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[Pop_smoke]

The tv is upscalling to 4k regardless of what mode you're in. These are fixed pixels displays, it needs to scale it to 4K to fill the tv regardless of the mode.

Yes but the upscaling quality is affected if in game mode and when not. At least from what i've noticed. I have messed with all features and tunes on the tv. It does a better pixel check boarding or something where there is less aliasing.

 

[Yautja_Warrior]

Op, you are not going crazy. I have the same with my 2015 Sony Bravia. Game mode is a lot more blurry than general mode. I'm not just talking sharpening filter either. There are probably some settings in general mode that are switched off in game mode such as edge detection, noise reduction, true colour. I haven't messed about enough to figure it out yet but the difference in clarity of textures and world in something like the witcher3 convinced me to stick with general for the time being.

People gonna call me crazy but some of the picture processing makes the iq much better. Not the frame interpolation, true motion stuff though.

What TV do you have ? because my 2015 Bravia (4K 55X8509C) is no different in picture quality, I get superb IQ with whatever mode I'm using. I have it calibrated properly though on each input, including game mode and there is no difference at all.

 

[JoeLT]

the amount of misinformation in this thread is making my eye twitch

So you actually enjoy the terrible post processing the TV is doing, ruining the original colour and picture intended when it was mastered? Because that's all that Game Mode disables. I've never heard of Game Mode actually giving less accurate colour reproduction or anything of the sort.

All Game Mode is doing is trying to keep input delay to a minimum, and the delay is just the TV running algorithms to attempt to make the image "pop" more in a store.

 

[Oddvintagechap]

Some people enjoy the saturation(samsung galaxy for example), image softing(Snapchat filters), soap opera effect.... All those weird TV effects. Which make the image pop but inaccurate.

 

[babyghost853]

Game mode on my 2016 1080p LG TV is horrendous. It's completely over saturates the image and the input lag is terribad. The thing is, though. I didn't ever notice and gamed on that for years. Then I saw a calibration video for my TV on YouTube. I decided to follow it and the guy used PC mode as a base. First thing I noticed was how instant everything felt on the dashboard. Input lag was noticeably less. And then the game I was playing at the time, I looked down at the ground and noticed how clean and clear the textures were. To make sure I wasn't going nuts, I switched it back to stock game mode and the ground was now a stupidly over saturated blue with little detail.

I'm confused.

 

[Symphonia]

I can no longer play Battlefield 1 without game mode enabled. There's no decrease in image quality, and without it there is quite a noticeable lag with input.

 

[Always-honest]

I remember years ago that some people thought Gamemode provided anti aliassing.
"Man, my games look so much better in Gamemode"

Noo, your shitty cheap Samsung LCD had an input lag of a week. In gamemode that inputlag is reduced to 6 days. And it looks worse.

Nowadays it's a bit different though.

 

[gelf]

There was certainly something wrong on my Samsung when I put it in game mode. The colours look washed out and there is an ugly shimmer. I didn't work out how to improve it. I'm not using it for gaming now.

And it's not just preferring all the effects outside of game mode because I saw the issue in games I've seen displayed properly before on PC monitors, on CRTs and they never looked that bad.

 

[Nielm]

The Sony Bravia I am using looks more or less similar to the Cinema Mode on Game Mode.

I just calibrated the settings to make it look better. I probably added a few ms of input lag, but you don't notice it.

 

[Always-honest]

The Sony Bravia I am using looks more or less similar to the Cinema Mode on Game Mode.

I just changed the settings to make it look better. I probably added a few .ms of input lag, but you don't notice it.

Aren't you basicly adding lag when you change the settings of the gamemode?

 

[Symphonia]

Aren't you basicly adding lag when you change the settings of the gamemode?

No, because you're not adding or enabling any post-processing effects, just editing brightness, contrast, etc.

 

[oSoLucky]

I will never understand why we feel the need to shit on other people's enjoyment of their products. I had a friend who thought The Division looked and played better on his 4k set with all the post processing shit than on my calibrated plasma. I tried to inform him of some differences, but at the end of the day I'm not going to tell him that his preferences are objectively wrong. Let people's ignorance be their bliss if they have decided they prefer things one way.

