Please enable "Ultra" shadows in game settings. It looks beautiful, works wonderful especially in VR. I see no performance impact.

[Hiob]

13 minutes ago, Picchio said:

Uhm, if the changes suggested don't simply affect all shadows there is something I'm missing - I've re-read the posts above and I see the same modifications that were already discussed in the thread I posted. 

As for the second misconception, I agree with your observations, I was simplifying.

I don't think ground shadows are affected by this, but I may be mistaken about that. I will have a close look again. If this setting gets rid of the blurry edges of ground shadows in the same way it does in the cockpit, that would be awesome - double so when considering the relatively low performance impact.

[Picchio]

13 minutes ago, Hiob said:

I don't think ground shadows are affected by this, but I may be mistaken about that. I will have a close look again. If this setting gets rid of the blurry edges of ground shadows in the same way it does in the cockpit, that would be awesome - double so when considering the relatively low performance impact.

I also might be wrong - it's quite easy to verify by looking at shadows coming from smaller geometries, trees and branches are a good indicator. Like I said, it's a bit of a borderline situation, but moving the viewport close enough to any forest (this allows the highest shadowmap resolution to be used), performance hits can be more evident.

[Hiob]

Just now, Picchio said:

I also might be wrong - it's quite easy to verify by looking at shadows coming from smaller geometries, trees and branches are a good indicator. Like I said, it's a bit of a borderline situation, but moving the viewport close enough to any forest (this allows the highest shadowmap resolution to be used), performance hits can be more evident.

My quick tests were with a helicopter over dense city/forrest envirionments, but not at very low altitude, since I didn't think it would affect anything outside the cockpit. I can't wait to try it tonight..... 

[Bucic]

I might check it out one day. RTX 2070. There's suspiciously little info 9n what it actually does.

[Rapierarch]

Hi everyone,

Since my request here I have been developing a new setting for the shadows. You can find the mod here: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3332639/

Last version works at a very short range up to 300m and for the rest is SSS. It is the best combination I found right now. It performs also a lot better now.  

I'm currently looking at its impact on secondary shadows and also trying to fine tune the max distance. 

Feel free to test it. It breaks the IC pass (since shadows.lua is altered) 

[Rapierarch]

6 hours ago, Picchio said:

@Rapierarch it's not like everyone has a 4090, I don't see the use in declaring "I see no performance impact". A bit of a clickbaity thread for a tweak that has been around the forums for years.

Moving on, aside from being obviously related to the GPU, I can say that the performance penalty can be especially severe when the viewpoint is close to forests. As @Hiob correctly pointed out, it really depends on the number of shadows being drawn.

There is a reason why Ultra quality is not implemented by default.

Well there is a reason why it is designed. It is designed for people to get best quality who has the hardware. (like content creators making ED 20xx and beyond videos)

What would you think if ED disables 4K screen sizes in render options and stops at 1440K. Because for a lot of people 4k screens are expensive and they cannot afford a qpu to use it well. But you could enable it via a tweak and you loose multiplayer access with that. 

 

[Marco Schaap]

On 10/27/2023 at 3:06 AM, f14billy said:

If you want to enable ultra shadows without having to change the config file every time try this:

In the file \DCSWorld\MissionEditor\modules\Options\optionsDb.lua

add the ultra option as shown below.

graphics('shadows')    :setValue(2)        :combo({Name(_('OFF'))        :Value(0),
                            Name(_('FLAT ONLY')):Value(1),
                            Name(_('LOW'))        :Value(2),
                            Name(_('MEDIUM'))    :Value(3),
                            Name(_('HIGH'))        :Value(4),
                            Name(_('ULTRA'))    :Value(5)
                            }):low(1):medium(1):high(4):VR(3)

This adds the ultra option in the shadows menu in the options tab. Not sure if this will break the Integrity Check in multiplayer. It works perfectly in my PC in single player open beta 2.9.

@BIGNEWY could this simple change be added to the code?

Thank you

 

Thanks for this, going to use it tonight!

[Hiob]

It works, it looks nice - but no performance impact is not true of course.

You may not see it when your frames are capped anyway in any form but there is of course a cost to more/better shadows.

[f14billy]

I think they added the ultra option now officially. After the new update I didn't have to edit the optionsDb.lua to enable them.