Shadow flicker (2nd try at posting)

quackinthebush

Q
Tried posting this yesterday, for some reason it disappeared without a trace after waiting for approval (any idea moderators?). Here it goes again, abridged.

I'm getting a shadow flicker when flying over planet surfaces in Odyssey, like really obnoxious glitchy shadows dancing all over the terrain. It only occurs while in motion. I've noticed it also while driving the SRV and on foot, but not as obvious as in my ship. I've tried messing with settings but no luck yet. Anyone else getting this, and thoughts on solutions? Happy to share my settings currently, using new PC with a RTX3070 at 1440 Ultra.

Cheers!
 

Frop

Frop
Could you capture some footage with something like Shadowplay or OBS? You can upload it for free to streamable.com, saves you from the Youtube hassle. Would help to see if it's one of the common bugs and if there's something like that in the Issue Tracker already.
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
I pledge my fealty to you, OP, for your cause is righteous!

iu
 

HRDiagram

HRDiagram
quackinthebush said:
Tried posting this yesterday, for some reason it disappeared without a trace after waiting for approval (any idea moderators?). Here it goes again, abridged.

I'm getting a shadow flicker when flying over planet surfaces in Odyssey, like really obnoxious glitchy shadows dancing all over the terrain. It only occurs while in motion. I've noticed it also while driving the SRV and on foot, but not as obvious as in my ship. I've tried messing with settings but no luck yet. Anyone else getting this, and thoughts on solutions? Happy to share my settings currently, using new PC with a RTX3070 at 1440 Ultra.

Cheers!
Click to expand...
I experience the same relatively often. It looks as though, depending on your position and angle of view, one item exists or not, causing the shadow to appear and disappear. Sometimes it's just the shadow, some other times it's like the invisible rocks issue, but the rocks phase in and out of existence, with their shadow, and very quickly.

I don't know if the issues are related, but the effect is the same: flickering on planetary surfaces.
 

Sapient6

S
quackinthebush said:
Tried posting this yesterday, for some reason it disappeared without a trace after waiting for approval (any idea moderators?). Here it goes again, abridged.

I'm getting a shadow flicker when flying over planet surfaces in Odyssey, like really obnoxious glitchy shadows dancing all over the terrain. It only occurs while in motion. I've noticed it also while driving the SRV and on foot, but not as obvious as in my ship. I've tried messing with settings but no luck yet. Anyone else getting this, and thoughts on solutions? Happy to share my settings currently, using new PC with a RTX3070 at 1440 Ultra.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

I started getting this too, right after updating my nvidia drivers (RTX3080). My previous drivers were from December 2020 and there was no flicker. Note that this is a flicker, not the "warbling" shadows that I've seen around throughout Odyssey. And by "flicker" I mean that some large shadows cast by landscape pulse on and off a couple times per second. It doesn't happen everywhere, I don't even see it every session, but it shows up from time to time.

The other video game I spend a bunch of time in is World of WarCraft, which has a really, really terrible shadow flicker for some people with NVidia cards, myself included. I have the old December 2020 drivers on hand specifically because rolling back to them fixes the problem in WoW, where the flicker is faster, uniquitous, and covers an entire zone (imagine every shadow you see in a vast, busy scene, just relentlessly strobing). Any NVidia drivers from January 2021 on has this flicker for me, including the drivers from last month that claimed to specifically fix this problem in WoW.

So, if you happen to have old nvidia drivers around you might try them. As far as I know NVidia's web site doesn't offer drivers that old, so this information probably isn't as helpful as I'd like it to be.
 

photomankc

photomankc
Ah yeah, I have not so much seen the flicker as what I would describe as 'dancing' shadows. They wobble and wiggle around in a truly awful looking way in the cockpit a lot. To some extent they do that on the ground as you descend as well.
 

quackinthebush

Q
Sapient6 said:
I started getting this too, right after updating my nvidia drivers (RTX3080). My previous drivers were from December 2020 and there was no flicker. Note that this is a flicker, not the "warbling" shadows that I've seen around throughout Odyssey. And by "flicker" I mean that some large shadows cast by landscape pulse on and off a couple times per second. It doesn't happen everywhere, I don't even see it every session, but it shows up from time to time.

The other video game I spend a bunch of time in is World of WarCraft, which has a really, really terrible shadow flicker for some people with NVidia cards, myself included. I have the old December 2020 drivers on hand specifically because rolling back to them fixes the problem in WoW, where the flicker is faster, uniquitous, and covers an entire zone (imagine every shadow you see in a vast, busy scene, just relentlessly strobing). Any NVidia drivers from January 2021 on has this flicker for me, including the drivers from last month that claimed to specifically fix this problem in WoW.

