Up For Debate - Worst Graphics Settings

Written by Jon Sutton on Sat, Jan 14, 2017 4:00 PM

Choice is good. It’s why we’re PC gamers. We want the the games we want, running the way we want, on the hardware we want. Dropping frames? Slot in a new graphics card. Playing a racing game? Plug in a steering wheel. Want to wirelessly play your PC from your living room? You’ve got it covered. PC gaming is the complete package.

Which makes it all sound a little churlish to complain about the worst PC graphics options, but we love a good moan. At the end of the day there are some absolute stinkers. Strange graphics options which you cannot fathom why the developers left in. Chromatic aberration, anyone? Motion blur? Now you see where I’m coming from. The sort of graphics settings which make you feel like you’re going through a carwash backwards. While you’re strapped to the sunroof. These grim additions become even more pronounced when you strap on a headset and head into the weird and wonderful world of virtual reality.

For me it has to be Bloom. I mean, what the heck was everyone thinking. It became all the rage around about 2007-2008 and basically every game under the sun decided to crowbar the feature into an obscene degree. Walking out of a door shouldn’t make you feel like you’re going blind. And don’t get me started on Oblivion. Everyone’s armour looked like it was channeling the sun gods, beaming their power directly into your fragile eyeballs. I mean, look at it! Have some decency Bethesda.

Now I’ve got that off my chest, I’d love to know which graphics settings force you to immediately head to the video options and disable as soon as you boot a game up? Do you detest Nvidia Gameworks features? Is HBAO too demanding for your tastes? Let us know!

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02:31 Jan-20-2017

I have to say bloom and lens flare. i just think its way overdone. motion blur isnt too bad at a solid 30fps, it smooths out the game a bit in 3rd person games.

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07:36 Jan-19-2017

i think the worst setting are those new god rays their total crap and don't get me started on those lame ass lens flares

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12:57 Jan-16-2017

Colour-overlayers giving your game an annoying blue-ish (or red-ish or yellow-ish or whatever-ish colourhue). No idea why they do it.


Could as well play a game through instagram >.> Total War games have this often.


That, and motion blur.

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16:26 Jan-16-2017

You mean chromatic aberration? In photography it caused by light not focused enough to lens on camera which is happen to be a bit "dumb" cause it's like you have a bad camera to shoot, but sometimes may artistically good, depend on situations and purpose. But, in-game it could become annoyance

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16:27 Jan-16-2017

It also become common options in many games today too

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05:47 Jan-16-2017

For me, I guess lens flares, too many lens flares is pretty annoying, but for me motion blur in some action games on 30 fps actually make the game more smooth and enjoyable. I guess this case is depending on the games, some options may good sometimes it doesn't. The big point of having PC is customize ability so yes...

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09:28 Jan-16-2017

I bet you don't like Michael Bay's movie as well. Lens flare everywhere :D

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12:55 Jan-16-2017

also MGS the phantom pain i guess??? much lens flares n shiz

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15:58 Jan-16-2017

Yeah, sometimes it kinda "dumb" putting photography or in cinema effects when playing in-game you practically doing real life events that you can't see anything because blinded by lights, lights everywhere and miss beauty details. Right, MGS V lens flares is too overdone, everytime is slow mo flares knife "Ouch" XD

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16:12 Jan-16-2017

You bet, all I know Michael Bay is about "Explosions!", even tiny things has to explode, add more CGI, much lens flares, and gotta blame the studio for the effects. I appreciate CGI, but rely on it too much is bad. I appreciate more on movies with less CGI, good editing, good story and good direction obviously

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23:54 Jan-17-2017
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23:34 Jan-19-2017

Exorzia you will never see less CGI, good ending/good story from a Michael Bay movie because look at the 2 turtle films he did changed their origins, added in Megan Fox (which is there for eye candy and not her acting skills like she really has any) and the Shredder in the first movie was old the second one he is young.

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23:28 Jan-19-2017

Michael Bay destroys children cartoons from growing up because transformers was pretty crappy and ninja turtles he changed the whole storyline of the turtles birth and also the design of them doesn't look all that well.

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04:55 Jan-20-2017

LOL I am no fan of Michael Bay movie and I didn't enjoy his movies, Transformers and TMNT I agree those movie is total disappointment. Big names and marketing bull. Many movies rely too much on CGI nowadays, CGI isn't really bad. But, movies that focuses on more aspects than just graphical effect should appreciate more

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22:43 Jan-24-2017

What i don't get it why don't they just make movies CGI instead then and just use voice actors since more than 50% of movies today are mainly CGI.

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03:59 Jan-16-2017

Two things that I don't like:



  1. Motion Blur - I got motion sickness because of this

  2. Film Grain - I know some devs thinking that it would improve the "artistic look" (?), but seriously it annoys me :(

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02:02 Jan-16-2017

I dislike these 3:



  • Film Grain

  • Motion Blur

  • Chromatic Aberration


Its great to have options, so these 3 above are turned off for me when i play.

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01:30 Jan-16-2017

Film grain, anyone who plays Titanfall 2 on PC can probably scream with me...FILM GRAIN! Also not a fan of most of the GameWorks features as I find it's a performance hog on both Nvidia and AMD GPUs for basically nothing

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20:27 Jan-15-2017

To be honest, I don't think that any graphic setting is "pointless".
Some people dislike motion blur, some love them.
I do like DoF, lens flares and motion blur for example but can understand that some people hate it.
I just really like don't like V sync in online games.

