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[Holammer]

Here's a clever open source CRT shader solution, a window you can move around on the desktop or apply to applications running with borderless fullscreen. It's been around for years, but it just hit version 1.0.
Very strange to work with at first, but it works with everything and there's no need to do a new Reshade injection every time a program is updated. It is highly customizeable and includes Retroarch's 800+ shaders.

ShaderGlass by mausimus

Retro shaders on top of any Windows app

mausimus.itch.io

GitHub - mausimus/ShaderGlass: Overlay for running GPU shaders on top of Windows desktop

Overlay for running GPU shaders on top of Windows desktop - mausimus/ShaderGlass

github.com

Via Niche Gamer

Edit: Now on Steam.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Really cool.

 

[rodrigolfp]

Also works in exclusive full screen, right?

 

[Trilobit]

I use that when I watch non-HD shows and movies from the 90's and earlier on my laptop. It even has a nice curvature lol.

Also works in exclusive full screen, right?

Yep, CTRL+Shift+G. You can also alter the shaders.

 

[Kupfer]

This is awesome for some tinkering DIY projects!

I use that when I watch non-HD shows and movies from the 90's and earlier on my laptop. It even has a nice curvature lol.

I'd love to have this integrated in my OLED TV for watching old / low res stuff

 

[Holammer]

Also works in exclusive full screen, right?

itch page only mentions windowed mode and borderless, but I just tried a Switch emulator running at Exclusive Fullscreen and it worked fine.

 

[Dacvak]

This is awesome for some tinkering DIY projects!



I'd love to have this integrated in my OLED TV for watching old / low res stuff

I feel like this is one of the big things missing from modern TVs at this point. Not specifically CRT filters, but more niche options for image display.

We're at a point where most of the OLED manufacturers are making phenomenal products that are, frankly, hard to differentiate between. But if LG came out with an OLED that had options like Nearest Neighbor scaling, artificial scanlines, and various no-latency filters (like CRTs, LCD, etc.), I would buy that shit in a HEARTBEAT.

They have to know that, while very niche, thousands of people are already paying almost $1000 for upscalers like the RetroTink 4K. Most of that money goes into the hardware cost, which would likely be a non-issue for a modern OLED TV. So then, it's really just up to LG to develop convincing software scalers. (I mean, shit, just hire the guy who makes the RetroTink.)

I know this will probably never happen, but TVs have plateaued in the last 5 years. My 2019 LG C1 is just as good as some of the modern OLED set coming out today (just not as bright). Pretty soon, these TV manufacturers are going to need to differentiate their products by offering novel bells and whistles. I hope "retro filters" ends up being one of them. It seems so obvious…

 

[RagnarokIV]

This is exactly what I've been looking for actually. I can just dump it on top of various emulators and videos like my old Toonami DBZ bootlegs.

Can finally ditch that retroarch bullshit.

Also:

 

[Holammer]

This is exactly what I've been looking for actually. I can just dump it on top of various emulators and videos like my old Toonami DBZ bootlegs.

Can finally ditch that retroarch bullshit.

Also:

I used MPV player with a Reshade injection for old 80's and 90's anime. It just got replaced.

 

[Kupfer]

I feel like this is one of the big things missing from modern TVs at this point. Not specifically CRT filters, but more niche options for image display.

We're at a point where most of the OLED manufacturers are making phenomenal products that are, frankly, hard to differentiate between. But if LG came out with an OLED that had options like Nearest Neighbor scaling, artificial scanlines, and various no-latency filters (like CRTs, LCD, etc.), I would buy that shit in a HEARTBEAT.

They have to know that, while very niche, thousands of people are already paying almost $1000 for upscalers like the RetroTink 4K. Most of that money goes into the hardware cost, which would likely be a non-issue for a modern OLED TV. So then, it's really just up to LG to develop convincing software scalers. (I mean, shit, just hire the guy who makes the RetroTink.)

