Link: https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/motion-blur-is-the-worst-effect-in-games-confirmed/

Just a little amusing and not that surprising.

Good motion blur is actually pretty decent but games seem to always use shitty implementations, had to use reshade for it

Lenses flare and motion blur are some of the first setting I turn off in any game.

I just don't understand why it is usually on by default.

It's not that it's the worst, it's just that they turn it on to 11.

FPS 16.4->120

I mean its cool that things blur in real life, but this is a medium I need to see to interact with.

Motion blur is great in racing/driving games, but that's largely it. BeamNG.drive added it a couple updates back and it improves the looks a lot in my opinions. Makes speed feel actually fast.

Maybe because it matches the motion. High blur in a game where you're just turning or moving around on foot shouldn't distort vision so badly.

I thought that just existed to hide the fact games were only running at 30fps.

Oof I think I'd rate chromatic aberration worse ya know

Because it's ✨cinematic✨

Never mind that you're playing a game, not watching a movie!

This, and film grain and chromatic abberation, I immediately turn off. And maybe reduce screen shake if it's too high. And increase the FOV because usually it's set low for console gamers on the couch.

It's also completely unnecessary. Motion blur is already a product of your brain not being able to keep up with your eyes and you'll get a more natural motion blur without adding fake motion blur when the motion is fast enough.

I hate any effect that treats the character's eyes like cameras unless they are actually meant to be cameras (like in a cyberpunk game or a game where you're always watching security camera footage).

I always thought Crysis 3 did it well, and that came out 13 years ago!

and DOOM 2016

If your character is drunk, drugged, or otherwise impaired, yeah load up the motion blur.

Besides that, I don’t get why it’s there. Stuff just kinda naturally blurs when you turn fast if your eyes can’t keep up. If your eyes can keep up, why would you want it blurry?

What about bloom? That's another instant "turn off" for me.

Lens flare doesn't bother me, but its "Depth of Field" that drives me bonkers. I always turn motion blur and depth of field off.

Motion blur, film grain, vignette, and all the other bullshit post-processing trash they plaster across the screen to obstruct your view is like inventing the internet and then blocking file sharing. It’s completely counter-productive.

All this effort to create a visual world only to cover it up and make it annoying to actually view it.

Motion blur, Depth of Field, Bloom, Chromatic aberration.

Off, Off, Off and Off.

I hate DOF, too. Your eyes aren't a camera, any place you look should be in focus!

It's only "cinematic" in movies because of limited tech. I made the mistake of watching The Hobbit in HFR. It was only a mistake because I've seen what we could have, but again idiots said no because it's new and different.

Most of these cinematic effects are not so bad when used in moderation. But when the chromatic aberration looks like a russian camera from the '70s, or the lens flares makes you think the game was directed by Jar Jar Abrams, that's bad design. And sadly, that's like 90% of the games that try to look realistic.

And I haven't seen anyone mention the worst of all: vignette. That's one that never, never works.

Film grain

Vignette, Film grain.

Off, Off.

Film grain and bloom can look nice when used well imo, otherwise absolutely agree.

It makes lower framerates look a bit better. I think that's mostly it, especially considering 30fps is still the default on consoles.

FWIW, I agree in the vast majority of cases. I just restarted Alan Wake 2 and it's one of the very few times I can say they did it right, and it actually does look better with it on. (But I'm also playing with visual quality priority instead of framerate priority on a console, so probably not true on a powerful PC.)

Maybe I overlooked it, but I didn't see anyone here mention per-object motion blur, which does look pretty good in some implementations. Obviously it shouldn't be overdone, but iirc FromSoft games tend to use it and I quite like the effect.

There are exceptions to the rules

What did you see it in HFR? I would like to experience that again

Depending on the monitor ghosting will be there for you as well. Lol

Personally I prefer the cinematic muddiness for movies, at least for now. I watched one of the Nolan Batman movies in 60fps hdr and you could see the wires and the winch and other set equipment when they did stunts.

Depth of field is actually useful though

Motion blur looks good in most games nowadays. As does bloom. I would only turn them off in competitive pvp multiplayer games, which I don’t play any of.

Chromatic Aberration, Lens Distortion, Film Grain, and other bullshit lens effects like flare/raindrops/dirt need to fuck right off though

From what I've heard, the only good thing motion blur benefits is people with sight problems.

In my experience, these are often tuned for the trailer, or tuned for someone watching the game played, rather than tuning it for the player.
The game is experienced very differently from those different perspectives, and it's sometimes difficult to keep them all in mind when making a large game.

My eyes will do the blurring on their own, thank you very much. Same goes for motion blur.

Are you thinking Depth of Field or Field of View? DoF just blurs things that the cursor isn't pointing at, which I find obnoxious.

Same. I'm not wasting cycles on this bullshit.

Don't even need a crappy monitor anymore; they can artificially add ghosting via DLSS/FSR if it's not implemented well.

huh? Your eyes absolutely do have limited depth of field just like any camera, and need to focus at a particular distance. Anything as close as your nose will be out of focus, and if you're reading something close, your distant vision will be blurry.

You usually don't notice it because the focus immediately follows your active attention.

It looks wrong in games when the game wrongly assumes which item on screen you actually want to be looking at.

yea, quite like per-object motion blur. Dont mind the tip of my sword bluring when i swing it... but i hate when it ALL becomes a smeared mess.

per-object is nice. Tip of your sword blurring when swung feels right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZldCfYGb54c

There needs to be an awkward time. It was the exact same way when higher resolution first took off. I thought the Prestige looked bad because you could see the set work. The high resolution stayed though and they figured out the tricks to make things look good. High frame rate never got that chance

I saw it in theaters at release. I think AMC carried it? The first one only, I don't think the others had them, though not sure as I didn't see movies then (no money).

This is part of art direction and the director is trying to focus the viewer's attention on a particular area by utilizing it.

I understand where you're coming from but utilized well, it is a powerful tool.

Depth of field, it can give depth to a game. Yeah not every game utilizes it well, but its still a nice feature for adding realism.

Screenshake is similarly overused