New shaders/presets thread

[Jararaca]

Very impressive work Jararaca on the 2xBR v2.2 shader. I tried it on FCEU and it really took me aback just how good it makes those old cruddy NES graphics look. ScummVM sure is going to be a feast with these shaders, that is for sure.

I tested the last version of FCEU yesterday and realized it is on par with Snes9x in speed now! This is great, 4xBR v1.1 runs fullspeed now. Only GenesisPlusGx needs some optimization.

The xBR 2.2 looks amazing. I really love it. Unfortunately, this slow downs gameplay in Seiken Densetsu 3 whenever the dialog box/ something similar appear (try pushing Start/ Square).

Was wondering if there is any tweaks/ workrounds to make this work at full speed in this case?

P.S. I use the preset 2xBR-v2.2-plus-stock.conf

See the quote below:

BTW, SD3 is more suitable for CRT-cgwg shader than xBR v2.2. It's my taste, though.

The RSX seems just able to handle 2xBR v2.2 when the internal screen resolution is at 256x224. When the dialog box appears in Seiken Densetsu 3, the game switches to the SNES' 512x224 interlaced resolution - this puts a bigger strain on the RSX.

The only solution would be to optimize the shader itself - there are a couple of tools to do that with - NVShaderPerf - but to get anything out of it, they require that you can understand ASM. Another solution would be to select a lower resolution in the SNES9x PS3 menu.

Yeah, this is the issue. In games using High Resolution, I don't recommend the v2.2. Use v2 instead or other shaders. One second issue is when you run High Res games with box shaders, they overpass the screen by far as expected. Maybe if you could turn off shaders when entering High Res, is it possible and worth?

[tisurame]

One second issue is when you run High Res games with box shaders, they overpass the screen by far as expected. Maybe if you could turn off shaders when entering High Res, is it possible and worth?

Probably not worth. The box shaders are been used for SNES, NES, Genesis, Master System, FBA, GBA... And out of all those, only a few SNES games use 512x224.

I think it's not worth to change the system to only accommodate one or two games between hundreds of others. It's better to just use something else other than a box shader to play that specific game.

[tisurame]

I did a mockup image (1920x1080) of Chrono Trigger using the crt shader + customized borders, instead of black pixels.

http://i.imgur.com/MQOr2.png

Looks much more appealing.

You can actually use these borders with bsnes. Credits go to Firebrandx, for the original design.

[squarepusher2]

That looks great. And BTW, these borders have definitely been on my mind for some time, but seeing them realized in such a great way here (I think it's a great idea to basically take the graphics for the borders from the games themselves) gives me that much more incentive to actually implement it.

Tell you what - make me some 1920x1080 PNG pics of those sans the game image, and I could look at implementing it. The only problem I can foresee is that for any resolution lower than 1920x1080, we would have to scale the 'border/background image'.

[subcon959]

Wow, they look really good. I was never bothered about fancy GUIs and other fluff before but those, I think, would definitely enhance actual gameplay.

[tisurame]

That looks great. And BTW, these borders have definitely been on my mind for some time, but seeing them realized in such a great way here (I think it's a great idea to basically take the graphics for the borders from the games themselves) gives me that much more incentive to actually implement it.

Tell you what - make me some 1920x1080 PNG pics of those sans the game image, and I could look at implementing it. The only problem I can foresee is that for any resolution lower than 1920x1080, we would have to scale the 'border/background image'.

You may want to visit this topic: http://lix.in/-a1ff5b

All you need is there. Borders for 1920x1080, with or without aspect-ratio correction, etc.

There is not much borders right now, but I'm sure once it's implemented and working, it will encourage people to create more.

Maybe a 4x and 5x box-shader with borders? It would be awesome. The background picture for both are already there, in that topic.

[kanketsu]

That looks great. And BTW, these borders have definitely been on my mind for some time, but seeing them realized in such a great way here (I think it's a great idea to basically take the graphics for the borders from the games themselves) gives me that much more incentive to actually implement it.

Tell you what - make me some 1920x1080 PNG pics of those sans the game image, and I could look at implementing it. The only problem I can foresee is that for any resolution lower than 1920x1080, we would have to scale the 'border/background image'.

Any chance that we'll see some kind of "preset auto select"? Say that you launch Castlevania and SNES9x automatically pick the paired preset. Just an idea ...

BTW, if I select a preset, and then make a tweak manually, is there a way to save this customized preset to be used later on?

[squarepusher2]

Any chance that we'll see some kind of "preset auto select"? Say that you launch Castlevania and SNES9x automatically pick the paired preset. Just an idea ...

This could be possible with SNES9x - all the needed information is there to detect games based on ROM header titlename, CRC32 checksum, ID code, or some other ways of detection - the only problem with that would be, that it would be quite hacky - it would start to look a bit like the ROM encyclopedia that is memmap.cpp at the moment. (very tongue in cheek there)

But yeah, I'm definitely a proponent of 'auto detection' rather than letting it up to the end user to know what he has to configure for each game - it's the same reason why I autodetect most known Multitap/Super Scope/Mouse games for that matter and automatically bind the SNES Mouse/Scope/Multitap in that case.

Another idea for the backgrounds/borders could be - you just select a PNG/TIFF from the filesystem (similar to how you select a shader right now), and it would apply this background image as the 'border'. That way, we could also easily add 'borders' to presets as well - it would be trivially simple to extend presets so that you can also specify a 'border' to apply.

BTW, if I select a preset, and then make a tweak manually, is there a way to save this customized preset to be used later on?

I had that in mind for a long time - it's not in yet - the ability to add your own presets - I had the same idea about doing this for control presets - the OSK utility would come up and you could enter a name. I might actually implement this after all.

For now, you just have to create that conf manually on your PC and then FTP it over to the PS3. It's just a plaintext file.

[squarepusher2]

You may want to visit this topic: Lix.in - Linkprotection

All you need is there. Borders for 1920x1080, with or without aspect-ratio correction, etc.

There is not much borders right now, but I'm sure once it's implemented and working, it will encourage people to create more.

Maybe a 4x and 5x box-shader with borders? It would be awesome. The background picture for both are already there, in that topic.

Thanks - I somehow didn't manage to catch that thread. It should definitely be bumped. It seems their borders only worked with the bSNES Qt port (they used some kind oF CSS stylesheet to apply the image to the background), which is kinda obsolete now with bSNES Phoenix and SSNES having superseded it.

[tisurame]

Thanks - I somehow didn't manage to catch that thread. It should definitely be bumped. It seems their borders only worked with the bSNES Qt port (they used some kind oF CSS stylesheet to apply the image to the background), which is kinda obsolete now with bSNES Phoenix and SSNES having superseded it.

Take a look at this post: Lix.in - Linkprotection

He is using just a little picture to create the border, and it works with any screen size. So, besides creating a full background, like the one from Castlevania 4, you can also extract a particular graphic from the game and create a tiled background.

There are limitations, but it looks easy and flexible.

So, both options (full background or just a tile) would be good.