Odd Shadows in Some Games

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zombiebot

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May 16, 2013
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Ever since I played Spec Ops: The Line, I've noticed these odd shadows in a number of other games that I own. I've tried cleaning the GPU and doing a clean install of its drivers. None of those options worked. I performed tests using the program PC Checkup. Everything came out positive. I'm wondering if this is sort of normal, or if there is something very wrong with my video card. I also want to know what this is called, since it was difficult for me to find examples of others who have the same problem. I'm sorry if it's brief and not in full detail. Ask me anything if you need more information.

Here are screenshots that I've taken from a number of games where the problem exists:http://imgur.com/a/5fQPO#80. What you should be looking for are shadows that look "striped" and those that have "teeth" at the end of the shadows.

System Specs: http://imgur.com/3XfgXtI
 
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zombiebot

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May 16, 2013
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I've been wanting to blame drivers, but when I uninstalled all of my drivers, I tried ones that were a bit older. At that time I was playing Spec Ops a lot, so it was the only game I tested. The older drivers did not fix the weird shadows. If it is the newer drivers, I'd like to get a response from someone who owns the same card that I do. I also don't want to resort to playing on old driver versions. This isn't a recent problem. I began to notice this issue around early March of this year. I do not know if the problem began before I played Spec Ops for the first time.
 
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zombiebot

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So is it nothing to worry about? I'm worried because I find the same example across multiple games. I checked some screenshots of Sniper Elite V2 on steam, and the screenshots do indeed look like mine. Maybe it is just the game. It's funny that you mentioned low quality. For Spec Ops, I found that by lowering the shadow quality option, the "zebra" effect on characters would diminish.
 
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zombiebot

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I don't think this has to do with ambient occlusiont. I have all settings in the control panel on default. I believe I've always had it like that. I sometimes change settings for certain games, but only fiddle with the vsync and pre-rendered frames options. All of the games in the gallery do not have customized options in the control panel.

 
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BigBadBeef

BigBadBeef

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May 30, 2014
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It has to be some issues with the drivers, but there is a few things I noticed:
- Your memory is running at only 785MHz. That's even slower than my DDR2 which is at 800MHz. What's up with that?
- You have a dell mobo? I don't know, but I think your cheapo attitude may have come to bite you in the ass.



What he has is not aliasing, they're shadow artifacts.
 
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B

bystander

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Dec 9, 2009
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Yes, and SSAO and HBAO are shadowings techniques.
 
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bystander

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Dec 9, 2009
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While they do different calculations, they both effect shadows. It was worth looking into, some games may not respond well, if it was not intended to be overridden.

I have a feeling the hardware may be going bad, or overheating is happening. If drivers doesn't fix it, and AO doesn't change anything, that leaves the games itself or hardware. Some games do have issues with shadows, but if it is in all your games, that leaves drivers or hardware.
 
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zombiebot

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Well, I am relieved that in Sniper Elite's case, it was an issue with the game. All the screenshots I found on steam had that kind of shadows. As for the other games, I might have to look more into it. It doesn't happen in all games. I did find an example from another user that had the effect in Bioshock Infinite. I have played though that game without noticing odd shadows.

I'm still not ruling out the possibility of drivers being at fault here. After a certain driver update, weird artifacts and bugs began popping up in Just Cause 2. I found a number of threads with people complaining, and they pretty much all had the same video card series: GTX 600s. One driver caused texture flickering in Halo 2, but this latest one fixed the issue. I should post a thread in an nvidia forum as well.
 
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