Pocket Kings

The only major cities that need detail are Berlin, Hannover, Hamburg, Nürnberg. They're of strategic value and close to the border. And by detail I don't mean every supermarket and bus station, but rather the important bridges, (supply) roads, airfields, helipads (didn't realize Berlin had so many back then, but makes sense) and so forth. Yeah NRW, but far away from the action. Granted, airfields like Dortmund or Essen would've quickly taken by NATO troops as supply interlinks. But that doesn't mean the level of detail has to be near that of the inter-German border. I mean, once REDFOR comes close to cities like Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Cologne, France is basically done. Continental war would be over. Therefore I believe the correct approach is concentrating on the hot zones. Any hey, maybe in ten years ED has the time and resources to give these low fidelity areas some improvement.

You're right, of course you wouldn't want a static area like in the picture to be high fidelity. The degree of detail needs to go with the importance of the objects, whether it's a small town, a bridge, roads, besides the obvious AFB. Deformable terrain for important spots could be a magnificent improvement and allows for tactic considerations not possible right now. Also I didn't realize that the maps are flat and computed as such. I always had the impression that above 45000 feet I could see the curvature of the atmosphere. Learning every day...

Another user in another thread rolled back to the initial 2.7 version and flew one 2h mission and one 3h mission without any crash or hickup. If you can live without MP for the time being, maybe that's a viable workaround for you.

Great basketball players train the basics every day. Football players too. There's also a lot of fun in dodging 6 SAMs or landing in the harshest conditions at night. I don't believe the game is dead without MP. But I agree, it's not the same experience.

Something like this comes to mind. The bright rectangle is the "hot" zone or high fidelity zone, the less saturated the low fidelity zone.

The reason I'm a proponent for Germany, not because I'm German, but because I have a problem with the particular Black Sea region on the Caucasus map. It's kinda generic, flat in a sense. I mean, what can you do? Yes you could place half a dozen American aircraft carriers into the Black Sea and artificially create a massive conflict. But how in hell did they get there? Secondly, the Caucasus mountains defy any decent ground offensive on their own, even without any hostile engagements. To be blunt, I don't see either the spice in the Caucasus region nor room for interesting exploits. Something like Operation Joint Thunder is possible in Syria, of course. But same thing, the coast line , the terrain for ground operations and so on. I belive the Korean peninsula was a splendid choice for the other game! 22 years and still rocking, because it has an interesting topology, lots of front line mileage, water everywhere, all the ingredients neccessary. The list of areas that tick all the boxes is short. You can't use Mexico and middle America, although interesting topology, because Soviets would've had a hard time getting there in quantities. Africa is one block, rain check. South America the same. Maybe South East Asia, like Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia could be interesting. Soviets and China take control over the whole region like President Reagan believed to be a real possibility and NATO has to stand up. Maybe, but this region would even be bigger than Germany, little Denmark, some Poland and done. The customers demand balance, I get it. Nick said they will not overpower the Soviet side artificially and they stick to their commitment to remain a realistic simulation. Well then the only solution for a map that's fun for the next decade is to give the Soviets a quantative advantage and the BLUFOR troops their technological superiority, as I already indicated above. And a very important German naval base, home of the U-Boot fleet and our equivalent of the SEALs (Kiel area), which would be a major target for REDFOR.

Well east of Berlin it's only ~ 80 KM to the Polish border anyway, and there's literally nothing, just a few small towns. Then comes Frankfurt Oder at the border to Poland. The Oder river and its' bridges being a top priority target for BLUFOR since it would stop reinforcements for a few days. It's not a small river, people drowned trying to cross the German border, thus no small bridges. You are right Northstar98, there's probably no way to avoid those RAF bases. If ED gave me personally two options: 1. Do you want east and north Germany with all the bells and whistles and every railroad and every town? or 2. Do you want the whole country, in the west and south a simplified version without even cities except the major ones, but the "hot zone" in a detailed fashion? I think I'd go with the 2nd option, if feasable. But realistically, which timeframe are we talking about? At least two years even if they started TODAY, am I right? In two years 64 Gigs of RAM should be attainable for a reasonable cost. Also, in two years, probably all those top notch cards, the 1080Ti up to 3060 won't mine coins anymore and could flood the market with their intended purpose.

Oh nein der russische Staat hasst nichts mehr als amerikanische Closed Source Software. Neben Indien ist Russland einer der Treiber der Entwicklung von Open Source Technologien. Die Fähigkeiten der amerikanischen Geheimdienste, oder besser gesagt deren Bekanntwerden, haben für ein Umdenken gesorgt. Außerdem, wer hat denn die MiGs? Richtig, die NATO. Ich denke nicht, dass wir neue russische Flugmuster bald sehen werden, verständlicherweise. Die alten russischen Flugmuster hat die NATO in echt, dazu braucht man kein DCS. Dazu brauchte man die NVA und für den Rest Cash in Koffern. Auch Generäle haben in den 90ern den Zusammenbruch der Wirtschaft erlebt.

Natürlich ist eine Beurteilung schwierig, ohne alle Informationen zu haben. Wie Du aber meinem Avatar und Namen entnehmen kannst, bin ich ganz gut darin, Situationen mit unvollständigen Information beurteilen zu müssen. Ich gebe Dir Recht, dass ED für ein so kleines Team einen großartigen Job geleistet hat. Das Problem ist aber, das sieht man aktuell mit dem "Beta 2.7 Gejammer", dass die Ansprüche der Community ebenfalls steigen. Auch die Community geht von der jüngsten Entwicklung aus. Außerdem, und das verstehen viele Außenstehende falsch, wird der Source Code nicht bedingungslos freigegeben! Er wird unter eine Lizenz gestellt, die kurz gesagt zwei Dinge vorschreibt bzw. erlaubt: 1. Du kannst den unter diese Lizenz gestellten Code (auch Artwork) frei nutzen, kopieren, vermehren, verändern, woanders einbauen usw. ABER 2. Du musst deine Erkenntnisse und Änderungen dem Originallizenzgeber (in dem Fall ED) unaufgefordert zurückgeben. Auch ED kann dann deine Arbeitsleistung nach ihrem Belieben nutzen. Und so geht der Tennisball ständig hin und her. Es gab mal eine asiatische Firma, ich weiß gerade aus dem Kopf nicht ob Huawei oder Xiaomi, die eine solche Lizenz verletzten. Der Entwickler hatte beim AG Köln Klage eingereicht und Recht bekommen. Der Schaden wurde auf 2 Mio € festgestellt, das höchte Entschädigungsgeld bis dato in der BRD. Genau genommen sichert sich ED durch eine Open Source Lizenz sogar noch ab. Denn aktuell müssten sie auf eigene Kosten den Diebstahl beweisen und den Nutzen für den Konkurrenten. Unter einer Open Source Lizenz reicht die Kopie ohne Rückgabe der Verbesserungen und sie haben gewonnen. DIESE KLAUSEL allein sorgt in der Realität oft dafür, dass Firmen wie Microsoft davon absehen, Code zu nutzen. Um beim Fußball zu bleiben: Solche Firmen stellen sich nicht gerne von allein ins Abseits.

BIGNEWY said it in another thread. The dev team is aware of the fact and the wakes will get some love soon.

