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Is something wrong with my TV or do a lot of 360 games have dithering issues?

post #1 of 15
9/20/09 at 12:53pm
Thread Starter 
After a recent move I have my gaming area setup so I'm sitting a lot closer to my TV than I used to and ever since I've noticed a lot of dithering in shadow areas in a number of games. Most noticeably in Farcry 2 and Mass Effect, two titles that I decided I'd give second playthroughs after the move.

It could be that I'm sitting closer to the TV than I used to but I never noticed any of this in the past. In Farcry 2 every shadow looks like it's coming through a screen door and it's really distracting. Mass Effect isn't as bad but shadows on people's faces look more like bunch of black dots than actual shadows.

Is this a common thing in 360 games that I just never noticed before or is my TV having image processing issues?

It's also worth noting that I started installing my games to my HDD whereas before I didn't. I wouldn't think that would effect anything but I guess it's prudent to look at all variables.
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post #2 of 15
9/20/09 at 1:04pm
i noticed this pretty bad in mass effect... not to much in most other games though, i dont think anything is wrong with your tv.... if you have a sharpness control it may be cranked up too high.
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post #3 of 15
9/20/09 at 3:43pm
Far Cry 2's shadow filtering is done using a technique (I can't remember the name) that isn't available on the 360 GPU. So there is none. That's why it looks like that - it doesn't on PC and PS3.
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post #4 of 15
9/20/09 at 3:44pm
Mass Effect definitely has shadowing issues, even on PC. The PC version allows you to turn off dynamic shadows, I'm guessing the 360 does not.
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post #5 of 15
9/20/09 at 5:27pm
even a cheap Plasma TV will solve your Dithering or color banding issues.
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post #6 of 15
9/20/09 at 8:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ice Cold View Post

even a cheap Plasma TV will solve your Dithering or color banding issues.

Not true if it's embedded in the source.
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post #7 of 15
9/21/09 at 4:32am
Quote:
Originally Posted by PvtChurch View Post

It's also worth noting that I started installing my games to my HDD whereas before I didn't. I wouldn't think that would effect anything but I guess it's prudent to look at all variables.

While just about every single 360 owner seems to be singing the praises of reduced HD installs, I've noticed a few bugs with it. I had previously installed L4D with no problems whatsoever and now w/out the filler data it's introduced a few problems here and there. Shaky cams during gameplay and a few graphical anomalies. I suggest running the game off the disc.
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post #8 of 15
9/21/09 at 4:55am
Mass Effect has a film grain filter on by default to make it look "movie-like".
I switched it off after 5 minutes.
Never seen dithering anywhere else.
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post #9 of 15
9/21/09 at 9:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres View Post

Mass Effect has a film grain filter on by default to make it look "movie-like".
I switched it off after 5 minutes.
Never seen dithering anywhere else.

look close at all of the shadowing.... i never played with film mode on, but all of the shadows look like a screen door.
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post #10 of 15
9/21/09 at 12:34pm
Mass Effect has two different crappy visual settings:

Vignetting
Film Mode / Film Grain

Both of them are on by default, so if you don't explicitly turn them off, you may find that it appears graphically lousy, yes. You should definitely turn these off and see if it improves things.
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post #11 of 15
9/21/09 at 12:42pm
and again, neither of those have anything to do with the shadow dithering.
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post #12 of 15
9/21/09 at 1:54pm
Hey Formula, did you know that there is a film grain setting in Mass Effect? That will totally fix the problem, right?
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post #13 of 15
9/21/09 at 2:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by darklordjames View Post

Hey Formula, did you know that there is a film grain setting in Mass Effect? That will totally fix the problem, right?

aww crap.... that's been my problem the whole time.... why didn't anyone just go right out and tell me to begin with? that would have saved a lot of time and headache.





on a serious note, i liked the vignetting, and while i didn't mind the film grain at all, i preferred to play with it off... i'm not sure why they chose to shadow the way they did, but for me it was only noticeable up close... The "problem" is well documented, and from what i've read, PC users can tweak settings and INI files to get the shadows to look much better, as long as you have the horsepower to run with increased shadow depth and such.... definitely an engine drawback, and probably not much you can do for the 360.
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post #14 of 15
9/22/09 at 6:26am
Shadows tend to look dithered in many on the 360 (see GTA4 for example). Obviously there is some architectural limitation, because dithered shadows appear in so many games. Most likely the 360 can do better shadows, but there must is a performance penalty to be paid when doing so.
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post #15 of 15
9/22/09 at 11:29am
I like the film grain.

Also whether you like it or not one thing it will do is hide banding.

And also make textures appear slightly sharper.
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