Flickering shadows in cockpit

User Support Hub Hardware & Peripherals
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Is there a way to improve shadows in cockpit? I always get flickering and jagged shadow even if I increase the shadow map setting in sim. Is there some other setting that can help?

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Same here. Once you see it, you cannot unsee it and then it reduces the immersion.

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It’s the same thing for everyone as that’s how shadows currently work. As long as the sim does not feature raytraced shadows it will stay like it is.

The only thing one can do is bump the shadow map up as shadows are prerendered basically.

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Greetings -

is indeed possible to improve the shadows quality in the cockpit beyond the max value allowed by the in-sim setting, this is done by editing the usercfg.opt file

Details are described in the following thread:

I have set mine at 8192 (I have a 1080ti GPU) and the results are much better

5

To note, this is only possible on PC :wink:

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Helpful tips:

  1. Make a backup of the file before performing any changes.

  2. The path to the file is %AppData%\Microsoft Flight Simulator\userCfg.opt.

  3. A shadow size value of 8182 works great on the RTX 4090 (see example below). Try 4096 if 8192 impacts your framerate.

  4. The shadow size value exists in the file twice - one for flat screen and a separate one for VR. Be sure to set the 2nd one as well if you use VR.

  5. After making your settings changes, you’ll want to set the file to read only to prevent MSFS from setting it back to the value in the GUI. Right click userCfg.opt > Properties > Read Only > click Ok.

  6. If you find future settings changes in the GUI aren’t “sticking”, you may need to turn off the Read Only property temporarily to enable MSFS to write to the file. Just remember to set your shadow values back to your preferred setting afterwards and set userCfg.opt back to Read Only afterwards.

The value you’re looking to change is the “Size” parameter in the Shadow sections. In the example below I have set mine to 8192. Remember this value will appear in the file twice - once for flat screen and once for VR.

{Graphics
Version 1.1.0
Preset Ultra
{Texture
MaxAnisotropy 16
Quality 0
}
{SuperSampling
SuperSampling 3
}
{Terrain
LoDFactor 2.000000
}
{OffscreenTerrainPreCaching
Enabled 1
Quality 3
}
{ObjectsLoD
LoDFactor 2.000000
}
{Shadows
MaxSliceCount 4
Size 8192 <====== CHANGE THIS VALUE
DLightContributionCullingThresholdS0 0.100000
DLightContributionCullingThresholdS1 0.100000
DLightContributionCullingThresholdS2 0.100000
DLightContributionCullingThresholdS3 0.100000
OmniContributionCullingThreshold 0.000000

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7

You never stated which entry to modify :frowning:

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Edited/corrected - added an example.

2 Likes
9

Thanks. Made a huge difference. No noticeable loss in FPS or performance. 3080Ti.

Merry Christmas !!

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Glad to help :slight_smile: