Miscellaneuous Gaming Suggestions for Best Visuals & Clarity
Just wanted to share some suggestions for noticeably improve Visuals & Clarity for all games:
Avoid 30fps: especially on OLEDs, where those can results in exacerbated stuttering on camera movements and much increased input lag. Always choose locked (or unlocked + VRR) 60+ fps or even fixed 40fps mode (in-game) at 120hz (on the Console/PC) for much improved motion and input lag. Evaluate if using 120fps modes on Consoles as those usually come with noticeable visual downgrades (both in native resolution and visual effects or objects' removal from the game)
Always disable Chromatic Aberration: it sucks on all games I tried so far. It will just distorce/destroy image clarity and quality mimicking old/crappy camera lenses
Evaluate using Film Grain: when done right this could reduce/eliminate color banding along with providing a more cohesive and pleasant to look picture but sometimes game developers exaggerate it (like in Cyberpunk 2077) so you can evaluate turning it off in those cases except maybe in some horror games made to look "retro" or emulating a recording with '70s cameras (like Alien Isolation and similar)
(Almost) always keep Motion Blur On: except when very excessive in some games when moving the camera. Usually it will just make motion more fluid and natural, especially when the blur is "per-object" and/or "full-scene" but well balanced and especially on OLEDs
Always keep Depth of Field On: as it's usually well implemented and contribute to immersion and realism during dialogues or looking at objects up close
Lens Flares up to you: it's true that our eyes are not doing that, only camera lenses, but in some games they make sense, even in first person (Cyberpunk 2077 with Kiroshi optics, Master Chief visor in Halo etc.) or they will just look cool regardless. Personally I always leave them On
If you use DLSS4+ or FSR4+, always set in-game Sharpness slider to 0: this because the new upscaling techs, especially DLSS4 using Transformer Model, are now able to recreate a "better than Native" picture without adding artificial extra sharpening like the older models, thanks to hardware ML processing (using Tensor Cores). That said, most devs leave their in-game Sharpness slider (or DLSS/FSR/FidelityFX CAS sliders) to 5 or 50 as they probably tested their games with older upscale models which blurried the image (or they are just accustomed to them, like on Consoles) but this will create oversharpening artifacts (like haloing and flickering of fine details) when coupled with new upscale models. As a general rule, if you use any of those new upscalers, set in-game Sharpness to 0 to restore a correct/natural picture
Enjoy :)
-P
Comments (21)
What is "DLSS4+ or FSR4+"???
It just means DLSS4/FSR4 and higher versions (like 4.5, 4.1 etc.)
Hey you should consider mentioning DLAA and DLDSR in this guide and options for how to use them (As in DLAA when FPS is high enough or DLDSR + DLSS for better performance + visuals when you have the VRAM headroom), I think they would be right at home here
I think after DLSS4 they're not really worth it anymore. DLSS4 improved so much that even 4K DLSS4 Performance now looks like old DLSS3 Quality, both equal if not better than Native + TAA. If you Use 4K DLSS4 Quality or Balanced it will already be much better than Native + TAA and similar to old DLAA, but with much more performance compared to that. So basically DLAA is "overkill" for most people as the visual benefits of it are not noticeable anymore compared to DLSS4 Quality/Balanced, so you'll just lose fps for little reason with it now.
Regarding sharpness an upscaling technology. Does this also apply too PSSR?
No, as PSSR is inferior to both DLSS4 and FSR4 so you still need a bit of extra sharpening to compensate for a blurrier image due to it.
UPDATE 2025/07/14 - Removed my personal preference of "always disabling Film Grain" as that's not actually true - Also in-game FSR Sharpness slider is recommended to Off if you use FSR4+ More info in the post.
Does this apply only for playing on pc where we can use or engine file or for console aswell
do you recommend to turn motion blur on or off in cyberpunk 2077?
On PC I lowered it to Low. Having it Off completely is too jarring on camera and object movements.
UPDATE 2025/07/08 Added: - If you use DLSS4+ or FSR4+, always set in-game Sharpness slider to 0. More info in the post.
What are your thoughts on enabling motion blur when using fsr/xess/dlss? Since it’s upscaling using ai & previous frames, I’ve always thought motion blur would confuse the program and exponentially scale the overall distortion. Have you found this not to be the case?
I found no issues with motion blur + DLSS so far. Haven't tried the other much as DLSS is just superior so I'm sticking with it :D But both XeSS 1.3 and FSR3.1 have improved a lot, so I don't think there would be issues there as well.
I realize that all is largely personal preference, but I super hard disagree on motion blur. I always turn that shit off, it's just eye cancer inducing. Blur makes sense for movies where it naturally occurs, but this doesn't happen this way in a game where frames are generated individually.
Sure, all can be subjective and those are just my personal suggestions overall. For blur specifically I mentioned "almost" always keep it on because recently most games has it "per-object" other than "per-scene" which to my opinion provide a more pleasant and natural motion of individual objects on screen (a weapon reloading, corpse flying, things exploding and so on) so in general if it's well minded and implemented is beneficial...but if everything is too much exaggerated like the entire scene totally blurring even with slow paced movements, no, better to turn it off like you say. On 30fps it should be left on to mitigate the stutters, especially on OLEDs tho.
Ok, but what is the best for games that have either a Graphics mode that’s 30FPS but good image quality, or Performance Mode, which runs at 60FPS, if you’re ok with your game running at 720p?
I would always prefer smooth 60fps (or even 40fps @ 120hz) at lower resolution over fixed 30fps @ 4K. That said, 720p seems too low and also to avoid, but luckily it's also a thing of the past with current gen consoles (which as an average can do reconstructed 4K from around 1440p/60 with some exceptions).
30fps feels so bad on a OLED, I don’t remember games feeling so bad last generation
Yeah, that's the OLED "fault" in being too good with its near instant pixel response time which will remove most blur artefacts, therefore showing 30fps for what they really are: bad for gaming.
Funny because I usually leave chromatic aberration and film grain on because I love that old movie look but I turn off motion blur, it gives me a headache! To each their own
Yeah, I mentioned that Motion Blur should not be excessive to be good, otherwise you can disable it if you get sick with it. Film Grain as well: in some games it really makes sense and are intended with it, but I found better with it Off for most. The Aberration is really really bad in my opinion, so yeah: in this case opinions may differ ;)