Modernized fork of Mattias Gustavsson's NewPixie CRT with user controls, straight screen, and Natural Vision mode. Fixes common complaints while preserving the authentic look.
- No curvature - Straight, sharp screen geometry (unlike original); Completely removes curvature dependency and fixed the blurred border issue properly.
- Natural Vision Mode - Neutral colors, proper gamma (eliminates green tint)
- Controllable Blur - Horizontal/Vertical sliders (default: 0.0 = sharp)
- Toggleable Effects - Ghosting, Chromatic Aberration, Vignette, Shadow Mask
- Aspect-aware Vignette - 4:3 pillarbox or widescreen modes (used for Vignette)
- Overscan Crop - Authentic CRT edge trimming
- Multi-platform - Vulkan/DX11/OpenGL/Metal via Slang. The version for RetroArch and ReShade
Satpixie is an enhanced version of Mattias Gustavsson's newpixie CRT shader, backporting some of the quality-of-life improvements from the community-modified ReShade version (CRT-NewPixie_Albatross_1.1.fx) to RetroArch's Slang format.
The original newpixie shader had several issues:
- Forced chromatic aberration that couldn't be disabled
- Excessive green color tint
- Always-on vignette effect
- Fixed ghosting intensity
- Screen curvature that caused black screens at 0.0 (bug)
- Blur adjustment do not works even in the forks
Satpixie fixes all of these with adjustable parameters while maintaining the lightweight efficiency that makes newpixie popular for PS1/PS2/3D games.
- Curvature at 0.0 no longer causes black screen
- All effects can be disabled for a clean, sharp image
- Luminance-adaptive noise (less visible in dark areas)
For ReShade, you know what to do.
I recommend to use CRT-Satpixie-Simplified.fx as the default one, but it makes sense to try other variants if you need more customization (overscan crop etc, comprehensive gamma controls, etc); for classic PC games you can try CRT-Satpixie-Darkstone.fx
For RetroArch:
- Download the
satpixiefolder - Copy it to your RetroArch shaders directory:
- Windows:
RetroArch/shaders/shaders_slang/crt/shaders/satpixie/ - Linux:
~/.config/retroarch/shaders/shaders_slang/crt/shaders/satpixie/
- Windows:
- Copy
satpixie-crt.slangptoRetroArch/shaders/shaders_slang/crt/
- Open RetroArch
- Quick Menu > Shaders > Load Shader Preset
- Navigate to
shaders_slang/crt/satpixie-crt.slangp - Select and apply
For sharper image on low-resolution content, add to the .slangp (or use normal2x-hight filter):
scale_type_x0 = source
scale_x0 = 2.0
scale_type_y0 = source
scale_y0 = 2.0
For ReShade, use CRT-Satpixie-Simplified.fx until you need advanced customization (you do not need "textures" for this shader).
If you require further adjustments, use CRT-Satpixie-Customizable.fx.
CRT-NewPixie-SliderFix.fx is the original NewPixie port with a bugfix.
CRT-NewPixie-NoCurve.fx is the same but removes curvature entirely.
CRT-Satpixie-Darkstone.fx is specifically for Darkstone (and similar PC games), mimicking a PC monitor (Natural Vision enabled by default, no artifacts, no curvature, color mask).
For RetroArch, only one shader is currently available, and it works fine with default settings. You can tweak parameters similarly to the ReShade version.
This shader is available under dual license (same as original newpixie):
ALTERNATIVE A - MIT License
Copyright (c) 2016 Mattias Gustavsson
ALTERNATIVE B - Public Domain (Unlicense)
This is free and unencumbered software released into the public domain.
See the shader source files for full license text.
- Original Shader: Mattias Gustavsson (newpixie CRT)
- Slang Adaptation: hunterk (libretro)
- ReShade Albatross Mod: Community contributor (Reddit)
- RetroArch Backport: This repository
Saturn + newpixie = Satpixie, because this shader is particularly excellent for Sega Saturn and PS1 emulation, providing clean scanlines without the performance overhead of complex shaders like CRT-Royale.
- Original newpixie shader: https://github.com/libretro/slang-shaders/tree/master/crt/shaders/newpixie
- RetroArch Shaders Documentation: https://docs.libretro.com/guides/shaders/