Tweaking shadows

[Astromoss]

Hi!

I currently play ED on an aging PC at a comfortable 45 to 60 fps on mid to high settings. Turning on shadows KILLS my fps though, so I play with them turned off. I don't mind this at all, but I do miss shadows playing off my cockpit for immersion.

Is there an ini tweak or tool that would only allow shadows to ONLY work in the cockpit and not render out in space?

o7, commanders.

 

[Old Duck]

@Morbad is the resident expert on shadow customization. I believe the answer to your question is "Yes", but the specifics of how to actually do this are a bit above my pay grade.

 

[Morbad]

Is there an ini tweak or tool that would only allow shadows to ONLY work in the cockpit and not render out in space?

This can be done, but it's rather involved if you don't have experience editing the GraphicsConfiguration.xml. Essentially, you need to pick a shadow quality table to copy and then set each shadow profile within that quality setting to only use the cockpit cascade.

I've whipped up a GraphicsConfigurationOverride.xml that should do the trick, but my ability to test these settings is limited at the moment, so you'll need to tell me if it achieves the desired effect or if I need to modify the main GraphicsConfiguration.xml directly.

I've pasted the contents below for review and also attached the file itself to be used directly. You'll need to copy the file to "%LocalAppData%\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Graphics", remove the .txt extension from it, restart the game, then select "Low" shadow quality. If you can verify that only cockpit shadows are present, it's working.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<GraphicsConfig>
    <Shadows_Low>
        <Profile_General>
            <SliceSize>1024</SliceSize>
            <NumFrustums>0</NumFrustums>
            <FrustumCockpit>
                <DepthBias>0.00008</DepthBias>
                <DepthSlopeBias>5.0</DepthSlopeBias>
                <FilterKernelSize>3.0</FilterKernelSize>
            </FrustumCockpit>
            <Frustum0>
                <EndDistance>0</EndDistance>
            </Frustum0>
            <Frustum1>
                <EndDistance>0</EndDistance>
            </Frustum1>
        </Profile_General>
        <Profile_PlanetApproach>
            <SliceSize>1024</SliceSize>
            <NumFrustums>0</NumFrustums>
            <CrossFadeCascades>false</CrossFadeCascades>
            <FrustumCockpit>
                <DepthBias>0.00008</DepthBias>
                <DepthSlopeBias>5.0</DepthSlopeBias>
                <FilterKernelSize>3.0</FilterKernelSize>
            </FrustumCockpit>
            <Frustum0>
                <EndDistance>0</EndDistance>
            </Frustum0>
            <Frustum1>
                <EndDistance>0</EndDistance>
            </Frustum1>
        </Profile_PlanetApproach>
        <Profile_PlanetSurface>
            <SliceSize>1024</SliceSize>
            <NumFrustums>0</NumFrustums>
            <FrustumZeroCanBeOverridden>1</FrustumZeroCanBeOverridden>
            <FrustumCockpit>
                <DepthBias>0.00003</DepthBias>
                <DepthSlopeBias>5.0</DepthSlopeBias>
                <FilterKernelSize>3.0</FilterKernelSize>
            </FrustumCockpit>
            <Frustum0>
                <EndDistance>0</EndDistance>
            </Frustum0>
            <Frustum1>
                <EndDistance>0</EndDistance>
            </Frustum1>
        </Profile_PlanetSurface>
        <Profile_StationInterior>
            <SliceSize>1024</SliceSize>
            <NumFrustums>0</NumFrustums>
            <FrustumCockpit>
                <DepthBias>0.00008</DepthBias>
                <DepthSlopeBias>5.0</DepthSlopeBias>
                <FilterKernelSize>3.0</FilterKernelSize>
            </FrustumCockpit>
            <Frustum0>
                <EndDistance>0</EndDistance>
            </Frustum0>
        </Profile_StationInterior>
        <Profile_AsteroidField>
            <SliceSize>1024</SliceSize>
            <NumFrustums>0</NumFrustums>
            <FrustumCockpit>
                <DepthBias>0.00008</DepthBias>
                <DepthSlopeBias>5.0</DepthSlopeBias>
                <FilterKernelSize>3.0</FilterKernelSize>
            </FrustumCockpit>
            <Frustum0>
                <EndDistance>0</EndDistance>
            </Frustum0>
            <Frustum1>
                <EndDistance>0</EndDistance>
            </Frustum1>
        </Profile_AsteroidField>
    </Shadows_Low>
</GraphicsConfig>

 

[Gully Foyle]

Morbad - excellent advice and XML

Turning off blur, bloom and depth of field helps immensely and I find them useless anyways.

 

[Astromoss]

Fantastic! Thanks. I'll report back when I have results. o7

 

[Astromoss]

It's working great! Two further questions.

1. What happens if I put the shadow quality higher than Low?
2. How do I get back my customer HUD colours?

Thanks for this.

 

[Astromoss]

*custom. (typing on a wee phone)

 

[Morbad]

1. What happens if I put the shadow quality higher than Low?

It will ignore these changes, which only apply to low.

The only improvement from the other quality presets for cockpit shadows would be in shadow map resolution, which you can change in the override simply by adjusting "SliceSize". If your setup was having issues with low's cascaded shadow maps before, upping the shadow map resolution would probably be a bad idea, even with only the single cockpit cascade. You can try it though.

2. How do I get back my customer HUD colours?

You'll need to reapply those settings to the override. If you were using some tool to customize the HUD colors, you'll want to run it again and then manually merge the override it generates with the settings I've posted, unless it preserves other changes to the override. I'm not sure on the precise details, as I do all of my changes by hand.

 

[Astromoss]

Not sure how to merge the ini script. Where do I add it?