Dangerzone

If the F35 paves the way for other classified aircraft to be released in a 'best guess' scenario without needing declassification - such as an AC-130, SU-57, or FA-18E/F ... I'm all for it! I was always under the impression classified aircraft weren't going to be an option because this was a simulator and there wasn't going to be any 'guessing' involved, but if there's new rules coming out now that allow 'best guesses from airshow demonstrations' and other limited release information with the rest of the blanks filled in, I'm OK with that.

I believe MAXsenna is right. The files are cached. The only part of the download that is discarded to my knowledge is files that are partially download and not completed. (There seems to be a lot of individual files downloaded and cached). So if the first file was a large file, and it was partially through - then maybe that could cause it to start again from scratch with the same amount of time, but TBH - I'd be looking at MB remaining to download, and not the time (nor the other MB remaining which includes MB cached locally yet to be unpacked which is done at the very end).

I didn't see anything wrong with the video. Good content, some nice new reveals, excellent graphics, etc - and the DCE teaser too is a very welcome inclusion. (I was wondering if they were going to have that, and how they could pull that off and still have the same type of 'beyond' video as in the past. I think they did well). That said, I think I know where you're coming from though. Trailers, reveals, and announcements no longer spark the same excitement for me as they used to either. Even though there's some upcoming modules I will no doubt buy when released, I too no longer experience that 'kid at Christmas' enthusiasm when watching these that I did a few years ago. I recognize for me though, that's not trailer or content creators fault. I’ve just simply adjusted my expectations. Still, I'm grateful for the video, and thought they did a terrify job. But while new features are often impressive in trailers and teasers, my experience has been that many releases seem to arrive in a partially developed state (which of course is understandable for EA). But the lack of follow-up or clarity on further updates and the time that passes sometimes has left me in no mans land as to final expectations vs initial impressions. ie: Dynamic Spawns - which is a fantastic tool I use and appreciate. But its potential could have been so much more just with the simple ability to dynamically create FARPs in-game as new spawn points. (A cry that's been sounding for years, and something we were hoping for with the D.S - but was an opportunity missed and now we know nothing of what to expect future wise). Similarly, the CH-47 brought exciting new possibilities for mission designers like myself - like serving as a logistics hub. The trailer showed the Humvee for instance in the back which I was hoping to be able to drive out and use with combined arms, talk of a mllk cow, etc. Will this happen? If so - how many years will we need to wait? The FA-18, which is now out of early access after many years - still lacking the DTC functionality is something that comes into calculating probabilities for those answers, as it's more realistic to expect these new features will follow the same release path as previous features. That doesn't mean I'm not looking forward to them, but I know that there's a difference between what the teasers imply and what we'll get. This isn’t to downplay the incredible work ED has accomplished. The game has seen some fantastic improvements over the past year that deserves recognition. But rather, to ask you to question whether the lack of enthusiasm you're experience isn't is really related to the quality of the video , or whether your statement that "ED can do better" with a video may be misdirected towards the content creators and rather could be an unrealized change in your own mindset and expectation? Segwaying - I was grateful to see DCE featured so much in the video. I know I'm in good company knowing it's greatly needed and waiting and hoping. The visuals shown in the video looks incredibly engaging, with epic ground battles that make me think "I hope this is truly reflective of what we can expect with a DCE". I'm not sure what more they could have done. But past experience have curbed my enthusiasm towards more of a 'that's nice', and 'will believe it when I see it' attitude. (Again, not that there's doubt it's coming, but more questions about how far away, plus what features the actual release and end product will really contain and what features will be 'remaining to be done' and how many years will pass between the initial release and full completion).

I would suggest an integer value. Seconds for repair., Setting from 0 to whatever the mission designer decides. This way, if they want a 5 minute repair... make it 300 seconds, instead of 150. Keep 150 as the default, but let the mission designer / server owner have the choice. If this was considered, I'd ask for a couple of other options to be thrown in at the same time. Refueling rate, and rearm rate - so you can increase or decrease the delays of these as well. Multiple birds with the one stone?

I'd appreciate it. I've got a number of guys I fly with that keep questioning me about recommendations with the headset. I don't want to recommend them based on my experience alone but want as many stores (good or bad) from other 'real life' users as to how their experience has gone so they can make a more informed decision themselves. Threads like this help because either way - they get to see what the support is like.

Please let us know how you go with your return/refund.