I know this will probably never happen, but TVs have plateaued in the last 5 years. My 2019 LG C1 is just as good as some of the modern OLED set coming out today (just not as bright). Pretty soon, these TV manufacturers are going to need to differentiate their products by offering novel bells and whistles. I hope "retro filters" ends up being one of them. It seems so obvious…

Yes, I also have an LG OLED CX from 2020, and it still performs excellently today. I see no reason to upgrade. However, features like the ones you describe would indeed be a no-brainer.

 

[rofif]

Thats a fun toy but I have no idea what crt monitors you people were using back in the day to have the text look like this..
I had iiyama, Hyundai, Samsung... Even the 1996 monitor was not that bad. I still have it.
That said, it's a really fun and easy to use toy. Very impressive
edit: you can change pixel size to x1 and it looks sharper but probably better to keep x3 for pixelart games

Just a reminder. This is my old crt. And with this new shader, I can't read text.

 

[alphachino]

I've been looking for something like this for ages. THANKS OP!!!

 

[Hudo]

That's pretty neat.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

degauss button?

 

[Katatonic]

CRT and scanline filters in general should be a built in option included in TV's.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

CRT and scanline filters in general should be a built in option included in TV's

would be cool but probably too niche--i am surprised though that TVs have never offered a built-in AA option, like the mcable does.

i have all my old consoles going through an mcable and it does help.

 

[Kupfer]

This is SO nice.

Just downloaded it and played around with some examples which I have in 384p, 480p and 320p.

There's a massive reduction of artifacts, which is awesome, all in all the picture looks significantly enhanced
Shaderglass brings back the nostalgic charme to these TV series and it's so easy to use.

Spoiler: Examples

These are just the stock settings, I'm sure you can do a lot better with some tweaking, but I am so positively surprised by this little free tool that I am really pleased to have read this thread. Thanks for sharing Holammer

 

[Dorago]

This project is cool and I'm glad someone finally took this approach.

As this approach gets more mature I will eventually get rid of my CRT which wines like crazy and shows purple on both corners.

 

[Soodanim]

My first thought was "What CRT shader though?"
My second thought was "Oh damn, they have the RA shaders"

I approve.

 

[nkarafo]

Doesn't work well on my system. A distracting yellow line appears around the screen.

 

[Kupfer]

Doesn't work well on my system. A distracting yellow line appears around the screen.

For me, it's just around the input screen (2nd display). The output on main display is clean.

 

[Bitstream]

This is pretty damn awesome. Now if we can just get a shader overlay that gives CRT like motion clarity.

 

[SScorpio]

This is pretty damn awesome. Now if we can just get a shader overlay that gives CRT like motion clarity.

They have a shader that will draw just parts of the screen to mimic the electron gun sweeping and phosphor decay.

You want at least a 240, if not 480Hz monitor.

 

[Inanilmaz]

What to choose in the options to mimic a crt with very good comb filter using composite? Including 4:3 crt looking border

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

Can't test it right now but is this a pain in the ass for computer boomer morons like me to actually use?

 

[Avid Reading Horse]

The real ASMR right here.

 

[dave_d]

Just curious is it hard coded to run at 30fps?(that's what it runs at for me) I haven't tried shaders in retroarch but would they run at the same speed or faster?

 

[Holammer]

Just curious is it hard coded to run at 30fps?(that's what it runs at for me) I haven't tried shaders in retroarch but would they run at the same speed or faster?

Go to Output/FPS
It's set to 1/2 by default (it's fairly demanding).

 

[dave_d]

Go to Output/FPS
It's set to 1/2 by default (it's fairly demanding).

Thanks. I didn't see that. I was playing around more with the different crt shaders it offered

 

[Holammer]

 

[Corporal.Hicks]

Thats a fun toy but I have no idea what crt monitors you people were using back in the day to have the text look like this..
I had iiyama, Hyundai, Samsung... Even the 1996 monitor was not that bad. I still have it.
That said, it's a really fun and easy to use toy. Very impressive
edit: you can change pixel size to x1 and it looks sharper but probably better to keep x3 for pixelart games

Just a reminder. This is my old crt. And with this new shader, I can't read text.

