Shadow Settings

[Havoc04]

Flying today on a long flight i had some time to think about shadows.
As i fly without shadows to improve performance, i really missed the aircraft shadows :(

So i thought it SHOULD be possible to have the option to allow/disallow certain shadows in the game. I would assume that in there graphic engine could allow for it. Like say trees can cast a shadow or not cast the shadow.

So for instance, you could have 3 options.
Aircraft Shadows
Tree Shadows
Building Shadows

I would like to think that it would be possible. And be able to at least add a little immersion without taking it all away :)

Regards

[furbs]

you missed...

Full shadows
No shadows

I agree :)

[O_TaipaN]

And not just 3 options - but the quality of the shadows as well.

Rof has 4 quality options for shadows, and we can tweak it to work exactly with our hardware. For instance NVidia does a special shadow implementation and we can choose this option and get good shadows for much better frame rates.

[Majo]

There is still an option in order to have shadows and try to somehow minimize the FPS hit.

You can change the value in the conf.ini file in the "shadowmapsize" line.
You should do this first over you user documents folder conf.ini.
Of course this will be in detriment of the quality of the shadow itself.
1º) You have to activate shadows in the graphic options.
2º) You have to edit (remember to backup) the conf.ini file and search for the
line "shadowmapsize" within the [core] chapter.
3º) The line should be something like shadowmapsize = 5
4º) You can change the value as low as 3, also available 4.
5º) The quality of the shadows will be negatively affected but you should notice a performance improvement.
6º) Copy your edited conf.ini file from the user documents folder to the game folder in order to have identical conf.ini files in both locations.

You can do something similar with the grass, in this case the other way around, that is, turning off grass in the graphical options and manually changing the value from "Grass=-1" to "Grass=1".

One thing you have to understand is that these values are non standard values and every time you enter in the graphic option menu in the game it will be reset to standard values in the user documents folder conf.ini.

Salutes Majo

[David198502]

There is still an option in order to have shadows and try to somehow minimize the FPS hit.

You can change the value in the conf.ini file in the "shadowmapsize" line.
You should do this first over you user documents folder conf.ini.
Of course this will be in detriment of the quality of the shadow itself.
1º) You have to activate shadows in the graphic options.
2º) You have to edit (remember to backup) the conf.ini file and search for the
line "shadowmapsize" within the [core] chapter.
3º) The line should be something like shadowmapsize = 5
4º) You can change the value as low as 3, also available 4.
5º) The quality of the shadows will be negatively affected but you should notice a performance improvement.
6º) Copy your edited conf.ini file from the user documents folder to the game folder in order to have identical conf.ini files in both locations.

You can do something similar with the grass, in this case the other way around, that is, turning off grass in the graphical options and manually changing the value from "Grass=-1" to "Grass=1".

One thing you have to understand is that these values are non standard values and every time you enter in the graphic option menu in the game it will be reset to standard values in the user documents folder conf.ini.

Salutes Majo

interesting post!
will try that, but do one really have to edit both conf.ini files? i always thought that its enough if you edit the one in the 1c folder...
another question about the backup: why do you have to do it?if something goes wrong, wouldnt it be possible to just reset the values to shadowmapsize=5?

[Majo]

Trust me!

It is better to manually ensure both conf.ini files are identical. I have turned off the steam cloud or whatever it is call.

One of the golden rules, never turn with a FW-190 and always backup what you manually edit.

Salutes.

[David198502]

...i will

however i just tried it, and while the shadows have indeed a lower quality, my performance only increased about 1fps average, so i will be playing without them, cause shadows really hit my performance.(without them i have average 50-60fps/with shadows enabled only 20-30fps)
but i think its worth a try for everybody,...may be someone else gains more performance while keeping shadows enabled.

btw, is it possible to enter a higher value than 5?will the quality increase of the shadows, or is 5 the highest working value?

[MD_Titus]

Would be nice to have simple shadows, like 1946, and complex options. Having them off looks odd when your planes casts no shadow on the ground, but the performance increase of not having shadows in the pit is significant.

[Yvetette]

Flying today on a long flight i had some time to think about shadows.
As i fly without shadows to improve performance, i really missed the aircraft shadows :(

So i thought it SHOULD be possible to have the option to allow/disallow certain shadows in the game. I would assume that in there graphic engine could allow for it. Like say trees can cast a shadow or not cast the shadow.

So for instance, you could have 3 options.
Aircraft Shadows
Tree Shadows
Building Shadows

I would like to think that it would be possible. And be able to at least add a little immersion without taking it all away :)

Regards

I have asked the devs that same option twice months ago including cockpit shadows, cloud shadows and vehicle shadows, but they haven't even bothered to answer or explain if it is possible or not. But maybe we should make more noise about it:grin: