Why does daytime have SUCH an EXTREME effect on FPS?

I experience huge FPS-drops depending on the time I drive on a track. I just tried out Snoopy's latest Nords-Mod and if I drive at 10:30 o clock everything runs fluid with 60 FPS. But when I drive at 8:00 o clock it stutters like hell (showing around 35 FPS) most of the time. This also happens on other official tracks like Monza. But I don't understand it. I would understand it if the FPS-drops would only appear if there are extreme sun-effects like sunbeams shining through the trees or shimmering on the tarmac, but there aren't such effects most of the time and the framerate still stutters like hell.

 

Just an FYI Snoopy's Nord can sutter badly in version 0.6.2. Try 0.6.1 which gives me no problems. As for the rest I have no idea.

 

Why? Shadows and bloom (HDR). During night they are gone so naturally your hardware has an easier workload. You also run HIGH shadows. That will put a hard strain on your hw. Set it to medium and enjoy the boost - and still looks awesome.

I never seen difference though in performance. Im locked to 60FPS and it never dips. Yes, Nord 0.6.2 does after 1 lap, but thats so far not Kunos fault - they didnt create that track. Might be possible mem leak in the new AC build, but not sure.

 

During night normally FPS should be times worse due the cars' headlights. During day, you have only one light to calculate, during night it might be dozens.

All racing simulators until now experience horrible FPS drops in the night.

As for the OP question, it's quite clear depending on the sun angle there will be much more shadows visible and, further, the longer shadows will be projected over more objects.

 

i think its a matter of the shadows. when they are longer, much more areas have to overlayed and much more objects are reached by them. most effect of this is on monza in the first corners. so for performance issue i drive at 12:00 or 13:00, esp. with lot of AIs.

 

shadows.......end of line