GTA IV PC gamers, do you turn on the Definition?

[Tikhung]

I find myself in the minor that I actually think definition off is much more better as it gives the game the vibe it already had on console, even if it means blurring. What do ya think?

Edited January 23, 2015 by Tikhung

[LazlowsucksiloveslutS]

I have both vsync and definition on.

[M0rk]

I always turn it off for motion blur, DOF and hiding those ugly jaggies without fps loss plus it has cool drunk effect.

I always use shader mods to reduce the static blur though.

 

OP, do you mean turning off definition because turning it on make the screen sharper

 

Edited January 23, 2015 by MarkyEvansy

[Tikhung]

I always turn it off for motion blur, DOF and hiding those ugly jaggies without fps loss plus it has cool drunk effect.

I always use shader mods to reduce the static blur though.

 

OP, do you mean turning off definition because turning it on make the screen sharper

 

 

yeah oops...

[B Dawg]

I keep it off. With it on, all the trees look like sh*t and jaggies are everywhere. No thanks.

[EvilDog77]

I leave peasant-box mode off, but enable morphological filtering on my GPU. Takes the harshness off the jaggies.

[GrindoLindo]

don't care about jaggies, i'll take fps and a clear image over post processing any day in a game.

 

I honestly don't know how people can stand playing battlefield 3 & 4 online with all the annoying visual effects, then again i don't know how people stand all that bloody screen crap in call of duty.

 

do they put all these effects in to make you rage while playing?

 

lets see, what do they have on battlefield 3 & 4 while playing online to obscure your view?

 

colour grading - puts a tint over the whole map, either turning everything gray / blue, brown etc

 

movie esq sun flares / glare

 

vignette screen corners, really? a photo frame effect in a game? they did that in bad company 1 & 2 (at least they didn't use film grain in bc2 & bf3 & 4, which they put in bc1)

 

which reminds me, i turn off that film noise in EFLC.

 

lens flares from all lights + dust spots when looking lights, apparently your character has a camera for eyes

 

screen goes grey and bright when low on health

 

bloody screen (wish devs would stop putting this in games) it's crap and annoying....

 

crysis was great. you could turn off all the screen effects, great tweakable game, shame all the games after that weren't so tweakable...

 

bf3 became a new game when the short live colour tweaker was created until the dumb ass devs blocked it claiming it was a cheat, sure, adding colour is a cheat...

 

 

it's good that gta iv is such a customizable game, so much to tweak, how a pc game should be. not locked down like a sloppy console port. rockstar may of failed at optimizing IV but at least it's great to tweak and mod.

Edited February 3, 2015 by GrindoLindo

[unbid]

I used to turned it on, but after I turned it off and discovered that the blur effect works great with rainy weather, I had made the worst decision in the past.

 

 

 

TL;DR, I turned it off

 

 

[Sunrise Driver]

I always had it turned on so I don't have s**t blurry graphics.

[marmoo]

Definition on

Vsync off (except when racing with bikes - keeping it off makes bikes uncontrollable for me)

[Lakitu]

Definition on

Vsync off.

 

With definition off game looks blurry and cant see a damn thing, and I don't mind jagged edges. Vsync is off because on other games it causes lag so left it off out of habit.

[BS_BlackScout]

Definition: ON

VSync: OFF

 

Can't handle this bluryness, nor the awful bloom, so I also edit VisualSettings.dat

[TheMostKnowledgable]

I find myself in the minor that I actually think definition off is much more better as it gives the game the vibe it already had on console, even if it means blurring. What do ya think?

 

I leave it off, because it's a misleading setting.

 

"Definition on" really translates to "Depth of field and motion blur disabled" - as the game was designed for 30 fps (limit the fps to 30, even driving is better - everything works better and feels way more solid) and designed to look like a film, the P key (post effects/definition setting) is a must to get the full experience.

 

If you drive fast with it disabled, it is bad looking, no blur at all. Drive fast with it on (ie, definition is OFF, post effects are ON), motion blur comes into play.

 

That is an asinine move for them to call that "definition: on" - it's just a sly way of making turning something off seem like you're turning something on - people think they are getting a better experience, they are really introducing artifacts and taking effects, that the assets (especially trees) were designed to work along with, away from the game.

