Shadow Flickers?

[RoyEP3 0]

Can you guys tell me why I have flickering shadows?  I am running Prepar3d v3.1 with a 980Ti latest drivers.  Nothing has been modified in the Prepar3d.cfg.  

 

It seems that the shadows have pretty bad flicker unless zoomed in at 0.50 and beyond.  I've already tried reinstalling Prepar3d and Nvidia drivers.  I've lowered the graphic settings in Prepar3d as well and the flickers still persist, just at a lower quality.  Is this just a V3.1 issue?  Graphic settings are at the end of the video.

 

(flickering is worst at the beginning of the video)

[TurboTomato 90]

I get shadow flickering on pretty much anything but scenery and internal aircraft shadows, so I turn them off. Nvidia 780. Been like that for a while though.

[RoyEP3 0]

That's really unfortunate.  We take the time to build an expensive flight sim rig for high end graphics, only to have to turn off shadows.  Anyone else with success on fixing this shadow issue?

[ca_metal 2,015]

There´s no fix, It´s the way they are. 

Prepar3d forums have some complains about this issue. 

[Guest]

I think that mostly has to do with ground shadow resolution. But the flicker in that water tower shadow looks more like z-fighting.

 

this is the line in the prepar3d.cfg for ground shadow texture resolution:

GROUND_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=512

 

Mine is set to 512 because if you increase it its hard on performance.

 

Having said that I have on occasion increased it as high as 8192

with great results. However, you better already be flying over scenery

that isn't hungry in a lite aircraft :-)

[Guest]

 

 

But the flicker in that water tower shadow looks more like z-fighting.

 

Try 1m mesh, that seemed to cure that issue for me.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[Paul Golding 92]

So if you use the correct zoom in the VC, there's no flickering?  Or is there a reason to no longer use the wideview setting and zoom at 1.00?  I'd have thought you'd be getting some serious zoomed out tunnel vision going on with a zoom as low as 0.4 (or for that matter 0.5,.0.6, 0.7)

[Guest]

I have it every now and then at mountain and hill slopes in the distance. Quite annoying. I don't seem to have it all then time but perhaps that is due to the time of day (If a hill has no shadows they obviously won't flicker). I have this since 3.0.

 

I btw use the wide view aspect and a zoom of 0.7.

[SteveW 1,792]

I use this:

 

SHADOW_NUM_CASCADES_LOW=4

SHADOW_NUM_CASCADES_MID=4

SHADOW_NUM_CASCADES_HIGH=4

SHADOW_NUM_CASCADES_ULTRA=4

GROUND_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=4096

 

A typical scenario I get 55fps average - good shadows.

Tested a lot of scenarios, examples:

 

SHADOW_NUM_CASCADES_ULTRA=6

GROUND_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=4096

Same scenario I get 47fps average - best shadows in group - 1 second dip in trace during startup

 

SHADOW_NUM_CASCADES_ULTRA=6

GROUND_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=2048

Same scenario I get 51fps average - poorest shadows

 

SHADOW_NUM_CASCADES_ULTRA=12

GROUND_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=2048

Same scenario I get 33fps average - average shadows

[Guest]

I use this:

 

SHADOW_NUM_CASCADES_LOW=4

SHADOW_NUM_CASCADES_MID=4

SHADOW_NUM_CASCADES_HIGH=4

SHADOW_NUM_CASCADES_ULTRA=4

GROUND_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=4096

 

A typical scenario I get 55fps average - good shadows.

Tested a lot of scenarios, examples:

 

SHADOW_NUM_CASCADES_ULTRA=6

GROUND_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=4096

Same scenario I get 47fps average - best shadows in group - 1 second dip in trace during startup

 

SHADOW_NUM_CASCADES_ULTRA=6

GROUND_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=2048

Same scenario I get 51fps average - poorest shadows

 

SHADOW_NUM_CASCADES_ULTRA=12

GROUND_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=2048

Same scenario I get 33fps average - average shadows

 

Interesting. So you sort of divided the in game shadow quality setting into two settings: you now use the 'in game' LOW setting for CASCADE setting but the 'in game' HIGH (or ULTRA) setting for TEXTURE SIZE. Nice. So even with P3D the cfg stays an interesting file... :wink:

[Guest]

Steve,

 

What are your FPS like during sunsets or dawn when your aircraft is within a shadow cast (i.e. your aircraft is behind a building shadow)?  I haven't tested this scenario in V3 yet, but in V2.x I saw close to 60% FPS drop with anything >2048.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[SteveW 1,792]

That test scenario was extreme with heavy settings to produce lots of shadows. A more responsible setup produce 70+fps normally on that PC. Was late evening all in low flight for good shadows viewing. I find keeping the cascade count below 7 is key to good memory and fps. I'll check out some more extreme setups.

[RancidViper 37]

On 13/01/2016 at 2:22 AM, SteveW said:

I use this:

 

SHADOW_NUM_CASCADES_LOW=4

SHADOW_NUM_CASCADES_MID=4

SHADOW_NUM_CASCADES_HIGH=4

SHADOW_NUM_CASCADES_ULTRA=4

GROUND_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=4096

 

A typical scenario I get 55fps average - good shadows.

Tested a lot of scenarios, examples:

 

SHADOW_NUM_CASCADES_ULTRA=6

GROUND_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=4096

Same scenario I get 47fps average - best shadows in group - 1 second dip in trace during startup

 

SHADOW_NUM_CASCADES_ULTRA=6

GROUND_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=2048

Same scenario I get 51fps average - poorest shadows

 

SHADOW_NUM_CASCADES_ULTRA=12

GROUND_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=2048

Same scenario I get 33fps average - average shadows

 

Sorry to revive this old monster, but this issue is still prevelant in v4 as well. I have tried the suggestions Steve has made, and v4 already has higher settings by default, but nothing I do seems to get rid of the horrible flickering effect..

[captain420 3,099]

I still get flickiering clouds as well... not sure how to fix it. Looks bad.

[RancidViper 37]

Clouds seem to be fine for me. It's mainly the vegetation casting. And sometimes the building casting. These two always have really bad flickering. I've tried all of SteveW's suggestions and tried different resolutions, nothing seems to work! :(