Help: What do YOUR shadows look like??

spatialpro

spatialpro

Charter Member
I'm using Prepar3D v2.2. From the VC my buildings, trees, AI and apparently all other objects cast shadows but they are blurred, especially around the edges, and they dance around, appearing to "shimmer". This is most distracting and unrealistic. Ultimately I'd like to prevent it happening and I don't know what to do (I've tried many things). But first, I'd like to establish if others are seeing the same thing, or whether it is just me and my system. So, I'd be extremely grateful if you could post here to let me know if you experience the same thing??

Here are some examples...

This is what I see from the VC (not just from this Westland Whirlind helicopter, but also from the VC of other aircraft. Note the edges of the shadows under the big white Vulcan aircraft are very blurred and if this were a video you'd also see them shimmering. The same thing occurs with any kind of object (buildings, trees, cars etc)

Shimmering shadows seen from VC by Andy L.J. Ford, on Flickr

Interestingly when I view the same object and its shadows externally they appear very sharp (like they should be)...!

Crisp shadows seen externally by Andy L.J. Ford, on Flickr

Even more interesting is that when I'm back in the VC, but taxi very close to the object the shadow starts to go from blurred to sharp, as shown in this screenshot. Note the sharp shadow in the foreground and the blurred shadow in the background.

Shimmering and crisp shadows seen from VC by Andy L.J. Ford, on Flickr

I'm using an nVidia GeForce GTX 780 with 3Gb and driver version 335.23.

I cleared the driver cache, but nothing changed.

I then did a complete delete and reinstall of Prepar3D v2.2. The uninstall included the deletion of the following:


  • %PROGRAMDATA%\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v2
  • %LOCALAPPDATA%\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v2
  • %APPDATA%\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v2
  • %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Prepar3D v2 Files

After the fresh install of Prepar3D I'm very disappointed to find nothing has changed. So, my second question is, does anyone know how to fix it (or just what is going wrong in the first place)??

It seems that increasing the Shadow Map Count goes a long way to improving things (increases the refresh rate and makes the shadow edges more defined), but the shadow edges still shimmer (just faster!), there is a big FPS hit and I don't see why I should need to use this if the shadows work just fine in external views.

Many thanks for taking the time to read this and extra special thanks if you post here to say whether you see the same thing. :applause:

Andy
 
I never got past the jagged saw toothed shadows so I turned shadows off completely along with HDR lighting and so on and so on. Eventually I figured there was no point and went back to FSX :encouragement:
 
What do the shadows look like on default objects?

I just went to KLAX and turned traffic up to 100% to get some AI planes (default) to show. Shadows were sharp for both the jetways and the aircraft.

I'd also be curious what screen % you are using, as there starts to be "things" when you're at .30 or in that range.

You could (?) also have issues if what you are trying to have drawn with shadows are objects placed with a NoShadow tag. Then (I would think) you have P3D trying to read the MDL and make up shadows for it in real time.
 
I'll say something in here since I am having an issue related to the shadows.

I have some odd shadow "banding" going on. when I'm in the external view and I move the camera about a little bit, the shadows tend to appear and disappear, but not flicker, they seem to be rendered in strips or bands relative to the viewing angle. I'll have to do a little more testing, to figure out if it's the scenery I'm flying over (the FSX Vietnam war project scenery) or what.
It tends to make the frames stutter (relatively smooth otherwise with all the shadows rendered) and it kills immersion big time. pic included.
shadowbanding.jpg
you can see where it just cuts off. I've tried just about everything and I'm baffled
 
It's on the ground, you can clearly see the line where there are shadows and there are not, I just put the circle in for clarification sake. It goes all the way across the screen there
 
Double J said:
I never got past the jagged saw toothed shadows so I turned shadows off completely along with HDR lighting and so on and so on. Eventually I figured there was no point and went back to FSX :encouragement:
Click to expand...

I agree exactly my experience too !!!!! GOODBYE P3D!
encouragement.png
encouragement.png


What a waste of time that was!! Uninstalled. Kept waiting for issues to be fixed...

Actually FSX + Steve's Dx10 fixer plus the latest Nvidia drivers = perfection.
 
Last edited:
SH427 said:
I'll say something in here since I am having an issue related to the shadows.

I have some odd shadow "banding" going on. when I'm in the external view and I move the camera about a little bit, the shadows tend to appear and disappear, but not flicker, they seem to be rendered in strips or bands relative to the viewing angle. I'll have to do a little more testing, to figure out if it's the scenery I'm flying over (the FSX Vietnam war project scenery) or what.
It tends to make the frames stutter (relatively smooth otherwise with all the shadows rendered) and it kills immersion big time. pic included.

you can see where it just cuts off. I've tried just about everything and I'm baffled
Click to expand...

Had exactly the same problem with P3D V2.2. Not only did any cloud/terrain shadowing turn the sim into a stutter monster the shadowing kept flickering on and off, disappearing and reappearing. So now I'm back on FSX DX10. Got a refund for P3D. I'm not paying to be a beta tester grrrr :p

With regards to the original poster - have you turned the shadow quality up in the settings? Just a thought..

Regards

Adam
 
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