Hi

I confess that I have been generally using 'the other one' mostly over the last year or so, but I have a real soft spot for X-plane, having starting in flight sim VR with XP11 and using that happily for a number of years.  But, for all the great improvements over that time, shadow 'jaggies' in the cockpit were always its weak point.

And, when first released, I had high expectations of XP12.  And in many ways, it is very very good and so I come back to it every now and again.  And today, with the latest update 12.4 I've just been for a flight in the Boeing 737 and like a LOT of the visuals (and the superb 'feel' of flying a big jet which was, to me, always X-plane's forte).  But - with my present settings - the in-cockpit shadows are absolutely as bad as in XP11 ten years ago! 

I am very comfortable to mess around with settings etc - can anyone point me to which is the best place to start in terms of improving the shadows from flickering sharks' teeth to something less distracting?

 

Any and all suggestions would be gratefully received   

Edited February 21Feb 21 by AJZip2

I will tell you what I do: I open the file "settings.txt" located in the Resources folder. Find five lines that start with "SETTING_1 renopt_shadow_quality_" and at the end of each line, change the number to 4096. 

EXAMPLE:

SETTING_1 renopt_shadow_quality_04 0 shadow/scenery_shadows    0    shadow/total_fade_ratio    0.999    shadow/csm_split_exterior 1    shadow/csm_split_interior 3    shadow/csm/far_limit_exterior    500        shadow/csm/far_limit_exterior    500        fbo/shadow_cam_size    4096

This helps in almost all situations. There are still some shark teeth in cockpits of some aircraft.  Your FPS will dip considerably if you use 8192 so beware.

10 hours ago, dolph98 said:

I will tell you what I do: I open the file "settings.txt" located in the Resources folder. Find five lines that start with "SETTING_1 renopt_shadow_quality_" and at the end of each line, change the number to 4096. 

EXAMPLE:

SETTING_1 renopt_shadow_quality_04 0 shadow/scenery_shadows    0    shadow/total_fade_ratio    0.999    shadow/csm_split_exterior 1    shadow/csm_split_interior 3    shadow/csm/far_limit_exterior    500        shadow/csm/far_limit_exterior    500        fbo/shadow_cam_size    4096

This helps in almost all situations. There are still some shark teeth in cockpits of some aircraft.  Your FPS will dip considerably if you use 8192 so beware.

Many thanks.  I will try that later today.  👍

23 hours ago, dolph98 said:

I will tell you what I do: I open the file "settings.txt" located in the Resources folder. Find five lines that start with "SETTING_1 renopt_shadow_quality_" and at the end of each line, change the number to 4096. 

EXAMPLE:

SETTING_1 renopt_shadow_quality_04 0 shadow/scenery_shadows    0    shadow/total_fade_ratio    0.999    shadow/csm_split_exterior 1    shadow/csm_split_interior 3    shadow/csm/far_limit_exterior    500        shadow/csm/far_limit_exterior    500        fbo/shadow_cam_size    4096

This helps in almost all situations. There are still some shark teeth in cockpits of some aircraft.  Your FPS will dip considerably if you use 8192 so beware.

Hi.  Tried this and it definitely lessened the issue - 4096 worked OK and I then managed to get to the 8192 level OK for all 5 lines.  Still jagged and shimmering cockpit shadows although significantly less than before.  Many thanks @dolph98   !

I've found reference also to a Lua mod, 'ASHA'.  Do you know if this simply doing the same thing without having to get into the files or is it something that can be tried 'as well as'? 

ASHA script is for XP11. I'd be careful with that one.

On 2/21/2026 at 10:11 PM, dolph98 said:

I open the file "settings.txt" located in the Resources folder. Find five lines that start with "SETTING_1 renopt_shadow_quality_" and at the end of each line, change the number to 4096. 

EXAMPLE:

SETTING_1 renopt_shadow_quality_04 0 shadow/scenery_shadows    0    shadow/total_fade_ratio    0.999    shadow/csm_split_exterior 1    shadow/csm_split_interior 3    shadow/csm/far_limit_exterior    500        shadow/csm/far_limit_exterior    500        fbo/shadow_cam_size    4096

This helps in almost all situations. There are still some shark teeth in cockpits of some aircraft.

x-plane at its best. 🤣

one of the reasons I shy away from purchasing some of the better addon aircraft for xplane12, which otherwise I would be tempted to do.