# Lighting and shadows completely broken on fresh UE5.3 projects **URL:** \ **Category:** Rendering\ **Tags:** Shadows, new-project, shadows-problem, no-shadows, unreal-engine, Lighting, question\ **Created:** [January 22, 2025, 9:56pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/lighting-and-shadows-completely-broken-on-fresh-ue5-3-projects/2298255 "2025-01-22T21:56:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Kotaru\_1](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Kotaru\_1](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Kotaru_1)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2025, 9:56pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/lighting-and-shadows-completely-broken-on-fresh-ue5-3-projects/2298255/1 "2025-01-22T21:56:18Z")
This is an issue that I’m pretty sure just started occurring recently, however when starting up a new UE5.3 project, the lighting completely breaks ![image](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/1/9/0/1903b9c8bf630b9c8876653a220acfa954b04143.jpeg) As you can see, there are no shadows casting, among other more subtle lighting/rendering issues. I have tried verifying UE 5.3, but it has not changed the outcome. I have not changed anything in this project, I have just created it, and this issue is persisting in the other 5.3 Projects I have. Other engine versions (specifically 5.5) seem to be unaffected by this issue. ---
**Author:** ![glitchered](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/glitchered/32/768299_2.png) [@glitchered](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/glitchered)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2025, 10:15pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/lighting-and-shadows-completely-broken-on-fresh-ue5-3-projects/2298255/2 "2025-01-22T22:15:28Z")
well… this doesn’t make sense. you’re pretty sure it’s recent? wdym? you don’t even know? did it run correctly before? what changed? graphics driver? automatic updates? and i don’t mean unreal, but windows or geforce experience. even if you change nothing in the project, there are other companies updating your software and drivers without you noticing it. you can’t do much about windoze updates, but you can disable graphics driver updates to have stable gpu driver output. ---
**Author:** ![Kotaru\_1](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Kotaru\_1](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Kotaru_1)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2025, 10:27pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/lighting-and-shadows-completely-broken-on-fresh-ue5-3-projects/2298255/3 "2025-01-22T22:27:26Z")
Well I at least only noticed it today. I had reinstalled that engine version a about a week or two ago, but I may have just not noticed since I was focused on UI systems at the time. I can’t imagine my graphics (or any other drivers for that matter) changed, as I don’t have G-Force Experience installed, and I update all of my drivers manually, which I haven’t done since well before I reinstalled this engine version. The only update I can think of was a Windows 11 update a day or two ago Edit: Actually another new and recent difference was installing Rider for UE, idk if that would change anything in the engine files but maybe that’s not out of the question ---
**Author:** ![Kotaru\_1](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Kotaru\_1](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Kotaru_1)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2025, 10:49pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/lighting-and-shadows-completely-broken-on-fresh-ue5-3-projects/2298255/4 "2025-01-22T22:49:52Z")
I’ve both installed updated graphics drivers, as well as switched to DX11, sm5, lumen disabled, regular shadowmaps, just to check if anything would change, considering I’m using a GTX 1080. Nothing did. Even though I was pretty sure old projects would have the same issue, I decided to check anyway, and my assumption was correct ---
**Author:** ![Kotaru\_1](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Kotaru\_1](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Kotaru_1)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2025, 10:58pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/lighting-and-shadows-completely-broken-on-fresh-ue5-3-projects/2298255/5 "2025-01-22T22:58:44Z")
Shadow depths shows in the GPU Stat graph, but doesn’t seem to be doing anything as one would expect. Shadow projection doesn’t isn’t showing on the graph, which I’m not sure if it should or not, but I thought it would for dynamic lights (which i’ve added an extra one into the scene for this screenshot) ![image](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/c/b/3/cb36f3d013d66c0692c926a6e151d9927bfbba0c.jpeg) I have no idea what is supposed to be in the “stat LightRendering” graph, but I’ll include it anyway ![image](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/7/3/1/7317669510b9cdc28c5a42a48b7ae73ae9d10922.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![Kotaru\_1](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Kotaru\_1](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Kotaru_1)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2025, 11:04pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/lighting-and-shadows-completely-broken-on-fresh-ue5-3-projects/2298255/6 "2025-01-22T23:04:35Z")
Shadow Rendering Graph says 0 active light count despite adding a movable point light (idk if it’s supposed to do that but I’m going to assume it’s not) ![image](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/f/3/a/f3a0602b8dcba751959c8f500b5b028bf633f332.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![glitchered](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/glitchered/32/768299_2.png) [@glitchered](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/glitchered)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2025, 11:06pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/lighting-and-shadows-completely-broken-on-fresh-ue5-3-projects/2298255/7 "2025-01-22T23:06:33Z")
i dunno, tbh. if this is an out of the box engine install it should pretty much work. maybe delete the shaders and recompile them in case the driver compiler generated bad code. i “unfortunately” dumped 5.3 in favor of 5.4 for my low end project effort. so… i can’t really help. sry. : ) ---
**Author:** ![PrezThompkins](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/prezthompkins/32/994994_2.png) [@PrezThompkins](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/PrezThompkins)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2025, 11:40pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/lighting-and-shadows-completely-broken-on-fresh-ue5-3-projects/2298255/8 "2025-01-22T23:40:06Z")
Try switching that light to stationary, and build lighting. Also, I noticed none of these screenshots are showing the viewport settings. It’s usually in the top left: ![image](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/6/f/b/6fbc0d0ed6342ebf4f1f7b98a64ea697d4224344.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![Kotaru\_1](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Kotaru\_1](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Kotaru_1)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2025, 1:42am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/lighting-and-shadows-completely-broken-on-fresh-ue5-3-projects/2298255/9 "2025-01-23T01:42:54Z")
Ah, yes the scalability settings were all on low for some reason, and I didn’t notice. I thought scalability settings would reset whenever a new project was created so it never even crossed my mind. ---
**Author:** ![PrezThompkins](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/prezthompkins/32/994994_2.png) [@PrezThompkins](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/PrezThompkins)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2025, 5:43pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/lighting-and-shadows-completely-broken-on-fresh-ue5-3-projects/2298255/10 "2025-01-23T17:43:47Z")
Mind that your Engine install is it’s own thing, separate from the project file. I’ve gotten tripped up on that in the past myself. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/7/1/3/713c9d3f58553f0de89543d76a8a3a2779dc9fa4.png) [@system](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2025, 5:44pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/lighting-and-shadows-completely-broken-on-fresh-ue5-3-projects/2298255/11 "2025-02-22T17:44:47Z")
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