This application lower internal resolution too much with default scaling settings. You need to change the input/pixel size to improve text scaling clarity.

Not all CRTs had blurry image. There was a huge difference in sharpness between SD CRT TVs and CRT monitors. Picture quality on the CRT monitor is only slightly less sharp than the LCD, while the SD CRT TV is extremely blurry.

My SD CRT TV, picture is blurry compared to CRT monitors.

Scart RGB

S-video (sharpening works unlike RGB scart)

The same game at 480p on PCSX emulator. Bilinear filtering makes 480p look blurry.

Nearest neighbour + basic CRT filter (guest advancedhd shader usint mask #8), and suddenly 480p look sharp.

 

[sigmaZ]

Messing around with the different filters. Personal favorite so far is crt-caligari. Good balance of contrast, color, and sharpness.

 

[Corporal.Hicks]

Messing around with the different filters. Personal favorite so far is crt-caligari. Good balance of contrast, color, and sharpness.

My favorite CRT shader is sony megatron PVM 2730QM (from retroarch shader pack).

Real CRT (PVM 2730QM) vs shader

Sony Megatron shader doesnt add fake bloom and manipulate gamma in order to boost brightness (like typical CRT shader), so you get sharper image and more accurate colors, but unfortunately it requires a display with very high brightness to look good (around 600 nits of brightness). I'm planning to buy 4K QD-OLED monitor but I'm afraid even high end QD-OLED monitor like Asus PG27UCDM will be too dim for sony megatron CRT shader, because it only has 400 nits on average and 1000 nits peaks.

It would be great if some people who own QD-OLED monitors (especially 4K) could test this CRT PVM 2730QM shader in retroarch using 4K 300TVL settings and tell me if the brightness is acceptable with this shader on his OLED monitor. I'm also including my own screenshots below if people dont want to install retroarch emulator just for testing purposes. It's necessary to view these screenshots in full screen and in HDR mode using the full SDR brightness slider to boost brightness of SDR images to the max (otherwise my SDR screenshots will be capped to around 120 nits).

Sony megatron PVM 2730QM shader at 1080p using TVL300 settings (TVL300 is perfect for 240p arcade games, and also PSX, N64, SNES). This screenshot should look good even on 1440p QD-OLEDs because it's using only 1080p phosphor mask.

4K TVL300 settings (perfect for 240p content)

4K TVL600 settings (perfect for 480p/i content)

I would like to use 4K TVL300 sony megatron shader, but on my current HDR400 monitor the picture is too dim even with max panel brightness settings.

On my current monitor I have to use standard CRT shaders, because they offer very good brightness, but these standard shaders use bloom to increase brightness, so colours and gamma look a bit off.

koko-aio tv flickering shader with default convergence settings in the shader parameters (without convergence pixels would be sharper).

Royal shader

without any shaders

koko-aio without convergence blurr (I turned it off in the shader settings) looks especially good, pixelation is reduced drastically and brightness is very good, but that sony PVM shader would look even better on good bright (600nits) display.

 

[The_Observer]

would be cool but probably too niche--i am surprised though that TVs have never offered a built-in AA option, like the mcable does.

i have all my old consoles going through an mcable and it does help.

What? There is a cable that can provide AA to combat those disgusting jaggies? Why haven't I heard about this before?? Please tell me more about this!

 

[StereoVsn]

My favorite CRT shader is sony megatron PVM 2730QM. It doesnt add fake bloom and manipulate gamma just to look bright (unlike every other CRT shader), so you get accurate colors but unfortunately it requires a display with very high brightness to look good (it requires around 600nits of brightness). I'm planning to buy 4K QD-OLED monitor but I'm afraid even high end QD-OLED monitor like Asus PG27UCDM will be too dim for sony megatron CRT shader, because it only has 400 nits on average and 1000 nits peaks.

