Six terrible graphical effects that need to stop

[Mark3h]

I always turn off motion blur, sometimes it causes headaches, but mostly because it is over used and looks awful.
DoF I can live without, usually turned off to save on performance. By far the main 2 things that just need to go away.

 

[wunkley]

DoF is great when used correctly and sparingly. I love how it's used dynamically in the ENB I use for Skyrim, for example.
Motion blur - not a fan generally, particularly since investing in a high Hz monitor. I know it's not exactly the same thing, but why try and eliminate 'motion blur' issues with high Hz gaming monitors, and then actually add a fake blur effect into games?
Chromatic aberration - not a fan of at all. It's a bad camera artefact and best avoided in photography, filming, so why put it in games?
Film grain - ok ish, if used sparingly in the right type of game.

The KEY thing though is, all these effects should be able to be turned OFF, if the user wants.

 

[Telecaster]

V sync adds too much lag for me (feels horrendous in some games) so I lap up that tearing

Maybe one day I'll try G-Sync/equivalent...

Strange how we all experience/interpret different effects.

I can't game on any PC without Vsync, I just notice tearing really bad in everything, and yet I can't detect any lag at all with it enabled!**

Chromatic abortion flat out wrecks my gaming experience, it looks truly awful and just like tearing, I notice it to the point of distraction away from the actual game.

** Haven't experienced G-Sync, shame I can't justify the outlay for one of the monitors as it looks like the perfect solution to me.

 

[ZeroG]

I've never understood film grain options in games. You spend all that money to get good graphics then have an option to make it look crap.

 

[arc@css]

I've never understood film grain options in games. You spend all that money to get good graphics then have an option to make it look crap.

 

[agnes]

Yep, film grain. Those saying they don't notice input lag with vsync boggles my mind. It's night and day?

Other settings... Ummm, FXAA is nice for GPU intensive games but ultimately is a bodge version of AA and borks distant texture. So I'll always go for MSAA over FXAA.

 

[spoffle]

These effects exist to compensate for the flaws of consoles. Chromatic hides aliasing, motion blur hides bad graphics and depth of field hides bad textures. God knows why they exist on PC though.

No, no they don't. I wish people who don't have a clue wouldn't try and state things with such authority.

Chromatic aberration isn't there to hide aliasing issues, it's there to add a flaw in the scene to stop it looking so clinical. Imperfections in a scene lead to the scene looking better, or closer to "perfect". It might not be the best effect to achieve this, but you're just making up reasons for why it's used.

Motion blur doesn't hide bad graphics, it can be used to hide lower frame rates, but that really isn't the intention behind it. Motion blur is there to simulate how our eyes work when viewing motion.

Depth of field isn't there to hide bad textures, it's there to simulate the way an eye or camera focuses, ie, the focal point. The closer your eye is to something, the more the background or peripherals are out of focus. Hold your finger up to your face, about 10cm from your nose. Focus on it and watch how everything else goes out of focus.

 

[spoffle]

wasnt that the old quake players wanting to keep 125fps?

Yeah I think it was, I think 125FPS allowed you to jump higher or something like that.

 

[Seanspeed]

No, no they don't. I wish people who don't have a clue wouldn't try and state things with such authority.

Chromatic aberration isn't there to hide aliasing issues, it's there to add a flaw in the scene to stop it looking so clinical. Imperfections in a scene lead to the scene looking better, or closer to "perfect". It might not be the best effect to achieve this, but you're just making up reasons for why it's used.

Motion blur doesn't hide bad graphics, it can be used to hide lower frame rates, but that really isn't the intention behind it. Motion blur is there to simulate how our eyes work when viewing motion.

Depth of field isn't there to hide bad textures, it's there to simulate the way an eye or camera focuses, ie, the focal point. The closer your eye is to something, the more the background or peripherals are out of focus. Hold your finger up to your face, about 10cm from your nose. Focus on it and watch how everything else goes out of focus.

<claps>

Well that saved me some time.

