Solution for Flickering/Shimmering terrain and shadows
 

Hi
I know this is an old topic ,but now we have the (what seems ) the final patch,
I was wondering if anyone has a solution to get static non shimmering shadows.
Dont say turn them off ,because it looks like legoland low down if off,so thats not a solution.
I have the latest patch installed correctly (deleted cache and all that), also my system is up to scratch and working great in all other games etc ,its a intel i7-2600k,wth a GTX 570 under win7 .
Now I know a lot of you suffer from this, and for me as a low flying QMB kind of flyer its a real deal breaker. Ive been with il2 from the start,bought every game and also fly RoF a lot. If old il2 and Rof can have static shadows and a landscape that does not wobble about like a bowl of porridge on a roller coaster im sure 2012 new patch CLOD can!!!!!!!!
I see promise in this game, but I cant see me buying the sequel if this isnt sorted. Was hoping one patch would finally sort it, but no joy, it just really spoils the look of the game ( to me anyhow ,I respect those of you who dont see a problem here), and stops me from enjoying it.
Please can someone( now the developers have given up ) find a solution here.
P.S I have tried many AA fixes in the vain hope this would stop the land shimmer but it does not. It fixes the antialiasing in cockpit though which looks better,but not the wobbly shadows.
Thanks in advance ,as im not here to often to reply (not being ignorant),but will be glad of any solutions as will many others.
Be nice if this could be stickied in case any bright spark can solve this in the future?
Peace to all you good flyers..

Well, I have a similar rig (see sig) and I must say it has been reduced a lot lately... I can see the shimmering if looking straight down from external view but in most cases from the cockpit view I don't see it at all...

It is a LOT better than before and in the latest betas as well as the release patch I have every time thought that they had fixed it until really looking for it :) Do you remember how the shadows of that radar installation at Dover used to look at the release date?

Have to agree with Sandisk...its the last big issue for me too:(

+1

And the flickering reflections in the prop.

i had the same improvements with the latest patches, for me that issue significantly reduced and i thought they had solved most of it. there was still an exaggerated "sun reflection" issue, where houses and some other objects reflected light to much, but the old tree/Forrest shadow shimmer issue seemed much reduced and not an issue anymore.

the good news is, if some experience this shimmer problem much less, maybe there is something in their settings that reduces it, and those with a problem have some hope of also being able to reduce it

Props and water flicker now.. .. Running smooth but those flickers are hard ..

I don't have those problems, are you all running the latest Drivers? (306.97)

Even the developers do have those flickerings, but you don't. :rolleyes:

Windows Update and Nvidia Update doesn't help.

(you have to set 'shadows' and 'trees' to ON to see the flickering, btw)

no, and neither do i

this is of course presuming we are still talking about the "Flickering/Shimmering terrain and shadows" that the OP of this thread mentioned.

i did notice those very badly in the early versions of the game, but not since the recent patches. maybe some people who are able to run the game fluidly on max settings for all options have this problem, but with medium settings i now have pretty good fpsec's and no major flicker/shimmering with forests anymore

there is an excessive reflection of light issue tho, where some distant objects reflect light to much, including some groups of houses if the sun catches them just right.

the ugly overdone prop spin effect is another issue, that is significantly overdone since the last few patches, is rather ugly and detracting, i really hoped that was going to be fixed/reduced in the final patch, but doesn't look like they sorted it out

Was that one of the number of easy fixes that they never fixed Zap? ;)

Makes no difference if the settings are on high, medium or low. Flickering is always present.

In response to a few things, I have got the latest drivers installed,and also it never makes any difference when I play with the in game settings.
To be fair as someone stated I do not notice it so much in cockpit,however as I said I mostly fly at low altitude, and get a voyeuristic pleasure from watching my tracks back.This is because in il2 (old & modded) plus RoF the scenery really adds to the realistic feel of the SIMULATION.
Now surely " simulation " means that within the limits of technology things must be rendered as near to real life as possible.
So after patch installation I play the Black Death track ,and what do I see.
I see shimmering hedgerows and trees, plus nearby legoblock towns wobbling away merrily.
To anyone wondering, Im not some OCD anal retentive, because what gets my goat is that 3,4, 5 year old or whatever il2 maps like Slovenia or RoF landscapes do not look as bad ( in fact the buildings and general quality of say Slovenia look much better to me than lego wobble CLOD),this is what saddens me with CLOD.How can some aspects be so much worse than previous incarnations.
Im not being a whiner because CloD can be more,I see that ,but this landscape aspect so detracts for me from what could be a stunning looking game.

In the latest huge Q&A sessions Luthier mentioned that this is a limitation of modern technology (or one of types of modern technology they use).

E.g. there is same shimmering of shadows in such a great game with huge budget Total War Shogun 2, even in game menus. I saw it present in ArmA2 too I think.

Hopefully they use different technology in the sequel. E.g. BF3 does not have shimmering.

Well I really hope they do use some other method in the sequel,and get rid of this problem.I just wonder If the developers have it high in the priority list?
I appreciate all the vast amount of work that goes into these games under the bonnet,but a nasty little scratch on the paintwork should be corrected I think!.

The problem is greatly reduced for me as well - compared to what it was a year ago. I'm a 2500k and 580gtx user. From the cockpit I only see shimmer when looking straight down from less then 1km alt. At an angle there I can not see it.

I have to say I am very disappointed that the flickering/ shimmering trees and shadows and the prop have been left as they are. Completely unrealistic and a complete turn off. They ruin the sim (along with the steadily worsening colour palette). I really do wonder where the devs are coming from. Then again perhaps I shouldn't: Spitgirl anyone? What nonsense.

RedToo.

Visual shimmering with shadow maps is directly related to the shadow map texture resolution, and the size of objects as they are viewed from the light. FPS games with not too much distance to draw and objects filling a lot of screen space are optimal for this, while big landscapes with tons of small objects like trees are the worst situation. It´s unfair to compare BF with CoD. Even Total War scenery is a lot smaller than CoD.

ArmA2 uses a combination between shadow maps ( for near landscape ) and stencil shadows, for soldiers and vehicles. Stencil shadow is the alternative to shadow map. It has no shimmering at all, but it is slower if you have tons of objects to cast shadows, the shadow can´t be easily blurred and shadows can´t be calculated trough alpha objects, like trees or clouds.
What we have its not a so bad compromise for a so huge landscape, if we want to see shadows so far as we have.