News
9.9.2025 🎉 Announcing RetroVisor v1.0b1
As of September 9, 2025, the first public beta of Version 1.0 is officially available!
Version 1.0 beta 1 is a huge update and a major leap forward from the last version. Until now, RetroVisor relied on the simple CRT Easy shader. With this release, the brand-new Sankara shader takes center stage as the new default, bringing a whole new level of authenticity to retro visuals.
The Sankara shader emulates a wide range of composite and CRT effects, including chroma smear, various scanline and dot mask options, as well as blooming effects for that classic glow.
In addition, Beta 1 also adds the ability to view the effect texture side-by-side with the original texture in a split view, making shader tuning and analysis more intuitive than ever. On top of that, zooming and panning have been improved, offering smoother navigation and a more flexible experience.
7.8.2025 🎉 Announcing RetroVisor 0.9
As of August 7, 2025, the first public version of RetroVisor is officially available!
This release marks the end of the initial development stage and the beginning of the tool's journey as open-source software. The app draws inspiration from ShaderGlass on Windows and aims to bring a similar experience to macOS users, powered by Apple’s ScreenCaptureKit and Metal-based shaders.
🛠️ What RetroVisor Does
When you launch RetroVisor, it creates a floating effect window that you can position over any other application. Double-click the effect window to lock it in place — it becomes visually synced to the underlying window, applying real-time visual effects such as scanlines or phosphor glow. To unlock the window, simply use the menu bar icon or click the app icon in the dock.
Behind the scenes, RetroVisor captures a portion of your screen using ScreenCaptureKit, processes it through a GPU shader pipeline, and displays the result in a tightly aligned overlay — simulating a transparent CRT filter over your target app.
📌 Important: RetroVisor requires screen recording permission to function. You’ll need to enable this in the macOS System Settings. Without it, the app won't work.
🧭 Roadmap
RetroVisor is being developed in two main stages:
- Stage 1 (complete): Build the core infrastructure and demonstrate the concept with a built-in proof-of-concept shader (CRT-Easymode).
- Stage 2 (next): Expand shader support and design a flexible system capable of integrating a wider variety of CRT-style and post-processing shaders. This will involve diving into popular shader formats and frameworks — and ideally, collaborating with the community to make it happen.
If you enjoy tinkering with shaders, you're more than welcome to fork RetroVisor and experiment. Promising results will be merged back into the main project.