 

[Always-honest]

No, because you're not adding or enabling any post-processing effects, just editing brightness, contrast, etc.

Right. Those things probably don't matter.
Also, using tv speakers cause a bit of lag appearently.

I will never understand why we feel the need to shit on other people's enjoyment of their products. I had a friend who thought The Division looked and played better on his 4k set with all the post processing shit than on my calibrated plasma. I tried to inform him of some differences, but at the end of the day I'm not going to tell him that his preferences are objectively wrong. Let people's ignorance be their bliss if they have decided they prefer things one way.

Ignorance is a bliss indeed. Being on Gaf might make you aware of stuff that didn't bother you or you didn't notice in the first place.

Being on hifi, tv screen or audio enthousiast forums might fuck up our enjoyment too. Sometimes it's just more of a curse than a blessing to be in the knowing, haha.

 

[Malcolm9]

I will never understand why we feel the need to shit on other people's enjoyment of their products. I had a friend who thought The Division looked and played better on his 4k set with all the post processing shit than on my calibrated plasma. I tried to inform him of some differences, but at the end of the day I'm not going to tell him that his preferences are objectively wrong. Let people's ignorance be their bliss if they have decided they prefer things one way.

If they don't know any better there is no harm in educating them.

 

[oSoLucky]

If they don't know any better there is no harm in educating them.

Notice I also said "if they prefer things one way". I will always educate people if they will listen, but some of the posts here get pretty inflammatory as if others' viewing and playing habits cause physical pain to certain posters. All the PP bullshit is on TVs and they have sharpness/saturation turned way up on displays in Best Buy for a reason. Some people are going to think that looks best no matter what you tell them.

This was just a reaction of mine to a few posts I saw in other threads and on page 1(100ppp).

 

[LilJoka]

Game mode shouldn't be needed.

The shit that makes the input lag also makes whatever you are watching look like shit.

These companies only care if it is a "marketable feature" and public is... ill-informed about what is good and what is bad when it comes to their picture.

I will never, ever, ever forget the kid and and his dad when i was in college (early/mid 2000's) The kid was playing metroid on their 16:9 HDTV (very new tech at the time) STRETCHED. I told the kid, that it looked all wrong and we should change the pic setting and the dad overheard and freaked out. literally freaked the fuck out.

I PAID FOR THE WHOLE THING YOU ARE GOING TO USE THE WHOLE THING.

You can't do ISF calibration in game mode.

 

[Sanctuary]

So it reduces things that are typically reserved for movies like certain post-processing effects, noise reduction etc. There are multiple modes because TVs are used for multiple different things.

To this day, I still don't understand the point of almost any of the post-processing effects that come on modern TVs. They make the picture look subjectively worse in almost all cases, or at best improve one aspect while degrading another.

Except Game Mode is what disables TruMotion and shit like that (that you can't normally disable)

Must really suck to have one of those TVs. Every single one that I've ever messed with that has it was easy to shut off in most of the modes a person would want to use.
/shrug

Some modes like "Cinema" might have something called Real Cinema enabled, and in that case you can't disable it. However, you may as well just use something like ISF Dark/Theater/Night instead since you can get the same picture quality and even more refinements anyway. About the only reason to bother with the Real Cinema (or equivalent) feature is if you're getting serious judder problems while watching 24fps content. You could just alternatively adjust True Motion for somewhat similar results.

 

[Audioboxer]

Most of the post processing stuff is ymmv. Often it artificially dumps on a picture. Let your eyes get used to natural decent calibration and then they'll be offended to go back. Like how if I turn a picture setting to cool, or even neutral, whites and tones of colour look far too blue now.

I work with warm and tweak it slightly on a 10 point scale. Calibration standards largely exist for good reason. Of course if you want you can run with max contrast, brightness, cool tone and colour saturation set to 80. But, yuck.

 

[oSoLucky]

To this day, I still don't understand the point of almost any of the post-processing effects that come on modern TVs. They make the picture look subjectively worse in almost all cases, or at best improve one aspect while degrading another.

