Battlefield 3: Why is Everything So Blurry?

[Guts_not_Dead]

It makes the game really hard to play. Players just meld in the background a lot easier facilitating camping and general confusion when things get hectic. Players who aren't even trying to hide blend into the walls and ground around them... The textures in Bad Company 2 looked absolutely clear, and we didn't have that all blurry look where things just meld together and you can barely tell what you're looking at.

Smoke doesn't look like smoke, it looks more like wearing 50 Shades Of Brown and blue lenses, not to mention suppression which is basically blinding the crap out of someone SOMEHOW without even hitting him. Heck, they could have done a much better job. he smoke in Crysis looks much better and it's a 5 year old game.

Also, Laser sight and flash light blinding?? Those soldiers wear goggles that block all that bright light. It literally makes no sense. Face to face encounters are ruined.

The mechanics are barely better than that in BC2. I don't think Dice really tried to build a better game, they just delivered a different game which is not better in many ways.

[morphine]

Moving to Gaming forum.

[lilbuddhaman]

1. Disable all FXAA in game menus
2. Disable Blur
3. Install realmware BF3 color tweaker or one of the various FXAA injectors

This will cut down dramatically on your complaints, but the glare/flashes will still be there.

[DPete27]

Also, Laser sight and flash light blinding?? Those soldiers wear goggles that block all that bright light. It literally makes no sense. Face to face encounters are ruined.

Ever had someone shine a real laser in your eyes? I thought the "blinding feature" was a clever idea to simulate reality, though I will admit it was probably a bit overdone.

[Chrispy_]

What makes me laugh is how we firstly spent a decade advancing crispness, sharpness, clarity and geometry detail with things like tesselation....
...and then spent the last 5 years developing features like motion blur, glare, film-gain effect, out-of-focus artistic effects and supersampled AA.

I see that as;
"Advances in GPU power allow us to increase sharpness and clarity and detail, then it's too sharp for us so we use even more GPU power to make soften it all"

Things like supersampling seem to do little more than make everything blurred and halve your framerate. I can do that and double my framerate just by dropping down from 1440p to 1080p using 'free' GPU resolution scaling


It's a bit like the "TOO COLD, TURN ON THE HEATING. OMG TOO HOT NOW, TURN ON THE AC AS WELL" argument.

[morphine]

Also, Laser sight and flash light blinding?? Those soldiers wear goggles that block all that bright light. It literally makes no sense. Face to face encounters are ruined.

Ever had someone shine a real laser in your eyes? I thought the "blinding feature" was a clever idea to simulate reality, though I will admit it was probably a bit overdone.

Realistic it might be, but it's still unbalancing, at least as the flashlight goes. It's brighter than several suns in the game.

[Guts_not_Dead]

Also, Laser sight and flash light blinding?? Those soldiers wear goggles that block all that bright light. It literally makes no sense. Face to face encounters are ruined.

Ever had someone shine a real laser in your eyes? I thought the "blinding feature" was a clever idea to simulate reality, though I will admit it was probably a bit overdone.

Yes, and that doesn't compare cuz the soldiers wear special goggles that block intensive light, like sun glasses do. This whole blinding thingie is one of those bs additions to the game that make it worse. Another one of those bs additions would be claymores and how you just throw 'em anywhere and only when members of the opposing team step on it, it blows up.

[Airmantharp]

Also, Laser sight and flash light blinding?? Those soldiers wear goggles that block all that bright light. It literally makes no sense. Face to face encounters are ruined.

Ever had someone shine a real laser in your eyes? I thought the "blinding feature" was a clever idea to simulate reality, though I will admit it was probably a bit overdone.

Realistic it might be, but it's still unbalancing, at least as the flashlight goes. It's brighter than several suns in the game.

Both are quite overdone, difficult to use effectively, but extremely annoying.

Actually, I think the Surefire simulation is pretty close, but seriously, those things last for about 15 seconds at that intensity (I was issues one at one point).

