Everyone keeps saying post processing options should be turned off. I actually prefer them ON.

[vintran]

I think many people have this weird obsession with sharpness and cleaniness, many processing effects are actually quite decently implemented in many games today yet people would oppose very strongly agaisnt them.

For a game like RE2, immersion plays such an important part. Many processing options, imho, add to the intended atmostphere of the game. You shouldn't be able to see everything crystal clear under heavy rain at night. Also, the textures in this game aren't the best so the jagginess breaks immersion for me without heavy AA applied.

Subsurface scattering adds depth to the skin by making certain skin textures differ at different skin surface level. With it off it's just a layer of textures applied on top. It's a subtle effect but it helps making skins look more realistic. Many people mistooks this and said all they did was "blurring" the skins which is simply not true, you only feel that way because certain skin imperfections are less exaggerated as they are in the "subsurface" level.

Depth of Field does blur image, although it's actually quite good, I haven't encountered anything that looks like the typical "faux bokeh" that many games are guilty of. Provided you can't really choose where in the image it will be in focus or not, this option makes the game way more cinematic and also adds depth to the overall picture. Take a screenshot comparison and you'll see the image is more flat and 2D with it off. Even in wide landscape areas, depth of field works quite well since it'll auto adjust to less prominent, similar to how you adjust apertures in your camera lens. If you turn it off, you'll get a clearer image in exchange of depth.

All of these are very subjective but I still want to voice my opinion, which is apparently in the minority here. It's funny because if you're into filmmaking or photography, people will spend a lot of effort to make the image and lighting "pop", resolution is important but sharpness isn't, unless they were intended in the original creative direction.

[Bullett00th]

Many games go for a cinematic look but end up just throwing a ton of post processing on top of a clear image and making it worse.

RE2 is one of the few exceptions as they did manage to make a consistently cinematic look.
I only turn off motion blur and film grain in it

[Just Aaron]

I respect your opinion but disagree on all accounts. What is the point in running a game in 2160p just to cover it up with blur effects. Motion blur, sub surface scattering, film grain, and depth of field always get turned off. I mean I get what the developers are going for. They want to use film/photography techniques to try and make the game look "cinematic". The problem is games look better with out all that stuff.

And you are correct about the obsession with clarity and sharpness. I`m not sure I see the problem with that though. In fact I`d say it`s perfectly natural. Not sure why you think it`s "weird".

[vintran]

Originally posted by Just Aaron:

I respect your opinion but disagree on all accounts. What is the point in running a game in 2160p just to cover it up with blur effects. Motion blur, sub surface scattering, film grain, and depth of field always get turned off. I mean I get what the developers are going for. They want to use film/photography techniques to try and make the game look "cinematic". The problem is games look better with out all that stuff.

And you are correct about the obsession with clarity and sharpness. I`m not sure I see the problem with that though. In fact I`d say it`s perfectly natural. Not sure why you think it`s "weird".

Yeah sorry when I thought about it it felt "weird" to me and not realized I was the odd one out here. Besides motion blur (which I don't really notice much in this game), I think referring to other processing effects as just "blur effects" is grossly simplified.

Clarity and sharpness are important, but again to me personally their importance does not trump over many things else in this game. I've tried for the cleanest look and it just doesn't look good to me, the models and textures' flaws are heavily exposed when I did that.

The reason I wrote this post was because I knew I was in the minority. Just take a look at this video: https://youtu.be/uHFBP8YT9VA. Almost everyone in the comments was saying the min graphics look better than max.

[Xengre]

Originally posted by Just Aaron:

I respect your opinion but disagree on all accounts. What is the point in running a game in 2160p just to cover it up with blur effects. Motion blur, sub surface scattering, film grain, and depth of field always get turned off. I mean I get what the developers are going for. They want to use film/photography techniques to try and make the game look "cinematic". The problem is games look better with out all that stuff.

And you are correct about the obsession with clarity and sharpness. I`m not sure I see the problem with that though. In fact I`d say it`s perfectly natural. Not sure why you think it`s "weird".

Don't turn off all post processing, especially ones like subsurface scattering as it makes skin and certain other materials look far more realistic otherwise they can look like plastic.
Here is a good video example for anyone curious about this graphical setting in video games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72_iAlYwl0c
Just watch the first half for concept/comparison with vs without. The rest is more technical and this is only a variation of the technique of subsurface scattering's implementation.

Post processing can also include:

Screen-space reflection: though ray-tracing will eventually replace this as this only handles stuff in view which can cause issues when reflections suddenly pop up or vanish using SSR

Shadow mapping (also eventually to be replaced by ray-tracing years from now), Texture filtering, etc.

various other effects to give the game a specific visual style (cel-shading, etc.) or things like nightvision, flash lights, etc.

Some like motion blur are totally ok to turn off without a loss to actual visual quality though. Personally, I always turn off motion blur (wont do much for performance with this option but the effect isn't used in a meaningful way for many games).

[[Redacted]]

I like post processing effects myself.

Most of my gamer friends I know irl have older rigs and turn off these effects for performance reasons so they can maintain 60+ fps since they're too cheap to upgrade.

However, if you have the hardware where you can get high image quality and not impact your framerate then I don't see any reason not to use these effects. They exist as settings for a reason - so you can enjoy the graphical capabilities they offer.

They do make a difference. I can turn them off and get 140+ fps with the environments, textures, lighting, models and mesh quality looking ugly or keep on post processing with 60-70+ fps and have the games look really good.

Hmmmm...

[Xengre]

Another consideration is some will turn off or set as low as possible almost all graphical settings in competitive FPS games since it clears out distracting particles, can make brush that can block view invisible or simplified for visual advantages, and boost overall FPS to assist with input latency. This doesn't apply to most people as being worth while though, and has negligible advantages in other genre/single player games.

[First_AidS]

TAA+FXAA combo is so horrendously blurry in this game that I honestly prefer the jaggies.

[Just Aaron]

Originally posted by alex.drad3:

TAA+FXAA combo is so horrendously blurry in this game that I honestly prefer the jaggies.

Yeah, I sometimes wonder if it`s better just to leave the jaggies. It`s a tough choice. Do you want white sparkles all over the screen or do you want all the fine details to be blurred out?

[MAHAMA ②⓪②⓪]

I keep them all on except "Screen Space Reflections" and film grain. SSR seems buggy in this game because it leaves a blur behind it and cases a weird sparkling effect in some areas. I don't remember seeing that problem with other games that use it such as Metal Gear Phantom Pain. The film grain is just too intense and seems poorly implemented. I prefer games like Alien Isolation let you adjust the amount of film grain. In which case I prefer much less grain, if at all.

It's just funny that we went from analog TV sets with game consoles hooked up with ghosty, blurry, noisy RF modulators to pure digital DVI/HDMI that can deliver 100% quality.... and now we're putting the grain and noise back in, ha ha.

[JDelwynn]

People are turning off these "blur" effects without realizing what they are meant to do. Subsurface Scattering is for instance used to give realism to skin by reflecting light under the skin, and per-object motion blur is there to blur fast moving objects. Both of these effects is there to give realism and appears in real life. Only effect I don't understand is Chromatic Aberration. I get that it's supposed to give that "cinematic" look, but is in fact is a flaw in cheaper lenses. Unless you're trying to give a game a 70's low budget grindhouse look it makes no sense to have it.