 

The game dances and jags and since the world is so big/deep from the player view, you get crazy artifacts jaggies in the near distance without the blur. Chrome looks better with it off, but that's about it. Certain times of night look *really* good in still screenshots or just looking around in game with definition on/post effects off, but with definition off/post effects on, it still looks better and more cinematic.

 

Game looks like a movie shot on FILM with the effects enabled, by killing those effects, it looks like a jaggy ass game. Even with MSAA, which I don't use because it's not reliable for me, but even with msaa cutting out the jaggies, game still looks even better with the post effects enabled/definition off.

 

I agree, it is way better limited to 30 fps, and way better with the blur and depth of field enabled.

[RedIndianRobin]

Definition ON

VSynch ON

 

I just hate motion blur. It's so unrealistic.

[Koger]

The thing with definition is that it only looks good at 1080p and above. If you're running the game at a lower resolution then all you're going to get is a blurry mess.

 

If your PC is capable of running GTA IV at 1080p or higher I recommend turning definition off as it enables depth of field and motion blur ( even though Rokcstar did a piss poor job ). I've seen that GTA V has proper dof and motion blur on PS4/XboxOne.

 

Hopefully we'll be able to configure them individually on PC.

[TheMostKnowledgable]

don't care about jaggies, i'll take fps and a clear image over post processing any day in a game.

 

I honestly don't know how people can stand playing battlefield 3 & 4 online with all the annoying visual effects, then again i don't know how people stand all that bloody screen crap in call of duty.

 

do they put all these effects in to make you rage while playing?

 

lets see, what do they have on battlefield 3 & 4 while playing online to obscure your view?

 

colour grading - puts a tint over the whole map, either turning everything gray / blue, brown etc

 

movie esq sun flares / glare

 

vignette screen corners, really? a photo frame effect in a game? they did that in bad company 1 & 2 (at least they didn't use film grain in bc2 & bf3 & 4, which they put in bc1)

 

which reminds me, i turn off that film noise in EFLC.

 

lens flares from all lights + dust spots when looking lights, apparently your character has a camera for eyes

 

screen goes grey and bright when low on health

 

bloody screen (wish devs would stop putting this in games) it's crap and annoying....

 

crysis was great. you could turn off all the screen effects, great tweakable game, shame all the games after that weren't so tweakable...

 

bf3 became a new game when the short live colour tweaker was created until the dumb ass devs blocked it claiming it was a cheat, sure, adding colour is a cheat...

 

 

it's good that gta iv is such a customizable game, so much to tweak, how a pc game should be. not locked down like a sloppy console port. rockstar may of failed at optimizing IV but at least it's great to tweak and mod.

 

Well, the bloody screen in call of duty is for gameplay reasons. It's so you are handicapped when you are hurt, it's meant to be an annoyance - it makes the player seek cover because he can't see as well, and since he can't see as well, it increases the panic to find that now-blurred-through-the-red enemy and try to spray them (usually in futility by that point where the screen is heavily reddened). It's a similar reason to why that game targeted 65fov since MW2 (before outcries from fans brought back a custom setting) - 65FOV forced you to look left and right, look a little further to check a corner. Whereas, with a higher fov like 90 or 100, you kind of get a commanding view and don't need to work as hard to clear a room - some would call it cheating. In MW2, it definitely is cheating, since the map layouts of that game took this into consideration as a point of design.

 

I too am a fan of "eye-like rendering" over "camera-like rendering", which is ironic, because I love GTA series so far for targeting 30fps and using blurs to make it look like a real 90s NY film movie in IV for example. Can't stand lens flares though.

 

It's "okay" for me in a third person game, since I know I am the camera anyway. But in First Person games, it's completely ridiculous indeed. MW2 had little to none of that kind of effect. It was really pretty. But then all the ones since, they switched to more camera-like lenses rather than being like the eyes of the player.

 

Color tweaker was a cheat, because the color correction helps the camo to work. MW2 is a great example of doing that the right way, You can't see people in the cave in afghan if they stay still, and there are many intentional props in windows and on ledges that look like people from far away - "made ya look!" moments.

 

If you play IV at the target (30fps, use nvidia for adaptive half refresh rate vsync on a 60hz monitor setting), it's hard to say it's not optimized.

