Troubleshooting dynamic shadows on OS X and Windows

by Mike Schramm Oct 16th 2008 at 7:00PM

This forum thread, about the new shadow technology appearing on the Mac in 3.0.2, is confusing. There are four Blue responses in the first 10 posts, and at the end of it, I still don't have a clear idea of whether shadows work on the Mac or not. The issue seems to be this: shadows do work on the Mac, but not the highest quality shadows. Why? Because while Windows uses DirectX to do its 3D processing, OS X still uses OpenGL. And while shadows do work in OpenGL (and eventually can work just as well in OpenGL), Blizzard needs Apple to put some extensions in which aren't there yet, so the highest quality shadows aren't yet possible.

Did your eyes glaze over from all that tech talk? Let's make it simple: if you're on Windows or OS X and you don't see shadows, odds are that your settings are wrong. Open up Video settings in game, and slide the Shadows slider all the way to the right as far as it will go, and then escape out and see if Shadows appear. Note, however, that this will slow your computer down, and as we said earlier today, older computers might have trouble doing this. If you're running an older PC or Mac, you may have to forget about the dynamic shadows completely.

That said, according to the Blues, with the shadow slider flipped all the way up on a PC and a Mac, the PC's shadows will look a little better. That's not a limitation of your computer (or of Blizzard's designers), it's a limitation of the technologies that Blizzard is using to make the game. When OpenGL (the code that allows game makers like Blizzard to draw 3D graphics within OS X) gets updated, then we'll see some higher quality shadows.

Tags: 3d, blizzard, directx, dynamic, graphics, mac, opengl, pc, processing, shadows, technical

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, How-tos, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Guides

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Nadie Oct 16th 2008 7:14PM

Hey! Just to note, you'll also need version 10.5 of OS X, plus all of the software/firmware updates in order to use the shadow functionality. All you need to do to get the updates is click the Apple icon in the upper left-hand corner and click "Software Update..." - then you'll be good to go.

Earlier versions of OS X cannot display shadows.

Janaa Oct 16th 2008 7:19PM

I'm running SLI 8800GTs on Vista with all the latest video updates, etc, and if I use any shadow setting higher than the second-lowest, there are odd shadow artifacts all over my screen. Annoying.

jay Oct 16th 2008 8:54PM

Try switching off SLI and see if that makes a difference, according to a post I saw a while back, this makes a difference.... not sure if it still does but give it a try.

K Whitt Oct 16th 2008 9:12PM

I can confirm this. SLI is doing it. WoW doesn't work well with SLI build-outs. It gets next to no speed increase, and it tends to cause some odd artifacts at highest settings (like said flickering shadows, or clipped textures).

Which is a damn shame too. Otherwise my dual 280s could run my rig in FSAAx4 @ 2500x1600 with no drop in frame rate...

Since I figured it out, I have a profile set up to automatically disable SLI when I run WoW, and I run a Folding@Home-GPU on the non-primary card.

Janaa Oct 16th 2008 10:40PM

Thanks - I'll give it a shot. It didn't fix it for me in PTR, but then there were also all sorts of other issues with graphics in the PTR so maybe it will now.

Teresa Oct 17th 2008 9:38AM

If you go to the link below (US Tech Support forums), theres a FAQ there. One of the solutions is how to fix the flickering of the shadows in SLI/Crossfire. :)

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=11162846359&sid=1#2

Ithato Oct 17th 2008 12:01PM

I have the same rig, and I read somewhere that going into the NVidia control panel and adjusting WoW to use "Force Alternate Frame Rendering 1" will correct the flickering. WoW uses AFR2 by default.

Marc Oct 16th 2008 7:21PM

I turned shadows all the way off after discovering my framerate was cut to about a 1/3rd after just one tick to the right. Pre-3.0 patch and without the new shadows, I get around 20 - 30 fps in capital cities and outland areas, around 30 - 50 in Azeroth areas.

I plan on upgrading my video card very soon, but for now, the old-school circle-shadows are okay by me! ^_^

Tordenflesk Oct 16th 2008 7:23PM

The dynamic shadows absolutely kill performance. The technical term for this would be be "make up on a pig"
I'd rather have higher quality textures than these out-of-place shadows. Looks odd to me.

jbodar Oct 17th 2008 12:12AM

Yeah, I'm running a modern PC (e8400 based) with an older card (6600GT... hey, it was free from a friend) and my fps drops into the crapper with the new shadow effects @ 1600 x 1200. I may upgrade to the Radeon 4670 ($80 online) since it performs quite well for a sub-$100 card and doesn't eat a lot of power.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_ati_radeon_4670_performance_review/

Lemons Oct 16th 2008 7:27PM

That darn Tigerclaw is ruing everything blizz has ever worked for! doesn't he know blue posts should be as few and far between as possible? Christ Tigerclaw! Wait a year or something :P

Scott Oct 16th 2008 7:30PM

I run 4870x2's in crossfire and when I turn up the shadows all the way I get crazy lines and stuff going through my screen. I also have to set it second from the left to make it go away.
I tried disabling crossfire and that did not fix it, neither did the new catalyst .10 drivers.

Janaa Oct 16th 2008 10:35PM

Sounds exactly like my problem with an SLI setup in post# 3. A couple of folks have suggested turning SLI off which I'll try again tonight. I last tried it in PTR and it didn't fix it so I don't imagine it will now. Perhaps actually taking the second video card out altogether will alleviate our woes? I'll give that a go too..

Narlic Oct 16th 2008 7:32PM

I'm on OSX, and shadows are working, but they can get a little wonky sometimes. For example, I was in Kara, and the room with Moroes had shadows for Spiders crawling along the floor! And the hallway to Maiden had bat shadows flapping all over it.

Brian Arnold Oct 16th 2008 7:41PM

"Because while Windows uses DirectX to do its 3D processing, OS X still uses OpenGL."

It should be noted that DirectX is a Microsoft-exclusive product. This comment makes it sound like OS X just hasn't caught up to the latest technology, where in reality, it's simply not possible for OS X to have DirectX built into it, the way things stand currently.

Blizzard could get with the people who do EA's gaming, which is effectively emulating DirectX in OS X, but OpenGL works well enough for most things, and definitely better than emulated DirectX does.

Game developers that aren't Blizzard need to learn that there are a few gamers on the Mac side. Admittedly, we wind up just going into Windows via Boot Camp for most things, but I still prefer my Mac OS and wish game devs would write more native software for it.

audioSE Oct 16th 2008 8:31PM

You would of course first have to convince developers that it is worth their time and money to develop native OS X software. Which is a hard sell, given the numbers, plus Bootcamp.

Wade Oct 17th 2008 1:02AM

Umm no thanks, I dont want the one brand EA can't have being polluted.

Bimmicus Oct 16th 2008 8:09PM

Apple has been dragging its feet on upgrades to OpenGL for years and I've little reason to believe they're going to turn that around anytime soon.

I love my Mac but gaming on it can be a trying experience at times.

G Oct 16th 2008 8:12PM

High quality are shadows working fine here on an Intel Mac Pro, Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT, OS X 10.5.5. I do occasionally see a ghost shadow from an NPC on a different floor/level, and I've noticed when I approach a cliff I'll see my own shadow way down below but I appear to be floating because the cliff itself leaves no shadow, but I figured those were basic logic errors on Blizzard's part. No?