How to make 2d retro games look amazing! - Best shader in Retroarch.
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.พ. 2025
- Hi guys. Just making a quick video to guide you to a feature that’s not obvious to the casual gamer. Games from our childhood play fantastic but haven’t aged well in terms of graphics, here we will be getting rid of all those jaggy edges, or blocky graphics, and make our games look clean and modern. Enjoy, like, subscribe. Thanks
Guys, this is ultimately gonna come down to preference. What this shader does is takes away the pixelated graphics and jagged edges. Circles and diagonal lines will look more clean similar to modern 2d games. Of course some people preferer the more vintage look with CRT filters which is also cool.
I like it but it lags
any way to use it systemwide? costs lot of time to do it for every single game.
@@svenneumann7094 retroarch provides you multiple options under the Save option, you can save it globally so that it will always be applied by default, you can set it only for the current game or you can set it for the current core (this was the most useful to me, since I usually want every title of a single console to look the same)
Mine not working why?
@@tetrasonic91 What are you playing it on?
Honestly it looks better without the shader bro...thats just my opinion though
ikr same that and having it output to a crt would look gorgeous (I think they recently made it so you didn't need to rgb mod for the crt) but for me the scanlines and imperfections make it the definitive option to play retro games.
@theoriginallooter Nah not that either, they're supposed to be optical illusion smoothed out by scanlines
Yes it dose
I know right! It's Super Mario World, why would want to make everything looks so smooth?
@@KaidenThelens kids, bro...
Thanks so much dude this helped heaps with the PC version, i couldn't load anything! then i saw your presets thing and it worked :D
You committed a sin so bad they fear to add it to the seven deadly sins.
I use scanlines filter only in all my emulators and it's enough to make graphics look good and mask the low resolution as good old CRTs did. Shaders like this are messing up the pixel art retrogamers love so much about these old games. But if someone likes it this way, there's nothing wrong with that.
Mate I grew up in the 80s and had experience of the old crts and let me say this, I want to bump all the retro consoles to 4k res with as many shades and upscalers I can to make these nostalgic games even better on modern hardware. I welcome technology 100%
@@Fieldy6984 I was born in 1986 and I grew up with Amigas. Playing these old games on a huge modern 4k tv is weird experience. Back then we had mostly 14 to 21 CRT displays that masked low resolution pretty well. After few years of using emulators I found out that scanlines and a little blur does the job. And yeah people can really go crazy with shaders and filters, but I prefer more accurate looks of the old games.
Some people want to experience as close as possible to the original and others like to enhance the heck out of everything. I think it’s awesome that we can all get what we want!
@@Fieldy6984 i am from the same era and totally agree with you. i just love what these shaders does to all those games we played as kids. simply beautiful stuff. most folks from us do despise this and wants their games to look same as they did. these shaders have been developed by taking in mind boomers like us. :-)
You are all kittens and puppies.
I was born in 1962 and have really come a looong way in game graphics.
But I really don't want to go back to the old block graphics - retro style or not.
That's why I prefer the shading possibilities in any case. Period.
Nice tip. I checked many shaders but I did not know this cool preset. :)
amazing video man , you are awesome!thanks
Thanks man i appriciate you making this video and i hope you have the best life possible!
thanks bud. this was actually really helpful. playing final fantasy tactics was rough with it being so pixilated on a computer XD
I prefer it without the shader i just like the sharp pixels and not the blurry shaders
Disgusting. CRT-Royale - The best shader.
Super helpful vid yo! Got my sub. Not to mention, fire outro. I really like Ray Knox now lmao.
Just load up a game, once the game is running press F1 and it’ll take you to Retroarch to choose shaders. This will allow you to skip the first half of this video.
These filters XBRz/ScaleFX combined with scanlines or CRT shaders look amazing on a modern screen, although nothing beats using them on a real CRT, XBRz + An actual CRT TV/Monitor = Perfection, you get the best of the new tech with the old.
Love your voice so much ! Keep going ! Improving your channel !
I REALLY don’t understand why people like making games look like pastel art that a dog pissed on
Look bro i like what you are doing, i subbed so make sure you keep making content like this
Good video and straight to the point
Wow thank you 🙏🏾 so much ! I was looking for a way to make my older games look better on my 4K TV and this worked. Thanks
Better?
@@dwaynethemineraljohnson412 do you know what an opinion is ?
@@pipikakachu smurring instead of pixel scaling is simply just a downgrade, there's no opinion to be had
@@GogitoGTHD that’s your opinion that you believe to be a universal fact which it is not. All things are subject to interpretation. People I know like the filter.
@@pipikakachu Not all things.. facts are facts. But other than that you're right. And I really love this shader!
