How to alleviate the "Motion Blur" feeling

[Loïc]

Some of you may experience/notice a "motion blur" feeling when playing Melody's Escape. I would like to start this post by explaining that there is absolutely no "motion blur" artistic effect coded in the game.
What you are noticing is sadly an issue with LCD monitors technology; it is a side effect called "ghosting", and is more or less pronounced depending on your monitor's model.

You can easily check if this is the case: take a screenshot at any point during a track and check the result; you should notice that the image is sharp and without any color smearing due to movements.

The "ghosting" effect happens on your screen when the pixels from the previous game frame are still visible temporarily on the monitor, because they take a few milliseconds to change color (leaving a color "trail" on screen)

Here's a third-party website for testing LCD "ghosting" and explaining the issues in more detail: http://www.blurbusters.com/faq/lcd-motion-artifacts/

The reason why ghosting is more noticeable in Melody's Escape than in other games is because of the high-contrast visuals (black and white) combined with very fast horizontal scrolling.

The good news is that they are many possible steps to reduce it:

• Check if your monitor's refresh rate is already maxed (if you have a 120 or 144hz monitor)
  
• Check if your monitor has a "Overdrive" settings, and try to toggle it on or off (this is a settings designed to help with "ghosting", but ironically in some situations it actually makes it worse with this game)
  
• Change the "Zoom" setting of the camera in the "General" options menu to 75%.
  
• Enable "Use full circles for light orbs art" in the "General" options menu.
  
• Disable "Post-Processing" in the Performances options menu to disable bloom.
  
• Play in Windowed mode and try a smaller resolution size (that still feel comfortable to play in)
  
• If you have a controller (or a keyboard with a long cable), try to step back as far as you can from the screen.
  
• Try to focus your eyes on the middle of the screen or on Melody, without ever moving your eyes to the right side, and instead use your peripheral vision to anticipate obstacles and the corresponding colors (doing this may also helps if you experience headache due to eye-muscles strain if you constantly look from side to side)

If you have any other tips that could help, please post them in this thread.

[Schwahn]

Why do the icons blur, but Melody doesn't? That is what I am confused about. She stays clean the whole time.

[Loïc]

Originally posted by The Equivocator:

Why do the icons blur, but Melody doesn't? That is what I am confused about. She stays clean the whole time.

Because she doesn't move horizontally related to position on the screen, the orbs do.

[MeryGold]

не помогает

[uHaveNiceKeys]

This is the only game that does this to me. Using different mods with lower contrast in comparison to the vanilla appearance does nothing. I guess I'll have to wait until I can drop some good money on a low-latency high-Hz monitor. Funny enough, my old CRT monitor runs this game flawlessly.

[RavenStryker]

Originally posted by ArchaicTorque:

This is the only game that does this to me. Using different mods with lower contrast in comparison to the vanilla appearance does nothing. I guess I'll have to wait until I can drop some good money on a low-latency high-Hz monitor. Funny enough, my old CRT monitor runs this game flawlessly.

It's because CRT has an infinite refresh rate due to it being bulbs and not having pixels. This is why you can also run games with no AA and there won't be any jagged lines either.

[Good Old Gamer]

question... if it is our **eyes** that is the issue... then how come the effect is WORSE when uploaded to video format **youtube**??

= less blurry than PLAYING... but ... more **trail** as video

[Loïc]

Originally posted by The Average Gamer Dude:

question... if it is our **eyes** that is the issue... then how come the effect is WORSE when uploaded to video format **youtube**??

= less blurry than PLAYING... but ... more **trail** as video

Your eyes are absolutly not the issue, the computer's monitor is the device introducing the "blur" ghosting.

User made videos are another issue altogether, I've seen some encoders record at 30 FPS and mix 2 frames between each others, creating actual blur (this is a problem with the software used to record the video, and it is easy to check, if you pause the video and notice "blur" or "trail" effect, then the problem is from the video encoding). This however only concerns a minority of uploaded videos of the game.

[Good Old Gamer]

ahh ok ty... that must be it then... my encoder is set to 29.5 as default lol i will check how to change this ty

[Arcane Azmadi]

Originally posted by Xi.Cynx:

Originally posted by ArchaicTorque:

This is the only game that does this to me. Using different mods with lower contrast in comparison to the vanilla appearance does nothing. I guess I'll have to wait until I can drop some good money on a low-latency high-Hz monitor. Funny enough, my old CRT monitor runs this game flawlessly.