It's the same effect as the 360/XB1 RGB range. Colors that "pop" excite people, no matter their inaccuracy or impact on crushed blacks, loss of detail, etc. For some reason people really love their motion interpolation also.

 

[Aztechnology]

Game mode on TVs are a nice feature. Minimizing input lag so that games are more response. But on most TVs, there is a trade-off at the cost of picture quality. How do you guys feel about this? How bad is the trade-off on your TV? What games do you notice it in the most?

Most of the features that introduce input lag at there to enhance or attempt to correct for issues with TV signals, sup bar resolution, slower framerate I.e judder reduction etc. Make motion smoother in sports or fast action let me TV through motion interpolation etc. For games and movies via Blu-ray etc most of the features are unnecessary and technically degrade your IQ because it's not being viewed as intended. This is part or why many people who have first time calibrations done are unhappy at first. They've never viewed things properly outside maybe a theatre or something so are so conditioned to view things with features that technically cause loss in IQ.

It's the same effect as the 360/XB1 RGB range. Colors that "pop" excite people, no matter their inaccuracy or impact on crushed blacks, loss of detail, etc. For some reason people really love their motion interpolation also.

I have a friend who legitimately can't tell it's on when he watches TV. He always outs it on for sports, then leaves it on and it annoys the shit out or me when I watch movies at his place.

 

[iMax]

That's because TV companies want you to use all that shit they switch on by default: dynamic contrast, motion enhancers, image reproduction, etc...

Game mode reduces latency because the image processor doesn't have to do all that stuff. They say it worsens image quality because they actually think all that stuff is good—and if they said otherwise, it would undermine those features completely.

In fact, if you want your display to recreate a source image as it was intended to be viewed—whether it be a movie or a game—you should be using game mode.

 

[Audioboxer]

That's because TV companies want you to use all that shit they switch on by default: dynamic contrast, motion enhancers, image reproduction, etc...

Game mode reduces latency because the image processor doesn't have to do all that stuff. They say it worsens image quality because they actually think all that stuff is good—and if they said otherwise, it would undermine those features completely.

In fact, if you want your display to recreate a source image as it was intended to be viewed—whether it be a movie or a game—you should be using game mode.

For movies you'd be best in expert, pro, custom or whatever your TV calls it. Sometimes game mode can turn off some advanced calibration settings that can still be useful in tweaking for movies and video.

However if you watch movies on your PS4 you can just leave it in game mode and make sure it's calibrated well. A lot of people do have a movie calibration setting to change to even on the PS4 input. It would just require remembering to switch when you jump between games and movies.

I use my Nvidia Shield TV for video content and it's obviously on another input source so I don't need to do any switching on the fly. PS4 is solely for game use now.

 

[laxu]

A reference-quality picture doesn't sell TVs in brightly-lit Best Buys though.

But apparently SD quality TV broadcast with overblown demo settings somehow does.

 

[Sanctuary]

In fact, if you want your display to recreate a source image as it was intended to be viewed—whether it be a movie or a game—you should be using game mode.

Not exactly. Unless your Game Mode still allows you to adjust 2pt and 20pt levels as well as black level high/low (if hooked up to a PC) and pretty much every other feature you would want to adjust out of the box.
Once LG releases the firmware for HDR Game Mode on my B6, I'll be using that for games that have HDR, but otherwise I'll stick with ISF Dark.

 

[Always-honest]

To this day, I still don't understand the point of almost any of the post-processing effects that come on modern TVs. They make the picture look subjectively worse in almost all cases, or at best improve one aspect while degrading another.

I agree. First thing i do when i buy a new screen is turn all that shit off.

 

[JudgmentJay]

But apparently SD quality TV broadcast with overblown demo settings somehow does.

This is the world we've chosen.

 

[Metfanant]

Most new TVs allow more tweaking in game mode than they used to, which allows you to set more things to your liking...There was a time not that long ago when game mode often locked out quite a few settings that could not be tweaked at all...There will still likely be some things you can't touch when you pick game mode, even on newer sets...

