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Gain FPS with cockpit only shadows


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If you want more frames per second, one easy way to achieve this, is to turn off the shadows. But many do not like DCS shadowless.

 

If you are ready to loose the world shadows, but love your cockpit shadows, there is a way if you are bold enough to edit your lua config files:

 

In the ... Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\Config\Effects\shadows.lua file I changed the values from {0.02, 2.5, 25.0, 250.0, 1500.0, 7000} to {0.02, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8,1 }. This reduces the shadow range drastically and improves performance dramatically :thumbsup:

 

(I choose to modify the shadows high settings for my purpose)

 

{	--high
		4096,
		{0.02, 25.0, 100.0, 400.0, 1500.0, 7000},	
		{0.02, 0.5,  0.6, 0.7, 0.8,1 }   -- original: {0.02, 2.5,  25.0,  250.0, 1500.0, 7000}
	},

 

With 3600X & 1080Ti & Reverb for example you can have high cockpit shadows and still achieve constant 60 FPS!

 

(Disadvantage: No multiplayer)

CockpitShadowsHigh.thumb.JPG.18c6dff166570787fa59c9acfe2796f8.JPG

CockpitHigh2.thumb.JPG.e5f3c40a68228e33578e1ecfcd69b017.JPG


Edited by Motomouse
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VIC-20@1.108 MHz, onboard GPU, 5KB RAM, μυωπία goggles, Competition Pro HOTAS

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Its sad that we have to continually potato out our settings to get decent FPS.

 

Well actually with this level of sim there should be more complex setting we should be able to set in options besides just basic settings..

 

at least these lua files give us these options to modify things when we find them.. but I would hope one day we have control over more refining of setttings in the ingame options..

 

 

Not everybody has the exact same PC nor can afford the more high end this game needs to some extent in VR mostly.. so we need to squeeze more performance when and where we can..


Edited by The_Nephilim
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ASRock Z590 Phantom Gaming 4/AC / Intel i7 10700K @ 5.1Ghz / Noctua DHS-14 Heatsinkw/Fan /  Samsung 970plus m.2 1TB  /  eVGA FTW3 2080Ti /  RipJaws - 64GB RAM @3200  /  SoundBlaster Z  / Reverb G2 VR /  ThrustMaster HOTAS Cougar & MFD's / Buttkicker Gamer 2

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If you want more frames per second, one easy way to achieve this, is to turn off the shadows. But many do not like DCS shadowless.

 

If you are ready to loose the world shadows, but love your cockpit shadows, there is a way if you are bold enough to edit your lua config files:

 

In the ... Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\Config\Effects\shadows.lua file I changed the values from {0.02, 2.5, 25.0, 250.0, 1500.0, 7000} to {0.02, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8,1 }. This reduces the shadow range drastically and improves performance dramatically :thumbsup:

 

(I choose to modify the shadows high settings for my purpose)

 

{	--high
		4096,
		{0.02, 25.0, 100.0, 400.0, 1500.0, 7000},	
		{0.02, 0.5,  0.6, 0.7, 0.8,1 }   -- original: {0.02, 2.5,  25.0,  250.0, 1500.0, 7000}
	},

 

With 3600X & 1080Ti & Reverb for example you can have high cockpit shadows and still achieve constant 60 FPS!

 

(Disadvantage: No multiplayer)

Wow!! Thanks for sharing Motomouse! This is exactly what I was looking for! :thumbup:

(Well, I rather had ED provide us the option for cockpit only shadows in the core game, but I gave up on wishing and waiting for ED to hear me on this request..)

 

It's things like this that make this community so awesome! :cheer3nc:

System specs:

 

i7-8700K @stock speed - GTX 1080TI @ stock speed - AsRock Extreme4 Z370 - 32GB DDR4 @3GHz- 500GB SSD - 2TB nvme - 650W PSU

HP Reverb G1 v2 - Saitek Pro pedals - TM Warthog HOTAS - TM F/A-18 Grip - TM Cougar HOTAS (NN-Dan mod) & (throttle standalone mod) - VIRPIL VPC Rotor TCS Plus with ALPHA-L grip - Pointctrl & aux banks <-- must have for VR users!! - Andre's SimShaker Jetpad - Fully adjustable DIY playseat - VA+VAICOM

 

~ That nuke might not have been the best of ideas, Sir... the enemy is furious ~ GUMMBAH

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You dont understand the shadow settings correctly yet.

