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General discussionWhat are your graphics graphics preferences?(60 posts)(60 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted August 10, 2019
Personally, I don't care for graphics much. I'm ok with both Hi-res flashy special effects and huge pixels, as long as those don't impede my understanding of what is going on.

Still I prefer when picture is "clean" - with clear lines, without some mess in the background. That's why I probably more in favor of cartoonish and "anime" style, though I'm not against realism. Probably, the only type of graphics that makes me uncomfortable is no graphics at all, or pseudographics. As it's usually hard for me to remember what all those symbols mean (in case of roguelikes) or to keep in my head everything when playing text adventure games.

So, what's your tastes about game graphics?
Posted August 10, 2019
I'm consider myself to be very tolerant with graphic. I can easily go back to NES and DOS era without problem. Even janky PS1 graphic don't bother me at all. However there are a few things I avoid.

Too flashy special effect. I can't play DOTA and the likes at all because all the special effects would make me lose where my character is.

No motion blur. And no Depth of Field. And in FPS, no head bob. I'm gonna kill these 3 options first whenever I play a game.

Simple and clean is always preferable. Realism is OK. But stylized is where it's at. For example I prefer Dishonored art style rather than Skyrim realism. Too realistic and I'll forget everyone's face (just like I did in real life. Can't remember people's faces)
Posted August 10, 2019
I have two statements about this regarding my personal preferences.

1-Style beats technology, always. It doesn't matter if you are high or low res, photorealistic or cartoony; if you art is good, everything is fine.

2-Visual clarity is the most important aspect for me, in any videogame. Many new, super-realistic games tend to be extremely confusing with both their color palette and the myriad of effects, and sometimes it's hard to take aim or noticing details.
Post edited August 10, 2019 by Enebias
Posted August 10, 2019
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LootHunter: So, what's your tastes about game graphics?
Depends on the game. Obviously 2007 era games look more advanced than 1987 ones, but I don't find 2019 games to look better than 2009 games when they over-do the dumber post-processing effects and prefer the "cleaner" look of when they don't stuff 12x layers of blur into everything. Today's lighting in games often just fills every room with shader-based "glowing fog" because it's "cheap" in development time. In contrast some older games like FEAR or Unreal nailed down the (non shader) hand-placed lighting really well and can actually look a lot more "moody" for it. And art style always wins (eg, Crysis isn't 'better' than Bioshock).

As for individual settings, a lot of this stuff is subjective but some of my pet hates are (warning, mild rant incoming...) ;-)

Head Bob - usually looks absurd. Strapping a Go-Pro to a bicycle helmet and measuring how much it "jumps" ignores the two other bigger factors in dampening it out (eyeball movement and visual cortex filtering). Real-life : head-bob is barely a mild "flick" when your feet touch the ground on a full-on sprint and you don't even see it at all when walking normally. 1990's games like Thief got this right over 20 years ago in terms of subtlety. Others (eg, No One Lives Forever), have a slider allowing you to tone it back. Unless it's very subtle I always disable it.

Chromatic Aberration - The only thing CA emulates is something irrelevant to video games. Real life CA in modern lenses is extremely small, and you'll often only see it with heavy magnification related divergence (satellites, telescopes and microscopes, and much of that is corrected in software). Do you see the edges of buildings split up into red / blue with your eyeballs in real life? Of course not, because that's not how human eyeball works. Unless you're playing as a robot (eg, The Talos Principle) CA makes zero sense in a medium that's 100% rendered and has no light capturing cameras, which is what's required for CA to exist.

Vignetting - This one (darkening the edges of the screen) makes sense when 'showing' you that stealth mode is on (or looking down a sniper scope). Other than that, it's hardly the pinnacle of realism for your in-game avatar to walk around holding up an oval shaped photo-frame in front of its face to mimic having Glaucoma for absolutely no plot related reason...

Film Grain - Because "realism" = ageing defects of a non-existent silver-halide based 35mm film in a rendered game with no film... This stuff only makes sense in "historical" in-game cutscenes stored on film (eg, Bioshock Infinite's "Kinetoscopes").

