High quality shadows-what's the point?

[bitvomit]

Re: High quality shadows-what's the point?

I run mostly on high but dynamic shadows on low, the difference does not justify the performance cost. As long as I can actually see a shadow being cast then I am happy with it.

Me either, it's not worth the performance hit. I've ran the game with high and med settings and I really don't notice a visual difference. BF2's shadows also have this odd tendancy to look all blocky like an 8bit NES game when you get up close to them. All in all, Doom 3, FEAR and even Far Cry have much better looking shadows.

[flanker-f]

Re: High quality shadows-what's the point?

Who notices a difference between high and medium quality shadows? The only difference I notice is about 200MB more memory usage + a severe hit in my fps. To top it all off, BF2's shadows look bloody awful no matter what setting you use.

Did you mean lightning, which actually controls all non-dynamic shadows such as indoors and shades? It also controls normal and specular maps, check images below.

High

Has both normal/bumb maps and specular maps.

Medium

Has only specular maps.

Low

Plain texture.

There's a huge difference in memory usage also.

[[2bit]Modmaven]

Re: High quality shadows-what's the point?

Hmm didnt see much difference between MEd and High in those pics. Low was definitely not great, but med and high both looked ok.

[k0nsl]

Re: High quality shadows-what's the point?

I agree with you fully. If the shadows had looked good and not zig-saggy like they certainly do, then they would be nice, but they aren't. Thanks for reminding me, I will turn them off completely as of now, even though my system can certainly handle it. Why bother when it looks like crap anyway?

It looked OK in the demo, though, which is odd.

-k0nsl

Who notices a difference between high and medium quality shadows? The only difference I notice is about 200MB more memory usage + a severe hit in my fps. To top it all off, BF2's shadows look bloody awful no matter what setting you use.

[bitvomit]

Re: High quality shadows-what's the point?

Did you mean lightning, which actually controls all non-dynamic shadows such as indoors and shades? It also controls normal and specular maps, check images below.

High

Has both normal/bumb maps and specular maps.

Medium

Has only specular maps.

Low

Plain texture.

There's a huge difference in memory usage also.

No no, I know the difference. I have everything set to high except shadows.

[kushcompany]

Re: High quality shadows-what's the point?

I run everything on high and max resolution. Shadows may look poor to inferior gaming rigs. On my rig shadows do not hinder performance and actually add to the experience. My advice, get a beefy system and enjoy the riiiiiiide!

-got kush?

[DrunkenPirate]

Re: High quality shadows-what's the point?

The only difference between medium and high lighting is that normal maps are applied to vehicles and playermodels on high, that's the only difference.