Oh well, back to P3D 1.4 while waiting for P3D 2.5.

 

Why?.. when the rest of 2.4's features make 1.4 look like an antique, and it has bugs of its own, that will never be fixed. You still get terrain shading even if the casting shadows are off, so I fail to see how this is such a deal breaker

Why?.. when the rest of 2.4's features make 1.4 look like an antique, and it has bugs of its own, that will never be fixed. You still get terrain shading even if the casting shadows are off, so I fail to see how this is such a deal breaker

+1

Spirit

...if a little hard edged.

 

Have you tried to set a lower resolution in:

 

GROUND_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=2048

 

This could help. I remember Rob made a video once with lower texture

sizes and the shadow edges looked more faded.

 

 

Have you tried to set a lower resolution in:

 

Hi and thanks Gerrit... yes, I have tried running them at 1024, and for the most part that is fine, and does help soften the edges. It does introduce some crawling or flicker as a downside, but its not too bad.

I have noticed the same issue with terrain shadows.  As others have indicated, if one turns off the cloud shadows the terrain shadows stop flickering.  So, for me, I have turned off the terrain shadows for now.  I like the effect of the cloud shadows better than the terrain shadows.  Other than that small issue I am very pleased with the progress in v2.4.  Software development is a process and LM is listening, learning, and responding.  All very good for the sim community.

 

Danny

 

 

All very good for the sim community.

+1

Spirit

I have two graphics config files saved, one for daytime, and one for dawn and dusk. During the day I have cloud shadows on, with terrain off, and for morning/evening I have cloud shadows off and terrain on. I like the play of light across the terrain when the sun is low, and the terrain casting shadows will put Autogen in the shade if you tick the receive boxes, which looks great... in the evening cloud shadows tend to make everything too gloomy, so this works for me, and I find it balances performance better too.

Why?.. when the rest of 2.4's features make 1.4 look like an antique, and it has bugs of its own, that will never be fixed. You still get terrain shading even if the casting shadows are off, so I fail to see how this is such a deal breaker

 

For me, it is a deal breaker. FSX and P3D 1.4 have terrain shadows. They are calculated by the CPU and take a while to redraw when you change the time of day but at least they're there. I don't want to invest time and money (for P3D-versions of add-ons) until version 2 has stabilized somewhat. Right now they just seem to be playing whack-a-mole with the bug fixing.

 

I hope at least this time they have the sense to release a hotfix rather than force everyone to wait for 2.5.

I get weird black flashes with terrain shadows enabled. Just sitting in the cockpit and panning around I see them.

 

 

For me, it is a deal breaker. FSX and P3D 1.4 have terrain shadows.

 

Turn cloud shadows off then, as it seems to be only an issue when running both, and then you still get better visuals than 1.4/FSX. Terrain shadows only really come into play when the sun is low, so I switch cloud shadows off if flying during those TOD's...

 

I like terrain shadows too, but would not give up all the other stuff because of them.

 

But, you know, each to their own :smile:

As long as P3D remains 32bit, it will remain plagued with problems, and users will always have to turn settings off or cut back on the sliders to avoid the problems that P3D is plagued with.

 

I will pop some popcorn and enjoy the circus until some real progress is made.   

As long as P3D remains 32bit, it will remain plagued with problems, and users will always have to turn settings off or cut back on the sliders to avoid the problems that P3D is plagued with.

 

I doubt these problems have anything to do with 32bit v 64bit but are simply bugs or code that needs refinement.

 

No circus here, apart from the constant round of silly comments, and useless posts that plague this place.

As long as P3D remains 32bit, it will remain plagued with problems, and users will always have to turn settings off or cut back on the sliders to avoid the problems that P3D is plagued with.

 

I will pop some popcorn and enjoy the circus until some real progress is made.   

 

Since when does 32-bit cause bugs?

This issue has nothing to do with 32-bit. It's caused by a few typos in the shader code.

 

I've had a look at the shader files - in 2.3 there are many references to "SHD_GPU_DEM_SHADOWS". In 2.4, those have been replaced by "SHD_TERRAIN_SHADOWS".

 

This matches what a P3D developer posted on the official P3D forums - They were changing some variable names and forgot to change a few of them in 2.3, causing the shadow bugs. Obviously they've changed them in a few more places in 2.4 but they must have missed a few.  There has to be some references to old, renamed variables somewhere in the code. Someone who knows HLSL could probably find and correct the issues quite easily. It's a simple programming mistake that has already cost them one point release.

If it's matter of fixing a few typos, then a hotfix can easily fix terrain shadows for good.