 

"Definition: Off" really is a must for GTA IV. With it "on", you lose motion blur, depth of field - it completely loses the film style quality of the picture. Things dance and jaggy like crazy. It's not so bad in other games, but other games don't tend to draw that far, and when they do, it's never as far and detailed as GTA IV. The higher the resolution, the better the game looks with or without the filter. But the filter is a massive improvement to the overall visuals of the game.

 

Go launch the game and turn it so there is no post processing - walk around, drive around, look how ugly it is.

 

Now turn on the post, and see it is not only much smoother visually in a single frame, it is also much smoother moving around, and the added benefit that it looks like a real movie looks - blurry in the distance, soft edges, motion blur. It's an important effect, and you're really not experiencing the game they made without it.

[GrindoLindo]

I think there's a good number of people that hate dof, motion blur, bloom etc in games.

 

They are always overdone and piss people off, all these cinematic effects should stay where they belong in the movies, and even then they can be overdone. *cough star trek 2009 *cough*

 

classic example of terrible pp effects;

 

bad company 1 - annoying grain effect, bloom

bad company 2 - massive sun, overdone bloom

battlefield 3 & 4 - spots on screen when looking at lights in single player and multiplayer, lens flares from all lights and sun, colour tint over the whole screen.

 

what's annoying is developers insist on using dull washed out colours in games they think should be cinematic.

 

some awful examples where;

 

davamand peak in bf3, looked better before the pp was applied, couldn't find the original comparison since EA closed the UK forums because of all the complaints re battlefield series.

metro had colour before they slapped on the blue tint, become the worst bf map ever

wake island went from lush island to black/grey battlefield

 

some might say oh a battlefield is all grey and dull because it's all f'd up with explosives but the pp effects just made all the maps horrible to play.

 

I've been quite happily playing gta iv with patched shaders for no blur at all, equalized desaturation levels and no bloom. can't say i notice the jaggies and it plays nice and smooth 60fps while looking clear and crisp.

[B Dawg]

I agree about the filters in Battlefield 3. But on GTA IV, they really are essential.

[TheMostKnowledgable]

You know I agree. But I can also see where Grindo is coming from for his preference. Remember how PS1 was really jaggy? A lot of people really like to see the composition of the models and rather than that unified image they like to see all the separate elements - I can relate, I do it sometimes, especially when trying to see how an artist did a specific shape and how they mapped the texture to it. But yea, those P post filters really complete the image for me.

 

I do dislike how desaturated the color correction makes foggy and rainy weather, though. I've seen some good color correction tweaks that made things a lot more colorful without being cartoony for IV. Might install one for this playthrough before V comes out.

[Majestic81]

I dont understand why anyone would turn it off. my game looks like sh*t when its off, all blury and stuff. Maybe on higher grahpic settings its not as bad.

[GrindoLindo]

for consoles it's used to soften the jaggies and blur the bad textures.

 

for pc it's off for enb users.

 

for pc gamers, it's on for a clear image while playing.

 

that's how i see it.

Edited March 15, 2015 by GrindoLindo

[Misunderstood]

I'm weird on this. When I'm playing IV or TLAD, I keep definition off as it looks weird without the depth of field. But for some reason, when I play TBOGT, I have to have it on or it just annoys me.

[GrindoLindo]

it's even worse in tlad if you have the horrid noise effect on too.

[Koger]

I'm weird on this. When I'm playing IV or TLAD, I keep definition off as it looks weird without the depth of field. But for some reason, when I play TBOGT, I have to have it on or it just annoys me.

 

That's because TBOGT doesn't have a filter like IV or TLAD and it's more noticeable. The only way you can make it better is play at higher resolution than 1920x1080.

[Kampret]

Definition at OFF, because I'm using RealityIV which reduces the blur and removes the Vaseline blur effect. Kinda looks like Far Cry 3 if you ask me.

V-Sync at OFF and capped the FPS to 60 using RTSS from MSI Afterburner. That way I can get 60 FPS instead of IV's horrendous frame pacing that made 60 FPS to 52 FPS.

[sammystarock]

I turn it on.
Even at 1080p, turning the definition off is much too blury and there are a ton of much better solutions to get rid of all those jaggy lines and grainy textures GTA IV has.
Although I have to say that at a resolution of at least 2880x1620, it doesn't look that bad.