Depth of Field - When you look around outside, trees a mere 50m away don't become massively blurred just because you're talking to someone 2m away. Static "Bokeh" photography art styles also translate less well to games where you need to interact with the environment without the developer knowing where you're looking at any time. Real life : Unless you have myopia, stuff in the distance isn't even that blurred, it's doubled (due to the nature of stereoscopic vision). Example : Go outside, hold up a finger in front of something distinct (eg, a lamp post 20-30m away). Look at your finger but keep awareness on the lamp post. It isn't that blurred, it's doubled. Now focus on the lamp post but keep awareness of your finger. Again, your finger isn't massively blurred, it's doubled. This real life 3D depth-of-field effect is something fixed distance 2D displays can't even begin to accurately portray, and using a lame "wall of blur" effect like an out of focus camera, looks far more stupid than a "clean look" of not having it there at all. Plus in real life, you don't even notice the effect as it gets seamlessly filtered out by your visual cortex (same way you aren't consciously aware of constantly seeing your "two noses" block the lower L & R half of your vision). I always disable this one.

"Eye Adaptation" - For me, this one is so dumb that it's actually taken top spot from CA. You've already got this effect naturally, ie, play a dark game like Thief at night, or a dark cave in Morrowind in a dark room and spend 10 minutes in a dark area, then suddenly move to a light one that causes the screen to glow much brighter, and your eyes will already be adapting. Why would you want to double up and add a second fake "layer" still limited by monitor contrast ratio, that's time-compressed by a completely stupid factor of 1000:1? Instead of being some "clever" and "immersive" effect, it just looks and feels ridiculous like a failing TFT backlight.

There, now that feels much better... :-D
Post edited August 10, 2019 by AB2012
Posted August 10, 2019
I am generally fine with 30 fps, and I don't see a reason to use e.g. edge antialiasing, if it affects the performance at all.

That said, I am not a big fan of the "retro-feel" trend. A new game having blocky simplistic graphics and "SID-like music" as a style effect just irritates me. It is generally fine to have simple graphics and sounds if the gameplay is golden... but intentionally trying to make the game look and sound worse? Come on.

It is like shooting a movie that is intentionally out of focus, with poor cuts etc. Yeah yeah I know Tarantino has done that with some movies, as well as that Will Ferrell comedy "Casa de mi Padre" which apparently made fun of the low technical quality of the Mexican cinema or something.
Post edited August 10, 2019 by timppu
Posted August 10, 2019
I set great store in consistency. Whether it's HD or pixel graphics, realistic or cartoonish doesn't matter all that much to me as long as the style is consistent and fits the game, while being visually/artistically appealing to me in other ways as well. I'm not very fond of e.g. mixing HD and pixels or realistic and cartoonish graphics without a convincing concept behind it. Apart from that, my current rig still has to meet the system requirements, of course - no gain in beautiful graphics if I can't run the game - and there shouldn't be any screen tearing, stuttering or overheating of the graphics card. As a sidenote, I'm not a big fan of motion blur either, but will tolerate it in good games.
Posted August 10, 2019
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AB2012: "Eye Adaptation" - For me, this one is so dumb that it's actually taken top spot from CA. You've already got this effect naturally, ie, play a dark game like Thief at night, or a dark cave in Morrowind in a dark room and spend 10 minutes in a dark area, then suddenly move to a light one that causes the screen to glow much brighter, and your eyes will already be adapting. Why would you want to double up and add a second fake "layer" still limited by monitor contrast ratio, that's time-compressed by a completely stupid factor of 1000:1? Instead of being some "clever" and "immersive" effect, it just looks and feels ridiculous like a failing TFT backlight.
I agree with most of your points and technically this one too, but I think this is a feature made out of consideration for the player. A lot of people don't have the opportunity to play alone in a dark room, and even those who have it might not necessarily want to do so. "Game is too dark" seems to be a common complaint and people generally just don't want to squint to see in the darker sections. And their eyes probably can't adapt unless they find a dark playroom or a headset. Also, with cheap monitors, backlight bleed starts to make things look shit in games that are very dark.

