First I'd like to thank you all for being such an awesome community! One of the "constant pillars" of my life since 2017
Sadly right now I can't do Sundays and while Wednesdays seem to be "the" event of the week right now, it was also the ACC days for many weeks and I really wanted to dive into it for some time.
Hopefully I'll join more AC races with you all in the next weeks!
Sounds like yesterday was quite an adventure with lots of ups and downs for almost everyone. I'd sure be studying the replay if I was part of it
Now let's get the quoties flowing .P
Sounds good! I know you have quite powerful hardware! Are you using any fps limiter, vsync? If not, your cpu is the limiting factor and might cause microstutters but if you're happy, don't bother changing anything!
Yes, although I'm not THAT knowledgeable about shadows rendering.
However the clip planes, which are now called "distances" in CSP and were called "Split Distances" before:
For many engines you have the "shadow map size" and then multiple "cascades".
The shadow map size is "how much shadow you have available for everything".
The cascades are like LODs. different quality/details at different distances from the rendering position (your cockpit).
So you have to find a good mix of lower details further away (4th cascade), more details close to you (1st cascade), the distances where the cascade changes and the available map size for everything.
If you put too much detail in the cascades compared to the map size, you get jumping shadows.
There are games where you have more access to this stuff, like Witcher 3. Here, you can basically eliminate the 1st cascade, reduce the quality of the other cascades and then make the 4th cascade faaaaaaar away.
That way you won't see the separate fingers on the floor-shadow when holding a torch, but you won't have flickering or jumping shadows either.
While at the same time having enough performance and map size available to render shadows very very far away, making the world look a lot better when on a hill.
I hope that wasn't too much additional information hehe.
Basically the clip planes are the distances where the shadows switch from one cascade to the next.
Calmest shadows should be achieved with the 4th cascade starting as close as possible to your POV while using the maximum map size available.
Making all shadows just "dark blobs", but no jumping!
You can also often see the cascade borders while going through some pit lanes and pushing a border of detail-change down the side wall.
In rF2 that's a big issues imo... Looks totally stupid.
The fun thing in AC is that in Photomode during replays, the clip planes are still the same distances, but you can turn the FOV wayyyy down to get a super-tele-lens and have all distances in one picture.
Here's a screenshot where I draw the cascade borders / clip planes /distances:
View attachment 594473
I think Smartshadows + TAA do a good job but if you want to play around with this stuff, you should reduce the distances. I never did this though since I'm fine since TAA and Smartshadows is available.
My Screenshot is "exterior", so 10/50/250m splits at default with csp 0.1.78.
Interior is 1.3/40/200.
4th cascade is used until 1500m at default. After that, no shadows at all.
The 1.3 are basically just your own cockpit.
One thing I don't really understand:
"Disable car shadows in 3rd cascade" option. It could mean that you won't see any car shadows after 200m or that you get the 4th cascade "blob" shadows after 40m.
Yeah Edith is a little B***!
Yeah, I guess it is as long it's just a handful of people every half a year like now
You didn't tell us your resolution, did you? Which is very crucial for all this stuff.
3070 has plenty of performance for AC though, so like you found out, 150+ fps is easily possible.
75 Hz monitor and locked 75 fps is definitely vsync, yep!
The AC inbuilt benchmark shuts off vsync btw, which is why you're seeing higher fps there.
For me, it doesn't, because I'm using RTSS (riva tuner), nvidia vsync and gsync so my fps are locked no matter what
View attachment 594474
Reshade: I don't think there's any need for reshade in AC, since the PP-Filters can do pretty much everything and if you want the fake Raytracing or Ambient Occlusion stuff from reshade, you're killing the performance massively and CSP has better stuff available for you!
My recommendation would be to delete all the reshade files and rather test some nicely build PP filters or the CSP settings.
Btw, I'm using one of the older "Natural Mod" filters, slightly adjusted to my liking. The creator sadly changed that one but he managed to make the cockpits deep black while the outside looks still natural.
It's a bit "washed out" compared to the AC default, but since the races are after sunset for me in Germany, the default would be too bright.
When practicing during the day, I'm using the default PP.
Honestly though, I have no idea if my default is the actual AC default anymore.. So here are 2 screenshots with MY default and my custom pp filter
My default: (Auto exposure on)
View attachment 594484
My custom: (No auto exposure!)
View attachment 594485
Hehe yeah, info for everyone:
Ernie doesn't use CM but I wanted him to get the benefits of CSP like Smart Shadows, TAA and especially the CPU optimizations.
So I had a look and CSP doesn't really care for CM or default launcher, but there's no way to install or update it without CM.
So I configured everything on my own PC and sent Ernie the folders and it works!
I can explain in detail why more than 75 fps aren't worth it for normal club racing on a 75 Hz monitor but it's not important here.
The important things are:
- probably because of vsync, we can look into it, shouldn't take long!
- your monitor can't display more than 75 fps without tearing
- tearing is more distracting and wasteful of energy than the reduced input lag is worth it
- however we should get you set up with vsync + 74.97 fps via RTSS (since you already have afterburner), which will induce a microstutter every few seconds that barely anyone can notice but reduce the input MASSIVELY!
Or if we can get gsync compatible mode to run, that would be even better!
Indeed.. Especially with CSP where you activate the wrong extension and even a 12900k + 3090 cry for help
Sounds fine! What is "basics"? Like a few basic apps or the "AC Essentials" app?
Depending whether or not you're using CSP with the "Custom fonts rendering", these few apps might already be too much for your CPU or not problem at all!
The GPU load is tricky with newer driver versions and 30xx cards!
If the energy setting is set to "optimal" or whatever it is for your language, the default in any case, then the GPU load will always be between 75-100% but the clockspeed will fluctuate, depending on the load.
It works really well, barely any microstutters anyway more with newer driver versions!
It was a stutter fest with my 1070 in AMS1 for example.. Had to force "prefer maximum performance" in the driver to keep the card in 3D mode (1500+ MHz).
What I wanna say: The GPU load alone isn't telling anything anymore. You always need to clockspeed along with it.
My 3080 shows 60% load in the very old game "Gothic 2", but only runs at 800 MHz with a power consumption of 90W
The 79°C should be looked into though! We should look into afterburner, noting the gpu load, power consumption and temperature. Also all the other temps via hwinfo64 while running an AI race.
Should give us plenty of info to work with!
I'll drop you a PM for a date to jump into discord.
Maybe we can record our session and cut it into a little guide with no personal informations visible afterwards for everyone in here (hidden video, blacked parts of the image, link shared in this forum).
