They slow me down by about 15% FPS... that is 2048 maps generally after testing vs 1024's... in some cases it's less or none (not sure how/why), but on average on a busy track with AI drivers etc with lots going on, it's about 15% cost.
I also considered that on anything under a 1600px wide view, then you were essentially putting more than 1px of shadow map data into 1px on screen nearby, which seemed a waste. On a big 30" display at native resolution though, then it might add nice extra detail
I like the improved view distance for shadows, but I'd really want that from the inside view too. Why only from the outside views? For screenshots?
My main worry as always is that we can improve things further with 4096 maps... but where do we stop?
The bloom map would be better at 1024 too, but again, where do we stop?
I'm all for a set of these that run at F12 time, like photomode, that crank up all the settings loads... if that were possible it'd be cool
Personally I really think the defaults right now are perfect for v0.9. If we can tidy up the acne more, great, but the shadows as they stand are a big enough FPS hit without making the demands on sub 512meg gfx cards even higher (my Quadro at work is crippled on FPS with 512meg, as was my old GFX card at home with 512meg)
They are so easy to ramp up, that if you post a shadow upgrade setup at v0.9, I'm sure many will use it if their hardware allows
*BUT, I'd just check with Ruud that stuff elsewhere isn't hardcoded now to expect 1024 maps. That hard coding might be doing weird things, so just best to check!?
Deffo something Ruud should consider having a way to toggle in the menu though. It doesn't really harm anyone to have a way to switch these things so people can load Racer in 'extreme' shadow mode or something
Not wanting to be negative generally, but we are testing these shadows and lots of things in Racer oddly. Zooming in on a car whose wheels have 25meg of textures on them, which even in that screen shot are mipped down because the textures are so huge. Testing on empty barren tracks, and simply picking holes in small artifacts and so on.
OK, it's important we get it good, but razzing around Carlswood with 10 Lambo's and blur on the shadows off, in 1920x1200, and my FPS is already only just playable at around 50fps, and my system is pretty good (275GTX)
Drop it to 1600x1000 and it's nicer speed, but still. At no point did I go "eughh" look at the nasty shadows. They just blended in perfectly.
I think we really need to start getting realistic about what we can get away with in our graphics.
I'm all for beauty shots and Racer looking fantastic, but I'm also looking forward to pushing every boundary Racer has visually in other ways, like your track, I want tons of sounds, surfaces, things going on, movables, a really really rich environment. I just worry that if we steal all the gfx performance now for shadows and fancy other stuff that isn't really THAT important, there will be no space left for making engaging content.
Racer right now is, imo, not so good in visual bang, for the buck it costs! NFS HP looks amazing on my system with better FPS!
Thats up to us to fix, but we need to start thinking about the content we make being rich, rather than expecting our shaders and shadow settings trying to achieve that visual quality for us
I'm all up for the challenge
(thats a general thought by the way, not a targetted rant on anyone
)
Maybe I've been reading nVidia docs too much, but we have got into some bad practice over the years. To get the good visuals and good speed, we NEED to think about how we make stuff much more these days
Optimisation is king!
Dave