For me, it really depends on the game. Spooky games, horror games, I think they should be actually dark when it's dark. With other games that just want to convey the mood that it is night or dark, well that can be done without making it actually squinty.
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timppu: That said, I am not a big fan of the "retro-feel" trend. A new game having blocky simplistic graphics and "SID-like music" as a style effect just irritates me. It is generally fine to have simple graphics and sounds if the gameplay is golden... but intentionally trying to make the game look and sound worse? Come on.
I can't bring myself to view it that way. For me, pixelated, low res graphics have become a style in its own right, rather than being a low quality imitation of something that could have higher quality. Think mosaics, cartoons, stained glass art.. while all of that can represent real objects, they're not mere "low res photos."
Post edited August 10, 2019 by clarry
Posted August 10, 2019
I usually go with these depending on the game;

Performance > Quality

720p or lower > higher

Low on shadows, medium on water and higher on the rest

Vsync > no Vsync

FXAA/AF > xxAA

Motion blur and BLOOM OFF
Posted August 10, 2019
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clarry: I agree with most of your points and technically this one too, but I think this is a feature made out of consideration for the player. A lot of people don't have the opportunity to play alone in a dark room, and even those who have it might not necessarily want to do so. "Game is too dark" seems to be a common complaint and people generally just don't want to squint to see in the darker sections. And their eyes probably can't adapt unless they find a dark playroom or a headset. Also, with cheap monitors, backlight bleed starts to make things look shit in games that are very dark.
The problem is the way I've seen Eye Adaptation (or "Auto Exposure") being implemented (Unreal 4 Engine games being the worst offender for bad defaults) is that instead of being a gradual subtle effect based on time, it's simply massively dumbed down into reducing the ambient light in brightly lit room in mere seconds if you're an arbitrary distance away from a light source that's in the frame. Likewise for "too dark" games during the day, I don't think Eye Adaptation is even meant to fix that. In fact it usually makes brightly lit rooms darker. The solution for daytime lighting is simply to increase the gamma. Here's an example of how broken it can be using UE4 defaults - The Turing Test:-

This is what a room "should" look like:-
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/251462956276673386/21FEEE1D503C85CC0513BA36476BACD518FCF2C9/

Stand a few inches closer to a light and this is what it ends up looking like (as if your eyes have 'adapted' so badly that light itself stops being reflected):-
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/251462956276673641/AA20935843DAED3D9C127628DA1194E8AD06F02E/

Force disable the "Auto Exposure" effect in UE4 config files and you'll be surprised that UE4 is so dumb for relying on "Auto Exposure" for everything to the point of seemingly having no static light maps at all:-
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/251462956276673532/015C215ABEB4E3615866F2A02C80CA9122C2C768/

Or in other words, certain defaults used by Unreal Engine 4 engine to "showcase" the 'Eye Adaptation / Auto Exposure" post-processing effect ends up looking 100x worse vs what was made 20 years ago on Unreal Engine 1...
https://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/11/10881/Denfert_Rochereau_3.jpg
https://kentie.net/article/d3d10drv/unreal3.jpg
Post edited August 10, 2019 by AB2012
Posted August 10, 2019
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AB2012: The problem is the way I've seen Eye Adaptation (or "Auto Exposure") being implemented (Unreal 4 Engine games being the worst offender for bad defaults) is that instead of being a gradual subtle effect based on time, it's simply massively dumbed down into reducing the ambient light in brightly lit room in mere seconds if you're an arbitrary distance away from a light source that's in the frame. Likewise for "too dark" games during the day, I don't think Eye Adaptation is even meant to fix that. In fact it usually makes brightly lit rooms darker. The solution for daytime lighting is simply to increase the gamma. Here's an example of how broken it can be using UE4 defaults - The Turing Test:-

This is what a room "should" look like:-
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/251462956276673386/21FEEE1D503C85CC0513BA36476BACD518FCF2C9/

Stand a few inches closer to a light and this is what it ends up looking like (as if your eyes have 'adapted' so badly that light itself stops being reflected):-
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/251462956276673641/AA20935843DAED3D9C127628DA1194E8AD06F02E/
Looks like the light values or exposure settings could benefit from some finetuning, but I don't think it's too far off the mark. The eye's or brain's mechanisms aren't as simple as you make them out to be.

