Performance drop on EPIC shadows / lightning

[mega]

Hello, I am a longtime Grounded player, with a current playthrough of about 200h, and more played before EA.

I have an issue with shadows on EPIC, that can only be solved by lowering them to high in the config file, but resulting in a kinda noticeable worse image.

The situation is mostly with lights and their shadows, and most noticeable at night, and specially in my main base.

I play at epic 2k with FSR ultra, on a 3060ti / i5 11600 / 16gb ram 3200mhz, nvme SSD, and it runs at solid 100 fps. But the lights, even when most of them removed, can lower my fps to about 50 something - 60 fps.

Reflections also have an impact, as this happens mostly in my base at a soda can, which reflects lights and shadows with detail, and looks kinda cool.

The problem is I almost stopped playing despite still having too much to do, as I got annoyed by the sluggish performance on my main base. But lowering shadows in the config file makes even a normal plant leaf to look not so good, so I cant really do that. An example of the quality loss is the Firefly Hanging Lantern make no light on shadow quality 2 vs 3.

Looks like this happened to other people for some time already, so I am trying to bring attention to this, as a drop of almost 40 fps on high vs epic shadows really screams optimization issue.

This thread on steam is an example:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/962130/discussions/0/5635717345361841957/#c5635717345363646660

" Drop to High settings. I have issues with EPIC with Shadows and Lighting being crazy demanding. To test to see if it is that, turn off all your lights in your base and see what frame-rate you get "

" Another option is to open the "GameUserSettings.ini" file, and try just lowering shadows down a notch, but nothing else. This will give you Ultra settings for all except shadow effects.
Shadows cast by lights at your base causing fps drops was brought up in another thread on release day and I can confirm that just lowering that one setting in the ini file resolves the fps issue they cause, at least for me. "

" sg.Shadowquality = x", where X is 3 if you are on ultra.
Just change the 3 to a 2 and the issue with constructed torches/lights goes away (as do the shadows they cast). "

posted on reddit aswell, hope somebody can help! 

 

[mega]

thanks, amazing LACK of support.

 

I know its kinda hard to fix and even embarrassing that a setting can get to use like a 30% extra gpu from high to ultra, but I had faith on devs. this game is dead, support wise, and I cant keep my 300h playthrough.

 

THANKS FOR 0 SUPPORT, OBSIDIAN!

Edited April 13, 2023 by mega

[cstanick]

-Hello Mega

I apologize that I didn't reply to this earlier. Typically this space is for players to assist each other with issues, and not an official bug reporting forum. If you're still having issues, which it sounds like you are. I recommend submitting a support ticket, so we can properly look into this issue. 

Obsidian Support

1. Platform (Xbox Console, PC Game Pass, PC Steam).
2. Multiplayer or Single Player Game (if multiplayer, can you tell us how many players in total in the game, and their platforms if known)
3. Difficulty level
4. Description of issue.
5. Last thing you did in the game before the issue occurred, if applicable.

Thanks, and hopefully this is something the team can look into once we get your report!