Author Topic: Does anyone else hate film grain in games? (What do your settings look like?)  (Read 4092 times)

Hello everyone :D


I was playing Far Cry: New Dawn today and i'm really loving it.  But just like what happened with Far Cry 5 and a few other games like Call of Duty and Batman and Red Dead.  Something felt a little off visually. And I couldn't put my finger on it.  The colors were nice, the visuals were high fidelity, good frames.  But my eyes were still having trouble adjusting to it.

Then I found out the perpetual thorn in my backside.  The devs had film grain on by default!! 





This picture does the best job of showing how film grain extremely destroys the realism of a game.  The immersiveness.  The visual appeal.   


So I get through playing half a game before I realize,  wow.....   This game could have looked a million times better this whole time lol. 


I notice it after looking and see these grains on my TV thinking I was having an HDMI cord trouble or something. 


Why is film grain a thing?  If I wanted to play a 4K HDR modern game on an old film projector on a projection screen in some 8th grade science classroom I would.  But it's not meant to have film grain considering it's not a damn film.  You are playing through the eyes of the player you are controlling and unless he's a very elderly man with eye issues,  nobody has film grain on their eyes.  Who's idea was this?  >:(   It just baffles me. 


Film grain is such a horrible idea.  Even in games where the setting is vintage it sucks.  Like Red Dead.   Some games don't even let you turn it off.  It's so frustrating.   I know I shouldn't be such a graphic snob, but why restrain the games visual capabilities because you want to be gimmicky.  At least make it off by default so those who like it can put it on.  But it makes as much sense as putting window tint on a TV so everything appears darker until the end of the time.   



But to get into the meat and potatoes of the question :).    What do your in game menu settings usually look like?  Here are about what mine look like.


Brightness -  50    (Usually the default and it's usually optimal for my TV.  Horror games I might drop it to 45 to make the darkness more scary.) 

Sensitivity - 50  (Again usually defualt is optimal for my play style.  I don't like crazy hair trigger but don't like it sluggish either.  I know some competitive gamers crank it up to 100.  But I can't play good with it high)

Subtitles -  On     (When I was a kid I hated them, but I actually like reading along now.  It makes it so you miss nothing if someone is talking under loud noises or your tv volume is low.)

Aim Axis -    Whichever one is up for up and down for down.   Inverted I use for plane games :)

Saturation -  60    (Usually 50 by default,  but my TV is already high saturation in the settings.  I love colorful bright things)

Aim Assist -  Off   (Not a big fan of aim assist, it makes me feel like I am good when i'm not.  I try to play by myself.) 


Difficulty -   Normal or Hard   (I used to only play on veteran but as I get older, it makes games miserable.  Now i'm just trying to have fun and not prove something.  I was playing for all the wrong reasons as a kid lol) 



What do your settings look like?  Thank you for sharing. :D









As soon as I get any game I pretty much immediately turn off AO, bloom, motion blur and film grain if there is any. The only game I actually liked with grain, for some reason, was Left 4 Dead 1/2.

As soon as I get any game I pretty much immediately turn off AO, bloom, motion blur and film grain if there is any. The only game I actually liked with grain, for some reason, was Left 4 Dead 1/2.

Yeah this is basically me too.  I can play a game with film grain if I have to, but if the option is available, I'm always turning off that stuff.