Have you determined why shadows cause longer frames when entering the station, particularly the Aldritch asteroid station in Otegine? It seems to occur from a short distance outside the slot to a point a short distance inside the slot, but dissipates further into or out of the station. This occurs with stock shadows at all settings and your shadows, of which I've only used #240 settings, even without ambient occlusion.
Graphics Settings Beyond Ultra -- Shadows
- Thread starter Morbad
- Start date
Have you determined why shadows cause longer frames when entering the station, particularly the Aldritch asteroid station in Otegine? It seems to occur from a short distance outside the slot to a point a short distance inside the slot, but dissipates further into or out of the station. This occurs with stock shadows at all settings and your shadows, of which I've only used #240 settings, even without ambient occlusion.
Can you clarify what you mean by longer frames? Are you referring to frame times/lower frame rate?
If that's what you're referring to, it's probably due to the game loading the station interior and simultaneously rendering two shadow profiles (General, or AsteroidField, and StationInterior).
Yes, longer frame times and lower frame rate.
So both a General/AsteroidField and StationInterior shadow profile render until you get some distance inside the station, at which point only the StationInterior shadow profile renders? That would explain the behavior better than temporary station loading strain because the longer frame times persist if I stop just inside the slot.
Yes, I believe so.
Morbad, I appreciate your work and continuous effort to push this game beyond ultra.
Morbad, great job on those shadows, working with the latest updates:
https://streamable.com/vq4ri (50 second video)
I particularly like how the lattice work effects both the cockpit interior shadows and the installation's shadows.
The shadows look good in the video despite all the compression, but I have your shadow settings working in an HP Reverb, full resolution (~4320x2160), at 90 FPS, and they are razor sharp in the headset.
Once again, no changes to the GraphicsConfiguration.xml that is part of the new beta, so the modifications presented in this thread should continue to work normally with the new version.
Of course, if you're beta testing you should probably avoid messing with the configuration files to eliminate any extraneous factors should you encounter stability issues.
Of course, if you're beta testing you should probably avoid messing with the configuration files to eliminate any extraneous factors should you encounter stability issues.
Hey Morbad, i'm really interested in tweaking the shadows to my liking but i'm not very good at editing the xml. Hopefully you can help me out on this one if it is possible.
The problem is that on Ultra shadows, the icy asteroids in extraction sites cast these beautiful long shadows and the location becomes so atmospheric but on many planetary surface sites like Dav's Hope, large barnacle sites, biological sites and locations alike, the fps is halved due to the shadows. What i want to accomplish is to keep the shadows inside the icy rings from ultra, but the shadows on the surfaces of planets to be the ones from the medium setting.
The .xml files are plain text and can be edited with almost anything. Swapping the planet shadows to the medium quality is as simple as deleting everything in "Shadows_Low" from the "Profile_PlanetApproach" and "Profile_PlanetSurface", then copying and pasting those same two segments from "Shadows_Medium" into the gap you made in "Shadows_Low" and ensuring the indentations are preserved.
Anyway, I'd recommend a less dramatic reduction in shadow quality. So, assuming you are starting with my last posted GraphicsConfiguration.xml:
1. Find <Shadows_Low> and proceed down to <Profile_PlanetApproach>
2. Immediately under this there will be a <SliceSize>16384</SliceSize>. Change that "16384" to "2048".
3. Near the bottom of that profile there will be a variable called <FogShadowMapsEnabled>1</FogShadowMapsEnabled>. Change that "1" to "0".
4. Repeat the above steps for the next profile, <Profile_PlanetSurface>.
5. Save the file and restart the game, then see if performance is acceptable on planet surfaces.
If you're still having issues, I'll post a modded profile when I get back to my desktop PC.
It worked! Thank you so much! Although i edited the original game file (backed it up first). Basically what i did was on the Profile "Shadows_Low" on "Profile_PlanetSurface" and "Profile_PlanetApproach" i copied the values from Shadows_Medium and on the "Asteroid_Field" segment i copied the values from the "Shadows_Ultra" setting. I will compare your last .xml file with this one because now i want a little bit of soft shadows on planets
Thank you so much! You rock! o7
Morbad, I realized I never posted these videos of FA-off canyon running on a small moon off Dromi with your shadow settings in this thread. This was done in an HR Reverb, so the crispness was even higher "in person" than in the streaming version. You may want to check out the end credits at the end of each video closely.