Sadly, I don't think controllers have any more buttons to tone those down with (more modes), so I doubt that it'd be fixed. They did tone down the flash light at one point, but the laser is seriously stupid. There just isn't enough resolution or field of view to make it useful, and you still wouldn't use the damn thing often. It draws a line right back to your position.

[Airmantharp]

1. Disable all FXAA in game menus
2. Disable Blur
3. Install realmware BF3 color tweaker or one of the various FXAA injectors

This will cut down dramatically on your complaints, but the glare/flashes will still be there.

Leave FXAA on Medium if you cannot afford MSAA. For MP, don't use motion blur, which would be fine if it wasn't something everyone could turn off, and we do. Turn ON Vsynch, as the input lag penalty normally seen in other games with it's use is already built in to the engine- it only has positive effects. Last, turn every quality setting down, play a round, then turn them up slowly. Zero in on what settings you can afford while maintaining the playability you're looking for.

[Airmantharp]

Also, Laser sight and flash light blinding?? Those soldiers wear goggles that block all that bright light. It literally makes no sense. Face to face encounters are ruined.

Ever had someone shine a real laser in your eyes? I thought the "blinding feature" was a clever idea to simulate reality, though I will admit it was probably a bit overdone.

Yes, and that doesn't compare cuz the soldiers wear special goggles that block intensive light, like sun glasses do. This whole blinding thingie is one of those bs additions to the game that make it worse. Another one of those bs additions would be claymores and how you just throw 'em anywhere and only when members of the opposing team step on it, it blows up.

The lights/lasers are definitely overdone, but I see the appeal- what current-day shooter wouldn't have lasers and flashlights on their guns, and who would want to use them if they were as useless as they are in real life?

As for the claymores, a lot of the 'game' elements in BF are shortcuts assuming perfect communication. If you were going to put a motion-sensing claymore down, wouldn't you let everyone know where it was so that they could go around it?

[Guts_not_Dead]

The lights/lasers are definitely overdone, but I see the appeal- what current-day shooter wouldn't have lasers and flashlights on their guns, and who would want to use them if they were as useless as they are in real life?

As for the claymores, a lot of the 'game' elements in BF are shortcuts assuming perfect communication. If you were going to put a motion-sensing claymore down, wouldn't you let everyone know where it was so that they could go around it?

As useless as they are in real life? Weapons have only one use, to kill people. The idea of using flashlights and laser sights in that stupid way that doesn't make any sense in REAL LIFE is what makes the whole thing unnecessary, at the very least.

Throwing claymores around like some toys in a battlefield where anyone could step on it is not realistic at all. I''d say only a mad soldier would do that. Even if you inform your teammates, which isn't a trivial task and does take a good amount of time, there's no guarantee that in the heat of a battle they would remember where it exactly is or remember the whole claymore thing.

There's a also this problem with getting blocked by pretty much every thing in the way, from the 10cm high pavements, to bricks on the ground. Bf3 is just full of it, bs.

[morphine]

Well, if you're looking for a "realistic" shooter, then you're looking for ARMA 2 or America's Army.

The Battlefield series for the most part straddles a line between being "gamey" and "realistic". Where it sits exactly will depend on each person's evaluation.

[tanker27]

As useless as they are in real life? Weapons have only one use, to kill people. The idea of using flashlights and laser sights in that stupid way that doesn't make any sense in REAL LIFE is what makes the whole thing unnecessary

Employing tactical lights (laser or flashlight) in a low light scenario is a tactic used to disorientate. It's a real world scenario that when used correctly can give a shooter the upper hand.

Now BF3 does go overboard with this, I have to admit. It shouldn't work as well in the game. It certainly shouldn't work across the map as it does and it certainly shouldn't work in daylight. But then again it's just a game. As someone else pointed out if you want an almost accurate shooter then Arma 2 or AA would be your best bet.

[Guts_not_Dead]

Well, if you're looking for a "realistic" shooter, then you're looking for ARMA 2 or America's Army.

The Battlefield series for the most part straddles a line between being "gamey" and "realistic". Where it sits exactly will depend on each person's evaluation.

