Odd Shadows?

[ShogoXT]

Hey all for a while now something minor has been bothering me in some games. Its the way some of the shadows are done. Crysis it has gotten me to notice it the most. When I position my shadow over another character inside the game the edges of the shadow are "dotted". I couldnt get a screenshot of it, but it also does it in lights mark, on the soft shadow test as the statue girl is spinning. I do have a crysis screenshot though, but keep in mind I had to specificly place the shadow for it to do this. It will look fine on the floor.

Does anyone else have this or do I have some strange issue thats common in alot of my games, but barely noticeable.

http://img522.imageshack.us/im...9763/oddshadowsmd3.jpg

 

[CottonRabbit]

At least for Crysis, I think that's due to r_shadowjittering=1 and low e_shadows_max_texture_size. Try setting jittering to 0 first and then bumping shadow texture size to 1024 if that doesn't work.

 

[ShogoXT]

Hi again, apologies for necroing a topic. I recently started to look at the issue again because I was over a friends house recently who I updated drivers to match my own. He has a Radeon X1600 XT and I have a Radeon HD2900 XT. We are both using current 8.3 drivers. You pointed out the issue in crysis at least, but I havent had a chance to verify it. Although when I ran Lightsmark on his computer I noticed his shadows were alot softer than what I see on my computer.

Here are a few more pictures from lightsmark.
http://img99.imageshack.us/img...008031415305259sg8.jpg
http://img99.imageshack.us/img...008031415314329lw2.jpg
http://img99.imageshack.us/img...008031415315389ta0.jpg
http://img397.imageshack.us/im...008031415320779kj7.jpg

Im using Vista now and the HD2900, but I dont remember anything like this when I had the X1950XT on XP. I also sometimes see it in Company of Heroes when I think about it.

Thanks again for the help

 

[ja1484]

That's basically how you fake soft shadow edges when you're using sharp-edged shadow maps...You just shake the texture around really quickly to give the illusion of a soft penumbra.

Sorry, that's the norm...technology just isn't there yet...

 

[ShogoXT]

That makes sense to me, and why I was ignoring it for so long. It just seemed different though from before. Especially from my friends X1600 card. The shadows I understand, but the side of the golden dolls head too? If its supposed to be like that, then thats cool, just wanted to make sure I didnt mess with something.

EDIT: Basicly it just seemed different then I remember from X1950/XP days. I wonder if one of the technologies for shadowing was changed for the HD2900.

Another thing I noticed. Penumbra Shadows in lightsmark KILLS performance on my 2900xt. My friends X1600 did it 10 frames faster at least (was the only thing it did better though).