Achieving period-correct graphics in personal computer emulators

[Rincewind]

Happy to see this topic still going. Some valuable info here, mostly thanks to The Shader Man himself, Slim Shader, The ShaderMaster General, you know him, you love him - Boom Boom Rincewind! I'm more of a plug n play type myself that just slaps a shader onto something and hopes for the best that it looks good, and not one to fiddle with settings and configs, but if I need that kind of info, looks like this is the place to get it. Coincidentally, I have been recently looking for a good DuckStation (my newest emu obsession) shader and saw that Rincewind just happened to upload a couple here. Now if I can only figure out how to inject them into Duckstation using Reshade (which I only tried for the very first time with a recent game I was testing - My Time At Sandrock - that looked incredbly, unacceptably washed out but the Rehade preset completely fixed it. I'm beginning to think that shaders and reshade can cure cancer )

No no, DuckStation has ReShade integrated *into it*, so you can use ReShade shaders *within* DuckStation! They show up in the available shader list in the Duckstation GUI if you copy it into the appropriate folder.

So I have two variants in my repo:

1. The bog standard ReShade variants

You use these with emulators like PCSX2 as you'd normally use ReShade with modern games, so as a post-processing step. This has limitations when it comes to accurate scanline and interlacing emulation (the post-processing shader has no way of knowing about the actual internal resolution of the emulated image), but that's the best we can do.

https://github.com/johnnovak/CRT-Guest-ReShade/tree/main/ReShade


2. The Duckstation specific ReShade variants

This will give you superior result in DuckStation as the shader is aware of the native emulation resolution, can handle interlacing perfectly, and so on. *Only* use these "ReShade++" variants for DuckStation for best the results!

https://github.com/johnnovak/CRT-Guest-ReShade/tree/main/Duckstation

Also keep in mind I've only fixed the NTSC variant so far. The other two kinda work, but they have bugs. I'll do them later this year; the guy who originally converted them made some errors.

---

I will put all this info into the README of my repo because it might confuse some people, yeah...

My hope is the PCSX2 will also adapt the native ReShade format in the future, but we'll see.

About 4k, yeah with 240p content you won't see a night and day difference between 1080p and 4k. But with 480p (or interlaced) content and above it's a necessity.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Happy to see this topic still going. Some valuable info here, mostly thanks to The Shader Man himself, Slim Shader, The ShaderMaster General, you know him, you love him - Boom Boom Rincewind! I'm more of a plug n play type myself that just slaps a shader onto something and hopes for the best that it looks good, and not one to fiddle with settings and configs, but if I need that kind of info, looks like this is the place to get it. Coincidentally, I have been recently looking for a good DuckStation (my newest emu obsession) shader and saw that Rincewind just happened to upload a couple here. Now if I can only figure out how to inject them into Duckstation using Reshade (which I only tried for the very first time with a recent game I was testing - My Time At Sandrock - that looked incredbly, unacceptably washed out but the Rehade preset completely fixed it. I'm beginning to think that shaders and reshade can cure cancer )

No no, DuckStation has ReShade integrated *into it*, so you can use ReShade shaders *within* DuckStation! They show up in the available shader list in the Duckstation GUI if you copy it into the appropriate folder.

So I have two variants in my repo:

1. The bog standard ReShade variants

You use these with emulators like PCSX2 as you'd normally use ReShade with modern games, so as a post-processing step. This has limitations when it comes to accurate scanline and interlacing emulation (the post-processing shader has no way of knowing about the actual internal resolution of emulated image), but that's the best we can do.

https://github.com/johnnovak/CRT-Guest-ReShade/tree/main/ReShade

Also keep in mind I've only fixed the NTSC variant so far. The other two kinda work, but they have bugs. I'll do them later this year, the guy who originally converted them made some errors.


2. The Duckstation specific ReShade variants

This will give you superior result in Duckstation as the shader is aware of the native emulation resolution, can handle interlacing perfectly, and so on. *Only* use these "ReShade++" variants for DuckStation for best the results!

https://github.com/johnnovak/CRT-Guest-ReShade/tree/main/Duckstation

---

I will put all this info into the README of my repo because it might confuse some people, yeah...

My hope is the PCSX2 will also adapt the native ReShade format in the future, but we'll see.

About 4k, yeah with 240p content you won't see a night and day difference between 1080p and 4k. But with 480p (or interlaced) content and above it's a necessity.

