3Delight shadows

[Maximus]

Hey guys, i'm having a bit of problems rendering out smooth shadows..
i'm a bit confused on how 3Delight handles shadows..

What i do is enable shadows in a spotlight and the outcome is horrible by default, i dont know where are the parameters to rise the sampling, even if i push the 3delight shading rate at 1, it still renders out really bad, and with bad i mean the shadows are rendered like a sequence of dots or little cubes..

Then i try to use the "Raytraced Soft Shadows" under the Shadows option in the spotlight ppg, rising a bit softness and upping the samples..
Well at 128 samples the shadows still are horrible and render time is insane.

Now its the turn of Shadow Map.
I enable the shadow Map, and by default shadows map are enabled for 3delight in its render panel,
Still looking really crappy, not smooth shadows, at 4098 resolution and 128 samples on Shadow Map PPG, the shadows looks not smooth and render time is insane.

What am i doing wrong?

Thanks

[CiaranM]

Can you share an example image.
I know it's no help, but shadows render fine here and look nice and smooth using the steps you describe.
What are your anti-aliasing samples and filter?
I'd never go over 1024 for the shadow map most of the time.