Actually realistic CRT shaders?

[IyoTheHelpfulWolf]

Most CRT shaders I try don't look anywhere close to a CRT television. They look like what a hipster 14 year old thinks a CRT looks like based on carefully taken Reddit posts and found footage horror.

I used to own a CRT until a few months ago when it went out, and having grown up poor I still owned or knew people that own CRT televisions well past when flat panel displays were standard.

The individual parts of the grille/matrix/whatever and the scanlines have only been noticeable to me if I was way too close to the TV, I mostly forgot about any subtle curvature of the display as I played if I ever noticed anyway, the glow and color bleeding was only really intense if I configured the TV wrong, and games still looked pretty sharp when played through component cables.

Are there any shaders that give a similar sense of vibrancy and blending of things meant to be blended without making my game look like a smudged mess?

I have a 24 inch 1080p monitor and a 43 inch 4K television if that helps, though I mostly use the former.

 

[TruxtonTatsujin TruxtonTatsujin]

The best I've seen are the ones that render in 4K. I don't own one myself but the retrotink line has a nice one. There must be an equivalent emulator filter.

 

[TallGrass]

You're only going to get truly accurate ones in 4K. I'd say off the cuff that the Retro Crisis options are some of the best I've tried, and the guy behind it has a youtube channel where he shows some of them off here

NEW RetroArch Shader Presets

Installation and visual demonstrations of RetroArch shaders and filters

www.youtube.com

 

[Scotty Scotty]

You're only going to get truly accurate ones in 4K. I'd say off the cuff that the Retro Crisis options are some of the best I've tried, and the guy behind it has a youtube channel where he shows some of them off here

NEW RetroArch Shader Presets

Installation and visual demonstrations of RetroArch shaders and filters

www.youtube.com

Echoing this but, yeah, Retro Crisis' shaders are among some of the best for 4K screens. You may have to look elsewhere for 1080p.

 

[Graw]

I've yet to see a single CRT shader that even comes close to replicating what using an actual CRT tv was like.

 

[TruxtonTatsujin TruxtonTatsujin]

I've yet to see a single CRT shader that even comes close to replicating what using an actual CRT tv was like.

Yes none are as good as an actual CRT, but they have gotten better in recent years.

 

[mistymermaid]

I've yet to see a single CRT shader that even comes close to replicating what using an actual CRT tv was like.

I believe it's more because most emulators do not emulate the console's lossy video encoding circuitry.
Most vexing is the Genesis / Mega Drive, whose already subpar composite varies by model.

Anyhow, just what constitutes accuracy is a complex question. Systems capable of RGB existed as early as 1985 (Sega Mark III), but it wouldn't be for another two decades that better image processing reached the mainstream. Even the PS3, in spite of its efforts to drive blu-ray adoption, shipped with a lowly composite cable in the box.

 

[Graw]

Yes none are as good as an actual CRT, but they have gotten better in recent years.

Not really, they still just look like a bunch of little squares or lines on the screen, sometimes with some kind of fish eye effect added. That's not really what using an actual CRT was like. The two big things I remember about using CRTs was the sound they made and the way the image never looked static. You can always subtly see the movement of the scan beam in a CRT. I really doubt there'll ever be a CRT filter that can reproduce that effect.

 

[petran79]

there were countless different crt models from cheap to high end, so there is not a definite shader.

What you can do is adjust the countless shader parameters to reach a satisfying end result.

For example the Guest shaders have added many such settings

I prefer the HD settings because the actual ntsc settings are tiresome to look at just like with old crts