Graphics putting a strain on my eyes

[alijons]

Hello, I wonder if anyone is having similar problem.
I feel like my eyes start hurting quite fast from playing this game, no other is causing me such issues. I feel like I am having hard time getting my eyes to focus and really look at the game, if that makes any sense.

I spent about an hour tinkering with video settings and eventually found a bunch of settings that are causing me the least amount of pain, but it's still hard.

I remember when I was playing for the first time all the way in 2015, I didn't have this problem, but I heard they updated the game graphics at some point since then, so I guess maybe those updated graphics are not agreeing with my eyes.

Anyone experienced anything like that and found some good settings that made the game less painful?

[Just Guy 0_0]

Depth of field turned off?

Turn everything off except light shafts and tau high sharpening low.

also make sure your resolution is correct.

as for graphics it is depending on your hardware , you can always up the settings even more than ultra + but it would cost more fps.

[Waggy]

wow that sucks, I hope you find some setting combination to fix this...

[alijons]

Originally posted by HIZ:

Depth of field turned off?

Turn everything off except light shafts and tau high sharpening low.

also make sure your resolution is correct.

as for graphics it is depending on your hardware , you can always up the settings even more than ultra + but it would cost more fps.

Depth of field is off, blur is off, bloom is off, almost every other setting is on Ultra besides the density of grass that's on low, because all this flickering moving bits were killing my eyes. I experimented with every single anti-aliasing and so far I found FSR 2 the least painful. Also combination of anti-aliasing OFF, dynamic resolution scaling OFF and sharpening OFF seems to be better.

Still, it hurts during the day now. Like, anti-aliasing OFF, dynamic resolution scaling OFF and sharpening OFF during the night time makes my eyes manage. Once the sun raises game become stupidly brightly and weird looking. Lowering gamma doesn't help much, because then everything just gets kind of dark, but still feels like looking at the sun somehow. I suppose I can just always meditate the day away, but that seems kind of silly...

[n0mad23]

Are you using Ray Tracing? I tried it, and while I could get enough fps to be fully playable, it didn't look right and there was a kind of I guess flickering.

[Just Guy 0_0]

Originally posted by alijons:

Originally posted by HIZ:

Depth of field turned off?

Turn everything off except light shafts and tau high sharpening low.

also make sure your resolution is correct.

as for graphics it is depending on your hardware , you can always up the settings even more than ultra + but it would cost more fps.

Depth of field is off, blur is off, bloom is off, almost every other setting is on Ultra besides the density of grass that's on low, because all this flickering moving bits were killing my eyes. I experimented with every single anti-aliasing and so far I found FSR 2 the least painful. Also combination of anti-aliasing OFF, dynamic resolution scaling OFF and sharpening OFF seems to be better.

Still, it hurts during the day now. Like, anti-aliasing OFF, dynamic resolution scaling OFF and sharpening OFF during the night time makes my eyes manage. Once the sun raises game become stupidly brightly and weird looking. Lowering gamma doesn't help much, because then everything just gets kind of dark, but still feels like looking at the sun somehow. I suppose I can just always meditate the day away, but that seems kind of silly...

Try dx 11 and use HBAO +

also you can always use reshade to lower brightness or saturation etc or other settings.

I had something similar but the issue was the user settings file which was corrupted due to old mod I had (After deleting it and verifying files it fixed itself)

also make sure your monitor has correct brightness and colour settings (most allow you to up it or lower it down.)

and in NVIDIA control panel you can make it use NVIDIA colour settings , and change desktop colour depth.


other than it , it could be the monitor itself issue , maybe it has low limit of brightness in itself or low colours which makes game look how it looks , you can try it on tv or other better monitor to see if still same issue.



I mean hard to say without seeing your picture to compare.

here is a picture I have during day , on half gamma . 1440 resolution.


https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/images/36022

[alijons]

Originally posted by HIZ:

Try dx 11 and use HBAO +

also you can always use reshade to lower brightness or saturation etc or other settings.

I had something similar but the issue was the user settings file which was corrupted due to old mod I had (After deleting it and verifying files it fixed itself)

also make sure your monitor has correct brightness and colour settings (most allow you to up it or lower it down.)

and in NVIDIA control panel you can make it use NVIDIA colour settings , and change desktop colour depth.


other than it , it could be the monitor itself issue , maybe it has low limit of brightness in itself or low colours which makes game look how it looks , you can try it on tv or other better monitor to see if still same issue.



I mean hard to say without seeing your picture to compare.

here is a picture I have during day , on half gamma . 1440 resolution.


https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/images/36022

My Witcher looks like that right now https://imgur.com/a/1bBIYmS

This is with dx11, HBAO+, TAU. It's still somewhat hurts my eyes to look at. I feel like it can't be a problem with the monitor, because I play tons of other games on this computer, and no other game caused me such problems. Like, I play W3 until I can't handle it anymore and then I switch to a different game right away and my eyes feel relieved and slowly feel better over the course of playing something else.