 

Shadows off, flat, low, medium, high setting controls the quality/type of the shadows. These are applied to your own plane and scenery objects (planes, bunkers, airfield objects ...).

 

The terrain object setting controls if terrain objects (trees, towns, ...) also use shadows.

 

The thread is about restricting the shadows to in cockpit shadows only. This will for example increase VR FPS from 40 to 60 FPS. (Alternative is no shadows at all for 60 FPS.). There is no such cockpit only shadows setting in DCS yet. It would be a nice addition and very welcome.

VIC-20@1.108 MHz, onboard GPU, 5KB RAM, μυωπία goggles, Competition Pro HOTAS

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Shadows are CPU thing, so it will work only if you have weaker CPU.

 

My RTX2080ti and i7 9700k can gain 50fps with shadows off, making it go from unbearable to decent, but with no cockpit shadows the game disappoints. This would be a helpful option for the game.

RTX 2080ti, I7 9700k, 32gb ram, SSD, Samsung Odyssey VR, MSFFB2, T-50 Throttle, Thrustmaster Rudder Pedals

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Just had the opportunity to test this and it really does work very well!

 

I gained ±10fps going from low to "the adjusted" high, which was just enough for my pc to go from too much stutter, to no noticeable stutters at all :thumbup:

Also, as a bonus, the in cockpit shadows are much more crisp

 

I don't play MP, so for me this is a great addition. Thanks again for sharing.

 

 

Oh, by the way, it seems the shadows.lua file gets reset during updates, so you will need to change this after each update.

System specs:

 

i7-8700K @stock speed - GTX 1080TI @ stock speed - AsRock Extreme4 Z370 - 32GB DDR4 @3GHz- 500GB SSD - 2TB nvme - 650W PSU

HP Reverb G1 v2 - Saitek Pro pedals - TM Warthog HOTAS - TM F/A-18 Grip - TM Cougar HOTAS (NN-Dan mod) & (throttle standalone mod) - VIRPIL VPC Rotor TCS Plus with ALPHA-L grip - Pointctrl & aux banks <-- must have for VR users!! - Andre's SimShaker Jetpad - Fully adjustable DIY playseat - VA+VAICOM

 

~ That nuke might not have been the best of ideas, Sir... the enemy is furious ~ GUMMBAH

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You can also set the values to 0 to remove the rendering of the specific shadow cascade(s) completely which will reduce CPU overhead. Here is the shadows.lua I use: http://junk.kegetys.fi/shadows.lua

 

With that, all shadow settings use the same resolution (4096x4096 pixels, most GPU's should be fine with that) but the different settings have different amount of cascades instead. 'Low' setting has only one cascade, so you get shadows only in the cockpit, medium has two cascades and high has 3. The DCS default has 4 cascades on every setting and only the shadowmap resolution is different.

 

When you use terrain object shadows with that you still get shadows drawn as far as before, just the overhead is less and at least in VR the visual difference is quite small.

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As a cyborg, you will serve SHODAN well

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You dont understand the shadow settings correctly yet.

 

Shadows off, flat, low, medium, high setting controls the quality/type of the shadows. These are applied to your own plane and scenery objects (planes, bunkers, airfield objects ...).

 

The terrain object setting controls if terrain objects (trees, towns, ...) also use shadows.

 

The thread is about restricting the shadows to in cockpit shadows only. This will for example increase VR FPS from 40 to 60 FPS. (Alternative is no shadows at all for 60 FPS.). There is no such cockpit only shadows setting in DCS yet. It would be a nice addition and very welcome.

 

 

You're right. I didn't understand how it worked.

 

Thanks.

Buzz

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I use cockpit only shadows now with flat terrain object shadows in combination. The flat terrain object shadows are not costly at all and combined with high cockpit only scenery shadows it looks very nice.

 

Perhaps one way to improve performance for scenery object shadows for ED is to use a low detail lod model instead of the full detailed model to calculate the shadows? But I am no expert if this is possible at all.

