Shaders and filters
Shaders and filters can be applied to video games to achieve some kind of visual effect. These can be from attempting to replicate aperture grille displays, NTSC cables, or something more exotic.
Contents
Emulator support
| Name | Shader file types | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| RetroArch | .cg, .cgp, .filter, .shader |
.shader only can be used through phoenix, not RGUI. Filters from bsnes v82 and below work in RetroArch. .cgp stacks several .cg files on top of one another. |
| DOSBox | .fx | Only on special builds such as SVN Daum. |
| Higan | .filter, |
.shader removed in future higan releases, .fiter works in old higan Not current Higan. |
| HqMAME | .fx | |
| OpenEMU | .cg, | |
| Snes9x | .cg, .shader | |
| Project64 | .fx | Only with a custom Rice Video plugin. |
| PCSX-R | .slv/.slf, .vp/.fp | Requires Pete's OpenGL2 or gpuBladeSoft. |
| ePSXe | .slv/.slf, .vp/.fp |
Requires Pete's OpenGL2 or gpuBladeSoft. |
| PCSX2 | .fx |
Support added in r5390 (after v1.0.0) Must be named shader.fx and be in the main directory. PageUp to activate. |
| Dolphin | .txt | Can only be used with OpenGL backend. |
| Mobile | .glsl | GLSL is the shader language used by default on mobile (Android/iOS/Blackberry). |
| Mobile | .glslp | GLSL equiv. of cgp - possible to stack several shaders with this. |
Types
- Main article: List of shaders and filters
CRT Shaders
- Main article: CRT Shaders
These replicate aperture grille CRTs, which have sharp images and strong scanlines. They do not replicate shadowmask CRT displays.
NTSC Filters
- Main article: NTSC filters
These replicate the cables used to connect the system to the TV. They vary in quality, with the lowest being RF, then composite, then s-video and RGB (scart) being the highest quality. Many systems have NTSC filters built into them. They can also be separately downloaded in .filter format.
GameBoy Shader
This .cgp shader replicates the dot matrix screen of a Game Boy, complete with the ghosting problems to reproduce certain visual effects. Made by Harlequin. Requires RetroArch.
Smoothing shaders
These shaders, such as 2xSai, Super Eagle, Super 2xSai, scaleX, xBR, HQx or xBRZ attempt to reduce the pixellation by smoothing and rounding. They can cause a lot of false positives and distortions, however, scaling the image 2x or 3x using nearest neighbor, then applying the smoothing shader will reduce the intensity of the smoothing by keeping the pixel shapes intact, eliminating most distortions while keeping a fairly smooth look.
Dithering
These are shaders designed to detect and smooth dithering. mdapt is a popular one.There is also newer gdapt.
Pixellate
This shader is supposed to appear the same as nearest neighbor (aka "unfiltered"), except with minor corrections when using a non-integer scale that are increasingly less noticeable the higher it is scaled. This shader is very useful to anyone who wants to keep things as sharp as possible without worrying about scale factors. Available in XML and Cg shader formats.
Downloads
NTSC filters: Win32 Win64 Linux32 Linux64 MacOS