So, if you happen to have old nvidia drivers around you might try them. As far as I know NVidia's web site doesn't offer drivers that old, so this information probably isn't as helpful as I'd like it to be.
Click to expand...
I think you may have a point here about drivers, I didn't notice the shadow flicker/dance when I first started playing Odyssey, maybe 3 or 4 weeks after launch, and I'm pretty sure I updated drivers somewhere in there. I'll mess around with drivers this evening (PST) and post if anything changes. If no change, I'll try and take a short video to show the effect. It's a bit like a flicker/dance I guess, as if the shadows are bouncing between two positions and can't decide where to stop. I also noticed it while I was inside a settlement building, with the sun casting dancing shadows in the room I was in.

Thanks for the feedback so far!
 

Sapient6

S
quackinthebush said:
It's a bit like a flicker/dance I guess, as if the shadows are bouncing between two positions and can't decide where to stop. I also noticed it while I was inside a settlement building, with the sun casting dancing shadows in the room I was in.
Click to expand...

Ah, it's the dance. I've definitely been seeing the dance all along (as also described by photomankc). I hate it but at least it doesn't give me a headache. Glad you're not having the flicker that I'm seeing.
 

Pigletslastand

Pigletslastand
If only someone had created an issue on the issue tracker about this.. then everyone here who experiences the same could telll fdev they can reproduce it!

It takes 10 seperate cmdrs who say they CAN reproduce a problem on the issue tracker for it to move to confirmed and not die..
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
Pigletslastand said:
If only someone had created an issue on the issue tracker about this.. then everyone here who experiences the same could telll fdev they can reproduce it!

It takes 10 seperate cmdrs who say they CAN reproduce a problem on the issue tracker for it to move to confirmed and not die..
Click to expand...
It's probably on the issue tracker as 100 different entries, all the same issue.
 

quackinthebush

Q
Frop said:
Could you capture some footage with something like Shadowplay or OBS? You can upload it for free to streamable.com, saves you from the Youtube hassle. Would help to see if it's one of the common bugs and if there's something like that in the Issue Tracker already.
Click to expand...
Alright, here is a capture of the shadow flicker from tonight. I tried updating to the latest drivers, but the issue remains. I'll try looking for older versions next. I'm happy to post an issue on the tracker for this, if others are experiencing the same thing, and can copy the link here.

Meanwhile here is the video. Apologies for the file size, I have no idea what I'm doing capturing video, but Frop thanks for the links/software suggestions.
https://streamable.com/uttcnc
 

CptXabaras

CptXabaras
quackinthebush said:
Alright, here is a capture of the shadow flicker from tonight. I tried updating to the latest drivers, but the issue remains. I'll try looking for older versions next. I'm happy to post an issue on the tracker for this, if others are experiencing the same thing, and can copy the link here.

Meanwhile here is the video. Apologies for the file size, I have no idea what I'm doing capturing video, but Frop thanks for the links/software suggestions.
https://streamable.com/uttcnc
Click to expand...

haven't seen anything like that on my side. Pretty annoying indeed. The one that bothers me are the station shadows that pass through the hangar bay, but not as bad as what's on your video
 

Morbad

Morbad
This has been an issue to some degree since the Horizons beta. The game's default shadow cascade settings have some pretty sloppy tolerances that will produce considerable artifacts (peter paning shadows and shadow acne) under certain circumstances. One of the most obvious ways to see this is to watch terrain lit by a very shallow angle point light source (any sun near sunset, sunrise, or the terminator of tidally locked worlds).

I can mostly get rid of the issue in Horizons with careful adjustment of depth biases and extra cascades, but Odyssey changed just enough (new terrain, new render issues, new EVSM shadows) for my old tweaks to not work correctly at longer distances. I might be able to fix them if I put another hundred hours of research, tweaking, and testing into it, but Odyssey in general has left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth and I'm probably not going to bother.

If someone wants to pick up where I left off in my shadow thread, have at it.

As it stands, the new EVSM shadows and increased shadow resolution does a pretty good job eliminating most artifacts at short ranges in Odyssey, but even the ultra quality preset still has overly blatant cascade transitions and terrible depth bias artifacts on planet surfaces when viewed from altitude.
 

quackinthebush

Q
Thanks Morbad, so I assume you're seeing the same issue on my capture? I tried creating an issue on the tracker for this since there doesn't appear to be one for this specific shadow glitch, but ironically my issue is glitched and says it can't open. If/when I can fix that I'll post a link here that folks can upvote.

Cheers
 

Raliel

Raliel
it is the same as invisible rocks and all the other issues regarding this sort of thing, been reported rigorously in both Alpha and post-release, yet still very not dealt with... we are hoping that the Odyssey that is Odyssey will finally get sorted, (shooting a bow through seven axe heads might be a hard ask though)
 
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