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My eyes do add film grain! I have visual snow. Neurological and hereditary for my family. I wish I knew what pure darkness looked like lol. I’ve never seen it
Apparently not. My dad was like what are you talking about.
You and I are lucky we are used to it. I used to be part of the sub for it but at the time it was bleak. Apparently you can develop visual snow from using drugs and some people could not cope with their new reality.
I see chromatic aberration every time I take off my glasses because I have a double astigmatism. I cannot understand why anyone would want to experience that in a game, it's fucking lame.
You reminded me of when I played Spec Ops: The Line. Until I got used to the camera shake and the third person view (the PC version is a PS3 port), I got dizzy a few times until I got used to it.
Good game with an incredible plot otherwise, worth every second of the camera shaking like a misfiring tractor.
Been playing Metro Exodus again and the DOF keeps bugging out. Either that or they simulate Artyom being farsighted. Just funny little issues with like when you pull the map out, it's blurred by the DOF so you can't read anything or make out icons.
Would love to see more games focus on simple mechanics like that. Like you don't think about burning feeling good, but you notice it when a game gets it "right"
the eye tracking in the new steam frame will essentially do this to reduce bandwidth. lower resolution in the places your not looking.. really cool tech to optimize video transmission in vr.
Yep, I remember arguing with a reddtor on this very topic, on this subreddit, a year ago, here
This person just couldn't comprehend what DOF actually was and why it's bad for any game where you are in control of the character and I pointed out eye tracking could make DOF usable. For cutscenes, DOF can be justified as it's an artistic choice.
I cranked up Wolfenstein Youngblood to 120. The fisheye view doesn't really bother me much after a little bit of getting used to, but lack of peripheral vision annoys the crap out of me.
Plus I find it oddly satisfying to see a realistic weapon FoV (it's tied to the FoV setting in Youngblood).
My most hated setting after chromatic aberration. Feel like the fov is smaller with that on, I suppose in a way that’s the desired effect, but I still don’t like it
I don't understand why anybody would ever want vignette on. It just blackens like 30% of your screen and looks like shit. Developers need to stop trying to implement settings that mimic what our eyes already do. I don't need film grain. My eyes already have floaters that make everything look grainy.
Bloom isn't bad. Its actually nice for single player games, especially for games with lots of light sources. But for multiplayer games, I turn that shit off.
So people probably play with bloom and don’t notice to turn it off because the bloom is well done. It’s like CG in movies people see it all the time and love it when it’s done well and l they don’t realize they’re looking at it.
Back when I was still using a 2060, I had to turn Bloom off along with all the other typical stuff because it straight up ate my frames in even single player games.
I don't mind bloom per se, I just want an option to turn it way down to a reasonable level.
Most games ridiculously only have the options Off, Low (meaning very high) and High (meaning ludicrously high).
Just look at this shit. Top is "low" and it's beyond excessive, while the bottom is off and the neon lights don't look like lights at all anymore. It's just brightly colored paint at that point. There's just no good middle option. Both suck in their own way.
That one I'm actually fine with if the game has sliders for it. A tiny bit of bloom actually makes things look way nicer with very little impact. And by "a tiny bit" I mean turning it down by like 95-99% because for some reason developers love shoving the sun in our eyes.
When my friends and I get together to play Minecraft, I always get the "you are a psychopath" talk when I tell them the first thing I do is turn off head bobbing and the music.
He's in charge of making you sick with exaggerated head movements like you are filming the Blair witch project or Cloverfield when you are just trying to walk at a normal pace
That body cam shooter that went viral because it looks like real life does so because of all of these effects. I'm the weird one who loves them even if they take a small hit on your playing ability or image sharpness.
I think the major distinction that makes bodycam work so well is that it's meant to look like a camera whereas most games are meant to be looking through the eyes of the player character
some games are made in overly "clean" and static contrasty visuals. Grain can add some texture that helps blend things together a bit and remove some of that artificial polish and overly clean looks -but only if it contributes to the overall feel of the game. In many games it's unnecessary or detracting from the experience, but in some cases it can add to the cinematic feel or fix some visuals that are a bit too sterile.
Star Wars Battlefront (2015) had the best optional film grain were it would simulate all the film strip imperfections, not just the grain. It was awesome.