Yup. This ^^^. This discourages me off the 5xxx series. I can’t understand how anyone in marketing thinks it's a good idea to use this kind of spin or distortion, knowing it is opens them up expose them as misrepresenting - or being so cavalier with the truth. It leaves me me wondering—if they’re willing to misrepresent something so blatant, what might they be hiding in areas that are harder to verify? That said, maybe I’m out of touch with what truly affects multi-national corporations. Perhaps credibility doesn’t hold the same weight or have the same impact for them as it does for the smaller businesses I'm more familiar with directly - where credibility is a significant factor. Maybe this approach works better for their bottom line, and I’m just in the minority with how it turns me off.

Interesting... another thread with recollection, but no actual confirmation. Maybe it's implemented for all aircraft, but bugged and hasn't been addressed which is where the uncertainty comes from? I guess this is going to be one of those DCS mysteries where we can only guess, but not know for certain?

There’s have been rare unexpected damage done at low altitudes that have been put down to bird strike, both with myself, and others who I fly with in FF modules, so I thought it was functional. This makes me wonder if that’s not the case now and if there were other factors.

Bird strike only affects FC planes? Where did you get that information from? I thought it affected the high fidelity aircraft too?

it's my (limited) understanding that task switching out can do a couple of things: Firstly, certain input peripherals (keyboard, mouse, etc) may no longer be tracked by DCS during this time as the 'focus' has gone elsewhere. This may be freeing up some CPU resources in DCS (in which CPU bottlenecking can be a larger player when it comes to frames than even GPU. I was myself CPU bound with dips down to 15fps the other night in DCS with a 4090 running it in 2D while only in the mission editor - not flying - so there's definitely something going on there). The second thing is that I've been told (not sure how accurate) - that when you switch to another program, windows can free unused memory/buffer in the GPU's memory (and who knows - probably CPU as well?) - which may be making room for DCS to use more of these resources. There's a mountain of things that could be causing this, and it may be a different cause from one user to the next - even if the symptoms are similar. Given as NGreenaway has stated - it is a widespread (and long time) problem - my hope is that it's resolved with Vulkan when it's released. Until then - I'm afraid we're left to find a way to manage it ourselves.

I know that the size of DCS is one of those things that some have issues with, but honestly - I'd far prefer to have the maps downloaded locally than go that 'stream off internet' based solution another company has opted towards, even if that means I need additional storage to support it. Another alternative option is to install a copy of DCS on a NAS, external HDD, etc - and keep that version of DCS updated, and use the dcs_local_source.txt file function on your installed version of DCS to point to the NAS for the updating. This allows people to uninstall some maps from their local SSD if they need more room, and when they want to swap to another map, simply uninstall another map, and choose to install the map they want to use. The dcs_local_source.txt file if setup in the DCS Install directory with the path to the 'cached' install of DCS will simply copy the files across off the NAS/External HDD instead of having to download them all over again. Obviously having a 4TB SSD is the ultimate solution, but for those who are more financially restricted at the moment and still want to buy and use numerous maps but don't have the room to have them all installed at the same time - it's a good alternative to having to wait a looong time on slow internet connections to re-download a previously downloaded map.

Not sure if this would help me. I seem to be CPU bound, never GPU bound. Just this week I had the FPS dipping as low as 20 and all over the place, being CPU bound. 4090, and I was only in the mission editor - not even flying. Strangely, haven't had an issue so far when actually flying - so no idea what DCS was getting all bound up about (excuse the pun).

For bug replication and reporting there's no need to uninstall any mods at all - to have a mod-free version to test on. Instead you can simply: Rename the DCS folder in the saved games directory to DCS.OLD Launch DCS. (It will create a new vanilla configuration of DCS with no mods installed). Optional: Close DCS, and then copy the config\input directory from DCS.OLD to the new DCS folder so there's no rebinding of controls required. Re-RUN DCS and replicate the problem. Optional: Once done - close DCS - delete the DCS directory and rename DCS.OLD back to DCS to restore your previous setting. This makes it dead simple to have a clean setup of DCS with no mods, etc. It also helps with narrowing down the issue, because if the bug is caused by a bad configuration setting / mod / corrupt file or anything else that can exist in the config directory - it narrows this down almost immediately and allows you to re-setup DCS until you find the issue yourself. By having the configuration in the saved games directory (and not a bunch of windows registries all over the place) - ED really has made multiple configs, and debugging easy in this regards.

