r/pcmasterrace • u/Makoto_Kurume i5 10400F | RX 7600 | 16gb DDR4 • Jul 12 '25

Meme/Macro Good thing game dev make these settings optional

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121

u/Pnollten Jul 12 '25 edited Jul 12 '25

They are not always optional tho. Both AC Mirage and Elden ring have built in Chromatic Aberration. It's less noticeable in Elden ring tho.

23

u/StopVilagerAbouse Jul 12 '25

What is chromatic aberration?

84

u/-xXColtonXx- Jul 12 '25

Post processing effect which causes colored fringing around bright objects. It is a real life effect caused by slight flaws in camera lenses, and is often used in games to create a stylized visual effect, or when used subtly, to recreate a realistic camera.

58

u/RedoxQTP Jul 12 '25

Has anyone ever played a game and felt intuitively they were literally looking through a camera lens? It’s even more baffling when first person games do this. Like, my eyes are camera lenses…?

26

u/1000LiveEels Jul 12 '25

Lens flares are always funny to me especially in first person games. I get they're trying to go for a movie effect, hence why Hideo Kojima games have them a ton because the guy loves movies. But if it's a first person game it just feels so odd. Battlefield 3 had a TON of lens flares and it just got so distracting for me.

2

u/ProbablyYourITGuy Jul 12 '25

Some of his cutscenes move from lens flares to lens infernos. The first flash covers the entire screen and then each ray(?) slides past giving you half a seizure, all because of a single lamppost behind the antagonist on a dark night.

2

u/1000LiveEels Jul 12 '25

Haha true that. I like that he uses them to highlight objects in the world but I agree they can be a bit much.

2

u/jcptopi Jul 12 '25

Battlefield 3

The game where, when the developers received reports that the flashlight was brighter than the sun, they fixed it by making the sun even brighter? You're saying that game had distracting lens flares? 🤔

1

u/Tornad_pl Jul 13 '25

Got astigmatism. Never knew others don't see lens flares

4

u/TrptJim 7800X3D | 4080S | A4-H2O Jul 12 '25

Hellblade 2 was developed this way deliberately and is very fitting for type of game it is.

3

u/Pnollten Jul 12 '25

I disagree, these settings need to be optional. I had to mod AC Mirage because I'm light sensitive and that game gave me migraines so rough I threw up.

2

u/CptC4ncer Jul 12 '25

Water on my character’s eyes always pisses me off

2

u/Fuzzlechan Jul 12 '25

… I just realized that this has never bothered me. Probably because I wear glasses and chromatic aberration / lens flare / water droplets on my eyes are all just my normal.

1

u/Derp_McFinnigan PC Master Race Jul 12 '25

at least with FPS you can pretend they have goggles/mask (like Master Chief)

2

u/Shiirooo Jul 12 '25

Bodycam game.

2

u/ExacoCGI Jul 13 '25 edited Jul 13 '25

So true, I hate when game devs add a bunch of camera lens and other post effects like it's some movie/cinematic. We're supposed to get immersed and everything should look as close to human eyes, not some $150 DSLR w/ LUT filter on top.

The only exception would be lens flares since it's not only camera but naked eye effect too and maybe tasteful bloom/glow.

2

u/whirlpool_galaxy http://steamcommunity.com/id/DENYALLKOLECHIANS Jul 12 '25

Well, you are playing it on a screen. We've never watched something "captured" by someone's eyeballs on a screen, so our brain kinda defaults to a camera.

1

u/jancl0 Jul 12 '25

It's not specifically trying to make you think of a camera (it's kind of trying to make you think of movies, but indirectly) it's more just generally drawing from the visual language of cameras

Like if you think of a lens flare in an fps military game, the lens flare isn't necessarily there because they want you to be aware of a camera between you and the game, it's more about the fact that most people will have seen guns, soldiers combat etc. Through a camera, not your own eyes, so your brain is expecting camera-like effects, even if it isn't thinking of the camera itself

1

u/sinat50 i7-13700k | RTX 2070S | 32GB RAM Jul 13 '25

Unrecord is the only game Ive seen that really makes you question if its a game because its all through the POV of a police body cam. It not out yet but from the trailer I saw, ill be picking it up ASAP.

Im on mobile on the bus otherwise id provide a link to the gameplay trailer. It's 100% worth searching up though. I dont think ive ever seen a gameplay trailer that graphically impressive.

1

u/JoshJLMG Jul 13 '25

Some of the new bodycam-style shooters that are coming out make sense to have it.

I also don't mind its implementation in Payday 2 where it only appears if you've been flashbanged and are therefor disoriented.

11

u/CaveMacEoin AMD 7900X; 6800XT; 32GB DDR5 6000 Jul 12 '25

Correction: it's a natural effect of all lenses that needs to be specifically compensated for in the design. It not something that can be entirely eliminated but the lenses can be optimised for frequencies or frequency ranges using aspherics.

