Correct setting to replicate older pre-Trinitron 90s CRT gamma ramp?

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

I just discovered today that Dolphin now has built-in color correction options, including various presets for color spaces and a gamma slider.

These kind of things are somewhat outside of my area of expertise but, as someone that has several still-working CRT TVs and used a Trinitron CRT as my primary TV during the entire life of the GameCube and Wii, I definitely know that Trinitron TVs use a gamma ramp that's at least very similar to what is used by HDTVs while older pre-Trinitron 90s CRTs used a darker gamma ramp.

This results in a conundrum that older games, such as virtual console or other emulated/retro collection games, can actually be displayed with a lighter and more washed-out image when using the modern gamma ramp.

But the weird part is that there seems to be barely any information regarding this gamma discrepancy on the internet? (or maybe its all baked into CRT shaders nowadays, or maybe the darker image of scanlines masks the incorrect gamma issue making people not realize it's even a thing?) The one stand-out example that does exist however is the gamma ramp option bsnes had at least around a decade ago that basically does exactly what I'm describing and applies this older pre-Trinitron 90s CRT gamma ramp.

So yeah, what is the gamma setting that should be used to replicate this older pre-Trinitron 90s CRT gamma ramp, unless it's actually one of the existing color space presets? (if not a pre-existing color space preset, then having a selectable preset for this "retro 90s gamma ramp" could be ideal)


EDIT:

While looking for something moderately unrelated to emulators (basically if the RetroTINK 4K has this sort of gamma correction), I actually found two semi-recent forum threads covering this very subject of the sort of "black crush & overblown highlights"-like gamma on 90s CRTs (with actual example photos as well):

• https://videogameperfection.com/forums/t...n-profiles
  
• https://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=37519

Sure enough, there are some posts in that second link talking about a Trinitron CRT giving results that look virtually identical to an LCD or OLED's gamma which points to exactly what I was saying about Trinitron CRTs having the "modern" HDTV-style gamma and cannot be used as a reference in this regard.

Also, the second link has a post that references one of byuu's blog posts on the subject of gamma correction to mimic 90s CRTs:

• https://web.archive.org/web/202102232053...emulation/

[MayImilae]

I suggest you talk to Filoppi (the creator of the gamma change) directly. You should be able to talk to them on our discord - https://discord.dolphin-emu.org/

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

I'm bad with names and therefore the name "Filoppi" doesn't ring a bell, so I don't actually know who you're referring to... EDIT: Oh, you edited your post to clarify that they're the person that did the gamma change in Dolphin.

You should be able to talk to them on our discord - https://discord.dolphin-emu.org/

I would rather not and much prefer things to be out in the open on a forum for others to find; I mean, I already stated how there seems to be a lack of information on the internet regarding this subject.

(this also reminds me how I swear email notification is commonly broken for both forum replies and newly-posted threads on the forum, but as of this thread it seems that doing the work-around of having it send a PM notification of new replies and then having email notification of PMs seems to be working)

[MayImilae]

I prefer open platforms too. However, Dolphin's gamma features are pretty niche and most of us don't really know about them or use them. To get an answer to your question, asking Filoppi directly is your best bet. But Filoppi isn't here, they are on discord. So... yea.

[AnyOldName3]

Do you not have IRC (or, as the 90s are over, Matrix) bridged to Discord? That'd at least get rid of part of the problem.

As for stuff being searchable, it should be possible in principle to have a chat bridge create something akin to a mailing list archive that can be crawled by search engines. The last time I looked into this, there wasn't anything that'd work well out of the box, though.

[MayImilae]

We have not set any of that up. We had some plans but those fell through when a big shakeup happened followed by the whole Steam finale.

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

While looking for something moderately unrelated to emulators (basically if the RetroTINK 4K has this sort of gamma correction), I actually found two semi-recent forum threads covering this very subject of the sort of "black crush & overblown highlights"-like gamma on 90s CRTs (with actual example photos as well):

• https://videogameperfection.com/forums/t...n-profiles
  
• https://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=37519

Sure enough, there are some posts in that second link talking about a Trinitron CRT giving results that look virtually identical to an LCD or OLED's gamma which points to exactly what I was saying about Trinitron CRTs having the "modern" HDTV-style gamma and cannot be used as a reference in this regard.

Also, the second link has a post that references one of byuu's blog posts on the subject of gamma correction to mimic 90s CRTs:

• https://web.archive.org/web/202102232053...emulation/

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

I had to log into discord for unrelated reasons so I took a glance at the Dolphin discord while I was at it, but there was no user listed in the members list named "Filoppi" or similar...

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

Well this is weird, several posts in this thread have disappeared?

Regardless, I managed to contact them via the Discord username "Pumbo" but the results were anti-climatic—turns out they don't really know anything about the color space stuff and simply suggested putting an older TV and a newer monitor side-by-side and then adjusting Dolphin's gamma settings until they match.

EDIT: So to clarify, I guess we'll just leave this be until I get around to doing that side-by-side comparison thing which could be a while still since this is by no means high-priority for me.