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Do you like pixel art?

Pixel art is:


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Joined
Aug 10, 2012
Messages
5,871
Simply drawing alternate black lines on the screen and calling it a "CRT filter" is disingenuous and quite frankly dumb, but CRT shaders have made such unbelievable progress in recent years, it's a shame not to recognize that.

Some of the screencaps I took of Blood Omen running in BeetlePSX/Retroarch with the CRT-Royale shader - even with the shitty JPG compression, make sure to click on them to see the full size. It's amazing what they've done to approximate the true functioning of a CRT - down to the RGB subpixels.

retroarch2016-12-02170lse4.jpg

retroarch2016-12-0217dfsti.jpg


A lot of old games were made with CRT characteristics in mind - i.e. the way dithering worked, some shading, some visual trickery that incorporated the functioning of the hardware as a way to produce an image. It is fascinating.

Growing up I never had access to RGB signals, I grew up with an NES plugged in through RF to a black and white television. But I played a lot of arcade in my youth, and I've always longed for that "feel" of arcade monitors. I've owned a number of arcade machines. These modern shaders are really quite amazing.
 
Joined
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The closest I've come to is via Daum's DOSBox SVN, but the shaders are simpler and in a different format.
 

KlauZ

Educated
Joined
Jul 23, 2015
Messages
93
CRT filters only look good on 4k monitors. FHD is better with scanline filters.
243656_900.jpg
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
Messages
5,871
Ye it's p. amazing. I wish there was a way to inject those complex multi-shader setups on old PC games.
I just found out that Retroarch (libretro) has Scummvm and DOSBox cores. So that means all of the libretro shaders are available. I'll post some examples soon.

Edit: Here's a couple:

retroarch2016-12-051993k63.jpg

retroarch2016-12-0519pkkkx.jpg
 
Last edited:
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
Messages
5,871
Yeah, it would be great if I could inject some of this shit into the awful looking PC port of Blood Omen.
 

Naraya

Arcane
Joined
Oct 19, 2014
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Tuono-Tabr
Try CRT-geom-curved.fx shader in Daum, it's really good :)
Also: CRT with blend in the name (can't remember the exact name).

m6kP3TT.png
 
Joined
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Messages
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.fx shaders are very simplistic compared to HLSL/CG multipass ones. Also, I don't really care for emulated curvature.
 

pippin

Guest
I don't remember CRTs looking like that at all. TVS maybe, but not my computer screen(s). I just remember they were pretty fucking dark, almost always played with gamma all the way up.
 

pippin

Guest
Not ashamed of that. Often I inherited my pcs with lots of games in them. Warcraft 2, AoE2, Starcraft, Doom, Heretic, etc.
 
Joined
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Messages
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I don't remember CRTs looking like that at all. TVS maybe, but not my computer screen(s). I just remember they were pretty fucking dark, almost always played with gamma all the way up.
You probably don't remember interlaced computer monitors - but they were the norm up until a point. I remember my first non-interlaced Samsung Syncmaster monitor - being non interlaced was actually a selling point.

Now, I'm not saying these Retroarch shaders are representative of the way computer games looked back then - they're really not. It's just a curiosity.

Standard CRT TVs and old arcade monitors always displayed an interlaced image, however, and for emulating old consoles and arcades, I think having a good CRT shader such as CRT-Royale in 4k is a great improvement in the overall experience.
 

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