Gaming

Here's a list of CRT shaders and how they performed on my RG 40XXV

One of my least favourite pastimes is setting up Retroarch. Nothing seems to stick after you save a million times and it feels like you need to do things in a specific order while hopping on one leg and singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star just so it works. But the only reason why I keep going back is familiarity and shaders.

Not all shaders work that well due to the technical limitations of a device so I thought I’d put together a list of the CRT shaders that come with Retroarch and give an opinion on how they run. To test this, I’m using my RG 40XXV, specifically running muOS.

Hold up, what’s a shader?

A shader is a graphical file that visually alters a game, either through some form of enhancement or by replicating an effect. One of the most popular forms of shader is a CRT shader which tries to emulate the style of a CRT screen with its scanlines and curved screen.

As a reminder, the RG 40XXV has a H700 chipset with 1GB RAM and the version of muOS I have is 2410.2 BIG BANANA. This has only been tested on Megadrive and SNES so if anything is slow on those consoles, they might be worse on, say, a PS1 or N64.

I won’t be showing you what the shaders look like so if you want that, there’s a handy shaders guide on things i play. There are also guides on Emulation General Wiki and Filthy Pants you should check out. And if you want a comprehensive guide to shaders and overlays, Retro Game Corps has you covered.

Shaders

CRT shaderPerformance
crt-aperturenoticeable frame rate drop
crt-beamslight frame rate drop but runs smoothly
crt-blurpi-softruns with no issues
crt-blurpiruns with no issues
crt-caligaridoesn’t load
crt-cgwg-fastslight frame rate drop but runs smoothly
crt-consumerslight frame rate drop but runs smoothly
crt-halation-easymodeblank screen
crt-easymoderuns with no issues
crt-geomnoticeable frame rate drop
crt-guest-dr-venom-fastruns with no issues but the screen is white and blue so not really playable
crt-guest-dr-venomblank screen
crt-guest-smruns with no issues
crt-guest-sm-r-miniruns with no issues
crt-hyllian-3druns with no issues
crt-hyllian-fastruns with no issues
crt-hyllian-lowdoesn’t load
crt-hyllian-multipassruns with no issues
crt-hylliandoesn’t load
crt-interlaced-halationnoticeable frame rate drop
crt-lottes-fastslight frame rate drop but runs smoothly
crt-lottes-multipassnoticeable frame rate drop and not playable
crt-lottesnoticeable frame rate drop and not playable
crt-mattiasnoticeable frame rate drop and not playable
crt-nes-miniruns with no issues
crt-nobodyruns with no issues
crt-pi-verticalruns with no issues
crt-piruns with no issues
crt-potato-coolruns with no issues
crt-potato-warmruns with no issues
crt-royale-fake-bloomdoesn’t load
crt-ntsc-256pxdoesn’t load
crt-yo6-KV-M1420B-sharpnoticeable frame rate drop
crt-yo6-KV-M1420Bnoticeable frame rate drop
crtglow-gaussblank screen
fake-CRT-Geom-potatoruns with no issues
fake-CRT-Geomruns with no issues
fakelottesruns with no issues
gtuv50runs with no issues
metacrtnoticeable frame rate drop, doesn’t fit the screen, and not playable
phosphurlotruns with no issues
smuberstep-glowslight frame rate drop but runs smoothly
zfast-compositeruns with no issues
zfast-crtruns with no issues

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