I've been testing this for a couple of weeks now and I must say it does make a nice difference.  I've not seen any negligible performance issues either.   Worth a shot to try ... 

 

I have used 6144 for about three years actually (basically 6k shadows), and it is even better, and still no performance hit even on my old 1080Ti I had then. I don't know why he didn't try this in the video.
I did find going higher than 6144 the odd frame did start to drop off, but it isn't needed, as even at a 4k screen resolution, 8182 (8k shadows) didn't add anything more than 6144. 
Note that a few shadows are immune to this adjustment as still show the feathered edge / flickering, not sure why, but it isn't many.

I don't know why all people don't use this, and the small app from fs.to to stop the top icon bar popping up every time you move the mouse; that's a good one as well.

Edited February 20, 20242 yr by bobcat999

I've been using 6144 for maybe a year, thanks to Bob's suggestion. Looks terrific with no negative impact. 

Thx guys - I'll try 6144 today as well.  

20 minutes ago, Tony P said:

Thx guys - I'll try 6144 today as well.  

It depends on your screen resolution Tony, but I found at 4k screen resolution, the 4096 shadows still looked a bit too soft-edged.  At lower screen resolutions, it might be alright.
In any case, 6144 won't hurt at any screen resolution.  But either 4096 or 6144, it all good and definitely an improvement.  

Edited February 20, 20242 yr by bobcat999

Good find, I like the 4096 setting, it's a good compromise because I don't like razor sharp shadows.

If theres no performance hit then that could signal a major shadow coding issue within the game, as in the Sim could be calculating for 4k even on the lowest setting meaning there could be a wealth of performance going AWOL!

Every single other simulation or game I've ever played has taken a hit when increasing shadows, especially cockpit based simulations, so I find this very intriguing.

2 hours ago, bobcat999 said:

I have used 6144 for about three years actually (basically 6k shadows), and it is even better, and still no performance hit even on my old 1080Ti I had then. I don't know why he didn't try this in the video.

Yup been doing this for a couple of years as well

Thanks to the OP.   I must have missed this one first time around.   Made the change to 4096 and a vast improvement.   Then tried Bob's suggestion and et voila!  Even better results at 6k.

Happy days.

Edited February 20, 20242 yr by JYW

1 minute ago, JYW said:

Thanks to the OP.   I must have missed this one first time around.   Made the change to 4096 and a vast improvement.   Then tried Bob's suggestion and et voila!  Even better results at 6k.

Happy days.

Good to know Bill.  8k is possible without a performance hit with a top end GPU, but I don't like 8k anyway.  I know it sounds strange, but at 8k, they look too sharp and razor edged - unrealistic.

3 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

at 8k, they look too sharp and razor edged - unrealistic

Yes - the 'cut out with scissors and stuck on' look! 😄

6 minutes ago, JYW said:

Yes - the 'cut out with scissors and stuck on' look! 😄

That's it! 

Thought I'd take a closer look and well...yeah, practically zero difference between lowest and 4k 🤨 certainly makes you wonder "why?".

Benchmark as ever done in VR, even had to double check the actual image and yes I can easily tell the difference between 768 and 4k(!), makes you wonder what other settings have zero affect on performance "why?" that would be, just doesn't seem right to me that such a performance hogging setting such as Shadows makes zero difference 🤔


I mean it's great and all, nice sharp shadows for no loss of FPS.

ok 8k and a slight loss of FPS (still not as dramatic as I would think it should be!) and after the benchmark I looked around a bit and saw some graphical glitches in the shadows, personally 2048 is just fine for my needs so I'll stick it on that.

@MarcG Thanks for that.  It backs up exactly my experience, for which I didn't really have any evidence except for glancing at the in sim fps counter, where I started to see the slightest drop off at 8k on my old 1080Ti card.

Not seen any graphical glitches at 6144.  What did they look like?

PS. What software is that?