Please help find my shadows...

[marvelharvey]

Hello and thank you for clicking

If some kind gentlemen knows how to solve this build 1110 shadow problem, I would be incredibly grateful. First some images, the middle of which is the offender.

Cockpit shadows in 1109 (nothing wrong here)

Cockpit shadows in 1110 (shadows only draw about 6 car lengths away)

Rollbar shadows 1110 (nothing wrong here)

As you can, the draw distance for the shadows in 1110's cockpit cam have become very short and make for an annoying distraction when driving. This issue seems limited to me and one other person on the forum. Other rFactor2 friends I've asked have maintain the standard draw distance.

The weird thing is, it's only the cockpit cam. If I switch to any other onboard camera in 1110, the shadows return to normal.

Does anyone know what this could possibly be?

Here's what I've tried so far:

1) switching from VR to 2d. No change.
2) deleting rFactor 2 on Steam and reinstalling. No change.
3) purging all rFactor 2 files from my computer for a complete fresh reinstall. No change.
4) reinstalling my GPU drivers. No change.
5) updating to the latest GPU drivers. No change.
6) shouting at my computer. No change.

After reinstalling drivers and rFactor 2, I'm struggling with the next thing to try. Any ideas?

Something in Player.json? Something in Nvidia inspector? I mean, everything should be default now, after reinstalling, so I don't really know where the trouble may lie.

My temporary solution is to use the rollbar camera, assign 'camera down' to a key and stick that key down with BluTak. Not the best solution and only works for the Skippy.

 

[marvelharvey]

Additional curiosity: If I run rF2 in DevMode, the shadows are fine.

 

[Mibrandt]

I have this too. Rift CV1

 

[Christopher Elliott]

I'm not seeing this with that combo. Can you post your exact graphics settings?
Ideally I would like to have your player.JSON, Multiplayer.JSON, and Config_DX11.ini - you can send it to me via convo.
Also please try without Nvidia inspector
Thanks

 

[marvelharvey]

I'm not seeing this with that combo. Can you post your exact graphics settings?
Ideally I would like to have your player.JSON, Multiplayer.JSON, and Config_DX11.ini - you can send it to me via convo.
Also please try without Nvidia inspector
Thanks

Thanks for responding so promptly Christopher. I'll send my pc specs, graphical settings and all relevant files to you tomorrow.

 

[marvelharvey]

I'm not seeing this with that combo. Can you post your exact graphics settings?
Ideally I would like to have your player.JSON, Multiplayer.JSON, and Config_DX11.ini - you can send it to me via convo.
Also please try without Nvidia inspector
Thanks

Couldn't find the Upload A File function in Convo, so here I'll post here instead.

 

[marvelharvey]

I have this too. Rift CV1

Reinstall SteamVR. Worked for me (took three hours of trial and error, but I've got my shadows back!)

Edit: I spoke too soon. Shadows are broken again and now reinstalling SteamVR does nothing... back to square one.

 

[marvelharvey]

OK, this problem is most likely hardware related. I've just...

-reinstalled a fresh Windows and only downloaded Steam+rF2. No drivers for anything or any other software.
-reverted all my overclocking back to zero,
-ran the game without the GPU, just onboard graphics (ran at less than 1fps by the way)

AND yet my game still has the short shadow from the cockpit view. What on earth is causing this?

@Mibrandt Just to check, is your problem exactly the same? Do the shadows increase to normal distance if you change to a different camera position, like hood or rollbar? If so, I wonder if we share similar hardware? Is any of the following the same as yours?

Geforce 1080
8600K
16GB Corrsair @2133mhz
Asus motherboard (I forget the model number)

I won't bother listing keyboard/mouse/SSD etc, I can't imagine they are affecting shadows.

 

[stonec]

AND yet my game still has the short shadow from the cockpit view. What on earth is causing this?

It's probably not a bug as such or hardware related. There is a reason shadows are drawn as short ahead as possible in all games, which is to improve FPS. The reason you get more shadows from hood cam is that hood cam doesn't use cockpit specific FPS optimizations, because people only care about FPS when they drive in cockpit view, so I bet hood cam will also give you a significant FPS drop. Basically it's all a compromise.

