Shadow issues and potential fixes

That is a draw-ahead issue. The further out you draw nice clean shadows, the greater the drain on the fps. Since one of rF2's biggest failings is the heavy demand it places on systems and shadows are one of the main culprits, I'm betting they shortened the fully drawn distance to keep fps up. There might be some setting buried in one of the .json files but I can't say for certain.
Nice twisty road courses might hide this effect, but the big ovals, heck probably just about any oval, will make this more pronounced.

 

Some smart developer out there must come up with a way to code shadows without hogging performance. I know it can be done. I just know it. Im getting tired of getting a new graphics card series every damn year that cost 2000$ lol. For once in a long time i catch up (ALMOST!) and its just too bloody expensive for a peasant like myself, lol. Even the damn games today are made for FUTURE HARDWARE... Its gotta stop.

Sure its great that technology is pushed but it feels almost like games today are tech demos to see what the latest hardware can do, and then on to the next. To the next. And next. Meanwhile the video card companies present us with a new card every year (HALF YEAR at this rate...). Its not time enough for developers to learn utilizing the tech before new hardware come out and they have to learn again.

 

That issue has been fixed, there's no need to disable cores, and this is a different issue. It's not fixable.

*On shadows generally, it's an area you'll see issues in basically any game if you look close enough. And that's because, usually, it's not really noticeable if you're not looking for it. That makes it a great area to eke out extra performance. 'Optimization' is about reducing quality in favour of performance, it's just a matter of how aggressive you choose to be (or think you can be).

rF2 is a driving game, obviously, and due to their nature (smooth surfaces, long objects receding into the distance) they show up this sort of thing more, but also rF2's shadow regression is more aggressive than most.

 

Indeed.
Confirmed now by multiple people I race with, they are seeing the same thing(s).

It's a game engine issue, or a performance enhancing work around, or a product of whatever....not a huge deal to me.
It's just good to quit fooling around with it now, after all this time and effort. I should have just made the video to share with my league buddies, asked them if they saw what I was seeing, and been done with it.

I came here, not to bitch about the game, or an issue, but because I assumed it was on my end, as many of my issues have been in the past.
Most times I resolved it myself, and this time I couldn't, and thought this might be the best place to get various "fixes" advice.
I do wish S397 would just say, "ok, yeah, you're legit seeing that and it's an issue/limitation (whatever)"
If it can't be fixed, fine. Just live with it, do the workaround with shadows off or low or whatever. In other lighting, and often times in the lighting of races I do, most tracks, it's not all that noticeable. Sometimes, but most times I'm not focusing on it, so it is what it is.

If it's fixable though, would be nice to hear that they were working on it.

Either way, it's not game breaking enough to walk away from rF2. And certainly not something I'd even bother mentioning to those I'd recommend this sim to. I come here for the driving experience. Though, I do like to find a balance in what looks good and runs fluid as well, and usually do.
This isn't some stuttering issue that causes problems, and the sim has progressed from what I once knew it to be, to a state where the driving experience is, at times, the best out there (imo). Graphics issues be damned, it's the simulator I show off to those I want to bring into the fold, even though I have others that are "prettier" most times.

...but anyways. Glad to be done messing with it, thanks to you, Lazza, and all who responded. It all aided in my quest for knowledge that I've now found.

(Also saved my sanity, because I'd started fixating on fixing the damned issue, and was hell bent on it )

 

The only thing that not letting me go is that there are other people who dont have this issue.( So it is curable.

 

Or do they just not notice it?

 

Ive seen their onboard streams, so no its not a matter of notice.

 

Ok, but this could vary with content and conditions (lighting, time of day). You'd want to be very sure of an identical test.

 

Believe me im sure)). We race in the same league and i see this fucked up shadow and then watch my friends stream after race and its all fine there. I know his graphic setting and its all full bean as mine.

 

Myself as example. But, like you said after, it depends on track and time of the day. "reta oposta" in são Paulo, the straight just before eau rouge... i noticed in the past. Most tracks which has long straights with walls close to the asphalt. I remember ages ago when i raced in ovals, this is pretty annoying

 

Live or from replay file? I think in replay file is different and depending on record fidelity

 

Live.
For me the most painful Le Mans.
Those shadows on Mulsane are a must have for an endurance race. And when you get this thing going on its realy annoying.

 

here some shadow issues?!



EDIT: think delete shaders fixed this. my bad.

 

I'm probably sounding a bit like a broken record, but again, those are modded tracks, which may use wrong values in SCN MaxShadowRange parameter. The easiest way you can verify this bug here is by posting a screenshot or video from cockpit from an official track with shadow settings attached, that way everyone can compare the output with your result. OP doesn't seem to think anymore it's a bug, but since you do, it would be interesting to compare results.

 

Yes you do. And i will post a screenshot or a video later. The only difference is for him its a blured shadow and for me its no shadows at all on sone distance.

 

Yes you do, and since I'm repeating what I have posted before, me too I'm sure.
But for arguments sake, here are some screenshots which clearly show the problems I'm having with original content.

 

Agreed, you do.
And yeah, not really sure where you got the notion I don't think it's a bug anymore. Maybe I've moved to "inherent game flaw", but it's definitely an issue, so saying I don't think it is a bug anymore is quite disingenuous. I've abandoned seeking remedy for it at this point, to some extent. Though, I did see some similar talk from others in the gfx discord channel, so I added the video there this morning as well and will see what comes of that (probably about the same response as here)

The problem's been shown over and over. Rikki's screens above are exactly what I see...and every single response I got when I posted this stuff to my home league site was that they see the same (without using work arounds like moving shadows to low or off, which is really no solution, just a crappy work around for now)

Official content has the same issues, and this issue has spanned out over years now.
I could link a good 20 threads right off the top, in this very forum, describing (and sometimes showing) the problem. So any denial that it is a problem, and all this tail chasing of "make this video at this track" or that track and do this and that...it's all just a waste of time. It's all been said and done before.

...anyways, please don't put words in my mouth.
I abandoned this thread because of the above, but that doesn't mean I'm not following it...and it also doesn't mean I'll sit idly by while words I didn't speak are put into my mouth.
Thanks for your cooperation

 

Yes, and since the problem has been described for such a long time I really don't understand why @Marcel Offermans or any other official member of Studio 397 have not responded. Maybe there is a simple solution for this, maybe not, but I really would like to hear from them.

 

@Jakal I was mainly referring to the quote below from @Dmitri, where he claims his friends have better looking shadows on their streams. This is all I ever wanted to clarify and provide a solution to. We all know that rF2 shadow draw distance and LODs are rather short, which is even more pronounced on older modded tracks.

 

Ive sent the link on this forum directly to Marcel. Havent heard from him since.