The crisp ship shadows on the canyon walls really add to the pucker factor in VR.
The crisp ship shadows on the canyon walls really add to the pucker factor in VR.
Hi Morbad
By comparing your file with vanilla one, I see that you ony edit low shadow settings.. Is it normal?
By comparing your file with vanilla one, I see that you ony edit low shadow settings.. Is it normal?
Not sure what you mean by normal in this context. It is intended, however.
I explained my rationale in prior posts. Replacing "low" allows comparisons with the higher quality modes to be made on the fly and I sacrificed low, because anyone looking for shadows well in excess of 'ultra' probably isn't interested in keeping, or comparing to, 'low'.
OK seems logic. So I have to set shadows to low quality in graphic options. Thanks a lot for the hard work.
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Stumbled across this after porting over from PS4 a few months back. Outstanding work @Morbad
I wont pretend to know half the sh*t involved with the xmls but planets/env/galaxy backdrop tweaks combined with the shadows have made this game now look tremendous. Your work is greatly appreciated sir!
One thing i'm curious about is that I have noticed of late that I am starting to see planets "render" in the mid/far distance, I have the "model draw distance" in game set to max but do you know of that can be extended further in the xml? Planets at 8K textures and i'd rather not pull them back down to 4K just yet.
It's no big deal, just detracts from the immersion a wee bit is all and wondered if its a limitation of the game or tweakable?
Running the game at 4K 60FPS on a 55" Gsync capable OLED TV, (cant recommend enough btw) via RTX2070 Ventus Card in a i7 9700K system - so i don't think my system capabilities are an issue. The gfx card is taking a good spanking in stations and planets mind you but is not dropping any frames as yet.
Thanks again for your masterclass in pushing the limits of this bizarrely addictive game. And to think we were all impressed with wire frame, monochrome on our Acorn Electrons all those years ago eh?!
I wont pretend to know half the sh*t involved with the xmls but planets/env/galaxy backdrop tweaks combined with the shadows have made this game now look tremendous. Your work is greatly appreciated sir!
One thing i'm curious about is that I have noticed of late that I am starting to see planets "render" in the mid/far distance, I have the "model draw distance" in game set to max but do you know of that can be extended further in the xml? Planets at 8K textures and i'd rather not pull them back down to 4K just yet.
It's no big deal, just detracts from the immersion a wee bit is all and wondered if its a limitation of the game or tweakable?
Running the game at 4K 60FPS on a 55" Gsync capable OLED TV, (cant recommend enough btw) via RTX2070 Ventus Card in a i7 9700K system - so i don't think my system capabilities are an issue. The gfx card is taking a good spanking in stations and planets mind you but is not dropping any frames as yet.
Thanks again for your masterclass in pushing the limits of this bizarrely addictive game. And to think we were all impressed with wire frame, monochrome on our Acorn Electrons all those years ago eh?!
Been a while...
Anyway, just took a look at the Alpha's GraphicsConfiguration.xml changes and while there do not appear to be any new shadow profiles, there are some meangingful changes to the existing ones that will render my current setting incompatible.
The alpha has many small tweaks to most areas, and the major addition of EVSM (exponential variance shadow mapping). Going to take some time to assess these changes.
EDIT: attached the entire, unmodified, public alpha test GraphicsConfiguration.xml for anyone who wants to take a look at Frontier's upcoming changes.
LOD distance scale can be extended up to 1.999999 in the Custom.fxcfg config file, but the effect is subtle and probably won't resolve the issue you're experiencing here.
Anyway, just took a look at the Alpha's GraphicsConfiguration.xml changes and while there do not appear to be any new shadow profiles, there are some meangingful changes to the existing ones that will render my current setting incompatible.
The alpha has many small tweaks to most areas, and the major addition of EVSM (exponential variance shadow mapping). Going to take some time to assess these changes.
EDIT: attached the entire, unmodified, public alpha test GraphicsConfiguration.xml for anyone who wants to take a look at Frontier's upcoming changes.
LOD distance scale can be extended up to 1.999999 in the Custom.fxcfg config file, but the effect is subtle and probably won't resolve the issue you're experiencing here.
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I haven't updated my Horizons profiles since the post #240 of this thread. I have a separate thread for Odyssey.
What 'incompatibility' are you referring to?
This:
but i may have not understood what you meant.
Could you link it to me, please? I'm unable to find it.