Cockpit shadows are awesome - have a question about textures

[N1G 88]

I turned the shadows on at some point back and it was such a hit I turned it off. I just tried the 3d cockpit shadows and Wow what an immersion factor! It came with a small price but worth it.

I am still struggling with the sides of some of the smaller buildings flickering and thought it was GPU exhaustion, but I dropped everything way down and still have it. Not sure if it is a driver issue or not. I have a 570 with a driver that was released in the last couple of months. I stopped updating drivers with FSX as I saw no real change. Anyone have this same issue?

 

Bob

[JasonHarris 96]

I might try the shadows then.   I use them in DCS and there isnt a hit that I know of but it makes things so much better,  its amazing turning and seeing the shadows go over your instruments.

 

    It's not really something you pay attention to but the effect really adds to making you think you are there.

[N1G 88]

I might try the shadows then.   I use them in DCS and there isnt a hit that I know of but it makes things so much better,  its amazing turning and seeing the shadows go over your instruments.

 

    It's not really something you pay attention to but the effect really adds to making you think you are there.

 

Oh yes it sure does. I have messed with flight simulators for a couple of decades and the cocpit shadows were never there in the older sims, and it is a nice touch indeed. I was really amazed at the coding aspect of this  as it really probably had them scratching their heads for quite awhile getting it to work and be convincing. The logic of how those shadows should be cast, based on your postion and angle. Really an amazing coding job.

 

Bob

[starflight 8]

One problem with shadows is if you have XP running a multiscreen setup or if you run under a very wide window. The shadows then get very splotchy and blocky, which just kills the immersion that those shadows are supposed to improve in the first place.

[JasonHarris 96]

you are right, I turned them on and they are very undefined and blocky for triple screen. I started up in one airport in the default baron and frames were 53 at 5800x1080.

 

Shadows were on static, I changed to 3d cockpit shadows and frames went down to around 34 so there is a big hit on them too.

[N1G 88]

So both you fellas are running XP? I am Win7 with a 2600 oc'd to 4.2 and the hit was minimal.

 

Bob

[starflight 8]

XP in this context means X-Plane. I'm running under Win7 64-bit, i7 3770K oc'd to 4.1 GHz, 16 GB RAM, GTX 670 4GB. There's some fps hit for sure with global shadows at max, but my gripe isn't over speed, it's the poor visual quality of shadows on multiscreen configuration.

 

I think whatever's behind the splotchy blocky shadows is also stretching the stars at night on multiscreen setups so they're splotchy ovals instead of nice and round.

 

To your question about flickering sides of buildings: I also get that for buildings and roads if I'm zooming in from far away, and for some older 3rd party v9 scenery that I haven't bothered debugging yet.

[N1G 88]

XP in this context means X-Plane. I'm running under Win7 64-bit, i7 3770K oc'd to 4.1 GHz, 16 GB RAM, GTX 670 4GB. There's some fps hit for sure with global shadows at max, but my gripe isn't over speed, it's the poor visual quality of shadows on multiscreen configuration.

 

I think whatever's behind the splotchy blocky shadows is also stretching the stars at night on multiscreen setups so they're splotchy ovals instead of nice and round.

 

To your question about flickering sides of buildings: I also get that for buildings and roads if I'm zooming in from far away, and for some older 3rd party v9 scenery that I haven't bothered debugging yet.

 

Not sure what you mean "XP in this context means X-Plane". This is the X-Plane forum, so in this context it would seem logical that XP means Windows XP. Well I am not zooming in and not using v9 scenery. It can be a whole group of buildings. It is one whole side of the building and when it shifts like that the color of the building goes from a dark brown to a light brown. It is almost like the skin of the building comes and goes.

 

Bob

[starflight 8]

Actually IMHO the very fact this is an X-Plane (sub-)forum means XP should be shorthand for X-Plane first (as opposed to "the sim" or "X-P"), and references for the older operating system should be WinXP.

 

We seem to be describing the same visual problem. I've not had that happen with autogen buildings at non-zoomed views though.

[N1G 88]

Actually IMHO the very fact this is an X-Plane (sub-)forum means XP should be shorthand for X-Plane first (as opposed to "the sim" or "X-P"), and references for the older operating system should be WinXP.

 

We seem to be describing the same visual problem. I've not had that happen with autogen buildings at non-zoomed views though.

LOL - This is what makes the world go round. Everyone is going to a different beat of the drum. Well X-plane really should be xpx in order to clarify what version of XP we are discussing. Ah huh. Gotcha . Semantics can really screw things up. Ok, no more talk about XP. I am not sure what to try. It would not be an Anisio issue do you think? In FSX I only had that issues at some airports, KSEA as an example had one building area where this happens to me and it has never gone away.

 

Bob

[JasonHarris 96]

The machine I tried it on, the closest one to me but not my regular FS machine was win 7 64 bit, 16 gigs ram, ati 6970, i5 ivy @4.5

 

    Also it wasnt the speed so much that was annoying because 35fops is still OK, it was that the shadows were no longer useful.   putting xpx on one screen not three meant the shadows were great.