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20:40 Jan-15-2017

I totally agree. The more options the better because everyone has their own individual idea of what looks good and what doesn't.

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05:25 Jan-16-2017

You should try fast sync in online games if you don't like tearing.

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13:33 Jan-16-2017

How can anyone like Film Grain???

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20:09 Jan-15-2017

depth of field
film grain
bloom
chromatic aberration
motion blur
screen tearing with vsync off
lens flares
any blurry antialiasing

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19:53 Jan-15-2017

Motion Blur is the first thing to turn off for me. Then Film Grain if there is any. After that I try the different levels of DoF to see how it looks, but I usually prefer to turn it off as well.


As for the old "Bloom" setting that the article referred to... I actually liked it, but using it required a little tweaking on the display's contrast and brightness settings. Once you got everything set right that blinding glare didn't happen anymore, but it did suck changing display settings from game to game.

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18:20 Jan-15-2017

good

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18:18 Jan-15-2017

Cheers to the great image choice.

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18:11 Jan-15-2017

  • Motion blur (it's useless)

  • Chromatic aberration (it kill all details / ithe setting need just to be use for a weapon : for the lens)

  • Grain (it depend the game but it's most likely bad for realistic game except some horror game)

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16:49 Jan-15-2017

Film grain, chromatic aberration and (usually) motion blur.
Useless visual garbage.

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17:40 Jan-15-2017

chromatic aberration looks pretty cool when using a scope, I agree with the blur and the film grain.

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15:41 Jan-15-2017

I wld say DoF is an effect that most people hate but I actually like quite a bit.
Film grain isnt widely available, but in tomb raider I preferred to keep it on.
In a last ditch effort to avoid downvotes, I wld agree motion blur is an auto off for me. Most cases its not that bad, but sometimes it is awful.

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15:37 Jan-15-2017

Motion blur but on certain games. Some games are enjoyable with the motion blur while some games get me all confused. Rocket League for example - The motion blur on that game makes me feel disoriented and I lose focus of the ball. An amazing game though.

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15:02 Jan-15-2017

Vignette is one I've seen a few times and immediately turned it off.

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17:42 Jan-15-2017

Lol, I actually use it with reshade, it makes a more focused field (good for large monitors) and if you have good colors, it will make them pop out to you.

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14:53 Jan-15-2017

I hate motion blur, I always make sure its off.

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14:43 Jan-15-2017

Vsync???

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19:44 Jan-15-2017

I prefer no screen tearing. ;p

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14:27 Jan-15-2017

Film grain needs to die. I don't want to watch a film or have my game feel like one. Next thing you know they'll be locking our FPS to 24 for a more cinematic effe- Oh wait...

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Can They Run... |

| 60FPS, Low, 1080p
Ryzen 5 5500U 6-Core 2.1GHz GeForce GTX 1650 16GB
100% Yes [1 votes]
| 60FPS, Ultra, 1080p
Ryzen R5 1600 Radeon RX 580 Sapphire Nitro+ 8GB 16GB
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| 60FPS, Ultra, 1440p
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| 60FPS, High, 1080p
Ryzen 3 3100 4-Core 3.6GHz GeForce RTX 3050 16GB
| 30FPS, High, 1080p
Ryzen 5 2600 GeForce GTX 1660 Gigabyte OC 6GB 16GB
0% No [2 votes]
| 60FPS, Low, 1080p
Ryzen 5 5500U 6-Core 2.1GHz GeForce GTX 1650 16GB
| 60FPS, High, 1440p
Ryzen 7 5800X 8-Core 3.8GHz Radeon RX 6900 XT 16GB 32GB
| 60FPS, Medium, 720p
Core i5-10300H 4-Core 2.50GHz GeForce GTX 1650 8GB
| 60FPS, High, 1080p
Core i9-9900K 8-Core 3.6GHz GeForce GTX 1060 Gigabyte Mini ITX OC 6GB 32GB
66.6667% Yes [3 votes]
| 60FPS, High, 1080p
Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core 3.6GHz Radeon RX 5700 PowerColor Red Dragon 8GB 16GB
| 60FPS, High, 1080p
Ryzen 3 3100 4-Core 3.6GHz GeForce RTX 3050 16GB
0% No [1 votes]
| 60FPS, Ultra, 4k
Core i9-9900K 8-Core 3.6GHz GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Asus ROG Strix OC 11GB 32GB
| 30FPS, Ultra, 1440p
Ryzen 5 2600X 6-Core 3.6GHz GeForce GTX 1080 16GB
100% Yes [1 votes]
| 60FPS, High, 1080p
Ryzen 3 3100 4-Core 3.6GHz GeForce RTX 3050 16GB
| 60FPS, High, 1080p
Ryzen 3 3100 4-Core 3.6GHz GeForce RTX 3050 16GB
100% Yes [1 votes]
| 60FPS, High, 1080p
Ryzen 3 3100 4-Core 3.6GHz GeForce RTX 3050 16GB
100% Yes [1 votes]
| 60FPS, High, 1080p
Ryzen 3 3100 4-Core 3.6GHz GeForce RTX 3050 16GB
0% No [1 votes]
| 60FPS, Ultra, 1080p
Ryzen 5 5600X 6-Core 3.7GHz Radeon RX 6700 XT 12GB 32GB
| 30FPS, Low, 720p
Core i3-2367M 1.4GHz Intel HD Graphics 3000 Desktop 4GB
| High, 1080p
Ryzen 5 2600 GeForce GTX 1070 Ti MSI Gaming 8GB 16GB
100% Yes [1 votes]