How do you make 4:3 look presentable when using an emulator on a fixed pixel display? In Retroarch Snes9x, my options seem to be
>ugly non-integer scaling on the horizontal axis, or
>ugly smudgy bilinear filtering?
Putting a CRT or NTSC shader on top isn't a solution as far as I can tell, I can still see how the imaged was raped by the scaling.
Strangely, Nintendo's official SNES emulation on the Switch looks perfectly fine in 4:3 mode to my eyes. I don't know how they do it. It has a filter of some kind obviously, but it doesn't smudge the image nearly as aggressively as the bilinear filtering in Retroarch. How can I achieve that?

Sharp bilinear, sometimes called interpolation, filters are very good these days.

>>11853675
Based and true

>>11853675
Wow that's exactly what I was looking for. The sharp-bilinear-2x-prescale shader does exactly what I want. Thanks anon, this is a life changer.

>>11853667 (OP)
Nearest neighbour.
On 720p display
You don't really see any difference.

>>11853731
I see a difference

I make it look like composhite

Don't use an emulator. You can get a soulful experience with a CRT and a cheap SNES on eBay for less than $100 if you look for deals. The amount of time people spend tweaking emulators just to get a sub-par setup is baffling.

Besides the filter there is also 64:49 aspect ratio trick that is used to approximate the stretched pixels. It squares the 8:7 numbers giving you an aspect ratio that is only 3% off from perfect 4:3. Basically every pixel is scaled up to an 8x7 block that looks like a non square pixel.

>>11853816
Hmm, no. I think I will keep emulating.

>>11853807
>>11853667 (OP)
We already had this discussion before.

>>11853816
no. i emulate on a crt tv using a rpi4 composite video out.

>>11853886
How good is the RPi4 and how bad or good is the composite output?

>>11853894
my crt tv is crap, but i love it.
all raspberries have sharp composite out, so sharp that it looks wrong without adjustments.
i did this ages ago for the rpi3 and retropie https://github.com/Sakitoshi/retropie-crt-tvout it properly centers and dials the sharpness of the video output to look as close to real hardware as possible.
i made a new and better set of configs for the rpi4 for myself and on a whim shared them on r*ddit. someone took them, polished them a little bit and made a repo https://github.com/DiegoDimuro/crt-broPi4-composite
but long story short, rpi 3 and 4 are excellent for composite out, 4 is better than 3 because it can change between 240p and 480i on the fly (i don't have a rpi3 anymore to see if it can also do it after some firmware update), so ps1 games that change resolution for menus work great.

>>11853894
The composite from my rPi is sharper than my 2 chip SNES.

>>11854041
Well, for NES is not optimal, if it is like the Wii signal then NES games would look too clean

Who fucking cares? Only autists worry about shit like this.

Just play on hardware

>>11854202
>autists? on MY imageboard?

I use a rPi with Composite, but I got a VGA666. Would using it mean I'd have to redo the config.txt file and miss composite entirely, or can I have both?

>>11853667 (OP)
Been playing GB star trek on my GBA sp. I hit the left shoulder a lot and stretch the aspect ratio and I just play like that because it doesn't matter.

>>11853667 (OP)
Sharp-bilinear at 5:4

>>11854179
for nes you use fceux/nestopia blargg composite filter.
it gives an accurate picture.

>>11853703
The best one is sharp-bilinear-simple because it adapts to any aspect ratio including vertical shmups and shit, and prescales depending on your resolution

>>11853731
>Nearest neighbour
Nearest neighbour only looks good with both integer scaling and square pixels
With any non-square pixel aspect ratio you can't integer scale on both axes at the same time and you'll get shimmering and inconsistent pixel sizes
Sharp bilinear is the best scaling method if you want a more raw look because it looks close to Nearest but it works at any aspect ratio and you don't even need to use integer scaling
Only downside is it will look blurrier the lower res your display is due to how it works (averaging the edges of pixels)

>>11853667 (OP)
>How do you make 4:3 look presentable when using an emulator on a fixed pixel display?
You want a gigaresolutions screen generally speaking. All the different aspect ratios did was stretch pixels out horizontally on a CRT so if you want pixel perfect you need a window that's pixel sized at an integer multiple of whatever aspect ratio you want. Otherwise you can't without distortion. I would think a good emulator would offer a max unstretched window size as an option but IDK I'm just a random schizo.

>>11854620
ScummVM has a setting where it will integer scale both axes separately to try to get as close to the proper ratio as possible but with even pixel sizes
For example here you end up with 4:3.125 instead of 4:3, but aside from the ratio not being 100% perfect the scaling is clean
Of course the higher res your display is, the closer you'll be able to get to the proper ratio

AFAIK Retroarch doesn't have a setting or shader that does this automatically but I know you can scale both axes separately manually in the scaling settings to get the same result

>>11854202
Aspect rations MATTER. Screen resolutions MATTER. Stretching your pixels MATTERS. If you don't play on the correct aspect ration you didn't beat the game. I play all my retro games on a 15 inch Gateway Computers CRT I stole from a hospital.

