MiSTer FPGA Forum

Ah, yeah, so none of the scanline + mask options actually retain the gaps between the lines on MiSTer? I have a 5X Pro and I've been using the Shadow Mask with composite. Here's an example of what I'm trying to replicate:

https://twitter.com/TVsBen/status/1464455063712186368

https://twitter.com/TVsBen/status/1450589177079345157

That's a photo of my lame 32" 1080p TV. The closest I've been able to come on MiSTer is the bright soft scanlines, and I was hoping that the masks would complete the deal. Instead of that, it just removes the lines between rows of pixels, which is taking me away from what I'm trying to do rather than towards it.

And it's fine, I love my MiSTer arcade and PC cores. I can certainly survive keeping my original console hardware.

You can always feed your Mister into the Retrotink, even using the analog out...

FoxbatStargazer wrote: ↑Mon Nov 29, 2021 6:46 am You can always feed your Mister into the Retrotink, even using the analog out...

I'm struggling with that, too, because I'd love to do that and then build an arcade cabinet next to the TV and use HDMI there.

https://twitter.com/TVsBen/status/1464713570495746056

The response I got was to just use an HDMI splitter.

https://twitter.com/iequalshane/status/ ... 9971919877

So, I'm stuck. Not really looking for solutions and not trying to drag this thread off topic, but I did think of that a couple days ago. It still looks very nice with bright/soft scanlines, just not quite as nice as the RT5XP. And it's not like I'm going to dump it out of frustration, either; I'm never going to buy a CPS2 setup or a consolized MVS so it's still getting tons of use.

Csync is just going to be discarded by that vga->component break-out cable so it won't do anything. The thing you need for component is sync on green (SoG) which is enabled with the OVR switch. When Retrotink is set to Composite you should expect black & white because the green cable carries only luma information, color comes from the red and blue cables which are ignored/not present in composite source. I can't explain why the retrotink refuses to read in component setting though. You might want to check that component is being output correctly from Mister if you can plug it into something else.

One limitation of Mister component output is that the color depth is further limited from 8-bit down to 6-bit. So you might get slightly better results using a SCART cable for RGB into the Retrotink (pretty sure it has a SCART input?) In that case it would be ypbpr=0, SoG switch set to auto, and csync=1. I recall Bob from RetroRGB mentioning some voltage concerns about using the right VGA->SCART adapter with mister so you might want to look into that carefully before buying one. (Although that might be more a concern for real CRTs than the Retrotink.)

Still there is a huge variety of these masks so it is probably possible to get one that does what you are looking for on Mister's HDMI out. It may take some time to emerge & be found or you have to get dirty fiddling with them yourselves, at least the format of them seems pretty simple if cryptic.

Yeah, I went down that rabbit hole with the SoG switch, too.

https://twitter.com/TVsBen/status/1464720195000455170

6-bit color on a bunch of old games is not really a deterrent. I don't think I'd be able to tell the difference. Dual HDMI out via splitter is my next stop; I've kind of given up on this IO board being anything more than a fan mount. LOL

I've been trying out the shadow mask filters while playing Chrono Trigger on the SNES core. So far, the one I prefer is TrashUncle's slot-mask-RGB with 1x rotation. It does a good job of preserving detail while producing that "CRT" look.

An interesting thing about the shadow masks is that, unlike scanline filters, they seem agnostic to pixels in the original content. They are basically going to sit on top of your scaled graphics in the exact same pattern and size, regardless of how you scale or stretch your original source. This means you don't have to worry about integer scaling at all when using them, which also makes sense since real shadow masks do not align with your display content either...

This also gives us a cheap way to do even scanlines on non-integer sources. Something like the basic stripes, when rotated, look fairly scanline-like. Even though they are not aligned to source pixels, the effect still looked pretty good to me at 1080p, and when using a non-integer fill of the screen, the scanlines remained perfectly even. This can be especially handy for arcade cores, which often lack 5x cut options (or would suffer from too much info lost using them), and getting integer scaling on rotated cores for vertical scanlines is especially tricky. Someone might be able to do a little better job creating a mask purely aimed at these sort of fake scanlines for non-integer scaling.