VIC-20@1.108 MHz, onboard GPU, 5KB RAM, μυωπία goggles, Competition Pro HOTAS

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Many thanks to all who contributed, very helpful.

 

 

(including, and especially the OP, obvs)


Edited by Hippo

System spec: Intel i9 13900KF @ stock,  Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4090 Gaming OC 24GB GDDR6X, Gigabyte Z690 UD DDR4, Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO SL 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 3600MHz C18, Samsung 980 EVO 500 GB NVME M.2 SSD (system drive), Samsung 970 EVO 1 TB NVME M.2 SSD (games drive), Cooler Master ML360 Illusion CPU Cooler, Asus XG43UQ Monitor, Oculus Quest Pro, Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS, MFG Crosswind Rudder Pedals

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ED should definitely implement this some way into their core game, so that it won't effect IC check for people who like to fly in MP

System specs:

 

i7-8700K @stock speed - GTX 1080TI @ stock speed - AsRock Extreme4 Z370 - 32GB DDR4 @3GHz- 500GB SSD - 2TB nvme - 650W PSU

HP Reverb G1 v2 - Saitek Pro pedals - TM Warthog HOTAS - TM F/A-18 Grip - TM Cougar HOTAS (NN-Dan mod) & (throttle standalone mod) - VIRPIL VPC Rotor TCS Plus with ALPHA-L grip - Pointctrl & aux banks <-- must have for VR users!! - Andre's SimShaker Jetpad - Fully adjustable DIY playseat - VA+VAICOM

 

~ That nuke might not have been the best of ideas, Sir... the enemy is furious ~ GUMMBAH

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works really well, but agreed, it would be great for this to be modifiable in game or via saved games... i did try just stuffing it into the saved games Config directory, but alas no effect..

SYSTEM SPECS: Hardware Intel Corei7-12700KF @ 5.1/5.3p & 3.8e GHz, 64Gb RAM, 4090 FE, Dell S2716DG, Virpil T50CM3 Throttle, WinWIng Orion 2 & F-16EX + MFG Crosswinds V2, Varjo Aero
SOFTWARE: Microsoft Windows 11, VoiceAttack & VAICOM PRO

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Gain FPS with cockpit only shadows

 

Shadows are CPU thing, so it will work only if you have weaker CPU.

 

 

 

In VR the most powerful CPU struggles (my i9 9900k struggles a lot in intensive missions) and there every millisecond counts.

 

Great mod...unfortunately i won't try it as no MP no party for me :(

 

ED needs to add this as an official option.


Edited by VirusAM

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You can also set the values to 0 to remove the rendering of the specific shadow cascade(s) completely which will reduce CPU overhead. Here is the shadows.lua I use: http://junk.kegetys.fi/shadows.lua

 

With that, all shadow settings use the same resolution (4096x4096 pixels, most GPU's should be fine with that) but the different settings have different amount of cascades instead. 'Low' setting has only one cascade, so you get shadows only in the cockpit, medium has two cascades and high has 3. The DCS default has 4 cascades on every setting and only the shadowmap resolution is different.

 

When you use terrain object shadows with that you still get shadows drawn as far as before, just the overhead is less and at least in VR the visual difference is quite small.

 

 

Hello, I changed the settings in the lua to match your settings. I set low in game. But when I spawned I had shadows on the exterior of my plane and everyone else's too. Any idea?

RTX 2080ti, I7 9700k, 32gb ram, SSD, Samsung Odyssey VR, MSFFB2, T-50 Throttle, Thrustmaster Rudder Pedals

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did you restart the game between applying the shadows settings?

SYSTEM SPECS: Hardware Intel Corei7-12700KF @ 5.1/5.3p & 3.8e GHz, 64Gb RAM, 4090 FE, Dell S2716DG, Virpil T50CM3 Throttle, WinWIng Orion 2 & F-16EX + MFG Crosswinds V2, Varjo Aero
SOFTWARE: Microsoft Windows 11, VoiceAttack & VAICOM PRO

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did you restart the game between applying the shadows settings?

 

Yes, the shadows are displaying on all external parts of the model as per usual.

 

Have i missed something

RTX 2080ti, I7 9700k, 32gb ram, SSD, Samsung Odyssey VR, MSFFB2, T-50 Throttle, Thrustmaster Rudder Pedals

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