 

[iMax]

For movies you'd be best in expert, pro, custom or whatever your TV calls it. Sometimes game mode can turn off some advanced calibration settings that can still be useful in tweaking for movies and video.

However if you watch movies on your PS4 you can just leave it in game mode and make sure it's calibrated well. A lot of people do have a movie calibration setting to change to even on the PS4 input. It would just require remembering to switch when you jump between games and movies.

I use my Nvidia Shield TV for video content and it's obviously on another input source so I don't need to do any switching on the fly. PS4 is solely for game use now.

Not exactly. Unless your Game Mode still allows you to adjust 2pt and 20pt levels as well as black level high/low (if hooked up to a PC) and pretty much every other feature you would want to adjust out of the box.
Once LG releases the firmware for HDR Game Mode on my B6, I'll be using that for games that have HDR, but otherwise I'll stick with ISF Dark.

Strange, my Panasonic VT60 doesn't disable any of those controls. In fact, I use THX mode and Game Mode concurrently without a problem. If TV's today restrict in the ways you say, that's pretty awful design.

 

[shockdude]

I got a Vizio D50-D1 over Black Friday weekend and am loving it. 1080p, cheap, adequate 26.5ms input lag, zero soap opera settings.

 

[MorshuTheTrader]

I don't know about TV's, but when I turn on "Low Input Lag" mode on my monitor, it adds very noticeable ghosting. The monitor has low input lag to begin with, so I just leave it off. TV's may be different though.

 

[KORNdoggy]

The post processing on TVs usually make things look worse anyway. So a game mode that switched that shit to "off" is offering a better image quality AND lower input lag.

Game mode is win/win unless you really like that wishy washy TV soap opera visuals in your games?

 

[Muzicfreq]

For some reason when I turn sharpness down it fuzzifies my TV to a blurry mess. With it up it makes 900p hard to tell from 1080p and looks correct.

My TV doesn't have a game mode though

 

[eXistor]

The trade-off in image quality is small and it makes games actually playable so it's an easy choice for me.

 

[TyMiles2012]

I see no impact. I spent a long time calibrating the picture settings and had "Game Low Latency" on.

Vizio M55-C2

 

[arhra]

For some reason when I turn sharpness down it fuzzifies my TV to a blurry mess. With it up it makes 900p hard to tell from 1080p and looks correct.

My TV doesn't have a game mode though

Some displays have a sharpness control that just adds sharpening as you turn it up, with the zero point being the untouched input.

Others have the untouched input be somewhere in the middle of the scale, with the low-end actually actively blurring the image, and the high end adding sharpening (the Dell monitor I use on my PC has the zero point be at 40/100, for example).

Sounds like your TV is of the latter variety. I'd recommend checking out a calibration image on it and make sure you've got it set correctly.

 

[SpookyBlackFish]

Hm, I own an older Panasonic Plasma, the TX P42V10E, full HD panel. In my opinion, it has an excellent game mode. Colour saturation and contrast always seems to be quite right. No matter if I play rather dark and gritty games or colourful ones. Black levels could be better, but it's still good.

I played around with all the settings in other modes quite a lot and no matter how hard I tried, none of my settings came close to the out of the box game mode on this TV. No, I really like it!

 

[Steve McQueen]

Depends on your tv. Gamemode on my Samsung is awful. Gamemode on my even older Bravia is doing a great job.

 

[Garnox]

There is on my Panasonic projector, but it is a projector and it's from 2012 soooooo can't really complain about a solid 1080p 106" screen for a slight darkening of color.

 

[x3sphere]

Game mode on my LG OLED looks fine. The color temp is overly cool by default but after changing it to a warmer setting it looks quite close to ISF mode. I still use regular ISF mode outside of HDR though, as the input lag doesn't bother me.

 

[-Mutsukki-]

Must really suck to have one of those TVs. Every single one that I've ever messed with that has it was easy to shut off in most of the modes a person would want to use.
/shrug

Some modes like "Cinema" might have something called Real Cinema enabled, and in that case you can't disable it. However, you may as well just use something like ISF Dark/Theater/Night instead since you can get the same picture quality and even more refinements anyway. About the only reason to bother with the Real Cinema (or equivalent) feature is if you're getting serious judder problems while watching 24fps content. You could just alternatively adjust True Motion for somewhat similar results.

