Temetre

Yup, its not impossible. And you actually get the correct size in VR. On a flat screen, it becomes difficult. Youd need something like a >150 inch screen size 120 degree curved monitor around your head, at 1m distance, just to replicate realistic VR scaling. Military simulators actually do that sometimes, with much bigger projected screens in a circle around the cockpit. But if you got a 24 inch screen 80cm away from your head, you'd need to reduce FOV to 30 degrees horizontal or so to be realistic scale. Which would be kinda unusable, in FPS many people can get motion sick when FOV is below 90 on screens like that. Its actually an interesting topic, thats why in FPS games the scaling is always off, even in sims like ARMA. Walkable tents in ARMA have like 5m high scaling, which would be insanely big in reality. But on a screen it needs to be that big just to not feel tiny and claustrophobic. Well, thats good for you, but not everyone has that luxury^^ I was just saying that to make clear im not taking shots at ED/map devs for making IMO oversized trees.

Damn, and I thought euro-prices were crazy. Doesnt make it any better, but as to how they arrive at the prices: Looks like ED uses a direct turkish lira to dollar/euro conversion; they got very few differences in regional pricing, at least on steam. Even Russia is just 5% cheaper after conversion. Most regional stuff is -20% to +30%. For me the F-14 is 74€, which converts into 1586,51 Lira. Tho median monthly income is 2166€ (sadly went down cuz creep of half time jobs). https://www.google.com/search?q=turkish+lira+to+euro This game is expensive even for high income countries. For people in lower income countries or with high inflation its probably impossible to pay those prices. Only solution is to play a different game.

Ill note tho, while trees are imo on the big side, its not enough to kill immersion in VR. At worst its a bit misleading about scale, but thats not too big of a deal, especially considering almost everyone has to lower vegetation density/detail for VR anyway. Optimized vegetation is a good thing for VR. Fair, I shouldve mentioned I was talking about Caucasus examples, which is ofc more limited in tech. Almost only big trees, and they are just a bit too large for the average big tree in reality. Syria is much more detailed and varied in this regard. And thats ofc completely reasonable for performance reasons, and because everything on a 2D screens looks much smaller than in reality anyway. Tho I feel on the Syria map the average tree probably should be smaller than what it is too, considering the climates? Admittedly Im not too familiar with the regions flora tho. But eg flying over the region in Microsoft Flight Simulator, which relies on satellite imagery, that creates a way more dense and detailed forestation and environment. Northern Israel is way more green, with an unbelievable amount of little forrest, green areas and hedges. It feels way "bigger" as a landmass. Thats not to downplay the maps acchievement in DCS, I love it and most PCs couldnt handle more anyway, just for the comparision with reality.

I think its pretty obvious that the tree size in DCS is slanting towards the bigger end, probably for performance reasons. There are basically no small trees. And maybe its "just" 50% higher than average fully grown tree, but it seems decidedly so.

The projection screen in a simulator was likely also much bigger than a PC screen, which makes things in turn a lot easier to see? Either way, visibility on a PC screen is really bad compared to reality, thats the point im making.

Hell yeah thats dope! It has nothing to do with "photorealism", or polygons, or textures. Its about screens and how rendering works, to this day...

Btw, idk if possible, but it would be really nice if the VR-zoom keys wouldnt conflict with non-VR zoom keys. When I play 2D, I put zoom keys on my HOTAS, but VR has a seperate set of zoom keys that I would like to put on the HOTAS as well. As in, 2D disables the VR zoom keys and VR disables the 2D zoom keys. But the configurator doesnt allow us to use the same buttons for those two functions.

Those are just accidents though, arent they? Where the pilot didnt withstand the amount of G he was supposed to, usually because he made a mistake. Quoting the report: Like, the numbers youre citing are the exception to the rule, so to speak. It doesnt even say "pulled too many Gs", but rather describes personal, physical and mechanical problems. ^Again, these G-loc's shouldnt have happened and they need to make sure better that pilots can deal with the strain, which they are expected to. I would prefer if we play an experienced, average pilot that knows how to fly the plane and deal with G-forces. Not simulate a student pilot making a life-threatening mistake.

I wouldnt be surprised if the "out of date" screen tech was still better than our tiny PC screens. Military sims tend to have way bigger FOV, even back in the day. They also care more about replicating real combat rather than looking silly.^^ Either way, Im not saying that scaling is perfect or the only solution, but wanted to clarify just how bad spotting on PC screens is, and how even military simulators used scaling techniques. Gotta arrive at that understanding to talk about what a good compromise would be. Yup. Frankly, I like neither how easy dots can make planes to spot on distance, or how they are unaffected by light, how they shine through cockpit and clouds, etc. But I also dislike a lot how easy it is to lose sight of enemy planes. Sometimes planes turn around and their bright top becomes 4 white pixels in front of white clouds. Dynamic lighting makes it near impossible to see, and the main way to spot them is by watching for the flicker of aliasing artifacts. Aliasing and rendering issues also make it way harder to identify enemies, shapes become blurred and less distinct. Which is really kinda silly. Thats why I would like a solution thats closer to reality, something inbetween. One that feels natural enough, but at least mirrors IRL spotting capabilities in some way.

