Shadow flickering since patch 2.13 (z-fighting effects)

[TheGheist]

Hellos chooms! I've been facing this little problem commonly referred to as "z-fighting", where it looks like certain textures are struggling to render properly from a distance, causing a flickering effect. This started happening right after I updated to patch 2.13. I was wondering if anyone knows of a way to mitigate this effect either by configuration or if maybe I should roll back to my original Nvidia driver version I used prior to updating to 2.13?

I've tried playing with the in game settings to see if I could narrow down a culprit, but this may be a driver side issue or something to do with changes made with 2.13.
I tried to get use to this effect but sometimes an entire building would start flickering from a distance and it's really unsightly.
I also noticed there's some type of invisible border around my screen, made noticeable at night when there's a neon sign or lit advertisement at the edges of my screen. It creates a subtle mirrored effect.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.


ps. to further add, I never used mods before on this game. Purely vanilla.

 

[Explosion]

Maybe turning off Ray Reconstruction would be better.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

Hellos chooms! I've been facing this little problem commonly referred to as "z-fighting", where it looks like certain textures are struggling to render properly from a distance, causing a flickering effect. This started happening right after I updated to patch 2.13. I was wondering if anyone knows of a way to mitigate this effect either by configuration or if maybe I should roll back to my original Nvidia driver version I used prior to updating to 2.13?

I've tried playing with the in game settings to see if I could narrow down a culprit, but this may be a driver side issue or something to do with changes made with 2.13.
I tried to get use to this effect but sometimes an entire building would start flickering from a distance and it's really unsightly.
I also noticed there's some type of invisible border around my screen, made noticeable at night when there's a neon sign or lit advertisement at the edges of my screen. It creates a subtle mirrored effect.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.


ps. to further add, I never used mods before on this game. Purely vanilla.

I simply throw some guesses because it doesn't seem to be a common issue on 2.13.
Did you change the FOV? (setting it to an high value) because I know it could lead to weird visual issue (like building from a distance).
It could be an issue introduced by new drivers. So it might be a good idea to clean install the last one, or even rollback to a previous version.
Did you verify the game files (just in case if something went wrong during the update)

 

[TheGheist]

@LeKill3rFou

Thanks for the suggestions, friend.

I tried playing with the fov (i have it set at 90) and did a clean reinstall of my GPU drivers using DDU, resetting all my control panel changes to default. But unfortunately this did not change my condition. I am playing at 1080p ultra settings with a GTX1080TI, so I do not use any RT tech. Prior to this, my game looked really good with no flickering effects or strange broken shadow effects on some elements.


I'm guessing maybe these changes only affects certain GPUs? I was watching a youtube video on the latest patch from this well known Cyberpunk player I subbed and even in his video, I saw the same flickering effect. At around 6:54 you'll notice the Orbital Air building straight ahead, begins to flicker a lot. This is exactly what I'm seeing throughout the game, mainly during daylight time. Even if I don't move, some of these elements like fences, the side of buildings, the sides of the Ebunike ship, are flickering. During foggy/rainy weather or night time, I don't really see it anymore.

I did verify my game files as well. The final attempt I will make will be to uninstall the game once again, delete all folders and reinstall it. Hoping this may help resolve the problem. I tried playing other games to see if perhaps I'm facing hardware problems, but every other game I tested seems to be perfectly fine. hmm...
Otherwise, I'll just have to get used to it from now on.

Anyways, thanks again!

 

[SigilFey]

I've always gotten this, as well, on a Ryzen 5600X and RTX 3060 with 12 GB VRAM. I've not been able to stop it from happening, whether rasterized or in ray tracing, so I believe it must exist in the drivers. It has gotten more or less noticeable with different driver versions I've used. Normally, the issue happens either closer or further away on the Z-axis, and panning the camera would exhibit the flickering effect (and sometimes the shadows themselves) being culled either closer or further from the edges of the screen.

On my end, it's most noticeable in the Badlands.

 

[TheGheist]

Exactly, Sigi. I noticed it only after I installed 2.13 because I'd spend way too much time studying the game's surroundings for screenshots, and the flickering I'm getting now is definitely not something I've seen before. Maybe minor flickering was always there, but it's much more prominent now.
But I can now confirm I'm not the only one experiencing this. I was watching a streamer do her first full play yesterday and during her quest in "Somewhat Damaged" I saw a lot of shadow flickering occur where the core is.

In a way, I now feel a little relief that maybe it's not something I did and broke. I'm just going to deal with it for now and hope by some miracle, it diminishes to less noticeable levels. Aside from this, my game has been running pretty well but with a few sprinkles of bugs that forced me to reload. I actually somehow froze Sasquatch in place right after I took her hammer. xD Once I reloaded, the battle went smoothly.

Anyways, thank you both for your attention to my matter. I appreciate the input!

 

[SigilFey]

Exactly, Sigi. I noticed it only after I installed 2.13 because I'd spend way too much time studying the game's surroundings for screenshots, and the flickering I'm getting now is definitely not something I've seen before. Maybe minor flickering was always there, but it's much more prominent now.
But I can now confirm I'm not the only one experiencing this. I was watching a streamer do her first full play yesterday and during her quest in "Somewhat Damaged" I saw a lot of shadow flickering occur where the core is.

In a way, I now feel a little relief that maybe it's not something I did and broke. I'm just going to deal with it for now and hope by some miracle, it diminishes to less noticeable levels. Aside from this, my game has been running pretty well but with a few sprinkles of bugs that forced me to reload. I actually somehow froze Sasquatch in place right after I took her hammer. xD Once I reloaded, the battle went smoothly.

Anyways, thank you both for your attention to my matter. I appreciate the input!

For me, I noticed it right at the beginning, but it was something I just started to ignore. It was mostly invisible when driving. It only tended to distract me a bit when walking slowly or standing still and looking around when there were long shadows (early morning / late evening) that would flick on/off or change position frame to frame.

Eventually, I just tuned it out, as it was only certain areas of the Badlands where it was really distracting. My guess is: if it was something that could be fixed, it would probably have been fixed by now. That's why I think it's likely the way Nvidia's drivers are interacting with some exclusive hardware setup. I did not notice it happening on another system I've played the game on using an RTX 3090 ti.

Seems we may have simply won the Filckering Shadow Lottery's grand prize...and we don't even have to split the winnings.

 

[TheGheist]

Seems we may have simply won the Filckering Shadow Lottery's grad prize...and we don't even have to split the winnings.

Hahaha indeed.