Shadows options and optimisation

Msportdan · Sep 13, 2014

im loving the visuals at the moment on RRe tracks cars all look great, one thing that lets it all down for me is the shadows..

Firstly what exactly does these options do. I know theres a FAQ page but doesn't explain well enough these options.

Shader detail (cant tell)

Shadow detail (looks horrid in everything but high is this shadow resolution? As shadow complexity doesn't change)

Contact shadow (is this how many shadows under cars in front are viewed, haven't noticed)

Split shadow (kills fps)

Ive noticed these points

- Needs a shadow option for complex or simple shadows. Only shadow resolution available? Needs a shadow complexity setting to change polygons in shadows.
Example: the 2nd screenshot below, The vette would be the complex shadow, and the merc the simple. I cant find this option so far.

- FIXED!!!!! USE 32 CONTACT SHADOWS AND SPLIT ON Shadows LOD are well to near the camera.. A shot of 6 cars and the vette is already lost its shadow not that far from camera. ( this is contact shadows set to 8 btw) Makes cars look like there floating.

-FIXED!!!!! USE 32 CONTACT SHADOWS AND SPLIT ON The more detailed shadow under car is the one in focused in replay, So possibly a nearer car to the camera will have a more basic shadow.. Makes replays look odd. (see merc compared to vette) This appears with split shadows on and off.

I have messed with all settings but cant find one that looks nice, I don't care for a complex shadow but at least be visible under all cars in view.

IMO the shadows are the only visuals that need lots of work, much better optimised and look better at medium settings.

Cheers

Cosmic · Oct 10, 2014

I hate to sound like a broken record but the shadows on Raceroom Raceway bug me. Flickering shadows in the trees, shadows that only pop out when you pass them and the biggest eyesore is the shadow in the tunnel.

Go to 35 seconds in the video below and pay attention to the shadow in the tunnel

Msportdan · Nov 6, 2014

hello devs.. is there any chance of any gfx optimisations? I just bought i a new GTX 970 , and theres hardly much difference in this game, where metro redux ive gone from hi to very high and a 50-70fps +
increase....

Sean Kenney · Nov 6, 2014

Agree shadows need s improvement. I thought they said they are aware a and will get to it...eventually?

Serj · Nov 6, 2014

Cosmic said:
I hate to sound like a broken record but the shadows on Raceroom Raceway bug me. Flickering shadows in the trees, shadows that only pop out when you pass them and the biggest eyesore is the shadow in the tunnel.

Go to 35 seconds in the video below and pay attention to the shadow in the tunnel

Yes, I wrote about it before, the shadows in tunnel very strange, but in some cases no shadow at all, only a few randomly located shadow spots.

Msportdan · Nov 8, 2014

I really like alien isolation shadows settings. Basically. Shadow detail level. Then shadow resolution. So you can have high shadows but 1024 shadows. Or as low as 512. And thatni can run ultra everything. So rre isn't utilizing all my gpu, or the gfx engine isn't capable of keeping up.

Connor Caple · Nov 8, 2014

I have yet to play a game that got the shadows right. I think it's just not worth bothering about until some games developers take a look at how real shadows actually work, rather than how NVidia thinks they work, and maybe implements that.

Msportdan · Nov 10, 2014

i just think RRe could use much more basic shadows... Ive never seen a split shadow option in any game. If they simplified the shadows they possibly could have more shadows appear under more cars

Msportdan · Nov 19, 2014

there is still a problem with the cast shadow only under one car thing. yes theres much more contact shadows which is good excellent in fact. But when racing at sunset you get the shadow angle only under one car. like this, only the vette has a proper shadow, wheres the other cars shadows?!

JayJayRaceinho · Nov 19, 2014

afaik no sim has it perfect now with those shadows the sun/cars casts, but r3e still has some room for improvement here, like linking the shadows the cars are casting to the LOD-Settings (like a Ultra Setting).

On Zolder there is a camera perspective where it looked like the cars were flying a little, a on/off contactshadow on the cars (guess the cars didn't touch the tarmac?)

Peter · Nov 19, 2014

I have shadows on all the cars now.
It's good enough.

Msportdan · Nov 19, 2014

to be honest they could do away withe sun angled shadow and just have the shadow beneath the car as shown on cars (bar vette). If its only appearing on one car anyway...

might as well get rid of it and save fps

Cosmic · Nov 19, 2014

What is the contact shadow setting supposed to do? I increased it to 32 and I still see just the one good shadow underneath my car and then a low quality shadow under the rest. (This is with shadow split off)

Peter · Nov 19, 2014

Shadow split and 32 contact shadows.

JayJayRaceinho · Nov 19, 2014

yes, the contact shadows to 32 fixed those annoying disappearing shadows beneath the cars.

The sun angled shadows sometimes disappear pretty quick, not sure if this is a camera-zoom issue in replays (far away camera with high zoom). The picture above shows 4 cars with good Sun angled shadows, can't see the others behind, not sure.

I turned shadowsplit on just yesterday with the update, gonna have a closer look.

Msportdan · Nov 19, 2014

yep can confirm using 32 contact shadows does fix the above issue. thank you S3 and peter for rectifying all this. and still runs quite well..

have updated OP to reflect this.

Thanks

JayJayRaceinho · Nov 19, 2014

idk what causes it, maybe a camera-lod setting or track-lod-setting, but in some cases it looks like the picture above on nüburgring (good), sometimes even with less cars on screen, only your car has sun- angled shadows, and the rest has only some weird pixelation shadows (or none). shadow-split on ofcourse.

Olivier Mandavy · Nov 19, 2014

no performance hit? try on the hillclimb track because on this track it had a performance hit before the update.

Olivier Mandavy · Nov 20, 2014

OK still no answers, I'll test it this evening

Andi Goodwin · Nov 20, 2014

it depends on what your looking for but a sure way to add a few fps (if thats what your after ) is to stop the track animations and set the track detail (not textures) to low , ok you losse the people around the track ; but you aldso loose the waving flags and loads of stuff that is just eyecandy , that in reality you dont need to race with ...
i have an old card ,and i can get good fps and reasonable graphics (car and track textures on high /shadow split on /32 shadows etc , just keep the reflections/shaders turned down and its ok

Andi
http://gyazo.com/d80195e846af55970bc5356df7ccd8ea
http://gyazo.com/8ec66846b31e9eec439445924106a8fd
http://gyazo.com/b0196ec70a48caea8b6f664f56aaad01

Kurt Vanhee · Nov 21, 2014

Andi Goodwin said:
it depends on what your looking for but a sure way to add a few fps (if thats what your after ) is to stop the track animations and set the track detail (not textures) to low , ok you losse the people around the track ; but you aldso loose the waving flags and loads of stuff that is just eyecandy , that in reality you dont need to race with ...
i have an old card ,and i can get good fps and reasonable graphics (car and track textures on high /shadow split on /32 shadows etc , just keep the reflections/shaders turned down and its ok

Andi
http://gyazo.com/d80195e846af55970bc5356df7ccd8ea
http://gyazo.com/8ec66846b31e9eec439445924106a8fd
http://gyazo.com/b0196ec70a48caea8b6f664f56aaad01

This gave me qround 40 fps and lagging.
Turned shadow split to off and multisampling 4x AA, resulting in 60 fps without lag!!!
All on leaderboard challenge, need to have a race.
Edit. With 15 cars same fps.