Oh, that's good to know, that I just place them in the \shaders\reshade\Shaders folder and they show up in the GUI. Your screenshots always look like what I imagine CRT shaders should look - not obvious and intrusive, like what most ill-configured shaders I see in captures on forums look like that shader enthusiasts like to show off as ideal; ideally ugly is more like it. Thanks for the updated Duckstation shaders. As mentioned in another post, I use Lottes as a general purpose shader for all my 8 and 16 bit emus. The scanlines are still too big for my tastes (especially in mGBA) but at least not too overwhelming.

 

[Jarpie]

If so many players know about this, why do none of the endless number of indie developers build the filters on top of the pixel graphics? Why do they not draw the pixels with the filter already on?

You kinda answered this in your question: they don't have any idea about this. For example, they are younger people who grew up with LCDs.

Then people who grew up with CRTs but only had a PC and VGA monitor are also largely unaware of this as VGA monitors were tack sharp compared to TVs and home computer monitors (which were small TVs sold as monitors). Also, *all* VGA cards hardware 2x integer upscale low-res content, so for 320x200 graphics (most common in DOS games), you get 640x400. Because of this, VGA low-res graphics look blocky. There is some CRT effect, but it's subtle.

Contrast this with home computers and consoles that output 240 content on SD TVs and home computer monitors—half the vertical resolution of a VGA monitor! (or less)

But some modern games do feature built-in CRT shaders, and some of them are quite good.

There are exceptions to home computer monitors, C64 connected via S-Video or especially Amiga connected via RGB to Commodore's own 1084 is as sharp as those VGA monitors.

 

[Rincewind]

There are exceptions to home computer monitors, C64 connected via S-Video or especially Amiga connected via RGB to Commodore's own 1084 is as sharp as those VGA monitors.

No, they're not. VGA monitors have higher dot pitch and VGA cards double-scan 320x200 content to 640x400. VGA monitors can't accept 15kHz signals.

Most Commodore monitors are fixed 15kHz monitors; they're essentially small TVs. The difference between Amiga & C64 connected to an 1084 and a typical VGA monitor is huge—the 1084 smooths the "pixels" a lot more and there are visible scanlines in NTSC modes.

Well, go and read my article from the first post and check the screenshots

 

[Jarpie]

There are exceptions to home computer monitors, C64 connected via S-Video or especially Amiga connected via RGB to Commodore's own 1084 is as sharp as those VGA monitors.

No, they're not. VGA monitors have higher dot pitch and VGA cards double-scan 320x200 content to 640x400. VGA monitors can't accept 15kHz signals.

Most Commodore monitors are fixed 15kHz monitors; they're essentially small TVs. The difference between Amiga & C64 connected to an 1084 and a typical VGA monitor is huge—the 1084 smooths the "pixels" a lot more and there are visible scanlines in NTSC modes.

Well, go and read my article from the first post and check the screenshots

1084s is still one of the best of those old video monitors, better and sharper than a lot of (if not most) of the 14" tvs of the time, and they are very desired for a reason nowadays, and go for a good amount of buckaroos.

 

[Rincewind]

There are exceptions to home computer monitors, C64 connected via S-Video or especially Amiga connected via RGB to Commodore's own 1084 is as sharp as those VGA monitors.

No, they're not. VGA monitors have higher dot pitch and VGA cards double-scan 320x200 content to 640x400. VGA monitors can't accept 15kHz signals.

Most Commodore monitors are fixed 15kHz monitors; they're essentially small TVs. The difference between Amiga & C64 connected to an 1084 and a typical VGA monitor is huge—the 1084 smooths the "pixels" a lot more and there are visible scanlines in NTSC modes.

Well, go and read my article from the first post and check the screenshots

1084s is still one of the best of those old video monitors, better and sharper than a lot of (if not most) of the 14" tvs of the time, and they are very desired for a reason nowadays, and go for a good amount of buckaroos.

Yeah, they're good for sure and I liked them a lot. My shader setup emulates the 1084s. They were a big step-up for me from the small 14" Nokia TV I used with my Commodore 64. These were really very high quality small TV sets, essentially.

It's a bit crazy to buy them now for say more than 50 dollars, though—they're all on the way out and can't be repaired as the production of good quality spare parts stopped in the early 2000s. If you have one, enjoy it while it lasts, but there are lots of organic materials in these that just develop cracks and deteriorate after a few decades.

Plus these monitors were just prone to break down after a few years of use; they had a good picture but they were among the least reliable Commodore monitors, actually. It's quite surprising we still have a few in a mostly working order—well, that's survivor bias for you.