Yeah really love these new filters, Mega Drive looks insanely good


(Right-click > view image in another tab to view fullscreen and avoid Moiré/artifacting)

One more catch I found, is that again, because the filters are agnostic about the original resolution, you can get some unfortunate interference patterns between scanlines and shadow masks. Filters like the simple PVM bright and simple trinitron bright, when used with 4x scaling, made every other scanline look obviously different in an ugly way. The issue disappeared at 5x and 6x though with the very same scanline filters and masks. So be wary of your scaling if a mask makes your scanlines look off. The feature kind of leans towards using 5x cut if you can on 1080p displays.

Vespa wrote: ↑Tue Nov 30, 2021 4:27 pm Yeah really love these new filters, Mega Drive looks insanely good


f_03aok73.jpg


(Right-click > view image in another tab to view fullscreen and avoid Moiré/artifacting)

Which settings did you use for this? Looks like some horizontal blending is going on, but I cannot find the right filters on Mister.

Asteld wrote: ↑Wed Dec 01, 2021 9:59 am

Vespa wrote: ↑Tue Nov 30, 2021 4:27 pm Yeah really love these new filters, Mega Drive looks insanely good


f_03aok73.jpg


(Right-click > view image in another tab to view fullscreen and avoid Moiré/artifacting)

Which settings did you use for this? Looks like some horizontal blending is going on, but I cannot find the right filters on Mister.

Good eye, yeah there's a composite blend Horizontal scanline 75 filter being used in conjunction with the RYCB shadow mask, this one looks best to me at 1080p currently (I've only tried the few filters from the test build so far). Really cleans up Zangief's 'Jail Bar' dithered floor and the softness is somewhat reminiscent of my Trinitron consumer CRT.

EDIT: Thin RGB Stripes is great too

FoxbatStargazer wrote: ↑Tue Nov 30, 2021 3:55 am An interesting thing about the shadow masks is that, unlike scanline filters, they seem agnostic to pixels in the original content. They are basically going to sit on top of your scaled graphics in the exact same pattern and size, regardless of how you scale or stretch your original source. This means you don't have to worry about integer scaling at all when using them, which also makes sense since real shadow masks do not align with your display content either...

This also gives us a cheap way to do even scanlines on non-integer sources. Something like the basic stripes, when rotated, look fairly scanline-like. Even though they are not aligned to source pixels, the effect still looked pretty good to me at 1080p, and when using a non-integer fill of the screen, the scanlines remained perfectly even. This can be especially handy for arcade cores, which often lack 5x cut options (or would suffer from too much info lost using them), and getting integer scaling on rotated cores for vertical scanlines is especially tricky. Someone might be able to do a little better job creating a mask purely aimed at these sort of fake scanlines for non-integer scaling.

what youre describing is exactly how i use these shadow masks.
i rotate them and put a horizontal composite blend on them. which creates a very believable scanline effect, regardless of integer scaling

i did also notice when using the shadow masks that way, the masks arent aligned to the original pixels, which creates some slight distortions, but the perfectly spaced "scanlines" on a full screen is a fair tradeoff. far better than using scanlines with .25 integer scaling, which would create uneven/wavy scanlines, which are far more distracting on a solid color

i saw someone made a shadow mask editor https://bool.space/mister/ShadowMaskEditor.htm and it would be very cool if someone could create a mask designed specifically for this use, that did take into account the original pixel size. as they are, its not a dealbreaker tho. i am completely happy with what we have now thanks to these rotated shadow masks

Thanks for that link! Wow, I didn't realize how limited/simple the masks are... scanline wise doesn't seem like much more you can do that rows of grey. Maybe sneak in a bit of color here or there, like a repeating RGB pattern. Surprised there's no way to control the intensity of colors.

For non-integer scales you probably want to pick a mask size at the closest integer multiplier. So 3x for 720p, 5x for 1080p, 6x for 1440p, something like that.

Anyway the editor is pretty simple to use, I'll have to test some things out later. In the meantime not very hard if you want to jump in and make your own masks!

Vespa wrote: ↑Thu Dec 02, 2021 1:09 am

Asteld wrote: ↑Wed Dec 01, 2021 9:59 am ...

Good eye, yeah there's a composite blend Horizontal scanline 75 filter being used in conjunction with the RYCB shadow mask, this one looks best to me at 1080p currently (I've only tried the few filters from the test build so far). Really cleans up Zangief's 'Jail Bar' dithered floor and the softness is somewhat reminiscent of my Trinitron consumer CRT.

EDIT: Thin RGB Stripes is great too

Thanks! RYCB does indeed look great, on 1440p too. I'd hoped composite blend 75 with the shadow mask would be enough to alleviate all dithering on the Mega Drive. Unfortunately, it's not quite enough. The waterfalls in sonic or the leaves in Pitfall still don't blend naturally. The good news is that composite blend 100 is enough for almost all dithering, though it is noticeably blurrier.