Especially if they never hang around to give an update on the situation - such as if it was resolved amicably in the end or not. Almost as handy as the "5 Star!! Fantastic product, great quality, real happy with it, even though I haven't had a chance to unpack it or use it yet" reviews I see left on various products too. I'm also very interested in the "plenty of other more serious and reputable brands", because I don't know of plenty in this sector at all - and if that has been exaggerated, then why would I trust the rest of the post. And +1 on the 'drive by review' quote - very appropriate.

... that you don't talk about Robots? (Fight club reference)

^^^ This. Plus to add to the 'and beyond'... even if something is released in 2025, it's more often than not released in Early Access, so depending on what features are available 'on release', it may or not suit individual purposes, or may require significant time to be usable. (ie - Dynamic spawns not usable on dynamically created FARP's for instance)... With DCS, until it's in your hands for us to evaluate ourselves, nothing is really certain. It does however give indication of what is being worked on and the current state, which can be encouraging. Just the hype about a release of a trailer that may show something that may or may not be released in the next year certainly shows there's still plenty of passion for DCS which is a good thing. For me personally though - the thing that tops all others for me that I want to see is some soft of greater stability/reliability and support come to DCS for server admins, scripters, mission designers, and mod makers, etc. As well as that if bugs are introduced - especially things that break things that were working, they're treated as a much higher priority in getting fixed. DCS has reached a stage to me that there's nothing they can add to the game that's more important than supporting what already implemented reliably.

https://discord.com/channels/542985647502393346/543013214485610520/1324828675358724259 DCS's official Discord channel.

I'm not excusing it's existence- I'm simply suggesting for your own sanity that you have a look at how long this bug has existed without any official acknowledgement - and whether your expectations of what ED 'need to do' fit within the reality of ED's history and trend over the past few years. (It's existed far longer than this individual thread has been going), and plan accordingly. You may have taken my post as being pessimistic, but I'm actually being optimistic - in that I'm hoping for this to be eventually resolved (albeit by Vulkan). Optimistic because there's hope / light at the end of a tunnel - even if it's a long tunnel... as I have little expectations that it will be resolved otherwise. This doesn't mean I agree with it, but my personal opinion on whether that's right, wrong, unacceptable, etc, is irrelevant as ED are going to do DCS their way regardless of what I say or do. So for my own peace of mind, I'll base my decisions on how much time, effort, development, cash and passion I invest into DCS on ED's history and actions... not my expectations on what I think they should or hope they will do. It helps me to manage DCS and be able to enjoy it for what it can currently give. So I look to alternative solutions and workarounds as it's far more likely for me to succeed with these than holding out for ED to fix this in the mean time. I guess I've been greatly influenced by the advise I heard recently of "We don't get to make the world we live in, only choose how we live in it".

Will depend on your altitude. At 10,000ft the horizon is beyond 200 miles, and is over 350 miles at 30,000ft. So if you fly helicopters, then yeah, but if you're going high - there's a lot more you might still be able to see?

Whoa there - so AI is now making suggestions on forums that we should be developing using AI.... It's the beginning of skynet psyops!

I think the request may be for VR zooming to have an option to do it on an axis like 2D has - not just 2 options for 2 different fixed zoom levels.

There's no match making as you've mentioned, so it really comes down to getting into a community that serves what you're looking for, etc. Training servers where you can match up with someone else for AA practice against a human player, and not AI might be a good place to start, to hone in on your skills if that's what you're wanting to achieve). Or, a group as you've mentioned - even if not a regular player can still be a good place to start. You'll be surprised just how many % of group members are in a similar situation to you - casual players, not regular. Not all groups are Mil-sim, scheduled event type of groups, and the more that join, the more chance of there being a few online to enjoy MP with. Another consideration could be PvPvE servers - where the server is primarily PvE, but there are the occasional opposition human players online as well. These types of MP missions can be quite satisfying as you work with others to achieve objectives against AI in a more co-op type of role, but there's still encounters with human opposition forces as well to keep you on your toes. If you mention where you live / what timezone you live in and what are the more likely times you're on - people in the MP community may even be able to recommend certain servers for you.

A little text disclaimer down the bottom of the video, or at the end stating "Filmed with Vulkan Engine" would be nice.

It's back? I didn't know it had left. My suggestion is to adjust expectations with this one. Considering the F10 / VRAM / Memory leak issues have been around for years without being resolved, my guess is that it's not a simple issue to fix with the current engine (or it would have been solved already). Add to this, given that the graphics are being actively reworked with Vulkan, it's plausible that the plan is for the fix will most likely be with Vulkan when it's out. Personally, I don't expect to see a solution before then, outside of what each user can change to work around this with their particular setup.