I've since discovered the wonder that is PC mode on my TV, so I guess there are better options and ways to disable processing without using game mode specifically

 

[lowhighkang_LHK]

Since everything is delivered through digital connections these years, I don't see a point to any post processing in TV's anymore. No matter if its TV, Blu-ray films. games etc. Digital media should be delivered as it comes, unaltered, and thus as fast as possible. Bit for bit, pixel for pixel.

Post processing on digital content makes it look worse.

Is there any analog devices still used widespread that need the picture to be post processed these days?

Will TV manufacturers ever get rid of it? It will save them some money hah.

Most TV manufacturers still overscan by default. Like they give two fucks about image quality on their own fucking TV's....so stupid.

Also, I think on the new LG OLED's 4K, you can not get 444 Chroma on game mode. And that's not "post-processing" bullshit. That's something that you want. Correct me if I'm wrong if anyone has those OLED's. But that's what I heard.

 

[lowhighkang_LHK]

The only effect it has is disabling the post-processing that adds the lag in the first place. There isn't any actual degradation of picture quality occurring.

This isn't actually true, at least for some TV's.

You have to remember that the TV has to internalize/process/compute/display a digital signal being sent from your console/PC.

This computation to accurately present an accurate image takes time. Hence where a certain amount of lag comes in. Physics alone prevents 0.0ms input time for example. Even the best, fastest TN panels have some input lag.

So think of it as a linear line: (this is a crude analogy but I think it gets the point across)

Point 0 (no image processed) ------------- Point 1 (accurate image processed) ---------- Point 2 (image that has been processed accurately with additional unneeded post processed stuff)

On crap TV's with crap game mode, the TV's trying to put out the image as fast as possible and thus puts it out some where in between Point 0 and Point 1. Which is why despite any amount of calibration, game mode always looks worse.

Good TV's, Sony Bravia's have a very nice game mode, get pretty damn close to Point 1. To where with calibration, there is no visual difference at all to the human eye.

My Sony Bravia X800D (4k+HDR) does 4k, HDR, and/or Chroma 444 (RGB) at around 30 ms. That's not the greatest, but pretty damn good especially with 444 enhanced HDMI activated.

 

[x3sphere]

Most TV manufacturers still overscan by default. Like they give two fucks about image quality on their own fucking TV's....so stupid.

Also, I think on the new LG OLED's 4K, you can not get 444 Chroma on game mode. And that's not "post-processing" bullshit. That's something that you want. Correct me if I'm wrong if anyone has those OLED's. But that's what I heard.

Chroma 444 works fine on my C6 OLED, even in Game mode. You cannot get 10bit + HDR with 444 though, but that is true for every TV on the market at the moment. Limitation of HDMI 2.0.

 

[oneils]

The Sony Bravia I am using looks more or less similar to the Cinema Mode on Game Mode.

I just calibrated the settings to make it look better. I probably added a few ms of input lag, but you don't notice it.

Yeah, I have one too. I was really surprised how well you can get the game mode looking. Although, it took me forever to figure out that you switch to game mode by going to "scene select." \facepalm

 

[REDSLATE]

It shouldn't make the picture "worse..." It's just turning off post-processing and other effects. It might not "appeal" to you as much, but you'll actually be viewing the picture as intended, and be getting a much 'truer' experience because of it.

 

[Popsickles]

You can't do ISF calibration in game mode.

You can on Panasonic TV's. Game mode can be engaged on any of the picture options including custom and cinema modes.

 

[Unknown?]

Wouldn't custom with options turned off be pretty much the exact same thing as game mode? My X800D with tweaking will look pretty much the same in both.

 

[bobawesome]

Really? TruMotion or whatever that shit is, is the worst garbage I have seen ever.

I want this beautifully shot film to look like a reality show! Awesome!

Ah, Korean soap opera mode.

 

[prudislav]

delete