8800GTS and F.E.A.R. = no Soft Shadows ?

Dutch Guy · 22 Jan 2007 at 08:25

Recently I have been playing F.E.A.R. again since upgrading to a 8800GTS and it runs so smooth at max details I thought why not try Soft Shadows but whenever I enable it it doesn't seem to do anything, shadows are still 'hard' and the performancce is the same.

Is Soft Shadows an option that is currently not available?

skullman · 22 Jan 2007 at 12:22

I thought that soft shadows only worked if you had anti aliasing disabled - I could be wrong though.

FrenchTart · 22 Jan 2007 at 12:24

That used to be the case but was (not so) apparently fixed in a very early FEAR or nvidia driver update.

Dutch Guy · 22 Jan 2007 at 13:11

I will try it tonight with AA disabled, although I doubt I will use it if AA has to be disabled.

FrenchTart · 22 Jan 2007 at 13:14

Indeed. FEAR is a game where AA makes a huge difference.

I've run SS + AA on my old 7800GTX in the past though, so I'm pretty certain that they can be run together.

It killed the performance so I disabled it again though.

geeza · 22 Jan 2007 at 13:30

soft shadows and aa works on my x1800xt :confused:

yeh its a performance hit but i just put aa on 4 and af on 4 instead

Dutch Guy · 22 Jan 2007 at 13:34

I know it is (was) a performance killer, I just wanted to see if it really is very nice to look at or if it isn't worth the performance drop.

geeza · 22 Jan 2007 at 13:46

Dutch Guy said:
I know it is (was) a performance killer, I just wanted to see if it really is very nice to look at or if it isn't worth the performance drop.

if you like looking at the shadows instead of playing the game, then yes

FrenchTart · 22 Jan 2007 at 13:53

In FEAR the shadows are very important actually - especially in multiplayer they can be a very good early warning device.

Dutch Guy · 22 Jan 2007 at 15:33

geeza said:
if you like looking at the shadows instead of playing the game, then yes

Good point, though I do think that the shadows in F.E.A.R. add to the atmosphere of the game, seeing some guys standing round the corner with their shadow visible is a good warning to stop and lob a grenade towards them

I am more interested in it because of the technological aspect of it though so no big deal if it does not work.

Dutch Guy · 22 Jan 2007 at 19:15

I had enabled FSAA in the control panel as I tried 8xCSAA in the beginning and that stopped soft shadows from working, I set it to application controlled and it works.

I think it looks better than 'normal' shadows but the average at 1280*1024 4xAA/16xAF dropped from 94fps to 63fps in the test and 63fps in the test is nowhere near enough as ingame that would drop to low fps.

HangTime · 22 Jan 2007 at 22:26

Yeah 63fps average in that benchmark is pretty poor. To get something approaching a decent framerate you need MIN fps over 50 and even then in the actual game that means it'll probably drop down to around 35 or so.

geeza · 23 Jan 2007 at 02:06

in highest settings 4x aa and 8x af without soft shadows I get 63fps and with i also get 63fps. I quit the game and went back into the options and it was on still so i ran the benchmark and it got the same again.

strange

oh thats running an 'average' system

opteron [email protected]
X1800xt@700core 800memory
2x1gb Gskill HZ
DFI Ultra D

Dutch Guy · 23 Jan 2007 at 08:34

Are soft shadows really on?

FrenchTart · 23 Jan 2007 at 08:58

I played last night and had soft shadows enabled with AA.

I used to play FEAR reasonably extensively without SS and I'm fairly sure the shadows looked different/how I remember them looking when I last enabled it (without AA).

8800 GTS

geeza · 23 Jan 2007 at 11:46

Dutch Guy said:
Are soft shadows really on?

how do i check?

Dutch Guy · 23 Jan 2007 at 12:42

geeza said:
how do i check?

Go towards a light, look at the shadow you are projecting, go to options and enable/disable soft shadows and look for the difference like this:

geeza · 23 Jan 2007 at 13:17

I disabled aa then checked and soft shadows were on, then i went to 2x aa and bakc to 4axx and tried the test demo. went from 64fps down to 34fps with soft shadows on. No way worth the dip in fps id say. All it does is seem to blur them anyway, they dont even look better

Dutch Guy · 23 Jan 2007 at 14:20

geeza said:
All it does is seem to blur them anyway, they dont even look better

I would say it looks more realistic than the 'normal' shadows and I quite like it.

But as said it is not worth the performance hit and also when AA is on together with soft shadows the shadows sometimes are messed up.