Kids today are broken. They will never understand. Half of the point of playing these games is the retro feel. If everything looks really smooth and you never see pixels it loses the fun.
One could argue some things look better with that shader enabled and other things, specifically Mario himself, actually look forward. The colors are too close together and it looks like a smeared mess. The charm of the pixels at the original SNES look. Take away that look you take away part of the charm.
It doesn't look bad, it just looks right. Kids today who are spoiled by 4K video might think otherwise but kids today are spoiled by 4K video. Back then a 16-bit system over something like the NES which was 8-bit, it was incredible. The graphics were awesome. It was awesome, still is awesome..... Leave the pixels. Pixels are good. Pixels are history, you can compare what was to what we have now. The nostalgia and charm of SNES is the look of the SNES.
Don't mess with perfection. You're like people who get plastic surgery..... Nothing is broken in the first place but they just can't leave it alone and have to mess with it just because they can.
Great video.
Thanks for making this, I was curious to see how Donkey Kong country would look smoothed out since it was meant to emulate real 3d which is smooth polygons.
Thank you so much king👑 you gain a sub
Shout out to you, little bro - liked and sub'd 👍🏻
New sub just for that intro
Wow!! thats really nice
great video
Do you have a tutorial for the frontend in the beginning? It's beautiful!
I will never understand why people like these shaders. For me, a crt shader makes the game look better not this weird smoothed out nightmare.
Go ahead man.
Which theme were you using?? Is it possible to get it for Batocera??
Great video! I cant lod a neo geo game from
the directories though.
Load
Nice!
Slang, crt, easymode is awesome too. Make sure to set display resolution to 720p .
It depends on the android device because some android devices can't handle some shades and my favorite one is the CRT filters and they look great for Sega Genesis games.
Thanks kid appreciated
Thanks so much for this! Just two Q's. Do I have to do this with every game or does that shader automatically go on all? And do I need to keep putting the shader settings on every single time I load the game?
Thanks!
You can save the settings on a per-game basis, on a per system basis (per console), on a per emulator basis (one emulator could use one preset and a different emulator for the same console games use a different preset) and you can even save it globally to affect every game.
I believe there is even a setting that allows to set the preset based on the game file directory so you can have folders with games in them with different settings applied.
@@thedude1368 you the man AJ
wow it really help me alot thank you for saving my life
ScaleFX looks good on games with higher res, to be honest. I prefer CRT shader more on 80-90s games.
Excellent... thank you!!!
Looks better without it.
Great video thank u
It totally destroys the artistic vision of the original programmers
Does it... Or did it simply look like shit because gba was the most advanced technology available and thats what it was capable of?
Programmers don't have artistic vision, the artists do. Programmers are just computer nerds who script code. 🤓
@@thepsychedeliccartographer5765 It didn't look like shit, because they were designed to run on completely different monitor technology. Old school games look AMAZING on the standard old school CRT tvs that they were designed for. You have zero clue how beautiful digitized sprites actually look in MK3, WrestleMania Arcade, and SF The Movie Arcade Game. Clay Fighter and all of that... works of art. They were beautiful.
@@MikeyDunksMusic i say it looked bad with the most respect possible. It's like comparing a wooden box bunny ear TV from the 80s to a modern 4k flat screen. The old one had a comfort and warmth perhaps I even nostalgia , but the newer one is technically better, it might not be the favorite for everything, but it's of notably higher quality
@@thepsychedeliccartographer5765 Well, it looks like you never have see this kinda games run in a crt, te pixels merge into a diferrente shape, its a completely different image, that doesn't happen in a modern 4k flat tv screen, its technicaly better but those games were designed to run in a crt so those effects take impact in the image
the thumbnail reminds me of sonic 2 hd
my favorite shader is called "SNES", keeps the pixels intact, just uses some bilinear filtering to give it a more vintage CRT look.
but why does the after come before the before on the thumbnail?
Really well done 👍🏻
I don't have the roms options to select the system then game. Someone plz help
Thanks mate
lol most ppl play these games because they like the pixel art :D
More pixals doesn't mean it looks better
Thank you for letting me know what the best smoothest shader is for retro games. Alot of old-skool fans prefer the pixelated look but not me. I am a die-hard old-skool gamer aged 39 but I still am in the retro minority and would rather see the games get a beautiful HD 2D smooth look. For years, I used to use 'Super Eagle' filter to smooth the pixels out back in the day when I used to play Mega Drive roms on my Original OG Modded Xbox, then I discovered a better one known as 'Super 2x Sai'. Years later, I bought an NVidia Shield TV and seeing it was more powerful, I turned my eyes to 'XBR' style filters for an even smoother look..... But now you've really made me see the real beauty of smooth HD 2D goodness my friend. I am now playing my retro games using a Developer account on my Xbox series S console and this newly discovered 'filter / shader' will come in perfectly handy as the next upgrade. Sorry for long messege but I thought I'd share with you my long history with 'Filters / Shaders' as you sound alot younger. :) Thanks ever so much for your knowledge my friend.
this is so wholesome I'm crying
Charlie Ward - You do realize that Developer mode is no longer Needed Nor required to run RetoArch on the Series S/X Consoles. It works great in standard retail mode . Happy Gaming.