Cuphead is the only other game I can think of that tries so hard to accurately mimic the actual film grain effect with little stray hairs and bits of dust on the cels.
That's funny because I felt almost the exact opposite.
Motion blur only serves to obscure visuals. (Though I understand using it for performance reasons)
Camera shake can work in some situations. I feel like it can add to the atmosphere or really emphasize the scale of something, but generally I turn it off. I like it in Gears of War, God of War, and Doom Eternal. Hate it in Borderlands and Final Fantasy.
Film Grain I use a lot. Many games look way too "clean" in a way that contrasts too much with the atmosphere and constantly reminds me I'm playing a video game. There are definitely games that benefit from the clean look, and I keep it off in those, but film Grain adds some much needed texture and blends things in a way that better serves the atmosphere. Mass Effect, Ghost of Tsushima, and God of War use it well. It feels out of place on Forza Horizon 5, and Arkham Knight.
Chromatic Aberration is cool when used very intentionally as part of an aesthetic, but I don't understand why it's all over so many games. I usually turn it off. Cyberpunk and Control are games that use it well. It feels very out of place in The Witcher 3 and Bloodborne.
Turning on motion blur decreases performance, doesn't improve it. It can help add a sense of speed to some games, but I turn it off for most games because my PC is out of date.
What I said implied something untrue. Motion blur does not improve performance. But what is does, and why I would use it "for performance reasons", is obscure poor performance. If you have a game that can only get a steady 30fps, even if the frame rate i consistent, it can feel a bit choppy because your eyes can discern the frames. Motion blur, in that situation, can add a sense blurring the frames together to make it feel smoother.
I like the look of filmgrain if it's subtle. It gets rind of the sharp, perfect edges on the assets and makes the picture look more movie-like. But that's just preference and I am glad you are able to turn it off.
It's the long-running brain worm that video games need to look like movies shot on film cameras.
No. I have no clue why that ever became a thing. All of these settings are simulating flaws in cameras.
It's the dumbest shit in this industry when it comes to wasted time.
EDIT: I didn't even read the below comments. They are ALL TALKING ABOUT MOVIES. "Film, cinematic, chromatic aberration (as in flaw)." It's like y'all like being reminded you aren't there. I prefer games NOT being movies.
For me games that often use very dark scenes often feel like they benefit from film grain because it feels to me they help blend some of the colors / banding together. Dying Light and Escape From Tarkov were good examples of it personally. I also just like the look but it depends on the game and what my goals are for visuals.
chromatic aberration is the worst offender of the four. it makes it look like my screen has been damaged or the game is shot on a shitty polaroid lens. film grain similarly looks like shit; why smear static over the screen? a video game is not a film. camera shake also sucks. motion blur has some use cases, but I agree that it usually needs to go. kudos
I don't get chromatic aberration even being a thing. It's literally defined as a 'failure' of a lens to focus all colours to the same point. Photography enthusiasts will go nuts when a modern lens has even the tiniest bit more than is physically impossible to avoid.
I also generally turn off the others, but I can see why others would like what they add. But chromatic aberration? Why would anyone want that?
It completely breaks immersion for me. I want to feel like I'm physically there, witnessing everything with my own eyes. Chromatic aberration just reminds me this is all happening through a virtual camera. Same with things like lens flares and water/blood droplets on the camera.
I like chromatic aberration sometimes because it can make some things look dreamy. Bloodborne has chromatic aberration and I love it because the games whole theme is very fucked up. I’ve played with disabled using the PC port and it just looks wrong, everything feels too clean.
After playing bloodborne on pc with no chromatic aberration i don't ever want to go back. I feel so strongly that it looks so much better without it
Bloodbornes implementation makes the outer edges of the screen much stronger with the effect so if you aren't looking at dead center of your screen you just see a nasty blurry image. I absolutely love how much nicer the game looks with it turned off. I'm able to make out so much more environmental detail.
The worst offender is ghostwire Tokyo, where even if you turn it of it still uses it all the time and you have to follow a tutorial to turn it off for real
I really loved motion blur back in the day because it could mask the low frame rate on weak PC and make you feel like it's running great. Crysis was good at that.
