I'm facing issues with poor lighting and distracting reflections in several of my games.
I'm facing issues with poor lighting and distracting reflections in several of my games.
Over the past few months, I've observed a persistent grainy and unsightly lighting issue in many of my PC games. This effect tends to impact individual objects or areas within a scene, sometimes covering large sections with fluctuating intensity. It's most noticeable during reflections or shadows, particularly on shiny or metallic surfaces. Occasionally, it disappears entirely. In Far Cry 5, for instance, the lighting was generally good, except for blurry reflections on metal carts and similar items.
I've gathered visual proof (full-size view available here):
https://imgur.com/a/VfJjZdk
I've also tested the effect on two different monitors. I've spent considerable time adjusting in-game settings and modifying options in the Nvidia control panel, but nothing has eliminated or lessened the problem. Reducing or disabling anti-aliasing seems to make the issue more apparent, though it's unclear if that's the root cause. It appears connected to screen space reflections or RTX technology, but I'm still trying to find a solution.
Other attempts I've made include:
- reverting Nvidia drivers
- clearing the DX shader cache
- upgrading my graphics card from an 1660 Super to a 3060 Ti
- relocating my GPU to a different PCIe slot
- reinstalling the operating system (Windows 10)
PC Specifications:
RTX 3060 Ti
AMD Ryzen 5 3600
MIS MAG B550 Tomahawk motherboard
16 GB RAM
Driver Version 531.18
Anyone have insights on what might be causing this or suggestions for resolving it? I'd really like to avoid dealing with this in RE4. Thanks in advance for your help!
Graininess probably stems from a visual glitch in one of the rendering tools the game employs, rather than an issue with the system hardware. Possible reasons include flawed temporal anti-aliasing or compatibility problems with certain elements like transparent objects. See https://forums.cdprojektred.com/index.ph...t-12311198 for more details. Some visual effects rely on ray tracing, which can produce a grainy appearance to mimic rough yet reflective surfaces. I suspect many contemporary titles are adopting Stochastic Rendering not only for reflections but also for lighting. The idea is that rendering lighting at full resolution allows the game to transform 3D environments into 2D views effectively, enabling techniques like temporal anti-aliasing to smooth out artifacts. This approach resembles a mix of DXR and DLSS/FSR technologies.
that’s the situation, everything is on ultra. I’ll look into a settings comparison in Atomic Heart later and post it here.
I tried the RE4 demo with various settings and I see the graininess too. But unfortunately that's just how the game's rendering engine is designed. I'm going on a limb and saying that's also how Atomic Heart's rendering engine is designed as well. Unless the rendering engine uses path tracing for lighting, this is the tradeoff you get with trying to make something resemble realistic lighting with a rasterization renderer.
The one game I did see where supposedly graininess goes away with screen space reflection quality cranked up was RDR2. But it's also an expensive quality setting.
You’ll have to believe me when I tell you this isn’t the game. For instance, I compared myself to someone with identical settings; his texture quality was almost nonexistent. Here’s how my game appears on low settings:
https://imgur.com/a/E8kfK35
See it here: https://imgur.com/a/E8kfK35
This isn’t typical. I get that some games have grain, but this is different. I’ve verified it thoroughly.
And I'm noticing the same texture issues you are.
https://imgur.com/a/GyRdkVD
See this link: https://imgur.com/a/GyRdkVD
It appears clearer at 200% resolution or with ray tracing, as the noise tends to show up more at the edges.
I see you have a similar grain as me. Yet here is my brother’s game with identical settings as me:
https://imgur.com/a/0NWtR0j
View: https://imgur.com/a/0NWtR0j
And what are those settings? Also, which video card does he have?
I reviewed the scene in question and captured some screenshots. One shows ray tracing enabled, the other disabled, with everything else at maximum quality. The differences aren’t extreme, but they resemble what your brother is seeing. The main issue I noticed is the graininess from tree branches, not the overall lighting. This graininess also appears in the screenshot you shared. It doesn’t make the image blurrier or overly interpolated.
In my search on Google for AMD or NVIDIA shadow graininess, both GPUs seem to have this problem across various games. It doesn’t appear to be a hardware or settings-related issue—it’s more about how the game renders shadows and lighting effects.