How to make 2d retro games look like shit!*
Hey how did you get that dope UI? Did you have to dump all your rom manually or did you download it as it is???
why I always can't when using scalefx shaders
I have a question, why is it that whenever I use this shader or any other shader that smooths the pixels out, it doesn't smooth anything at all, fucks up the palette and makes RetroArch run very badly even on the lowest resolution?
Lots of shaders take quite a bit of your devices processing power to render. The shaders you picked are too much for your phone or computer to handle.
I would like to add that some of these shaders such as this one seems to hinder the performance of the game depending on how beefy your pc or whatever is. It looked a bit choppy when Mario was running here. Either way nice vid keep it up young g.
Looks gorgeous. Doesn't work on my PS3 Retroarch. Gonna try it on my PC instead. Let's see if it works there. :)
Hi mate love the video. I am new to shaders. There is slow down on switch. Is there settings I can change to remove slow down?
No, it's too demanding for the switch
It couldn't load for me so i used Advanced anti aliasing or something , and advance AA is really good too
Link to shader please... I don't see anything in preset so please link
HOW DID YOU MAKE SUCH A THEME I WANT SUCH A THEME PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
This Is My Favorite Filter But I DOnt Have It With Mines & Also How Do U Save It Once U Pick One
Retro games without pixels is heresy
For real I just came to see what all the hoopla is about
filters ftw!
Looks like AI art.
Shader like CRT effect....
Depends on which game, for example xenogears or ff7 looks much better with this on
How do you get to that screen while you got the game running.. to get to shader
hq filter is absolutely terrible, use crt-royale if your pc can handle it, as its pretty graphic intensive, otherwise use crt-easymode or crt-aperture.
gtu-v050 is the best
@@wiiztec In which folder is this one ?
@@John-qc1zv crt folder
The thumbnail should have before and after swapped around because the after in the video is very smooth.
With shader it looks like there is some kind of glue on the screen or washed out
GREAT
Cool!
0:40 not the easiest? I tried to find it on my own and I searched for like an hour.
This Is Called "FaithFul" Texture For Minecraft
Very nice video dude
Looks identical to the Hq2x shader. Very dope.
Its basicall the same thing but on mobile.
@@Richdadful it s not. It look very similare on a small device, but when you play on a 55inch TV, Hq2x filters and other are at best like 14/20. Xbrz4X filters are like 18/20 and ScaleFX are 20/20. I have a png with a clear comparison of lot filters in all specifics situations that i get somewhere long time ago. ScaleFX is the best, no doubt, i didn't see any "errors".
I thought the before looks better.
شكرا ❤️ Thanks
What did you do to the beautiful pixels?
Mine 's not working, why?
*Edit* In reference to the arcade version
Playing Primal Rage with even more realistic graphics thanks to you🙏
Thx, but now my Retroarch is slow, but if I deactivate it, it goes back to normal
Have you down FPS? This shaders consumes much GPU.
thank
how to turn it off?
But how to fix lag?
Too bad my devices can’t handle this shader. I have a portable and a pi4 but neither can keep up. It works pretty good on gba but not so much on genesis-gx or snes9x. There’s just too much lag.
interesting i wonder how this would look on yoshis island
Your idea of amazing is
Different.
I think we should leave the old games as they were. Even though pixelated, they remain in our hearts. Unpixelating them wont do any better
Yes it will...
what menu theme was that?
it just crashed when loading
like, bruh wth
? How do I download games for retroarch
Can you fix the dots on screen during gameplay cause some of my games are showing up with dots all over the screen?
This filter looks cursed
I hope you get better taste when you grow up
Don’t do that, it looks worse and it just smudges all the pixels
thank you homie
I am going to 1 fps super lag I do not say so much I have a j7 prime :v
looks miles better without!
Original looks much much better
I hate it put it back lol. My Sony pvm with true rgbs 240p scanlines is the true way.
God that shader looks horrible, I get that its down to personal preference but thats just a terrible shader objectively, colors are blown out, extra detail added that never existed before, everything is over smoothed.