Regardless, the shadow masks make everything look much better. Pixel details just blend so much better now. My favourite so far is trashuncle/JVC_LamerDeluxe

On 1440p I have noticed some of the shadow masks, when used in conjunction with scanlines, result in uneven (ugly/noticeable) scanlines with integer scaling. Not really a problem, but it does mean not all shadow masks work well when used with scanlines.

Asteld wrote: ↑Thu Dec 02, 2021 9:43 am

Vespa wrote: ↑Thu Dec 02, 2021 1:09 am

Asteld wrote: ↑Wed Dec 01, 2021 9:59 am ...

Good eye, yeah there's a composite blend Horizontal scanline 75 filter being used in conjunction with the RYCB shadow mask, this one looks best to me at 1080p currently (I've only tried the few filters from the test build so far). Really cleans up Zangief's 'Jail Bar' dithered floor and the softness is somewhat reminiscent of my Trinitron consumer CRT.

EDIT: Thin RGB Stripes is great too

Thanks! RYCB does indeed look great, on 1440p too. I'd hoped composite blend 75 with the shadow mask would be enough to alleviate all dithering on the Mega Drive. Unfortunately, it's not quite enough. The waterfalls in sonic or the leaves in Pitfall still don't blend naturally. The good news is that composite blend 100 is enough for almost all dithering, though it is noticeably blurrier.

Regardless, the shadow masks make everything look much better. Pixel details just blend so much better now. My favourite so far is trashuncle/JVC_LamerDeluxe

On 1440p I have noticed some of the shadow masks, when used in conjunction with scanlines, result in uneven (ugly/noticeable) scanlines with integer scaling. Not really a problem, but it does mean not all shadow masks work well when used with scanlines.

Yeah, you need to change the blend level settings per game, with Super SF2 it's a 256-pixel game so using 100 or the inbuilt core composite blend (CB) is too strong but it works well on 320 games.

I've been meaning to make a thread on it but in games like Comix Zone you need to use the inbuilt core composite blend to get clean transparent shadows, 100 from the filter selection won't cut it as it's not strong enough. Then there are games like Lion King where you can use horizontal scanline CB 75 and RYCB and it will blend the background skies and be sharper than the inbuilt CB option but won't fully blend if you use another type of shadow mask*!

*That I've seen so far

Thanks. Had not realized the different blending requirements due to resolution difference, but that makes sense. Honestly, I don't spend a lot of time on the Mega Drive, but I didn't like the dithering.

Had already gotten used to the fact that it's either a lot of dithering, or a LOT of blur. At least with shadow masks the blending actually looks good now, instead of just mostly blurry (but smooth).

Asteld wrote: ↑Thu Dec 02, 2021 4:11 pm Thanks. Had not realized the different blending requirements due to resolution difference, but that makes sense. Honestly, I don't spend a lot of time on the Mega Drive, but I didn't like the dithering.

Had already gotten used to the fact that it's either a lot of dithering, or a LOT of blur. At least with shadow masks the blending actually looks good now, instead of just mostly blurry (but smooth).

Yeah, I love that the slot masks have the effect of masking some of the blur. It will be handy for a lot of consoles, hoping it makes it to every core eventually (I'm drooling to think what SIlent Hill will look like on the PS1 core with the dither blended and a shadow mask to help retain some sharpness!).

I like some types of dithering you see in games but some of the 'Jail bar' dithering Mega Drive uses is plain ugly, certainly prefer to give up some sharpness to blend it.

Here's some super simple options for monocolor (grey) scanlines, as a starting point. You can add quite a bit of texture playing with the colors, but no matter what the intensity/contrast of the effect is going to be low, feels about the same as scandoublerfx 25%. For this reason I find if you go too crazy, your attention is drawn away from the scanline effect, so you aren't going to get much of a mask going while trying to make scanlines this way.

These are 5x size, chop off the very bottom line for a 4x version. Also *do not rotate* if you want horizontal, rotation is for vertical!