It's because CRT has an infinite refresh rate due to it being bulbs and not having pixels. This is why you can also run games with no AA and there won't be any jagged lines either.

Funny how old technology sometimes works better, isn't it?

[uHaveNiceKeys]

I just realized......
guys......
I figured it out.....

Right-click your desktop > Display Settings > Orientation: Portrait OR Portrait (flipped) > Apply > Rotate your entire monitor on your desk. (I wall-mounted mine if you're looking for a solid placement.) > ????? > PROFIT (If you're running Win 7 or below, I recommend pressing CTRL + ALT + up/down/left/right while on the desktop to rotate the screen. Pressing CTRL + ALT + up will return the screen to normal if it jazzes you.)

Originally posted by Arcane Azmadi:

Originally posted by Xi.Cynx:

It's because CRT has an infinite refresh rate due to it being bulbs and not having pixels. This is why you can also run games with no AA and there won't be any jagged lines either.

Funny how old technology sometimes works better, isn't it?

[Saphirro]

this kind of blur isnt made by monitor. Probably your codding is just bad.

I play a lot of games,
FPS@60fps - Overwatch, Battlefield 1, borderlands, titanfall2 (so plenty of high contrast games)
Then i've played audiosurf @60fps, and several 2d platformers @60fps and many others RPGs, MMORPGs, etc.
I've got two monitors both 60hz
- lg 29um68 (5ms) - no ghosting
- benq gc2870h (5ms) - build in ghosting (ye never buy this one)
both monitors perfoms the same. So monitor with terrible ghosting (yes literary anything that move fast cant be used there - even @30fps videos) perform same as monitor with little to none ghosting.

I like the game but when i play 170BPM songs im done, well thats pretty much overkill already. But even with "slow" songs ~100BPM the blur is there.

maybe small hint - add option to remove shadows since it seems to worsen the blur effect, and try faded borders instead of sharp one

[Loïc]

Originally posted by Saphirro:

this kind of blur isnt made by monitor.

It is, and it's easy to prove: simply take a screenshot at any point of the game using Steam or a a third party screenshot software, and you will notice that the image is always sharp and without "ghosting".

[Saphirro]

Originally posted by Loïc:

Originally posted by Saphirro:

this kind of blur isnt made by monitor.

It is, and it's easy to prove: simply take a screenshot at any point of the game using Steam or a a third party screenshot software, and you will notice that the image is always sharp and without "ghosting".

i will tell it differently since it added too much confusion. WE, normal customers, with 60hz monitors, have a problem with blur effect caused by bad codding. Your code isnt capable of smoothing this effect.
So.... to run this game smoothly customers have to have 120+hz monitors(which is not confirmed if it occurs on such high hz monitors). Example is as i said before audiosurf which is a bit different, but generaly its the same. This game have no problems with blur @60hz.

Edit: Well its not my problem anymore - refunded.

[Jay]

Came to say thanks for the tips and the fun game, and I feel silly for not realising it was ghosting... but at least I didn't think Battlefield is a high contrast game ;)

[Jerry Cheng]

Originally posted by Saphirro:

Originally posted by Loïc:

It is, and it's easy to prove: simply take a screenshot at any point of the game using Steam or a a third party screenshot software, and you will notice that the image is always sharp and without "ghosting".

i will tell it differently since it added too much confusion. WE, normal customers, with 60hz monitors, have a problem with blur effect caused by bad codding. Your code isnt capable of smoothing this effect.

Duh, the other games you play don't involve pixel values constantly changing from 0 to 200+. For audio surf, the orbs don't move on screen nearly as fast, nor do you need the exact position of them either.
If the game was set in maybe a desert, the ghosting would be alleviated easily. If the game only works in 20 fps, the distance between the new image and the ghost would be so large that it's clear again.

You'd be surprised how low contrast the games you mentioned compared to Melody. A similar challenge to the monitor would be reading texts as you scroll them. It has nothing to do with 60hz, but the low monitor specs commonly associated with them.