It would be great if some QD-OLEDs (especially 4K) owner could test this CRT PVM 2730QM shader in retroarch using 4K 300TVL settings and tell me if the brightness is acceptable with this shader on his OLED monitor. I'm also including my own screenshots below if people dont want to instal retroarch. It's necessary to view these screenshots in full screen and in HDR mode, using the full SDR brightness slider to boost brightness of SDR images to the max.

Sony megatron PVM 2730QM at 1080p using TVL300 settings. This screenshot should look good even on 1440p QD-OLEDs.

4K TVL300 settings. I would like to use this shader, but on my current HDR400 monitor the picture is too dim even with max panel brightness settings.

4K TVL600 settings

On my current monitor I have to use standard CRT shaders, because they offer good brightness, but these standard shaders use bloom to increase brightness, so colours and gamma look a bit off.

koko-aio tv flickering shader

Royal shader

without any shaders

koko-aio without blurr looks especially good, pixelation is reduced drastically and brightness is very good, but that sony PVM shader would look even better on good enough display.

This looks amazing. I really need to give this a try.

 

[Soodanim]

My favorite CRT shader is sony megatron PVM 2730QM. It doesnt add fake bloom and manipulate gamma just to look bright (unlike every other CRT shader), so you get accurate colors but unfortunately it requires a display with very high brightness to look good (it requires around 600nits of brightness). I'm planning to buy 4K QD-OLED monitor but I'm afraid even high end QD-OLED monitor like Asus PG27UCDM will be too dim for sony megatron CRT shader, because it only has 400 nits on average and 1000 nits peaks.

It would be great if some QD-OLED owner (especially 4K) could test this CRT PVM 2730QM shader in retroarch using 4K 300TVL settings and tell me if the brightness is acceptable with this shader on his OLED monitor. I'm also including my own screenshots below if people dont want to install retroarch emulator just for testing purposes. It's necessary to view these screenshots in full screen and in HDR mode, using the full SDR brightness slider to boost brightness of SDR images to the max.

Sony megatron PVM 2730QM shader at 1080p using TVL300 settings (TVL300 is perfect for 240p arcade games, and also PSX, N64, SNES). This screenshot should look good even on 1440p QD-OLEDs because it's using only 1080p phosphor mask.

4K TVL300 settings. I would like to use this shader, but on my current HDR400 monitor the picture is too dim even with max panel brightness settings.

4K TVL600 settings

On my current monitor I have to use standard CRT shaders, because they offer very good brightness, but these standard shaders use bloom to increase brightness, so colours and gamma look a bit off.

koko-aio tv flickering shader

Royal shader

without any shaders

koko-aio without blurr looks especially good, pixelation is reduced drastically and brightness is very good, but that sony PVM shader would look even better on good bright (600nits) display.

I can't speak to HDR shaders as I don't have the display for it, but from the first time using koko AIO I was a big fan. Loved it for the same reasons you said.

 

[Corporal.Hicks]

So many neogafers rocking 4090 / 5090 and QD OLEDs and not a single one willing to test this megatron CRT shader / screenshots?

rofif I know you have a OLED TV but can you test my 4K screenshots of Retroarch (Metal Slug 3) on your TV using HDR mode in Windows and tell me if the brightness is usable?

 

[Branded]

My favorite CRT shader is sony megatron PVM 2730QM. It doesnt add fake bloom and manipulate gamma just to look bright (unlike every other CRT shader), so you get accurate colors but unfortunately it requires a display with very high brightness to look good (it requires around 600nits of brightness). I'm planning to buy 4K QD-OLED monitor but I'm afraid even high end QD-OLED monitor like Asus PG27UCDM will be too dim for sony megatron CRT shader, because it only has 400 nits on average and 1000 nits peaks.

It would be great if some people who own QD-OLED monitors (especially 4K) could test this CRT PVM 2730QM shader in retroarch using 4K 300TVL settings and tell me if the brightness is acceptable with this shader on his OLED monitor. I'm also including my own screenshots below if people dont want to install retroarch emulator just for testing purposes. It's necessary to view these screenshots in full screen and in HDR mode using the full SDR brightness slider to boost brightness of SDR images to the max (otherwise my SDR screenshots will be capped to around 120 nits).

