Sweetfx CRT filter

[Amon26]

I know sweetfx and screen shaders are like a taboo in some circles, so I'll preface this by saying it's all just my subjective opinion. I'm not here to indoctrinate anyone to accept my tastes, or like them for that matter.

Ive been noodling around with ReShade and Sweetfx lately and found it has a pretty nice old CRT filter you can customize. Basically it fakes a low-resolution monitor or tv screen and reprocesses the video output.

I grew up with 320x240 being the regular pc gaming resolution and I had a basic Gateway 2000 monitor when I first played quake. As graphics hardware advanced, Quake began looking so sharp and crisp that I've grown to miss the dark, muddly ambiguity of older displays.

So long story short, I threw Reshade/Sweetfx onto Quakespasm and I think it looks pretty freaking great. The colors are inaccurate, the contrast is overblown, and if the enemy is further than 30 feet away, it becomes an undefined, menacing form looming just out of sight.

Before Reshade/Sweefx


After Reshade/Sweetfx


Also, here is a pastebin link to my sweetfx settings.
/*-----------------------------------------------------------. / - Pastebin.com

Enjoy!

[R00k]

imho the original looks better; look at the dead guy slumped over, he's all pixely and blurry..

[Amon26]

I can respect that. My sensibilities aren't everybody's cup of tea. I like when stuff looks really distorted and ambiguous. That being said, I'd never try playing multiplayer with this filter on. I'm crazy, but not stupid

Oh, also you can also set the fake CRT resolution to be as low or high as you want. I had Fear2 going with a similar config but a higher res. It maintained more of the detail, but the distortion gave it a cool VHS found footage feel

[R00k]

i appreciate what you are saying. A simple screenshot isnt the same as ingame movement. Sometimes I will crank up motion blurring and lower the res to make it look really creepy on dark levels
In Qrack I had a setting that as you get less health more the screen gets blurry and more red; though no one used it

[MadGypsy]

That's really cool, man. I'm going to check out your settings on my next break.

so I'll preface this by saying it's all just my subjective opinion. I'm not here to indoctrinate anyone to accept my tastes, or like them for that matter.

It's a shame you had to say all that just to share your discovery. It's 2016 and people are so sensitive/strongly opined that you even have to worry about FX screenshots creating drama? That's completely ridiculous. I respect your awareness. I don't respect those you are aware of, though or at least not any opinion by them which would turn your share into an issue.

[Amon26]

Quakeone.com's a pretty chill place, I'm just carrying over habits from starting conversations in social media like twitter, facebook or (shiver) 4chan. Yanno, places where everybody's opinion is fact and contrary notions burn like acid rain

I didn't know about that Rook! I think I remember seeing a bit about it, but I could never get it to work. Thought it was either an unfinished cvar or my videocard being fussy. Cool idea tho

[Johnny Law]

That's niiiice. I was idly wondering about the tools available to do CRT-faking a few weeks ago.

I don't know squat about SweetFX and ReShade though. Is there a dummy's guide to trying them out? I assume I could start at SweetFX and see where I end up... just wondering if there are any gotchas or assumptions.

[Amon26]

its less intimidating than it seems. you download the reshade/sweetfx package, put it in a folder, run reshade.exe which will prompt you to locate the .exe of the game you want to apply it to. it then detects what renderer it uses (opengl, directx, whatever) and installs the sweetfx system into the game's folder. you then run the game like normal, sweetfx will render itself over the top.

you can then configure the settings by finding the sweetfx folder put into that game's directory, and editing the sweetfx_settings file with notepad.

just make a duplicate install of your quake game and test it in that. no harm no foul