How sharp/realistic do you want a game to look visually?

[Pifanjr]

What is DOOM using your microphone for?

 

[Frindis]

What is DOOM using your microphone for?

I was wondering the same and then I found out that there is voice chat in multiplayer.

 

[red_5ive]

Sharpness/realism isn't necessarily a must, but I do love when it to looks like this:

Or this (in 32:9):

Screens are from Robocop: Rogue City (1440 top, and 3840x1080 32:9 bottom). It doesn't bother me to play games that don't look like this, but damn does Unreal 5 + Lumen look really good! More importantly, I love HDR and smooth frames via GSync on my OLEDs, which is why I prefer a lower res vs 4k so that I can hit 120 fps/Hz locked in most newer games. That's the sweet-spot. But I don't crank up anti-aliasing too high because then you get the paper cut-out effect with objects which I don't care for. Graphical mods I'll only use on older titles, like Skyrim.

I do love 4k, particulary UHD HDR, but only with movies. In which case, like @Kaamos_Llama I also have a 4k UHD Player and still buy movies on disc. They also sound better, too 😉. But that's for the HT room where 4k is more noticeable with a larger display. For gaming, I'd rather drop the res down for performance, and 4k res isn't noticeable anyway since the TV and monitor I use for gaming aren't large enough displays to see a significant difference over 1440.

 

[BeardyHat]

Sharpness/realism isn't necessarily a must, but I do love when it to looks like this:

Or this (in 32:9):

Screens are from Robocop: Rogue City (1440 top, and 3840x1080 32:9 bottom). It doesn't bother me to play games that don't look like this, but damn does Unreal 5 + Lumen look really good! More importantly, I love HDR and smooth frames via GSync on my OLEDs, which is why I prefer a lower res vs 4k so that I can hit 120 fps/Hz locked in most newer games. That's the sweet-spot. But I don't crank up anti-aliasing too high because then you get the paper cut-out effect with objects which I don't care for. Graphical mods I'll only use on older titles, like Skyrim.

I do love 4k, particulary UHD HDR, but only with movies. In which case, like @Kaamos_Llama I also have a 4k UHD Player and still buy movies on disc. They also sound better, too 😉. But that's for the HT room where 4k is more noticeable with a larger display. For gaming, I'd rather drop the res down for performance, and 4k res isn't noticeable anyway since the TV and monitor I use for gaming aren't large enough displays to see a significant difference over 1440.

Looks amazing.

I don't care too much, as long as my framerate is consistent (even if that's 30FPS) and as long as the textures aren't muddy (such as when they're on Low or Ultra-Low); as long as that's good, I can vibe with the game.

That said, I'd probably err on the side of not having realistic graphics. I find for me there's a cognitive dissonance between hyper realistic graphics, such as in Cyberpunk 2077 and the rest of the game. For instance, I can walk around the city and be amazed at how fantastic it looks, feeling immersed, only to be torn out of that when I see the same two characters, animating exactly the same (the dude holding the drunk girl stick out in my mind) around every corner. That kind of stuff doesn't bother me in any other game, because I can recognize that this is a game and there will be reused assets, but CP2077 just throws me for a loop and really breaks the illusion.

Weirdly, I don't have the same issue with something like Kingdom Come: Deliverance, but I feel that it does it much, much less.

 

[neogunhero]

In terms of just graphics settings, I want to be able to turn everything to max and play at a smooth frame rate. I typically turn post-processing things off, mainly Motion Blur, Depth of Field if it looks muddy instead of nicely blurred, Chromatic Aberration (haven’t seen this is new games for a few years, hopefully that means we’re past putting it in games). I will sometimes play around with the sharpness slider if a game has it, maybe settling around 10-25% sharpness increase.

When it comes to actual game design and art styles, I prefer games not to try to look as lifelike as possible. I like graphics that are more stylized and have some unique design about it, not as realistic as possible. Currently playing Yakuza 0, and imo it has a very nice mix of being realistic but not lifelike. They modeled the characters and world very well based off real life models and assets, but it still has a “video game look”. The world and characters look very believable, but still have a look that says it’s clearly a video game. They didn’t try to make it look as real as possible, and that’s what I like.

 

[Frindis]

In terms of just graphics settings, I want to be able to turn everything to max and play at a smooth frame rate. I typically turn post-processing things off, mainly Motion Blur[...]

I'll never understand why some games have motion blur on by default. I guess if there is a lot of motion like in a driving game it could work, as long as it is not environmental motion blur.

 

[neogunhero]

I'll never understand why some games have motion blur on by default. I guess if there is a lot of motion like in a driving game it could work, as long as it is not environmental motion blur.

In some games, there is a motion blur slider. If that’s the case I will normally put it to like 5 or 10%, leaving a tiny bit of blur that is almost unnoticeable. However most games like to use On/Off for that setting, so it’s either ALL the motion blur or none at all, which is so annoying haha

 

[StardustJessie]

Only moderately realistic. I miss in the 2000's games that went for realism still having a distinct art style. Like a realistic painting. It's not 1:1 to real life.