Sony megatron PVM 2730QM shader at 1080p using TVL300 settings (TVL300 is perfect for 240p arcade games, and also PSX, N64, SNES). This screenshot should look good even on 1440p QD-OLEDs because it's using only 1080p phosphor mask.

4K TVL300 settings. I would like to use this shader, but on my current HDR400 monitor the picture is too dim even with max panel brightness settings.

4K TVL600 settings

On my current monitor I have to use standard CRT shaders, because they offer very good brightness, but these standard shaders use bloom to increase brightness, so colours and gamma look a bit off.

koko-aio tv flickering shader

Royal shader

without any shaders

koko-aio without convergence blurr (I turned it off in the shader settings) looks especially good, pixelation is reduced drastically and brightness is very good, but that sony PVM shader would look even better on good bright (600nits) display.

Sheeeesh how do I bookmark a post?

 

[RoboFu]

I'm sure it also adds a ton of lag.

That's the main reason I cant use emulators. Just the bare minimal lag is way more than actual old hardware let alone adding a shader.

 

[Corporal.Hicks]

I'm sure it also adds a ton of lag.

That's the main reason I cant use emulators. Just the bare minimal lag is way more than actual old hardware let alone adding a shader.

Shader glass limits framerate on my PC, but I'm not experiencing any lag on retroarch emulator itself and I still have my old consoles and real CRT to compare. Retroarch emu makes these game even more responsive and image quality look also look a lot better.

 

[RoboFu]

Shader glass limits framerate on my PC, but I'm not experiencing any lag on retroarch emulator itself and I still have my old consoles and real CRT. Retroarch emu makes these game even more responsive and image quality look also look a lot better.

Not in my experience. I can easily tell when like I kill super Mario bros on actual hardware but keep falling in gaps on emulators using the same exact 2.4 g controller. Even the slightest lag is horrible when you are used to no lag.

 

[poodaddy]

My favorite CRT shader is sony megatron PVM 2730QM. It doesnt add fake bloom and manipulate gamma just to look bright (unlike every other CRT shader), so you get accurate colors but unfortunately it requires a display with very high brightness to look good (it requires around 600nits of brightness). I'm planning to buy 4K QD-OLED monitor but I'm afraid even high end QD-OLED monitor like Asus PG27UCDM will be too dim for sony megatron CRT shader, because it only has 400 nits on average and 1000 nits peaks.

It would be great if some people who own QD-OLED monitors (especially 4K) could test this CRT PVM 2730QM shader in retroarch using 4K 300TVL settings and tell me if the brightness is acceptable with this shader on his OLED monitor. I'm also including my own screenshots below if people dont want to install retroarch emulator just for testing purposes. It's necessary to view these screenshots in full screen and in HDR mode using the full SDR brightness slider to boost brightness of SDR images to the max (otherwise my SDR screenshots will be capped to around 120 nits).

Sony megatron PVM 2730QM shader at 1080p using TVL300 settings (TVL300 is perfect for 240p arcade games, and also PSX, N64, SNES). This screenshot should look good even on 1440p QD-OLEDs because it's using only 1080p phosphor mask.

4K TVL300 settings (perfect for 240p content)

4K TVL600 settings (perfect for 480p/i content)

I would like to use 4K TVL300 sony megatron shader, but on my current HDR400 monitor the picture is too dim even with max panel brightness settings.

On my current monitor I have to use standard CRT shaders, because they offer very good brightness, but these standard shaders use bloom to increase brightness, so colours and gamma look a bit off.

koko-aio tv flickering shader with default convergence settings in the shader parameters (without convergence pixels would be sharper).

Royal shader

without any shaders

koko-aio without convergence blurr (I turned it off in the shader settings) looks especially good, pixelation is reduced drastically and brightness is very good, but that sony PVM shader would look even better on good bright (600nits) display.

