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?

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.

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.

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.

Dutch Guy · 23 Jan 2007 at 08:34

Are soft shadows really on?

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:

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.