In this post, we will discuss whether you should turn motion blur on or off for gaming.
If you are looking for the ultimate answer to motion blur for gaming, I am sure you will love this post.
In a nutshell, you should turn Motion Blur to Off if you are playing competitive gaming. On the other hand, if you are playing single-player games, you can turn Motion Blur to On for that extra immersion.
We will talk about what Motion Blur is and is it perfect for gaming further down this post.
So let’s get started!
Table of Contents
What is The Point of Motion Blur?
Modern games now indulge you in high resolution with sharp, crisp graphics.
But sometimes, the scene turns into a smearing mess when you move your character too quickly.
It looks like you have experienced what people called Motion Blur.
Motion Blur is a graphical effect that makes your screen go blurry when you see or experience rapid movement in a game.
For example, when you run, jump, or turn around, the display will suddenly look hazy and blurred.
Gamers either hate it or love it.
Human eyes can’t focus on rapid movement.
You can test yourself by turning your head left to right rapidly.
Your vision becomes blurry, right?
The same goes for when you use a camera to capture fast-moving objects, like a race car or a running man.
The camera lens can’t entirely focus on the object, and the photo will look blurry.
That’s the physics behind the Motion Blur effect.
Now, developers want to apply these effects to games.
It’s an approach for the developer to make the game more realistic.
As Digital Foundry explains, a game is built over a rasterized graphic frame for a discrete moment of time.
Graphics on games is rendered for each frame.
The series of the frame makes the video looks animated, moving lively.
However, when the object or the view moves so fast, you can see the frame gap. The video looks jagged.
One way to get around this limitation is to crank up the frame rate.
However, graphic processing had their limitation.
Even on a high refresh rate and frame rate, for something that moves so fast, it will look framey.
Thus, the developers try other things, like adding blur to the graphics to fill the visual gaps.
They emulate the motion blur on games.
Consequently, the motion looks more believable on your screen.
Like, when you are playing Need for Speed and hitting the NOS, the surrounding will look blurry.
It makes the gamer feel the speed.
The same goes for many racing games, like Forza Horizon, Motor GP, rocket league.
In these scenarios, motion blur seems not to be a problem.
On the contrary, it adds up the sensation.
But what happens with motion blur in a First-Person Shooter game?
This leads us to our second point:
Is Motion Blur Good?
In FPS games, motion blur could be distracting and annoying.
It could make the player feels disoriented, even emulate sickness.
The graphic becomes more obscured.
Especially on the older generation games.
Gamepad movement tends to be smoother than a PC mouse, so this is not a console problem.
On PC, the motion blur becomes too extreme as players can move their mouse very fast.
That is why, for specific games, Motion Blur can be harmful.
For instance, FPS games we are talking about currently.
Since you need to react and move your character very fast, Motion Blur can be very detrimental to your gaming experience.
However, if you are playing single-player games, enabling Motion Blur can be useful.
It can give you a more realistic experience of gameplay due to these effects, which happen as well in real life.
So it will make you feel that you are actually in the game.
Games like The Rise of the Tomb Raider or Red Dead Redemption will benefit from Motion Blur enabled.
In summary, Motion Blur is Good if you are playing single-player games as it will give you more realistic gameplay. On the other hand, Motion Blur is terrible if you are playing competitive games like FPS games because it may distract you and hinder your performance.
Does Motion Blur Improve FPS?
No, Motion Blur does not improve your FPS. On paper, any additional graphic post-processing, like anti-aliasing and motion blur, will add up the rendering load to your graphic card. This increasing load will lead to a decrease in FPS.
It may make the impression of smoother movement and better FPS, but the frame rate will decrease.
With Motion Blur, you might see a slight decrease on average FPS.
However, different games might have different motion blur settings.
The video reveals that on CS: GO, the frame rate drops about 10% when the motion blur is turned on.
So, in a competitive game like CS: GO, you will certainly like to have the motion blur off.
You want to crank up the frame rate and the details as high as possible, something that motion blur is doing against it.
However, if you are playing a single-player story game, you might want to turn it on.
It will add the impression and make it more immersive.
For example, in racing games with Motion Blur Turned on, you can feel the sensation of extreme acceleration.
Even more, on modern GPUs, Motion Blur will not impact the performance that much.
Should You Turn off Motion Blur on Modern Warfare?
Like we have discussed before, I think you should turn off motion blur on Modern Warfare.
In a competitive game like Modern Warfare, you want as much FPS as possible to win games. You also want to limit and minimize distraction so you can aim better.
On the other hand, Motion Blur will decrease your FPS and add distracting effects on Modern Warfare. That is why you want to turn it off.
In this video, VaZe Jev shows how he felt when he plays Modern Warfare on motion blur.
Initially, the game looks incredible, more cinematic, and better in general.
But over time, you will find it sickening.
It will distort your focus and can make you lose the small details.
Especially when you scope in and scope out.
It takes time to get your sight right.
And when you move around, the graphic becomes unclear.
And any bit of this delay could potentially lose an opportunity to shot the enemy.
Even worse, you may get shot for not spotting them.
As VaZe jokingly said, the motion blur will soften not only the images but also the bullet.
So, you might want to turn it off.
Should You Turn off Motion Blur on Fortnite?
Yes! You should turn off Motion Blur on Fortnite.
Just like Modern Warfare mentioned above, Fortnite is also better without Motion blur.
Firstly, with Motion Blur turned off, you can play Fortnite at a higher frame rate.
We have discussed extensively how much FPS you need in a game and why getting as much FPS is essential for games like Fortnite.
You might want to check this post.
Secondly, turning on the motion blur makes you feel more input delay.
Some players also recognize the sensitivity to be stiffer and slower with the motion blur on.
Based on those two reasons alone, I strongly suggest you turn off Motion Blur on Fortnite.
Conclusion: Should You Turn Motion Blur On or Off for Gaming?
To conclude our discussion, you should turn off Motion Blur for competitive games like Modern Warfare or Fortnite and turn on Motion Blur for single-player games like Red Dead Redemption or Need for Speed.
For competitive games, you will need as much FPS as possible. So you need to turn off Motion Blur.
For single-player games, you might want to turn on the Motion Blur so you can experience a more realistic and immersive gameplay experience.
Now, I would like to hear from you:
What do you think about the Motion Blur effect?
Do you like it? or do you think it won’t be necessary for gaming.
Either way, let us know through the comment box below.