Scanlines_Straight.txt:
Scanlines_Jagged.txt (slight hint at a mask or grille)

Some NES with the following settings:
-1080p
-RYCB Stripes
-COMP_SCAN_H_075


I love what composite blend is doing to that pillar, drape, and window frame.

messed around with the shadow mask editor, https://bool.space/mister/ShadowMaskEditor.htm
and created this, based off of a rotated RYCB stripe mask

MiSTer displaying 1080p, video scaling set fit to screen

Updated 12/5/21
the stock rotated RYCB stripe mask creates the best fake scanlines in my tests, combined with comp blend H 50-75%.
it has a very believable scanline look with perfectly spaced scanlines, but imo needed some texture to give it a CRT look.
this shadow mask has a very PVM look to it.


thanks @FoxbatStargazer for giving me the idea!

RYCB Stripes shadowmask 1x is great with my 27'' lcd monitor.

No visible vertical lines.

I dont use comp h 75 because it is too blurry and my astigmatism doesnt appretiate

Wait, are your eyes so bad they are blending the vertical lines for you?

No seriously, something sounds off if you aren't getting any kind of lines. The blue and red side-by-side are pretty dark. Especially easy to see with a white screen on the 240p test suite.

Anyway, using that same white screen, something to keep in mind is that the masks seem to be applied *after* scaling filters. So you can blur your content all you like, the mask itself is going to stay just as sharp and separated. So you can't really blur or alter the intensity of the visible color patterns created by a colorful mask.

pbsk8 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 9:19 pm RYCB Stripes shadowmask 1x is great with my 27'' lcd monitor.

No visible vertical lines.

I dont use comp h 75 because it is too blurry and my astigmatism doesnt appretiate

I'd have to agree, comp HV075 is way too blurry, i use HV025 and its deff better for me.

Hello,
just wondering if there is a chance or possibility to also implement the nice Shadow_Masks option in the Amiga, ao486, X68000 and Arcade Cores too?

That would be awesome

But for now i tinkering around with some Masks and Filter´s from the Console Cores on my "NEC-MultiSync-LCD2690WUXi2" to get a decent near CRT feel

i´m so exited what´s coming in the future on the Mister projekt

My Favorit Settings so far for Consoles:

TrashUncle / 1x / Trinitron_Simple_Bright with Comp_Blend_HV025 and Gamma Poly 2,5 ! The Same with S-Slot-Mask and JVC_Basic looks also great

What are your Favorite settings on a LCD screen? Maybe we find for each Display device a nice looking settings solution to get a authentic look (and not the awful standard Pixel sludge without the right Filters...)

Cheerz

ConkerKing wrote: ↑Thu Dec 09, 2021 8:25 am My Favorit Settings so far for Consoles:

TrashUncle / 1x / Trinitron_Simple_Bright with Comp_Blend_HV025 and Gamma Poly 2,5 ! The Same with S-Slot-Mask and JVC_Basic looks also great

What are your Favorite settings on a LCD screen? Maybe we find for each Display device a nice looking settings solution to get a authentic look (and not the awful standard Pixel sludge without the right Filters...)

Cheerz

Where do you find these TrashUncle / Trinitron?

Use the update_all script. It will get you a bunch of filters.

You can also just download the Mister Shadow Masks folder on github and add them yourself.

ConkerKing wrote: ↑Thu Dec 09, 2021 8:25 am My Favorit Settings so far for Consoles:

TrashUncle / 1x / Trinitron_Simple_Bright with Comp_Blend_HV025 and Gamma Poly 2,5 ! The Same with S-Slot-Mask and JVC_Basic looks also great

What are your Favorite settings on a LCD screen? Maybe we find for each Display device a nice looking settings solution to get a authentic look (and not the awful standard Pixel sludge without the right Filters...)

Cheerz

I have ended up settling on a similar setup for consoles (for now):
- 1080p 5x Crop
- TrashUncle / 1x / Trinitron_Simple_Bright or JVC_Basic depending on my mood that day
- Comp_Scan_HV025
- Gamma Poly 2.3

Looking forward to the V2 masks that were just introduced a few minutes ago.

I am using for every core TrashUncle / 1x / Trinitron_Simple_Bright with 1x rotated (1x only gives me noticeable vertical lines and it is quite dark!)

so far so good.

for gba I still dont know, I guess lcd effect is the only way right?

Shadow Masks V2 are apparently here.

> Shadow Mask v2:
>
> Add Improved shadow mask including per pixel 32 levels of brightness and up to 16x16 mask size. This should give much better flexibility and finer effects.

Sounds nice, but I haven't found any examples or documentation yet. I can't acces the Mister discord, maybe there's more there.

Does anyone have experience or examples yet?