Hey, so mines not 4k, but I've got an ultra wide MSI QD OLED monitor, 5120 x 1440p, 240 hz upstairs in the attic, I can dig into this later if you want and see what I figure out. I believe my monitors listed as 416 or 436 nits, can't
remember which one, but yeah it's not insanely bright, sounds about the same as your parameters there, so I suppose the findings would be relevant to you. Let me know if you still want it checked out and if so I'll dig into it later for ya bud. I will admit that I don't really have anything retro on that PC in particular, as that's kind of the machine designated specifically for those "modern, high end games", as it were, but it wouldn't take me long to download something useful on there. After all, I've got a silly GoG library that needs to get used more anyway.

 

[rofif]

So many neogafers rocking 4090 / 5090 and QD OLEDs and not a single one willing to test this megatron CRT shader / screenshots?

rofif I know you have a OLED TV but can you test my 4K screenshots of Retroarch (Metal Slug 3) on your TV using HDR mode in Windows and tell me if the brightness is usable?

Sure later when I get home

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

Wow, thanks for the thread. Fantastic tool!

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

Awesome stuff! Should play more with the settings.

 

[Sakura]

This application lower internal resolution too much with default scaling settings. You need to change the input/pixel size to improve text scaling clarity.

Not all CRTs had blurry image. There was a huge difference in sharpness between SD CRT TVs and CRT monitors. Picture quality on the CRT monitor is only slightly less sharp than the LCD, while the SD CRT TV is extremely blurry.

My SD CRT TV, picture is blurry compared to CRT monitors.

Scart RGB


S-video (sharpening works unlike RGB scart)

The same game at 480p on PCSX emulator. Bilinear filtering makes 480p look blurry.

Well yeah, you aren't playing it at 480p on the CRT so of course it will be blurry, and 480p on emulator will look much better.

 

[Tarin02543]

Really cool.

Well yeah, you aren't playing it at 480p on the CRT so of course it will be blurry, and 480p on emulator will look much better.

Anyone tried Vint on steam yet? This actually simulates crt instead of just a cosmetic shader overlay. its a bit steep in price though at 20 bucks. also only viable on video streams as the hefty requirements introduces too much delay

 

[rofif]

So many neogafers rocking 4090 / 5090 and QD OLEDs and not a single one willing to test this megatron CRT shader / screenshots?

rofif I know you have a OLED TV but can you test my 4K screenshots of Retroarch (Metal Slug 3) on your TV using HDR mode in Windows and tell me if the brightness is usable?

On SDR - unusable. Too dark for me.
ON HDR (but with sldier set to 7 to match sdr brightness) also too dark.
on 100 hdr slider in windows, perfectly fine.

Pictures are not really correct but I tried matching the expousure to how it looks to my eye.
Is this what you wanted to test?

 

[Corporal.Hicks]

On SDR - unusable. Too dark for me.
ON HDR (but with sldier set to 7 to match sdr brightness) also too dark.
on 100 hdr slider in windows, perfectly fine.

Pictures are not really correct but I tried matching the expousure to how it looks to my eye.
Is this what you wanted to test?

Thank you, this is exactly what I wanted to test . My HDR400 monitor has a much dimmer picture with this shader mask, like 2x times dimmer. Sony's Megatron shader mask seems to work perfectly on OLED TVs, so I might buy OLED TV instead of monitor.

Hey, so mines not 4k, but I've got an ultra wide MSI QD OLED monitor, 5120 x 1440p, 240 hz upstairs in the attic, I can dig into this later if you want and see what I figure out. I believe my monitors listed as 416 or 436 nits, can't
remember which one, but yeah it's not insanely bright, sounds about the same as your parameters there, so I suppose the findings would be relevant to you. Let me know if you still want it checked out and if so I'll dig into it later for ya bud. I will admit that I don't really have anything retro on that PC in particular, as that's kind of the machine designated specifically for those "modern, high end games", as it were, but it wouldn't take me long to download something useful on there. After all, I've got a silly GoG library that needs to get used more anyway.

rofif has already shown what I wanted to see, but if you have the time, you can do the same test on your monitor, because maybe QD OLED monitor can keep up with the LG OLED TV.