I've encountered two crashes, right when I started playing DCS. That was still version 2.5.6 and they were related to the Windows page file. Since then, nothing. Not one crash or CDT. Of course, I'm encountering the numerous bugs in game, but that's a different story. I'm using DCS in a virtualized environment, mostly on a server that has: server grade Xeon CPU 4th Gen, 4 cores assigned 24 GB RAM Caucasus and Nevada (I'm aware will need to assign more with Syria but the server has 128, no big deal) GTX 1060 SSD cluster 5x 1TB, 500 GB assigned The other server also has a GTX 1060, 3rd Gen Xeon, but a hard disk cluster comprised of 10K RPM drives and 48 Gigs of RAM, however the VM still has 24 GB RAM assigned to it. And yes, I'm hunting for a graphics card upgrade everywhere. I believe that the secret really lies in the fact that I don't use any other programs on this gaming VM. Nvidia drivers, a remote gaming tool called parsec, not even a Thrustmaster suite. And I have the ability to fully snapshot the hard disk in a matter of seconds, yes seconds! Meaning if I'm observing the DCS update message on startup, I immediately cancel, shutdown, snapshot, reboot, upgrade DCS or Windows, run, test. Whenever something goes south, I don't even bother, I roll back to the snapshot. There's nothing voodoo about it. I could assist somebody if interested. Also mind that Windows on a Linux platform runs faster than Windows natively, sad but true. Then those memory access violations and page faults and buffer overflows etc. aren't as problematic. Essentially the Linux host tells the Windows virtual machine "no Sir, you can't do that, back off". Old or not, I can emulate any newer or older processor I please. Currently there's no problem allowing Windows to see the processor as the real Xeon model. But I could restrict CPU feature assets down to Ivy bridge or Sandy or even older, yet still have as many cores as the platform has. And with development platforms I have to do it sometimes in order to hunt bugs.

The good thing about northern Germany though, especially in the case of Berlin, is that you have one big city with a thin populated countryside around it. Also the terrain looks much like Caucasus from above, with little difference in tree vegetation. That's a bonus. The entire north of Berlin up to the Baltic Sea wouldn't be hard for designers: Small towns, airbases, forests and fields, a few Autobahn and railway tracks, but really nothing compared to West Germany. However, if we move closer towards Hamburg and the inter-German border, things could get a little more RAM intensive, besides the dev effort. The area at the Bavarian border and Saxony is also nothing that would worry me excessively. Granted, dimension wise that map would be huge, but I believe something like this has to be done. Lots of people say that DCS is a good platform for skirmish, but not for war. I don't have an opinion about it yet. However, as I said the strategic opportunities are pretty much endless. Berlin West with it's three fully functional airports alone, then around it many important supply roads. In the north the Soviets that would try to get a grip on Denmark ASAP. The US would move in over the Bavarian border and try to break Soviet supply chains coming from Poland. Before I get carried away with my imagination, you get the point .

Well then it should be possible to define a new HOTAS modifier button in conjunction with TrackIR Z-axis and tune the axis for sensitivity in order to increase zoom.

I recollected the distance to the waypoint wrong. It was 5 KM, certainly not miles anyway. At 5 KM and still heading towards the waypoint, the count down froze for a little bit, then increased. I manually switched to waypoint two.

Ich bin neu bei DCS und im Forum. Meiner Ansicht nach tanzt ED auf zu vielen Hochzeiten. Logischerweise werden immer welche jammern. Die Oldtimer würden, wenn ein neues FC3 rauskäme, sich über die Verzögerung bei der Phantom beklagen und die Casual Gamer andersrum. Ich habe das Gefühl, die Augen sind bei ED größer als der Magen. Das betrifft die Arbeitslast, die in Feature Requests reingesteckt wird. Ich persönlich sehe lieber wenige neue Features, dafür fundiert implementiert als 100 neue und dafür 50% mehr Abstürze oder andere Wechselwirkungen. Ich sags immer wieder, in vielen Branchen: Würde ED Teile der Entwicklung bzw. des Codes Open Source stellen, könnten wir erheblich schneller Features entwickeln und vor allem deutlich schneller bugs fixen. Sie müssen, wie ich bereits woanders sagte, nicht die Physik oder das Kontomanagement oder den Updater quelloffen stellen. Aber hat sich jemand mal angeschaut, wie die Bäume im Kaukasus aussehen? Hier gab es irgendwo ein Mitglied, das neue Bäume kreiert hat. Ein himmelweiter Unterschied. Und die alte Angst, von wegen Microsoft hätte es dann einfach zu klauen... mein Gott. Wenn sie wollen, klauen sie. Mit so tiefen Taschen rechnen die Prozesskosten und Strafzahlungen schon in die Bilanz des nächsten Jahres ein. Außerdem müssen solche Prozesse erstmal geführt und gewonnen werden. Alles Quatsch. Aktuell ist das ganze Modding ein Flickenteppich. Schlimm. Überall fliegen Dateien rum, auf teils dubiosen Downloadpages. Gäbe es ein uniformes Entwicklungstool wie ein git repository hätten wir alle gewonnen. Ich glaube, ED bzw. Nick unterliegen dem Glauben, dass sie mehr Cash zur Verfügung hätten, das wiederum in die Entwicklung fließen könnte, hätten sie eine Arcadeplattform. Das wäre sicherlich auch der Fall. Ob damit aber die unzähligen nötigen und unnötigen Features implementiert werden könnten bezweifele ich. Andersrum wird vielleicht ein Schuh draus: Wenn meine Ressourcen (Programmiererstunden) an nachrangige Probleme gebunden sind, dann kommt ein Flickwerk raus. Ich sage nicht, dass 2.7 jenes ist. Für mich läuft 2.7 sehr gut, hier und da Grafikbugs, aber gut, es ist Beta Software. Aber eine Öffnung nicht vitaler Bereiche wäre ein Boost für die Entwicklung ohne Gleichen. Schaut Euch die A4 an oder selbst die F22 auf Basis der F15. Die sind erstaunlich spaßig für Communityprojekte. DCS ist ein Langzeitspiel, das hat nichts mit der Mentalität eines Fun- / Arcadespielers zu tun. Der will abends ein wenig rumfliegen, rumballern, abschalten, fertig. Der will kein 68-seitiges Su25-T Manual lesen, nichtmal 6,8 Seiten!

Try the windows search function for "screenshot" or "screenshots" at your C drive. Maybe a new directory has been created.

Very interesting. Did you setup "no clouds" at all? Meaning the old weather system? There have been issues with DCS 2.7 and the old weather setup. Try something like scattered clouds and report back.

I'm afraid I can't answer your question and be of any more help than the search function. I never had to perform that action, but I've seen people talk about it in this forum.

Great description Panzertard! May I ask, Hans Dieter, if you use a hard drive or SSD? Your signature doesn't show the fact. The reason I ask is, if I run my DCS virtual machine on a hard disk setup, it takes roughly 5 minutes to even get to the menu.

Yes I saw it in the thread of -Markus-, he also has that message. Nevermind. Not to derail the thread here, but meaningful error messages are vital to bug fixing.

Hmm, just a wild guess that popped into my mind: Did you upgrade from a Windows 7 install to Windows 10 or did you install Win 10 onto a blank hard drive?

What? That's strange. Did you ever have an AMD card installed in this system? You don't even have an AMD CPU, which could've been an explanation. But using Intel and NVidia while your log clearly indicates the above mentioned is a surprise, to say the least.

Have you watched the Grim Reapers video showing the new F22 Raptor mod? While attaching ground power, the carrier trolley rolled by. Nice touch. I think people was more dynamic movement on the ground. The devs could also consider using more GPU rendering power while engines are off. I mean, what do you need this dormant GPU capability for while waiting for the ground crew to fill you up and attach ordnance?

I was thinking the same thing lately. A war in Germany wouldn't have been fought with only conventional weapons systems, for sure. But your suggested scenario may be the perfect DCS playground, also because of Berlin. This island would make strategies so much more interesting. Also the Baltic Sea and North Sea create great strategic opportunities. Fun fact: Research why the A10 was invented in the first place and what the intended purpose of her was. Would make perfect sense imo, especially since many players shout for balance. Well here you have it: A technological superiority by NATO forces and a 4:1 troop count advantage by the Warsaw Pact.

I looked at your logfiles again and the problem appears in regards to shaders. I never had to delete / repair the shaders. Did you attempt to reinitiate the shaders already?