 

[Mibrandt]

It's probably not a bug as such or hardware related. There is a reason shadows are drawn as short ahead as possible in all games, which is to improve FPS. The reason you get more shadows from hood cam is that hood cam doesn't use cockpit specific FPS optimizations, because people only care about FPS when they drive in cockpit view, so I bet hood cam will also give you a significant FPS drop. Basically it's all a compromise.

Good theory. But If thats the case dont you Think Christopher Elliot would just have Said that? Instead of asking for unnecessary ini files?

In R3E many ppl had the exact same issue and it Got fixed by the next Build.

Im hoping its the case here as well.

 

[marvelharvey]

It's probably not a bug as such or hardware related. There is a reason shadows are drawn as short ahead as possible in all games, which is to improve FPS. The reason you get more shadows from hood cam is that hood cam doesn't use cockpit specific FPS optimizations, because people only care about FPS when they drive in cockpit view, so I bet hood cam will also give you a significant FPS drop. Basically it's all a compromise.

if you check the screenshots, you'll see that this is a bug. Shadows have reduced from whatever the standard distance is (200m?) to about 30m. This is new to build 1110, but doesn't seem to be easily repro-able.

Usually I'm pretty good a finding repro steps, but this one is a mystery to me. I'm flummoxed.

 

[stonec]

Fair enough, I was wrong. I tested with Matsusaka under similar conditions and the shadow shows as normal for me.

I noticed in your final screenshot from rollbar cam that there is some odd looking shadow on left side guardrail. So I would say buggy shadow rendering overall.

 

[Mozzie]

I have the exact same issue as this. I have just turned shadows off until this gets fixed.

 

[marvelharvey]

Good theory. But If thats the case dont you Think Christopher Elliot would just have Said that? Instead of asking for unnecessary ini files?

In R3E many ppl had the exact same issue and it Got fixed by the next Build.

Im hoping its the case here as well.

If 397 cannot reproduce this issue their end, then I doubt we'll see a fix. Although my fingers are very much crossed.

I will continue to try and find some repro steps, but I've run out of possible causes. The thing that is throwing me off is the fact that it's only from cockpit camera.

 

[Martin Vindis]

I'm not having the same issue but I can definitely say that there is something going on 20-30 meter in front of my car. Like im in a bubble and everything in that bubble is HQ, the rest is in lower quality.

 

[marvelharvey]

@elbo

Is this the same problem you're seeing?

I have the exact same issue as this. I have just turned shadows off until this gets fixed.

Thank you for responding in this thread. The more people that have this bug, the easier it'll be for 397 to find thankfully.

I'm not having the same issue but I can definitely say that there is something going on 20-30 meter in front of my car. Like im in a bubble and everything in that bubble is HQ, the rest is in lower quality.

Are you talking about the obvious line between the blurry and sharp shadow (generally most offensive on oval catch fences)? I'm actually wondering if the problem that us other guys are seeing is the lack of blurry shadows when in cockpit view.

 

[marvelharvey]

@Mibrandt

Do you happen to have a Z370 motherboard?

 

[Mibrandt]

@Mibrandt

Do you happen to have a Z370 motherboard?

ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming

 

[Goanna]

I don't have VR, but in 2D with my player.json file I'm seeing full shadow lengths in all camera positions...so I dropped yours (only the player.json) in and bingo, short shadow lengths, swapped back to mine and all good so something in your player.json file is triggering it. I compared yours to mine in winmerge and there were a couple of differences but nothing that grabbed me and said "I'm the culprit". Try renaming your player.json and starting rF2, that will give you a new default one and see if that "cures" the problem.

 

[Mibrandt]

I don't have VR, but in 2D with my player.json file I'm seeing full shadow lengths in all camera positions...so I dropped yours (only the player.json) in and bingo, short shadow lengths, swapped back to mine and all good so something in your player.json file is triggering it. I compared yours to mine in winmerge and there were a couple of differences but nothing that grabbed me and said "I'm the culprit". Try renaming your player.json and starting rF2, that will give you a new default one and see if that "cures" the problem.

I tried this and it did not solve the issue unfortunately. Can I try your player.json?