It would be great if we could get an option to limit the number of cars whose headlights cast shadows.. eg, be able to select 1,2,3,4, all... where 1 would represent 1 car in front and 1 car behind whose headlights cast shadows (and other cars headlights do not). Your own car always casting shadows. This would enable me to race at night , or in the rain without having to reduce the graphical fidelity so much in order to reduce drastic frame drops at various tracks the moment you get a number of cars behind you with their full headlights on. I can race with the sprint cars in the thunderstorm during the day/night with a full field at Nurburgring Veedol with full 90 fps in VR with high/ultra settings. If I swap to any car that actually has headlights, this reduces the frame rate immensely the moment I get in front of a few cars. Its just the headlights causing issues. I can race the GT3 full field at night at same track at the back of the field no problem, but the moment I overtake 3 or 4 cars and thereby have their headlights casting shadows behind me... boom.. I get stutters galore. I love the way the shadows work from headlights of cars behind so I dont want to turn them off completely. So this extra option I think would be a great addition. I'd be happy to just have a single car behind me cast shadows and a single car ahead. That's all I need. The rest I wouldn't notice and they just kill my framerate. I am running an 11900K/RTX3080.
Since its dark could you even see any cars behind you if they dont have their headlights on? Just thinking if youd just run like 5 cars visable in general, you might not even see a difference? Edit: Youd also lose the cars in front I guess, but somehow I cant delete this post. Lol
Just to illustrate the point here, I tried the following in VR. - Thunderstorm, midnight, GT3, Nurburgring Veedol. - Start at back of grid I did a couple of laps and stayed right on the tail of the guy in front making sure I remained last (no cars behind me). I maintained my full 90fps. - I overtook 1 car and remained second last for another lap and stayed at 90fps. - I overtook another car remaining 3rd last (as much as possible) for another lap and noticed only slight hiccup here and there. I kept up this pattern of gradually having an extra car behind me for a couple of laps and the stutters gradually got worse every time I added an extra car to those behind me. I then raced with no mirrors and the same thing happens (ie gradual decrease in frame rate as I passed cars). I then raced with Sprint cars which don't have headlights and I maintained 90fps throughout the entire race passing as many cars as I liked (Things obviously get difficult if you become the lead car as visibility is not great ). This leads me to the conclusion it has something to do with shadow casting of headlights behind the player. Its only a guess but something seems very odd about having cars BEHIND you when full headlights are on. This even happens during the day if I run in Rain or any weather where AI will turn on their FULL headlights. I can run in "Light rain" and never have a single issue during the day.. even into late evening with sun very low so long as FULL headlights do not come on. I notice some headlights are on, but I assume these are not FULL until the lighting gets to a point where they start casting shadows. The moment full headlights are illuminated AND cars are behind me .. BOOM.. Frame drops. Hence the request for more control in this area. If someone suspects something else at play here by all means chime in but I have tested this thoroughly in order to draw my conclusions. Just to be clear, I am not asking for headlights to be OFF, just not casting shadows for a select number of cars BEHIND the player. I like the way the shadows dance around in front of you from the car behind you so I don't want shadow casting removed completely either. Obviously this differs at different tacks for different cars but I selected the one that seems to have the most consistent impact on frame rate for me (Veedol, turn 1 is perfect example.. if you survive the AI ).
100% - the last barrier for me in getting all round glorious VR performance. Would love to get this up the priority list for looking at… any idea how?
It will not influence process of development in any way The headlights performance vs. distance/visibility is in discussion. So it's receiving attention definetly! (I would also love to see a max headlights setting in the game, not gonna lie)
Attention is good!!! Dusk/Dawn/Night racing is one of my petpeeves currently cause it bogs the FPS so much during start and when its a bit crowd, but once the cars are a bit spread out the FPS will be fine usually.
Even with an RTX 3090 the fps tanks in bad weather and low light. I had a stock car race at Spielberg last night 25 opponents real weather and it was stormy and started at dawn. My fps at the start was 61. When I watched the replay of the start it was down to 51.
Yeah. I've a 3070. Currently I've everything on high, except Tracks on Ultra and no hd mirrors cause I only use the virtual rearview mirror anyway. It keeps up my capped 117 fps all the time, except for some situations.
I have everything cranked up as high as it goes and as large a grid as is available. What fps so you get at start in miserable weather? And replays? Once under way I generally sit on my 118fps limit, even in bad weather. In sunny or cloudy conditions I generally get 118fps with the GPU running between 60-80%
3090 system here and yes, the lights are an immersion killer in VR. This is a great idea. Just give us the option to turn off or reduce headlight shadow casting and boom! Sorted.
Thanks for letting us know it’s getting some attention. This game excels in day/night transitions and looks gorgeous in dawn/dusk, but this headlight issue can’t be tuned out with settings even on top end systems… so fingers crossed for some dev love soon!
Maybe they can optimise it. Have they got Ilja from AC CSP on the case with weather? Maybe he can find some tweaks / optimisations in the night driving too.
Im hoping so. Reiza get help and support still from SMS as part of the deal licensing the madness engine and we’ve seen them make improvements to shadows, so optimistic it’s one they can get some pointers on. Will make such an impact!
Very good discussion and nice to know that this is on the list. To add a possible solution I was thinking about: during the night we typically see less sharp (the eyes pupil / iris is getting larger). It would be nice to achieve this effect by a dynamic and maybe localized (center vs. edges of the screen) reduced resolution with the correct filtering (bilinear?) version of interpolation. Of course this should be an option only for the users who want or need it. However, realizing this would allow for less dramatic change in fps when the sun goes down combined with some "plausible immersion" feature .
I also have an RTX 3080 and in VR with the crazy resolution required there is literally no headroom to lose 40-60% framerate due to headlights. It is impossible to race at night unless the resolution is undersampled to a point of complete aliased blurriness. I stopped using AMS2 for this reason as i love day/night cycle races and this is the only sim it is not possible with. A real shame as the madness engine has amazing day/night cycle graphics. It would be nice to have an ingame toggle to disable headlight shadows as in my opinion they dont add any immersive value either. The shadows are also extrenmely buggy and render strange trapezoidal shaped black patterns in front of you randomly which is also distracting and annoying.
I'd rather not have them off completely but limit the number of cars that cast shadows from headlights. Mine, 1 in front and 1 behind me