Point in case, I'm right now sitting in a room where the blindfolds are closed but it's daytime. So not a terribly dark room but not really bright either. I can see just fine. However, if I take a light source and point it at my eye at close distance (for example the led from my phone), I can make the room turn very dark and have things vanish from view (immediately). Removing the light source immediately reveals everything again. Bright light is good at masking darker areas behind it, just as loud noises are good at masking quieter noises that occur simultaneously. Due to the limited dynamic range of computer displays, your eyes can't do this effect for you in a videogame, it can only be simulated.

I've used that to my advantage when playing airsoft at night in a yard with one very bright light source. When you look at yourself and immediate surroundings in the dark, no matter how far you are from the light, it seems like it's lighting you up quite a bit and you can see around pretty well. However, if you try to look "across" the bright area by the light source, everything more than 10-20 meters behind it vanishes into pitch black darkness where it'd be impossible to tell that someone's standing.

So yes, bringing up a bright light source close to the player should cause such darkening if we're after realism. It's an immediate dynamic range effect, not at all the same as the slow adaptation that happens over a dozen minutes as you step from sunny outside to dark basement. But game developers do well to smooth it out with a timer, otherwise it'd be quite jarring. As with head bob and depth of field, the brain is good at rejecting or blending over such details when they occur naturally, but in a pre-digested render, things need to be made nice for you.

Force disable the "Auto Exposure" effect in UE4 config files and you'll be surprised that UE4 is so dumb for relying on "Auto Exposure" for everything to the point of seemingly having no static light maps at all:-
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/251462956276673532/015C215ABEB4E3615866F2A02C80CA9122C2C768/
I don't see why this is a problem. If you grab a camera, lock your exposure settings, and walk around the house & outside at day and night, you'll see this same terrible result. If we want to sample a scene with high dynamic range and present it in a manner that looks pleasant and realistic on a low dynamic range screen, somebody or something has to adjust exposure (among other things). Two options come to mind: automatic exposure and manual exposure. Now I would prefer to focus on playing the game instead of manually adjusting exposure all the time..
Post edited August 10, 2019 by clarry
Posted August 10, 2019
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clarry: I can't bring myself to view it that way. For me, pixelated, low res graphics have become a style in its own right, rather than being a low quality imitation of something that could have higher quality. Think mosaics, cartoons, stained glass art.. while all of that can represent real objects, they're not mere "low res photos."
With mosaic, hand drawn cartoons etc. it is to me about being amazed how they have been able to do such good job with so low "ingredients".

I don't get a similar feeling with computer graphics which is artificially blocky, at least not the ones I've seen for modern indie games. Sure, for early 90s games and such, I might feel "wow they have been able to really push the good old VGA graphics or Adlib sound in this game!", but with modern games there are no such limitations.

It is more like someone taking a photo of a great mosaic art or Da Vinci's painting, and then proclaiming "Wow, look at my photo! Didn't I take a great photo of that work?!?". No, you didn't, so piss off, and never come back.
Posted August 10, 2019
Minimal post-processing.

No motion blur, depth of field or inferior forms of AA like FXAA. No overblown bloom, film grain etc. All these are turned off immediately (and if not available in options, I look for .ini tweaks or stuff like that). I also try to get rid of FPS capping if there is any as long as it doesn't cause any issues (some games' physics go bonkers when they are tied to framerate).

Always native resolution, then go from there. With 1080ti and 1440p /165 Hz monitor, I can usually max most settings. Big advantage of 24 inch 1440p display is pretty much no need for AA due to pixel density.

Regarding graphics itself, I consider my limit to be Wolf 3D. Anything that looks worse than that, I have trouble playing due to archaic looking graphics and usually terrible UIs.
Posted August 10, 2019
Performance over graphical fidelity. (Even if the system can handle higher graphical settings, said settings will consume more power (assuming the game doesn't waste CPU/GPU power, as some poorly programmed games do), and on a laptop that translates to less battery life.)

