CRT Reshade

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haloterm
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CRT Reshade

Post by haloterm »

Although I am a great D.R.E.A.M. fan, today I tried to get a CRT-screen like pixel experience. (Also, I wanted to test if I like the hi-res DREAM textures more, or the added variety by some low-res mods). And I must say that it feels quite "realistic" (= as if I really had a CRT screen in front of me), and somehow DFU feels more natural this way.

Screenshot: https://am3pap003files.storage.live.com ... pmode=none

(Make sure to watch the screenshot in original resolution).

First, I was afraid that the virtual "scanlines" would cause headache after some hours, but actually I don't see them.

The CRT effect is done with ReShade. I took the DREAM preset that was linked somewhere in the forum thread and just added the CRT Lottes shader. One can configure it a bit, so the curves at the border can get less or more noticable, or the scanlines get finer or wider, but I am quite happy with the default.

I do NOT use retro rendering mode, because the default sky does not go well with the Distant Terrain mod. But I switched to 1280x960 resolution (on the 1920x1080 screen), switched texture filtering to "point" et voilà, it looks very retro.

Other visual mods, like enhanced lighting and better ambience, work quite well with this, too.

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King of Worms
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Re: CRT Reshade

Post by King of Worms »

Getting a real CRT would be the ultimate 😉 some of those were incredible quality which we never reached in LCD world. There are some vids on utube where modern games are played on old luxury monitors and the results are surprising - extra good experience better than on modern expensive monitors.

Such monitors weight 10s of kg tho and u must dive in the topic to get a good one. Doable tho.

mcarss
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Re: CRT Reshade

Post by mcarss »

I've often wondered if those who create these CRT-style mods ever actually used a CRT monitor. Do they think they looked like this at a normal viewing distance, or is the meant to be an exaggeration? :D
To be fair, a proper emulation of CRT would be very difficult to achieve.
I'm surprised this didn't cause you any eye strain.

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haloterm
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Re: CRT Reshade

Post by haloterm »

mcarss wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 1:01 pm I've often wondered if those who create these CRT-style mods ever actually used a CRT monitor. Do they think they looked like this at a normal viewing distance, or is the meant to be an exaggeration? :D
To be fair, a proper emulation of CRT would be very difficult to achieve.
I'm surprised this didn't cause you any eye strain.
I agree that the screenshot looks like being very near at a big screen.

On the other hand, here is someone who played DFU on a real CRT screen (36 " / from what I understand he used a TV screen, not a computer monitor):

https://www.reddit.com/r/daggerfallunit ... 50_crt_tv/

The colors are much more vibrant, but the shadow mask is also very visible.

mcarss
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Re: CRT Reshade

Post by mcarss »

haloterm wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 1:37 pm On the other hand, here is someone who played DFU on a real CRT screen (36 " / from what I understand he used a TV screen, not a computer monitor):
A fair point. To be clear, I was referring to computer monitors, but the more I think of it, I guess these "emulations" are going for that TV look. :oops:

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haloterm
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Re: CRT Reshade

Post by haloterm »

mcarss wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 12:46 pm
haloterm wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 1:37 pm On the other hand, here is someone who played DFU on a real CRT screen (36 " / from what I understand he used a TV screen, not a computer monitor):
A fair point. To be clear, I was referring to computer monitors, but the more I think of it, I guess these "emulations" are going for that TV look. :oops:
I think you may be right with that they may be oriented towards TV. I still play DFU with that CRT reshade - my computer monitor is standing about 70 cm in front of me and this gives me a very similar feeling like in my childhood and youth days when I played console games on our (quite badly calibrated and maybe reason that I have to wear glasses since the age of 16 / now I am 40) TV set (but I have enhanced the vibrance of the colors of the reshade config a tiny bit since my first post). Ah, nostalgia :D

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King of Worms
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Re: CRT Reshade

Post by King of Worms »

will drop this here, maybe it will be interesting for some ppl, for me it was surprising :)

PART 1


PART 2

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haloterm
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Re: CRT Reshade

Post by haloterm »

King of Worms wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 6:31 pm will drop this here, maybe it will be interesting for some ppl, for me it was surprising :)
Thank you, very interesting!

In one video there is Sonic the Hedgehog shown and it looks way more clear than it ever looked on our family's old TV set, where everything got blurred, partly due to us using the cheapest connection possibility, a simple antenna cable instead of more sophisticated possibilities. I think some old games were actually made to take these cheaper setups into account.

Here's another comparison:

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comment ... on_crt_vs/

To quote: "On the CRT they look more detailed as your brain fills in the blurred gaps."

I think that's the key. On a modern display (without device-base post-processing or filtering or scaling) the pixels have a perfect shape, so the pictures are very very clear and leave less room for imagination.

mcarss
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Re: CRT Reshade

Post by mcarss »

haloterm wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 10:37 pm https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comment ... on_crt_vs/

To quote: "On the CRT they look more detailed as your brain fills in the blurred gaps."

I think that's the key. On a modern display (without device-base post-processing or filtering or scaling) the pixels have a perfect shape, so the pictures are very very clear and leave less room for imagination.
Exactly. That's what I was referring to when I said it would be very difficult to emulate that look.
Going back to TVs, I remember "upgrading" from a tube TV to LCD, and cable TV looked like absolute trash. I mean, sure, LCD technology was still getting refined, but man, it looked terrible.

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Azteca
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Re: CRT Reshade

Post by Azteca »

Nice work, Haloterm. That's nice you can run CRT shaders with Reshade.

For the less experienced, Hunterk has many blog posts on the subject. Take a look to see what shaders can do. There is a shader or adjustment for almost every flavor - from RF mess to consumer grade to super nice broadcast video monitor.
https://filthypants.blogspot.com/2014/0 ... aders.html
https://filthypants.blogspot.com/2015/0 ... aders.html
https://filthypants.blogspot.com/2016/0 ... aders.html

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