It's not really about being realistic as much as it about being convenient or sensible. But then again, it's a cross platform game. It was not designed to be a technological milestone in video games, like Doom 3 for example.
Getting stuck by those small bricks and having to jump like a rabbit to get moving is not unrealistic, it's a flaw in design, or lousy mechanics.

I'll try injecting FXAA and see how that works out.

[Airmantharp]

It was not designed to be a technological milestone in video games.

64 players in massive maps with vehicles and destruction? When it was released, GPUs were having a hard time keeping up and CPUs had to be overclocked for a smooth experience.

It's still not a technological milestone per se, they're not doing anything that hasn't been done before, they're just doing more at once.

[Waco]

It was not designed to be a technological milestone in video games.

64 players in massive maps with vehicles and destruction? When it was released, GPUs were having a hard time keeping up and CPUs had to be overclocked for a smooth experience.

Sounds like BF2 to me.

[Airmantharp]

It was not designed to be a technological milestone in video games.

64 players in massive maps with vehicles and destruction? When it was released, GPUs were having a hard time keeping up and CPUs had to be overclocked for a smooth experience.

Sounds like BF2 to me.

Highlighted a massive difference for you there. Granted, BF2 was known for being heavy on the resources.

[Darkmage]

As useless as they are in real life? Weapons have only one use, to kill people. The idea of using flashlights and laser sights in that stupid way that doesn't make any sense in REAL LIFE is what makes the whole thing unnecessary, at the very least.

Hrm.

I would like to quietly invite you over to the Religion & Politics forum where we can discuss this concept of weapons with only one use. It's not really a discussion for here.

I would agree that from what you all describe, the use of lights/lasers in BF3 is not consistent with how weapon lights are used in the real world. It sounds like they were trying to add a new game mechanic to their existing formula to add complexity to the gameplay. It also sounds like they missed.

[SpartanCaptain]

FYI
In real life every soldier does not walk around with special eyewear to protect from lasers and flashlights. In fact most of them do not. And a lot of eyewear that they use they buy themselves.
flashlights and lasers have real life uses as well. They are used to blind or stun others. Just like in the game.
The graphics issues you are having seem more related to your setup. My computer on my old video card runs the game fine.

[cphite]

FYI
In real life every soldier does not walk around with special eyewear to protect from lasers and flashlights. In fact most of them do not. And a lot of eyewear that they use they buy themselves.
flashlights and lasers have real life uses as well. They are used to blind or stun others. Just like in the game.
The graphics issues you are having seem more related to your setup. My computer on my old video card runs the game fine.

The problem is the range and the failure to take ambient light into consideration. It's true that SWAT and Spec-Ops use light to great effect in close range combat, to blind and disorient the enemy; and the effects are greater and last longer than most people might think. But it doesn't work at long range, and it doesn't work nearly as well in broad daylight.

It's similar to the problem found in a lot of shooters where a large caliber handgun (think the Desert Eagle .50 in Counter-Strike) is accurate and extremely deadly across an entire map. In the real world, that gun will absolutely ruin your day at close range; but it's not accurate and has far less stopping power at long range.

[Aphasia]

And while most of that is really true, DICE has explicitely said that in between any choice of fun and realism, they will err on the side of fun. It's not a sim, its a combat game. As for simming, thats the territory of ARMA and similar games. And while I hate the darn flashlights with a passion, it's mostly a factor of friendlies using them badly then them being in game and the fact you get suprised by enemies. The mechanic is pretty sound, especially indoors in darkness, if for some reason, it's hard to balance outside for either programming reasons, or engine reason, then so be it.

I'm more annoying with the fact that they decided to put glare on the darn sniper scopes, because that is niether realistic or balanced since any AR will outshoot a sniper rifle if there so much a hint of smoke/debris or any other thing in between. And consdering the fall of the AR rifles is so slight, you can easily outsnipe most snipers with the AR's. Only redeeming factor of snipers is the damage in hardcore.