Shadows are shimmering

whitav8 · November 21, 2016 at 4:13 AM

Since I fly DCS World, War Thunder, P3D, as well as FS2, I'm not sure about this but it seems that the building and static aircraft shadows are shimmering quite a bit in FS2 and not semi-opaque dark enough - seems worse than it was a month ago?? What do you think? I am testing by flying low (1000 feet RALT) over Reno, midday sun, looking down at objects at the airport in the F-18. I have tried both ULTRA and Medium settings. I have a Nvidia 970 running 375.86 or 368.69 drivers.

aeroflyfan1 · November 23, 2016 at 9:55 AM

Me too. Aircraft self shadows are also constantly shimmering/moving

HiFlyer · November 23, 2016 at 10:03 AM

Its strange. In almost any game you can name, the most likely single thing to be below par is the shadows. I think the only Flightsim I have ever seen with perfect shadowing is DCS.

(And X-plane self shadowing is an utter nightmare)

All in all, I would place Aerofly in the lower mid-range of shadowing, and wonder how it would affect framerates to clean things up.

IPACS Support · November 23, 2016 at 5:30 PM

Can you please tell us exact steps on how to reproduce the issue mentioned here. What do you exactly mean by 'shimmering'?

Please tell us detailed steps, so we can check it on our side!

Once we now what you are talking about we can try to improve it.

whitav8 · November 24, 2016 at 2:54 AM

As I said in the original post, one example of shimmering shadows is simply to look down at the shadows of buildings and static aircraft at any airport but my example was Reno. You can see them best if you are in the air doing tight circles in an f18. Obviously the shadow mid day should be fixed just somewhat stretched shape of the aircraft and not fluctuating in degree of opacity. I expect the edges to be wavering a bit but not dramatically. If you are seeing something different and more constant then some of us are having problems. I have tried several different drivers and I have a Nvidia 970. I noticed this in normal monitor mode and with the VR mode but I think it is worse than it was a month and a half ago.

Jet-Pack (IPACS) · November 24, 2016 at 7:12 AM Official Post

I think the technical term that you are searching for is z-fighting. At great distances the perspective shrinks down the visible depth mathematically. Due to the limited resolution of the graphics card's depth buffer distances very far from the camera are calculated with small errors and some areas appear closer in one frame than in another, clipping through any other near by surface -> flickering between the two surface colors. This would be observable for distant mountains or houses and maybe for the aircraft's shadow, is this what you are referring to?

Regards,
Jan

whitav8 · November 24, 2016 at 10:10 PM

Yes it could be Z fighting but I wouldn't think from 1000 feet altitude or less above airport buildings and static airplanes on the ground that we would see that. I know that in other flight Sims, shadows of trees, buildings, and aircraft are fairly steady. All I know is that it is quite annoying and removes immersion particularly in VR

whitav8 · December 2, 2016 at 6:43 AM

@Jet-Pak and others,
Here is a video that shows the "shimmering" shadows.

https://vimeo.com/193994694

Thanks

Dave

IPACS Support · December 2, 2016 at 9:04 AM

Dave,
for now this is 'normal'. If you want good shadows in the cockpit and far away outside, we have to make a trade off here.

As a test, fly around the same as you did just use an outside view mode, then look at the distant shadows. It should look a little better then.

Jet-Pack (IPACS) · December 2, 2016 at 1:02 PM Official Post

Thanks for the demo Dave,

this looks like a low resolution shadow map to me. At some distance the sharp shadow edges transition to a rougher calculation that is faster to calculate I think. Thats just the rendering technique used there...

Cheers,
Jan

whitav8 · December 2, 2016 at 10:45 PM

Here is a clip from Prepar3D that shows better shadows - maybe not the most important thing you are working on though.

https://vimeo.com/194101180

Thanks for FS2 - way faster than P3D - 2->3X

Dave

IPACS Support · December 5, 2016 at 8:29 PM

Dave,

can you run the tests as I mentioned and check if the shadow quality in the distance improves? Also, do you have you shadow quality set to ULTRA?

whitav8 · December 5, 2016 at 11:06 PM

I assume this is the test you want me to try:

"As a test, fly around the same as you did just use an outside view mode, then look at the distant shadows. It should look a little better then."

Yes, I have tried low, medium, and ULTRA shadow settings - not too much difference. Are there any Nvidia graphics card settings at all that I should try?

whitav8 · December 6, 2016 at 4:21 AM

Here is a video from outside the aircraft with full ULTRA enabled. I think the shadows are maybe better but I still see the moving graphics plane (between good and shimmering) that is fixed to the aircraft - perpendicular to the longitudinal axis. From inside the aircraft in the pilot's position, even with ULTRA shadows, it is still not that good.
I would like to know if you see the same thing, or for some reason, it is just my particular PC (i7 with Nvidia 970)

https://vimeo.com/194450965

I'm not using Nvidia Inspector to set anything but it summarizes the Nvidia Control Panel settings:

Mich01 · December 11, 2016 at 3:23 PM

Quote from IPACS Support

Can you please tell us exact steps on how to reproduce the issue mentioned here. What do you exactly mean by 'shimmering'?

Please tell us detailed steps, so we can check it on our side!

Once we now what you are talking about we can try to improve it.

Try a VR headset and it`s very obvious! Shadows appear in the distance to bounce off and create some strange stereoscopic effect!

whitav8 · December 22, 2016 at 7:18 PM

A couple more videos of shadows of objects on the ground with the most recent release (EA3.66 from the F15). Again, I am trying various Nvidia drivers (currently 375.95) on my Nv970, Windows 10, ULTRA shadows setting. I am still wondering if other users see this or is it my personal video hardware/drivers. I didn't see any sign of it in the several New York demo videos posted yesterday.(BTW, awesome number of buildings!)
There still seems to be a diagonal geometric plane at approximately center of the screen where toward the eyepoint is clear but on the outer side of that plane (in front of the F15) is oscillating. If this is a low resolution shadow map issue - will it ever be improved - or maybe do I need an Nv1080? It would be great if some others can fly this tight circle around KSFO and report back - thanks

https://vimeo.com/196762196

https://vimeo.com/196762020

HiFlyer · December 22, 2016 at 11:25 PM

I would also report a possible bug (at least on my machine) if shadows are turned to minimum, a huge black square appears on the screen!

HiFlyer · January 20, 2017 at 4:27 PM

Issue still exists, and frankly the shimmering is so distracting that as you fly it constantly attracts your attention. Cockpit and aircraft shadows are very stair-steppy as well, and after fiddling with it for weeks it was just too much. I lowered shadows to minimum then deleted the func_shadowmap.tsm file from the sim.

This removed all shadows of any sort, which is a shame, but at least the shimmering drawing my eye is gone.

Hope a better shadow method is found in the future.

Christopher Low · January 21, 2017 at 12:49 PM

Yes, I can confirm that the "shadow shimmering" is a big problem in AeroFly FS2 (and I have shadows set to ULTRA). It is very distracting and annoying.

whitav8 · January 21, 2017 at 7:19 PM

Christopher Low and HiFlyer,
I am still wondering if this shimmering shadow issue is only affecting some of us due to some hardware/software setting outside of FS2 or maybe the Nvidia graphics driver version or ... I get the feeling that the Devs and some others aren't seeing it like we do.

Thanks

Dave

Shadows are shimmering

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