Im saying theres no point making this personal and emotional, that only weakens any argument. I find this topic genuinely interesting, so I do wann ask why "should" that be the standard? Because I dont think its actually realistic what youre saying: My monitor doesnt reflect reality at all. My screen suffers from rasterized resolution, aliasing, pixels, graphical and rendering limitations, its small and flat. The contrast and brightness is extremely low compared to reality. Dynamic range is incredibly limited compared to eyes that automatically adapt. In reality, I have a huge FOV, hence everything feels massively bigger and easier to spot. I have almost 180 degree peripheral vision to give orientation. My eyes focus on the distance, so anything on the canopy is near invisible. A sense of depths allows me to easier pick up targets. Even in VR visibility its far inferior to reality, but it still brings many little details you use in reality: Like you can much easier get a feel in what relation to your aircraft other aircraft are, and in what direction they move, and even how you move. Its way easier to track enemies wihtout constantly looking at them. And I dont need to look as much because I got a sense of space. Even after playing flight sims for a long time, I find it hard to spot enemies in DCS often. But even on my first flights in VR, I intuitively could track myself and enemies better than on flat screens. And thats with the blurry vision of a VR headset,. Like theres a million things that make spotting on PC screens harder than in reality. And mind, when I refered the "scaling system" of simulators or BMS, that actually changes visibility to levels that are reported from IRL studies. As said, AFAIK thats literally a system written for military simulators. Obviously such a system isnt perfect either, but its a compromise, because youll always have problems. Having dots reflecting reflecting realistic distances would be anothre possibility, but that makes identification and visual hints harder.

Actually, I think BMS uses an open source scaling system that was developed for military simulators? Even they, with their high field of views and resolution, had issues with spotting, so they use scaling to replicate IRL detection distances. And the low visibility on a flat PC screen is wrose, its clearly not realistic. The tiny field of view, how everything looks small, low resolution/aliasing artifacts, even in VR lacking depths perception to identify stuff, etc. The unrealistic effect of reflections/dirt/scratches/etc on the canopy makes it only worse. Idk why you write that like an accusation? And it doesnt even make sense, becuase its either high FOV, or disorienting tunnel vision. Visibility is never as good in reality.

Yeah, what you say about UV/normal maps is probably connected to the flatness of some textures I mentioned.

Visibility in reality is way better than in DCS without dots. Even VR is easier, despite the low resolution.

Laser scanning makes the module more accurate, not look better. Wouldnt mind some of the texture get improved, I guess? Some outside bits look a bit flat if you zoom in. Cant really think of a bitg issue tho.

Tbf because you only got finite polling, that means you have to do some trickery and smart compression. Its just like compression music or video, you only got limited data, but try to make a reconstruction thats as good as possible. It doesnt really matter "how" it arrives at the goal, it just has to get there. The DCS track+replay system combo is just not up to the task. I imagine with the F-14 something is just incorrectly polled or replayed or so, or theres not enough data, or whatever. Might just be a simple bug. Thx, thats a lot of testing! Clearly the F-14 is broken in replays in some way.

Im just thinking, eg with a tank: 100% - Fully operational 50% - Cant fire 20% - Cant move, counts as destroyed in briefing 0% - Explodes Some of that is already implemented, and IMO would be a nice thing to have for now.

Yeh I know how tracks generally break, its usually compression and inaccuracies piling up. Tho with F-14 it seems fundamentally broken. I think track viewer can shows the entire mission as well, its a seperate software that can read track files in DCS and other games? Wouldve been interesting to see if its simplified modeling is more consistent and doesnt break like the ingame replay system. Was just curious if someone had experience with that^^ Would definitely be nice if ED had some regular position saving or so to correct mistakes.

Its "easy" if you did it a hundred times, enjoy it and exactly know what to look for. Pretty much everything difficult gets easy when you get enough experience. Idk why people dont understand that in video games? Eh, Ive heard a lot of people say its way easier in reality. And it makes a lot more sense, considering most of your sense are missing when playing 2D, and in VR as well.

Yeah I know that kinda issue from other games replay systems. But theres a difference between "sometimes they get a bit inaccurate", and "replay just breaks after seconds with no recovery". Are trackfiles itself affected, even in a track viewer? Or just the ingame replay system of DCS? I know how replays work. Its just a question how bad it is, and sometimes they got ways to "recover" inaccuracies reguarly. The F-14 just seems to instantly break in the clip? Ive watched me flying F-18 replays to check out stuff recently, and they were fairly accurate. Good enough to get to see what I wanted.

Is that really a thing, F-14 replay just dont work?

Yeah, thats still an issue. But at least it does something. Maybe your ground units can finish the job, or you can return later. If tanks are disarmed or the AA system cant shoot anymore, then cleanup is easy. Feels like it would be a big improvement imo. And tbh, for scoring/evaluation it shouldnt be hard either to just count units with less than a certain HP percentage to be "destroyed" for the missions sake, and maybe "half count" damaged units or so. Like the tools are all there, theres no reason DCS has to be this wonky about topics like damge.

Yeah, I just ment the basic idea of overlaying tracks on a radar display^^ Can well imagine that the F-5 doesnt even got the right screen for that, with its old cold war radar scope. Btw, If you know and dont mind the question: I assume the only "screens" on the rear cockpit of an F-4E would be the radar and RWR, or is there more? And what is the thing on the front screen, is that just a copy of the radar screen? Or can it show more?

Tbh, I hope this whole thing has highlighted how spotting in DCS is problematic, both with dots and without. Also how the even more degraded visibility by canopy reflections/scratches are not just unrealistic, but quite irritating.

Thx, so it was even more basic than that^^ Yeh first when I saw this topic I thought it was about that kinda SA datalink. IIRC the F-14 just did it by putting displaying datalink targests on the radar screen.

Idk, I believe it when I see it. Most companies struggle to even provide reasonable headsets below $1000. Meta/Pico headsets are probably among the few strong "budget" headsets, but they are a) nowhere on that that level, and b) heavily subsidized to buy market share.