Shadows without flickering Mod instructions 2017-01-24

Note:
(my file is attached if you need to see an example, but just edit your own to keep your other settings)


I have been annoyed at the shadows in this game flickering, despite running 8x msaa (even adding FXAA sweetfx).

So I looked into the file inside
My documents
My Games or Saved Games
\DiRT Rally\hardwaresettings
hardware_settings_config.xml

Change the line containing <shadows... ... > to this if you want simple shadows without flicker and no pop up.

<shadows enabled="true" size="256" maskQuality="2" particles="false" />

(my file is attached if you need to see an example, but just edit your own to keep your other settings)

With game off, save this change. Run the game and you will see in the advanced graphics options "CUSTOM" instead of the Low/Medium/High/Ultra


Background of the factory presets which are crap:

Ultra Low uses shadows=false which gives you very little lighting which looks artificial.
The rest are set to shadows=true, some using particles=true, but that's connected to smoke shadows setting.
Low size="512" maskQuality="0"
Medium size 768 maskquality 1
High size 2048 maskquality 2
Ultra size 3072 maskquality 2

So size is the resolution of the shadow which makes it flicker.

Mask is the distance of draw in.

So I chose a very low resolution for no flicker (smoothed out shadow) and a high maskquality to stop draw in popup shadows.