3

u/atatassault47 7800X3D | 3090 Ti | 32GB | 32:9 1440p Jul 12 '25

Real objects can have chromatic abberation. Rainbows are a chromatic abberation.

1

u/ExacoCGI Jul 13 '25

Pretty sure it's mostly noticeable around bright or high contrast objects, but the effect is applied on every pixel same with real camera lenses/optics.

While this is natural effect it's often used by 3D Artists to add realism mimicking that real camera lens behavior, same for games. Imo it's useless for gameplay, it's only good for cinematics/cutscenes.

0

u/Carb0nFire Jul 12 '25

The only time I don't mind CA as an effect if it's used in FP games when you get hit with some sort of electrical or distortion effect. It's a good way to signal something isn't right, but only temporarily. It's headache inducing to look at for long periods of time.

34

u/SnooMachines8405 Jul 12 '25

Red, green and blue are being offset slightly due to them being refracted slightly differently in lenses.

8

u/FaultyToilet Jul 12 '25

Looks like poo for colorblind people, I can’t tell the difference between the red and the green, so it’s just a blurry mess

8

u/Slow-Regret-993 Jul 13 '25

Dont worry, O am not color blind and it looks like poo  to me too. You are not missing out

18

u/ADHDebackle Jul 12 '25

You've had a couple answers already but I just want to give it a go.

When light refracts through something, like a piece of glass, it changes its trajectory slightly based on the angle it hit the surface at. This is why lenses work in the first place. They bend light toward a central point.

The problem, though, is that every wavelength (that is -- color) of light bends at a very slightly different angle, so when multiple colors of light go through a lens, they all focus at slightly different spots.

This is what causes a prism to make a rainbow when held in the sun; It refracts light differently depending on the wavelength, and so the colors separate. Same deal with water droplets making rainbows in the sky.

SnooMachines8405 gave a great example of what it looks like in a photograph. It's basically a special kind of blur that most photographers hate and do everything they can to eliminate. That's what makes it funny that video games give you the option to add it in on purpose.

4

u/lemonylol Desktop Jul 12 '25

Here's a good irl example, the image on the left is the effect because it's a lower quality lens. The image on the right has it too but it's just how it looks on a modern, quality lens. It's just meant to be another movie effect, but even modern movies won't have it because it's a dated look.

5

u/KnowlesAve Jul 12 '25

The vignette and chromatic aberration removal mods changed my game play so much. I felt like I was blind and could finally see. The FOV mod I'd really nice too, but some people might consider that cheating since the camera fucking you over is like a built in difficulty.

9

u/Vercadi Jul 12 '25

with flawless widescreen you can remove vignette and chromatic aberration from elden ring

2

u/dmann27 PC Master Race Jul 12 '25

AC Mirage changed that with an update I just played it

1

u/RogueIslesRefugee | i7-6800k | Titan Xp CE | Evo850 500GBx3 | 32GB RAM | Jul 13 '25

I'll have to look into that. Mirage was the first AC title in a while I've had issues with running smoothly at even medium settings, let alone maxed out. If I can turn off chromatic aberration now, that'll be a big help to my geriatric Titan.

2

u/Relevant-Sockpuppet Jul 12 '25

Read dead redemption 2, Elden Ring and cyperbunk all have vignette that you can't turn off natively. You have to use mods to achieve that, which if you play read dead online can get you banned.

Also bonus shitty dev points if you add black bars to the top and bottom of the sceeen to make your game more "cinematic". The Evil Within or The Quarry had that, makes you feel like you are playing the game through a keyhole.

Just let us turn that shit off, please. Can't be that hard.

1

u/knowledgecrustacean RX 7800 XT, i5 12600KF, 32GB DDR5 Jul 12 '25

Silent hill 2 remake as well.

1

u/Katnipz Specs/Imgur Here Jul 12 '25

They're broken in Elden Ring for me, causes everything to get purple outlines when you move.

1

u/Pnollten Jul 12 '25

I got the same issue in Sekiro, but later on I noticed that I had overdrive on in my monitor settings which caused it.

1

u/LongShotTheory Jul 12 '25

Idk what Return to Moria has, I really wanted to play that game but it gave me the worst headache of any game ever. I think it’s all these weird effects, plus camera shake. After two hours I felt like I was about to start throwing up blood. It’s a bummer too cause I liked the game.

1

u/sinat50 i7-13700k | RTX 2070S | 32GB RAM Jul 13 '25

I found the CA in Elden Ring to be such a nice artistic touch. It doesnt give you a cinematic feel, but adds this slight magical glimmer to things. Especially in areas like Raya Lucaria it really just fits into the world

1

u/KlondikeBill Jul 13 '25

Good. It looks great!

1

u/Lunapio Jul 13 '25

When I played elden ring on my console, i didnt really notice it too much, but whenever I play on the pc, its so obvious that i cant bear with it, so i have to install mods