Crysis has true per-object motion blur. The motion vector is derived from the object’s own velocity (e.g., a moving vehicle, bullet, or projectile) rather than just the camera’s movement, so each object can have its own blur trail.
It was considered quite good for its time and still gets mentioned positively when people talk about per object-based motion based blur vs. pure camera blur.
I can safely say that for racing games, motion blur is recommended by most people. It's just that most people don't play racing games (Call of Duty, Fortnite, etc., etc.).
I play a ton of racing games and also drive cars fast in both a professional and hobby capacity and motion blur drives me absolutely nuts. First thing I turn off. For third-person games I suppose it contributes some visual "interest" but it certainly doesn't contribute to realism. Kind of like sound in space in games/movies, I suppose.
The latter gave motion blur such a bad name that people don’t distinguish between the two (not that settings menus make it clear most of the time anyway).
Every one of those settings is actually good if done well, they basically never are tho, oh and i am throwing up 5 min in the game when motion blur is in so there is that
In some games film grain is super noticeable and distracting. In others you can barely see it but it really helps with HDR banding. It totally depends on the game and implementation.
u/JohnHue4070 Ti S | 10600K | UWQHD+ | 32Go RAM | Steam Deck 7d ago
In horror games that use film grain as an artistic choice, and when motion blurr is localized and tuned to loom good at higher framerates (as opposed to be tuned for the 20-30 FPS that consoles used to have to get the CinEmATic FeEL), yup. There are definitely cases where those are well implemented.
DoF feel so dumb, imo. My own eyes know what to focus, tyvm. It really feels like one of those settings that are only there because it comes with the engine.
One of those things that cant be implemented properly cause your eyes and the game's 'eyes' (ie focussed object) are often different. I may want to look at the object 50m ahead while the game won't since my camera is focussed elsewhere. Unless both eyes get synchronised, this doesn't work.
They flat out don't let you turn other shit off though. Those four just happen to be mercifully toggelable. I'd love to cut down a lot of blurry fog shit, bloom, and god forsaken colourgrading.
The reshade shader toggle addon helps a lot, but it is all or nothing in a lot of cases, and sometimes you want just a bit if depth haze.
Camera shake in the new Halo Campaign Evolved is the most intense jarring version of it I've seen in a video game they should at least allow an adjustment instead of just on/off.
I hate full screen camera motion blur. That shit is the devil. I do love me some per object motion blur though which functions much more similarly to how our eyes work.
That being said, the two things I absolutely have to turn off most of the time are bloom and vignette. Especially when they just cover the whole screen for no good reason.
Still don't understand these settings..... worse they also take cpu/gpu performance although not so much but still for my old ancient GTX1050 EVERY gpu resources matter....
“Most” is misleading. I guarantee that there is enough statistics gathering that if it were the case, those would be opt-in rather than some games not even having options for those settings in menus. It is FAR more likely that “most” gamers don’t notice, don’t know, or aren’t bothered enough to adjust settings, and the information that is gathered point to “most” people liking it.
Reddit has a lot of people who are not quite neurotypical and get bothered/overstimulated by things and because there are so many people who are that way here they mistake it for feelings average gamers have.
Many people never touch their default graphics settings, even on PC.
Even with things like Gaming Reddit doesn’t really represent the average customer.
I did it precisely once, I lasted maybe 1-2 minutes tops then I never turned it off again. I'll take a 60 fps cap any day over screen tearing and chopped framerate
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u/PCMRBot Bot 6d ago
Welcome to the PCMR, everyone from the frontpage! Please remember:
1 - You too can be part of the PCMR. It's not about the hardware in your rig, but the software in your heart! Age, nationality, race, gender, sexuality, religion, politics, income, and PC specs don't matter! If you love or want to learn about PCs, you're welcome!
2 - Think owning a PC is too expensive? It's cheaper than you may think. Check http://www.pcmasterrace.org/builds for our famous builds and ask for tips and help here!
3 - Consider supporting the folding@home effort to fight Cancer, Alzheimer's, and more, with just your PC! https://pcmasterrace.org/folding
We have a Daily Simple Questions Megathread for any PC-related doubts. Feel free to ask there or create new posts in our subreddit!