise the brightness quite so much, as the scanlines are likely taking up less than 50% of the screen.
You both might be interested in this article: http://themaister.net/blog/2018/08/...rt-filtering-in-3d-a-mathematical-derivation/This is really interesting. I've never seen this filter before, but it reminds me of the simple interpolation option that a lot of older emulators used to use before GPU-driven bilinear filtering became the standard. I like it a lot.
Depends on the upscaling quality and speed on your TV. Most likely it's best to output to your TV at native res (1080p in your case) to minimize input lag add by your display's upscaler.
720p is good for a lot of retro content because it scales cleanly from 240p with 3x integer scaling.
Thanks both. I'll try 720p and see how itI think 720p with scanlines will work the best.
https://twitter.com/frankcifaldi/status/963872747775389696?s=21
What is this abomination? This is a crime against Yoshi.I couldn't care less if other people like filters, I just don't understand it, lol.
On the left, each pixel has been carefully placed to convey visual information. On the right, microwaved crayons.
that's not a filter anybody uses though!I couldn't care less if other people like filters, I just don't understand it, lol.
On the left, each pixel has been carefully placed to convey visual information. On the right, microwaved crayons.
Sharp pixels with good scanlines is my go-to. Especially "hybrid" scanline options, like the one on the Super Nt - basically, varying brightness depending on the surrounding pixels.
I like CRT shaders when done well, but I'm both picky with them and unable to properly ascertain what I want out of them.
I agree with this!Bilinear filtering is, under no circumstances, acceptable to me. It looks worse than composite on a standard SD CRT.
Anything that attempts to soften the image has to be *very* carefully applied.