Couple minor additions:

Chromatic aberration *can* be used to hide certain aliasing issues, though I dont really think that's why it's implement 95% of the time. The blurring it causes can sometimes mask jaggies, though it can also exacerbate other forms of aliasing. A game that I think might have implemented it for this reason is Bloodborne, especially given it's absolutely aliasing problems.

Likewise, motion blur *can* be implemented specifically for making up for lower framerates. Not an uncommon design decision. Requires a quality solution to have a decent effect, which is why it can be a somewhat off-putting effect in many situations.

And Depth of Field is something that I feel is one of the few times where trying to simulate a camera effect is worthwhile. Used in moderation(with a far off distance), I think a quality DoF effect can definitely create a very pleasing image. Depends on the setting and how important it is to see far off details and how good those details look unobscured by blur.

 

[iBSOD]

Am I the only one that doesn't hate DoF? Works well in most FPS games.

Motion blur looks really nice on Trackmania and probably other arcade racers but yeah I usually have it turned off too.

Bloom annoys me the most

 

[Amraam]

Am I the only one that doesn't hate DoF? Works well in most FPS games.

Motion blur looks really nice on Trackmania and probably other arcade racers but yeah I usually have it turned off too.

Bloom annoys me the most

I like it too. As I said above, it may not be entirely accurate, but it adds to the atmosphere and makes it feel more realistic/immersive. Works great in Skyrim, STALKER, and Alien Isolation etc.

 

[Twincam]

Lol at depth of field. As when I look at one point of a in game image then the rest of it goes out of focus naturally that's how eyes work. So adding it in a game forces me to only look at one point which at times is good but most of the time it's just annoying when the rest of the scene is blurred.

Same with motion blur if something is moving fast it blurs naturally, if it's not moving fast enough then it won't so why add blur to a scene that's not supposed to have it.

 

[Squark]

Chromatic abomination is just horrible, it makes my eyes strain to try and 'repair' the picture.

 

[arc@css]

Am I the only one that doesn't hate DoF? Works well in most FPS games.

It depends on the game, but I can like it quite a lot, or sometimes I'll just use it for part of a play through, not the whole experience.

 

[lordzargon]

Agree with the OP. DoF is something my eyes do anyway (it'll be made redundant when using anything in VR).

Motion Blur is also massively over-used. Its something your eyes do anyway. Games just exaggerate the effect.


Lens flare, however - CryTek did some research. This isn't something you get in the human eye, but their study concluded that people felt more immersed with Lens Flare enabled - so there is some merit in that.

Chromatic Aberration is a personal taste for me - I don't mind as a visual effect, but it gets killed if it drops too many frames - along with the other effects.

 

[Nexus18]

Thread revival....

Another one that can **** right off is bloom... When used properly, it can be nice but a lot of the time, developers just over do it as per usual i.e. ark:



lol....

Also, colour grading.... Any time this is in a game, it does nothing but ruin colours.

 

[Omaeka]

Majority of them are fine when used right or just straight up opinion orientated... But Chromatic aberration deserves it's own place in hell, it does nothing but make the games look worse, zero exceptions.

 

[Amraam]

Majority of them are fine when used right or just straight up opinion orientated... But Chromatic aberration deserves it's own place in hell, it does nothing but make the games look worse, zero exceptions.

I used to like it. It was only slightly over done in Alien Isolation, but looked OK for the most part. It's so over the top in ME:A that when you're planet scanning, distance stars get entirely separated into coolours, and instead of a pretty space background you get a trippy kaleidoscope of colours.

 

[silversurfer]

HDR connection to a monitor is required for some of these effects to be done properly I think. However the complaint was proper HDR in a film would be like a torch on your face in a dark room, no longer cinematic just uncomfortable to watch . If you are playing a horror game can you complain though.

The ARK effect should fade as your eyes would adjust in real life, problem with computers is the light is too uniform when on water it would be reflected to many angles

 

[~>Dg<~]

Motion blur and bloom and bad aa especially in unreal 4 engine games.its like you looking through vaseline on top settings.