xBRZ... shaders for FS-UAE

[guest.r]

Been working on a PAL shader too and recently got some great ideas to create one. I think it might be a great option to play some of your games on LCD TV, like in old times.

It should be somewhat faster compared with the port of Maister's NTSC shader (ntscm).

Edit: updated version, a bit sharper, improved brightness.

[Dunny]

Oh, cool! I'll try it out next time I get to a machine with FS-UAE

Does it do the RF shadowing of bright pixels into darker? Yellow next to blue was a classic combination back in the 80s and produced an almost black shadowing effect due to dot-crawl.

[guest.r]

Another nice setup of scalefx. The hybrid version deals with aliased gfx. in a special way, making them less annoying on sharp displays.

It's also a good all-rounder.

[guest.r]

SpookyFox (author of ScaleFX) has improved the Hybrid version recently and i made a nice setup of it. It's a good all-rounder i guess...

Edit: small update.

Edit: A nicer version (hacks), the colors are better, cleaner, but it's a bit heavier, due some "hacks".

[guest.r]

I wanted to start a thread "Worst examples of dithering in Amiga games", but there's a better option i remembered.

Heavy dithering can be annoying on modern displays (wich is common for emulator usage).

SpookyFox (author of ScaleFX) has produced a nice solution to deal with the annoying patterns and i made a FS-UAE port of it.

Here is an example what it does:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/123454

It's even worse (dithering) with sharp pixels.

So here is the mdapt pack. It includes more versions (original, medium, sharper, xbr, crt) since it allows to stack/setup shaders above it.

If you find a good game ugly by dithering here is a good solution for it.

[nobody]

Fantastic thanks for your efforts. Is there a version for Winuae?

PS you could also use Conquests of Camelot, some very ugly dithering there too.

[guest.r]

I'll see if i can do a GDAPT (2 pass shader) port for WinUAE since MDAPT uses 5 passes.

[Retro-Nerd]

Very nice!! Is this combinable with your other shaders, like "CRT-Guest-Glow-Fast-Lo-Res.fx" for WinUAE? I hope you can port it.

edit: Conquest of Camelot looks great!!




http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/123466

[nobody]

I played it with the new shader, a completely new game, now looks like an Amiga enhanced version.

We should make a list with all those games with heavy dithering. Sierra are the 1st ones to look for lol

PS Gods-Chaos engine will benefit from this too.

[Retro-Nerd]

Indeed. Gods looks nice too. Here in combination with the CRT-Geom shader.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/123496

[Dunny]

Is it me or does the new shader darken the dithered areas considerably? Most noticeable in the Gods comparison.

[Retro-Nerd]

edit: No, maybe the CRT geom shader in combination with MDAPT is a bit dark.

[guest.r]

Originally Posted by Dunny

Is it me or does the new shader darken the dithered areas considerably? Most noticeable in the Gods comparison.

Not really on average, but if you blend a dark and bright pixel half by half in standard color space, the result might appear darker, since there are no outstanding bright pixels any more.

Using masks on top of it might darken a bit further.

There is a solution for this also in the shader since we can use the option to blend pixels in linear (gamma) space.

In the shader - last mdapt pass - the variable for this should be set to 1.0. (it was 0.0 by default by the author).

#define linear_gamma 1.0

And voila, the dithering gets a bit brighter.

[Retro-Nerd]

Yep, it's a bit brighter with the corrected value in the last shader pass. It also seems to preserve the original colors (how it looks without the MDPAT shader) better. If i'm not blind.

[torturedutopian]

Hi again everyone :-)

I'm back with another request
Would it be possible to have a combination of scalefx + crt-lottes ?

BTW I figured out a way to have a little less input lag and no tearing for NVIDIA (Linux) users : you have to enable 'force compositing pipeline' in the nvidia driver (control panel) and disable VSYNC in UAE... In some native games it also enables to have less input delay... I'm not sure why.

Still looking for other ways to reduce input lag :-)
Cheers !

[guest.r]

Here you have it.
I included 2 versions, latter is a bit hq-ish.
Please customize the shaders to your liking (Lottes #defines...).

[torturedutopian]

Thank you so much :-)

[torturedutopian]

OMG ! I finally managed to get FS-UAE to display at 50 Hz, just by hooking my GPU (Radeon) directly to my projector -- I couldn't choose the 50 Hz frequency when it was going through my HDMI amplifier.

Butter smooth scrollings + great shaders = great !
(for some reason, I have to use the portable FS-UAE to prevent a Python error, and the xbrz3x-crt-hyllian which used to work cannot compile anymore, strange)

Last issue : how to reduce input latency. Which is significant. Not huge but still annoying.

1) I'll now check if I can use an NVIDIA card instead, with force compositing pîpeline and vsync off, dunno if that will work along with the 50 Hz mode
2) hmm, you all read this I guess : https://www.blurbusters.com/blur-bus...or-developers/
which was implemented this year under WinUAE. I wonder if it could be backported to FS-UAE. Then it would be a dream come true.

Edit : I've just tried the latest WinUAE + Beamraced VSync in 50 Hz under WINE. It even automatically switches my display to 50 Hz ! Seems to work very well !! BUT there are 2 big issues : - pixel shaders don't work - my gamepad is listed but doesn't work

Edit 2 : works also with NVIDIA cards. Input lag is not better (even when using force composition pipeline + disabling vsync in UAE).
Edit 3 : ah, the xbrz3x-crt-hyllian shader compiles with the nvidia drivers and not MESA (radeon)

Edit 4 : is it possible (apart from using a script) to ask FS-UAE to automatically switch back and forth 50 Hz ?

Ok, just have to get the best of UF-UAE and WinUAE to work and it'll be absolutely perfect. Maybe 2019 will be the year I don't need a FPGA Amiga anymore !
cheers

[torturedutopian]

Hi ! I realize my request was buried in my spaghetti post :-)

I get "failed to compile fragment shaders" when using the both the xbrz3x-crt-hyllian and scalefx-lottes shaders (which are supposed to be completely distinct from each other) on my Radeon RX 560 card -- they did work with my former nvidia card.

For some strange reason, the xbrz shader does work though !

I'm using bleeding edge MESA & Radeon drivers (which are really good nowadays). The similarly named shaders DO work under RetroArch. Any idea ? :-)

(using FS-UAE portable version -- cannot start the one from the PPA due to a Python error)

[guest.r]

Hi there, sorry for a bit late reply.

scalefx-lottes uses some complicated integer array math and non-square matrices, which aren't supported by linux AMD drivers (yet).

I guess we could have more luck with the xbrz3x-crt-hyllian shader.

Please post the "fs-uae.log.txt" file from the cache/logs folder and i'll try to fix it.