>>11854658
Wait, nevermind, I'm retarded and you can do exactly that
If for example you set the aspect ratio to NTSC in Mesen's core settings and in Retroarch's settings you change the integer scale axis to Y + X, you'll get something between NTSC and 4:3, which is IMO pretty acceptable, and you won't have any shimmering and the scaling will be clean, without any shader

>>11854706
Actually as I recall consoles didn't output square or 4:3 ratios for their resolutions, it probably scales the native resolution so you end up with an 8:7 aspect ratio which I guess should be correct. CRT TV's stretched it to 4:3 to fill the screen so there is this to consider. 8:7 is probably right but it will look slightly different than on a CRT.

>>11854745
Also this means for pixel perfect scaling on a 4k monitor you use 93% of your vertical space and 83% on a 1080p monitor at max window size outputting 256x224.

>>11854565
Does it work like it supposed too or does it have the exact same issue blargg composite filter has on the Wii where the damn thing has issues and doesn't work well and flickers when it's doing nothing and doesn't run well?

>>11853849
Bunch of gibberish that whilst potentially resulting in a correct solution is derived from deeply flawed conceptions. NTSC does not have any horizontal resolution. 640 or 720 has no place in any computation of aspect ratio for NTSC.

A correct solution should only consider the original SNES resolution, the SNES pixel clock, and NTSC timings. No other resolutions have any business being considered.

>>11854991
i don't really know what you mean.
but it passes this test.

>>11855661
If you want 4:3 that means you need non square pixels, an approximation is to stretch native 256x224 by 8/7 width wise, if you want pixel perfect then that means each "pixel" is 8x7 pixels. To do this you want a 4K monitor with 2160 vertical resolution and you take up less than 3/4 of the screen vertical-wise. If you want it to look good then just play in the native console resolution for 8 and 16 bit games.

>>11855661
you are correct.
but you NEED a number to convert it to pixels and 720px is the agreed horizontal analog tv resolution.
the result is further validated by 3ds virtual console emulation using 284px. i don't think they chose that number on a whim.

>>11856194
I said the final result might be correct, but all the intermediate steps are complete gibberish. The gibberish makes no reference to the SNES pixel clock, which is critical for determining the aspect ratio.

>>11856238
i've proved it further by hooking a rpi4 to my crt and scaling the image to 640px wide, the number just before the aspect ratio correction.
it looks identical to my snes hooked to the same tv.

Bumpin

>>11853667 (OP)
>YOU HAVE TO PLAY IT THE WAY I SAY YOU HAVE TO!
mm, nah
this isn't something you should base your sole personality around
maybe try having kids and seeing if you can be a good father

>>11853667 (OP)
The below minimum effort

>>11853667 (OP)
have a big enough screen and just scale it
256 x 4 = 1024
240 x 3 = 720

double that if the game uses 480i

>>11853667 (OP)
You stretch to 4:3 and use sharp bilinear if it looks bad. On a CRT no filtering is needed
>b-b-but some games look...le stretched
Tough shit, Nintendo should've not been retarded in making the output resolution.

>>11858184
to get to 4:3 you need to scale actually by 8 and 7 to get close meaning you need a 4k screen and your picture won't be full screen.

>>11853956
>all raspberries have sharp composite out
Bull-fucking-horseshit. My RP3B has dogshit composite output. I thought it was generally accepted that Pis have lousy composite.

>>11853816
>The amount of time people spend tweaking emulators just to get a sub-par setup is baffling.

Wow
The painful 2 minutes almost murdered me

Bump

>>11858336
may be your video cable fault.
i had a rpi3 and the output was great.
but you NEED to use the tv-out shader for it to look good because it's too sharp and doesn't look the same as a console video output without it.
just use >>11853956 and come back.

>>11853667 (OP)
All I do is some random CRT filter that makes the screen curved and I play in the dark.

Makes me feel like I'm playing on my parents tv when I was 7. Perfect immersion.

Although the scan lines are a bit strong, but after 5 mins playing I stop noticing.

>>11861668
Did I stumble into some alternate dimension? I could swear everyone agreed that Pis have terrible composite output.
Stumbling into an alternate reality would explain a lot of things for me lately, come to think about it.

>>11862189
composite is composite at the end of the day.
of course it's bad in the great scheme of things.
but compared to composite on other devices, it's good.

This might sound like a dumb question, but if 480i was realistically the only resolution that mattered, who gives a fuck about the other ratios?
Like why even give a flying fuck about numbers that don't matter in any practical sense?

Pic related. Use crt-geom along with an overlay scaled to 1:1 with integer scaling to fit the overlay

>>11862243
How do I make that annoying shit that has nothing to do with the game go way?
I'm not a fucking incel retard nigger.

>>11862254
If you're talking about the overlay you can just disable it

I just plug the snezz into my ancient CRT TV that I got as a child and it werks.

For the NSO app on NES/SNES I recommend Pixel Perfect + CRT filter on.

>>11862254
>how do i do extremely easy to do thing?
yes, you are a fucking incel retard nigger.
emphasis on retard.

>>11862323
Looks like shit

>>11862243
That looks hideous.

how do I do this on an anbernic 556?

I just use whatever the default settings are.

>>11853667 (OP)
Pixel Perfect 4:3