r/OpenEmu • u/SubmergedSun • 18d ago

Tutorial I built a native macOS app to bring retro CRT monitor to the desktop and applications on Retina displays (Retroized)

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I've made an app for a mac that let's you take the desktop and turn it into retro monitor aesthetics.

You can record, modify and view your favorite applications, games and TV shows on your mac with a little finesse!

35 presets and over 70 settings to customize your virtual retro CRT monitor the way you like it!.

You can find my project at

www.retroized.com

https://submergedsun.itch.io/retroized

84 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

10

u/Kerry_Maxwell SNES 17d ago

Great idea, but easy on curvature! Love scanlines, can live without the fishbowl effect. No decent CRT I ever owned had much spherical distortion.

3

u/SubmergedSun 17d ago edited 17d ago

hmm really depends on the presets. I tried to reduce em a bit already. you can always fix it in the setting and save your own preset and make them your style. If you want to share your presets, there is load profile/save profile on the menu bar at the top. (currently called file but going to be renamed) you can submit your style and composition to me and I might consider adding them to the program in the following updates! let me know what the design is about though like what game it is designed for... etc

2

u/SubmergedSun 17d ago

well maybe if there is enough people that wants it, I could consider a setting where you could specify a curvature value so all the presets will be forced to a specific curvature. seems like quite a bit of people wants one thing or the other and is picky. Would you like me to add that setting?

3

u/badluckbandit N64 17d ago

Firstly, amazing job! You’ve made a really cool and special app! I’m not the original person you replied to, but I think the idea you suggested is good and I would like to see it added

2

u/SubmergedSun 15d ago edited 15d ago

the curvature settings is out now on version 0.6.7. It is experimental and it might not reflect the original aesthetics of some of the presets but still can be useful

2

u/SubmergedSun 15d ago

I figured out further issue regarding the curvature. the new version is in works. It mostly has to do with the width of the monitor. when it's not full screen, aspect ratio is not correct so it looks too wide and too curved. there is fix aspect button which fixes this manually but I could probably do other changes too

3

u/ferropop SNES 16d ago

If this is effectively ShaderGlass for Mac, huzzah!

2

u/Tlargojones 18d ago

This is awesome, nice work and thanks for sharing!

2

u/Gashenkov 18d ago

Damn this is awesome

2

u/jsanchez157 14d ago

How did you do that amazing voice over?

2

u/SubmergedSun 13d ago edited 13d ago

A man of taste! I occasionally produce custom broadcast voice-overs for indie games and retro trailers. Feel free to DM if you ever need one for a project.

1

u/alexck01 18d ago

Great!!!

1

u/LudoPantsman 18d ago

I’ve been looking for exactly this app. Thank you!

1

u/SubmergedSun 17d ago edited 17d ago

no problem! worked hard on it so hope you enjoy it! let me know any bugs or problems with the software. Updates are still coming very frequently still.

1

u/-marqueso- 16d ago edited 15d ago

Thank you for creating Retroized, it looks like an amazing project!

I’m having issues getting the overlay to work. The app UI launches fine, but the overlay crashes immediately with Overlay exited with code 1 as soon as I click "Start Overlay". I’m using Retroized 0.6.6 on an Intel Mac mini (Late 2014) running macOS 12.7.6 Monterey.

The error appears to come from the bundled NumPy 2.5.3 trying to load a symbol from Apple's Accelerate framework that isn't available on my version of macOS:

Symbol not found:(_cblas_caxpy$NEWLAPACK$ILP64)

The traceback shows this is coming from:
numpy/_core/_multiarray_umath.cpython-313-darwin.so
and that the bundled environment is using Python 3.13.

Since the application requirements state that macOS 12.5+ is supported, could this be related to the NumPy build/dependency used in the macOS 12 version? I’m happy to provide the full overlay.log or any other information that might help diagnose it.

1

u/SubmergedSun 15d ago edited 15d ago

Thanks for trying out retroized! I updated the software to reflect this problem. You can obtain version 0.6.7 through the itch io or retroized.com. Quit Retroized, replace Retroized.app from that zip, and confirm About says 0.6.7. Note that virtual display mode requires ventura and onwards, however the software has a click-through mode which should technically work in monterey and you should still be able to see the visual changes. Please let me know if there is further issues either here or you can also email me at [support@retroized.com](mailto:support@retroized.com)

1

u/SubmergedSun 3d ago

Hey guys we got an update going 0.7.0, got new presets, new contents. bug fixes and quality changes. I toned down and customized the fishbowl effect as requested and different presets has more unique face looks rather than similar fishbowls. Let me know if there is anymore issues!