[alijons]

Originally posted by HIZ:

here is a picture I have during day , on half gamma . 1440 resolution.

https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/images/36022

Also, I feel like my another problem with looking at this game is this https://imgur.com/a/4tsUDlJ

Is it just me or is it ridicolous level of difference between what's in the sun and what's in the shadow? My eyes feel like they are jumping back and forth between getting used to looking at something light and looking at something dark, which is getting them super tired too.

I tinkered around with shadows and lights settings, and gamma, and I feel like nothing helps.

[Just Guy 0_0]

Originally posted by alijons:

Originally posted by HIZ:

here is a picture I have during day , on half gamma . 1440 resolution.

https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/images/36022

Also, I feel like my another problem with looking at this game is this https://imgur.com/a/4tsUDlJ

Is it just me or is it ridicolous level of difference between what's in the sun and what's in the shadow? My eyes feel like they are jumping back and forth between getting used to looking at something light and looking at something dark, which is getting them super tired too.

I tinkered around with shadows and lights settings, and gamma, and I feel like nothing helps.

I think its is monitor issue because on my monitor it looks normal , or maybe it is just your eye vision (I myself wear glasses) the reason it is only this game is simply because there is more things to look at than in other games.

anyway you can try to up settings in this :


https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/8261


if you like it darker you can turn down settings to something like this:

https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/images/34684


try using SAO or just turn it off etc

post your exact monitor you have , and if nothing helps then well , just give it up.

what fps do you have?

if you have below 60 fps then that could be the issue.

Try checking your fps , 99% fps , etc

[alijons]

I gave up on it :/

I already played W3 twice long time ago, so it's not like I am missing a brand new experience.

And I have dozens of other games that I can play with my eyes feeling perfectly normal and happy.

And with W3 it's not even just the eyes, if I try to push through it then eventually I start feeling kind of nauseous like motion sickness... Just something about the graphics must be not agreeing with my overall senses

[Dogheadfish]

Turning of depth of field worked for me.

[tewi]

Originally posted by alijons:

Originally posted by HIZ:

Try dx 11 and use HBAO +

also you can always use reshade to lower brightness or saturation etc or other settings.

I had something similar but the issue was the user settings file which was corrupted due to old mod I had (After deleting it and verifying files it fixed itself)

also make sure your monitor has correct brightness and colour settings (most allow you to up it or lower it down.)

and in NVIDIA control panel you can make it use NVIDIA colour settings , and change desktop colour depth.


other than it , it could be the monitor itself issue , maybe it has low limit of brightness in itself or low colours which makes game look how it looks , you can try it on tv or other better monitor to see if still same issue.



I mean hard to say without seeing your picture to compare.

here is a picture I have during day , on half gamma . 1440 resolution.


https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/images/36022

My Witcher looks like that right now https://imgur.com/a/1bBIYmS

This is with dx11, HBAO+, TAU. It's still somewhat hurts my eyes to look at. I feel like it can't be a problem with the monitor, because I play tons of other games on this computer, and no other game caused me such problems. Like, I play W3 until I can't handle it anymore and then I switch to a different game right away and my eyes feel relieved and slowly feel better over the course of playing something else.

i think Girl's spine might be broken. could be your issue, maybe

[N7 Andy]

If you're using the new 'Close' camera setting, use the old-school, default one instead.

[Waggy]

I remember there was some game a while ago which caused me to feel "eye strain" after playing, and eventually I think I stopped playing it due to that to be more gentle on my eyes.

[Melinda Safitri]

graphics looks fine on me https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2992027962

[Akustik]

Originally posted by alijons:

Hello, I wonder if anyone is having similar problem.
I feel like my eyes start hurting quite fast from playing this game, no other is causing me such issues. I feel like I am having hard time getting my eyes to focus and really look at the game, if that makes any sense.

I spent about an hour tinkering with video settings and eventually found a bunch of settings that are causing me the least amount of pain, but it's still hard.

I remember when I was playing for the first time all the way in 2015, I didn't have this problem, but I heard they updated the game graphics at some point since then, so I guess maybe those updated graphics are not agreeing with my eyes.

Anyone experienced anything like that and found some good settings that made the game less painful?

so i had a similar problem uptill today the colors of my game were overly bright and seemed red as well which was kinda making it really hard to look at during the dusk and dawn times

i was messing up with my setting today to get a decent framerate with the rt when i noticed that keeping the ambient occlusion on high (HBAO+ / SSAO) and keeping the chromatic abberation on seemed to make the color look right.

IG you should try doing that and vignette if it still feels too bright and gamma somewhere near the mid of the bar. It seemed to have worked for me and those settings really doesnt take much performance.