For resolution, I prefer 640x480, or lower if the interface still works fine at such resolutions. High resolutions use more GPU power, and often things become smaller at such high resolutions.

I prefer a clean look over graphical realism.

For 2D games, I prefer a straight tile-based overhead view to an isometric view.

It should be clear where you can and can't go (this is a problem on many Square games in the PSX era; both Final Fantasy 7 and SaGa Frontier 2 have this issue, along with many games in-between).
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timppu: That said, I am not a big fan of the "retro-feel" trend. A new game having blocky simplistic graphics and "SID-like music" as a style effect just irritates me. It is generally fine to have simple graphics and sounds if the gameplay is golden... but intentionally trying to make the game look and sound worse? Come on.
I actually like retro-style graphics and audio, particularly if it's NES style. (I don't like the Sega Genesis soundchip that much (especially when it's used for music styles that give me headaches (Comix Zone) or when the game music is poorly arranged for it (Phantasy Star 3); and I don't particularly care for the Commodore 64 SID chip either.)
Post edited August 10, 2019 by dtgreene
Posted August 10, 2019
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LootHunter: What are your graphics preferences?
I don't have preferences per se.
Of course, I prefer certain graphical styles for certain genres, and I prefer some graphical styles over others in general.

But I won't give examples of the lesser liked styles, because to do that, I would have to name games, and then people who like these games would get upset, and then...well, you know how these things end. ;)
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LootHunter: Probably, the only type of graphics that makes me uncomfortable is no graphics at all, as it's usually hard for me to keep in my head everything when playing text adventure games.
Erm, in most text adventures, a simple L(ook) + [enter] will tell you everything that can be seen around you.
An equally simple I(nventory) + [enter] will tell you all the things you carry around.

Tbh: that's probably easier than in point'n'click games, where you have to go on a pixel hunt.

And on a side note: no - the genre of IF is no worthy successor to real text adventures. (now let the beatings begin) ;)
Posted August 10, 2019
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clarry: I agree with most of your points and technically this one too, but I think this is a feature made out of consideration for the player. A lot of people don't have the opportunity to play alone in a dark room, and even those who have it might not necessarily want to do so. "Game is too dark" seems to be a common complaint and people generally just don't want to squint to see in the darker sections. And their eyes probably can't adapt unless they find a dark playroom or a headset. Also, with cheap monitors, backlight bleed starts to make things look shit in games that are very dark.
avatar
AB2012: The problem is the way I've seen Eye Adaptation (or "Auto Exposure") being implemented (Unreal 4 Engine games being the worst offender for bad defaults) is that instead of being a gradual subtle effect based on time, it's simply massively dumbed down into reducing the ambient light in brightly lit room in mere seconds if you're an arbitrary distance away from a light source that's in the frame. Likewise for "too dark" games during the day, I don't think Eye Adaptation is even meant to fix that. In fact it usually makes brightly lit rooms darker. The solution for daytime lighting is simply to increase the gamma. Here's an example of how broken it can be using UE4 defaults - The Turing Test:-
This reminds me of another pet peeve of mine; using dark graphics to intentionally make things harder to see. Specifcally, this issue comes up in many games that have light spells that change the ambient light (Morrowind/Oblivion, and Wizardry 8 are the ones that come to mind). If you want to make darkness an intentional gameplay mechanic, simply make it impossible to see past a certain distance in the first place; early games like Wizardry 1-5 and Bard's Tale 1-3 got this mechanic right. (Of course, darkness should not be overused; it's easy to put in things like blind jumps that are generally considered poor gameplay if you use darkness.)

I could also point out that this is also an accessibility issue; by having there be low contrast when it's dark in-game, players with poor vision who can't adjust monitor settings will be at a disadvantage. (Other related accessibility issues include font size (if the font is unreadable on an SDTV it may be too small) and using color as the only differentiation factor for important gameplay elements (consider color blind players here).)
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General discussionWhat are your graphics graphics preferences?(60 posts)(60 posts)
(60 posts)