Shadow Resolution Poor (Only in External View)

[Zadma]

ISSUE DESCRIPTION

Shadow resolution is low and flickering, but this only seems to occur when viewed with the External View. The issue is not present when the same shadows in the same instance of the sim are viewed through the cockpit windows, outside in walkaround mode, or from the drone cameras. Additionally, the player’s aircraft shadow resolution seems to improve when Raytraced Shadows is turned on, but other aircraft along with buildings and vehicles still have low-res/flickering shadows.

This issue exists with or without a populated Community Folder.

FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

Every flight, every aircraft I have tested so far (apologies, I don’t have an exhaustive list, but this seems to be a global issue).

REPRODUCTION STEPS

Please list clear steps you took in order to help our test team reproduce the same issue:

1. Spawn any aircraft in an environment/time of day that would cast shadows
2. Observe aircraft shadows from External View
3. Observe the same shadows from any other view (Walkaround, Cockpit, Drone)

YOUR SETTINGS

If the issue still occurs with no mods and add-ons, please continue to report your issue. If not, please move this post to the User Support Hub.

[PC Only] Are you using Developer Mode or have you made any changes to it?

No

[PC Only] Many issues may be due to an outdated graphics card. Please state your Graphics Card Driver Manufacturer (NVIDIA, Intel, AMD) and Version:

AMD 24.12.1

[PC Only] What other relevant PC specs can you share?

Ryzen 7 9800X3D
Radeon RX 7900 GRE
64GB DDR5-6000 CL30 RAM

The screenshots below were captured using the Ultra preset with the exception of Raytraced Shadows “Off” unless otherwise noted (with them on the aircraft shadow resolution improved, but other shadows remained poor) and Texture Resolution “Low” (this did not have an impact as testing on “High” or “Ultra” yielded the same results).

MEDIA

External View (Raytraced Shadows OFF):

External View (Raytraced Shadows ON):

Drone Camera (Raytraced Shadows OFF):

Walkaround (Raytraced Shadows OFF):

Cockpit View (Raytraced Shadows OFF):

[END OF FIRST USER REPORT]

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[Zadma]

More noticeably-bad shadow resolutions here, again grainy in External View (first image) and sharp and crisp in drone camera (second image):

(both of the above images were captured with the exact same settings, both with Ray Traced Shadows > OFF)

In addition to the image quality issue, I’ve started to notice that in some circumstances (haven’t identified any trend here yet), I find massive FPS drops in External View, but totally normal FPS in drone camera (of the same approximate angle as External View) and cockpit cameras - things like 50-60fps in cockpit/drone, but dropping to 10-15fps in External View only. There’s definitely something up with how it’s rendering External View, and it’s a surprising mix of poor quality AND poor performance (in some cases).

[IbnYasser]

The shadows in External view are weird… floating.

iniBuilds A350 External View shadow

The shadows in Drone (Snowcase) view are normal…

iniBuild A350 Drone Snowcase View Shadow

[headwind8562]

Same observation here

[ARON000ARON]

Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?
• Yes, very much.

Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:
•

If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:
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[FewestPancake87]

Same Issue here also most noticeable with the InIBuilds a350:
External view unsharp shadows:

Drone Cam sharp shadows

I also feel like the ground texture quality is slightly worse in the external view, however, this may have to do with the different view points but for sure, the graphics are rendered differently when in the drone vs the external camera.

Some other weird things I noticed was that the controls are locked in drone mode moving the yoke or rudder pedals did nothing. And locking the drone to the aircraft doesn’t make it rotate around the center but around some other point

[Ron311280]

Same problem here. Only on external View with the inibuilds A350. Drone camera and cockpit view is ok.

[FlyingPaul]

inibuilds A350 - Shadows weird in outside camera, but okay in Drone camera.

as you can see here, i have the same problem, but i only have it with inibuild a350 and stock inibuilds a330 (didnt try inibuilds a400m).

it does NOT happen with the fenix in MSFS2024, it does not happen with Draco, Kodiak and whatnot… only inibuilds aircraft are affected as far as i have identified.

other findings (confirmed

• enabling raytracing shadows fixes the shadow of the aircraft, but nearby jetways, lampposts, terminal buildings remain with weird jittery shadows

• shadow maps resolution has an impact, but also the highest setting does not deliver an acceptable result

• it happens on TAA, DLSS, with or without Framegen, VSync on/off… doesn’t matter.

I have addressed the problem to inibuilds, but since this problem is so obvious, i cannot imagine that they have not identified this during development…

If anyone knows a workaround which does not require enabling raytracing shadows (kills my FPS), i would be very thankful

Greetings,
Paul

[Zadma]

Interesting observation re: different aircraft. I hadn’t tested that especially considering the shadows affected include environmental ones, not just the aircraft itself (see my Spirit screenshots above) - I’ll have to look closer at that.

[FlyingPaul]

also, it seems that the aircraft has a “circle of influence”.

shadows that are more far away, let’s say 3 gates away or more, seem to be unaffected.

[FlyingPaul]

I wonder why this is not reported by more people… maybe the problem is not universal? If not, what are we doing differently?

[Zadma]

Thanks for identifying the iniBuilds factor - I noticed it’s even affecting today’s iniBuilds CAP-4 release as part of World Update 19: Brazil.

I’ve submitted it on their discord to see if anyone from their team is aware, but hopefully it also gets logged as a bug here as they are still 1st party aircraft that Microsoft commissioned.

[Zadma]

Some folks who know more about development than I do have suggested that iniBuilds is leveraging an invisible box around the aircraft that helps manage some LOD issues - guess this approach has the tradeoff of breaking shadows. I hope this can still be addressed as the flickering shadows while moving is particularly rough.

[Batatus7700]

Here is the other thread for this issue and it was marked as bug logged a while back, but no updates so far: Shadows inexistant in exterior views

According to an Inibuilds dev from discord, this is a core MSFS2024 sim issue that happens with the new method of creating planes in 2024 using “sub-models” or “modular packages”, that’s why it only happens with the 2024 native planes, like the A330, A321, A350 etc. Any plane ported from 2020 does not use this new method which is why shadows work fine with those. It would be up to Asobo to fix this.

I agree though, it is very obvious and painful to look at, not sure why there is not more noise about prioritizing it.

[Zadma]

Well to be clear, it only happens with iniBuilds planes. Unless iniBuilds is trying to convince us that they’re the only ones that have made anything native in 2024, because it certainly doesn’t happen with the Asobo 737, or any other first party partner plane in 2024.

Edit: Just happened to find one non-iniBuilds plane with the issue: the Beechcraft King Air 350i. Still a minority are affected though, and other developers have demonstrated it’s possible to not have this negative impact on the shadows.

[DED60LET3605]

Xbox series X

Apart from inbuilds aircraft, here is a partial list of aircraft that have the problem of poor shadow quality (external view):
DR400-100 Cadet
T6-Texan
Bonanza G36
King Air 350i
NXCUB
Cessna 152
Hawk Arrow 2
DA40 NG
Flight Design CTSL

Despite paying for the game, I can’t enjoy flying these planes due to the extremely low resolution of the shadows.
Asobo, fix this as soon as possible. This is one of the critical bugs in the game.

[Batatus7700]

I also have the low res shadows on non-inibuilds 2024 planes, like the 747-8

[Zadma]

Yeah, I retract the ini-only as I’ve started to notice more.

[FlyingPaul]

also, nothing about this from inibuilds side in their last 3 A350 updates… frustrating..