Highwayman-Ed

Just a little update on some of the Phase II textures that I'm working on now I have a foundation... No ETA on a final version of these yet...

I agree, I might just put the textures in on their own for those who don't use JSGME, I'm just trying to make it as simple as possible.

For those who don't know what it is: Zimmerit

Please find the download link to the release version in the first post I highly recommend using this with Rocky's trees and DTAC Terrain or Toby23's Low & Slow mods. Installation; My mod is in JSGME format for easy installation, so just unpack it into your JSGME _Mods folder, add the files from the scenery mods above if you wish to the relevant seasons 'LandTexturesSeasonOther zip file overwriting the files inside and then enable it. Release Notes; 1. I have only modified the villages in this release, the town textures used for the cities is very difficult to work with due to the way that the DCS engine places the texture files and overlaps them in game, and given the recent announcements that Wags has made about the EDGE engine, any further work I do may become irrelevant in the not too distant future. 2. Lighting at night emphasises the dirt roads a little more than I'd like, but does not reflect upon the underlying textures that I've allowed to bleed through in the villages. I've worked around this to some extent, but it's still a small compromise. 3. The download is 540MB and does contain parts that aren't strictly necessary in order to make it simple to install with JSGME, but I'm also pretty new to creating large scale mods like this, so I'm sure that there maybe more efficient ways of doing this. 4. I haven't done any hard standings or car parks in this version, pending item #5 5. There will be no further development until more information is forthcoming about the release of EDGE and what impact it may have on the terrain. Winter at noon Spring at 5am Summer at 1am

That's almost the point, you're not supposed to see much and they blend with the underlying terrain more rather than sticking out. You're dead right that they're a pain to work with as they don't always appear the same way when they're placed depending on the terrain features. The textures are under the trees, the dirt roads and under the light poles, the rest is alpha that lets the underlying noise file bleed through. Phase II is to add parking areas, hard standings and the like in localised areas around the larger individual buildings where it makes sense, but this is the hardest part due to how they are aligned.

Yep, it's on the plan to add these type of details around some of the larger buildings, but it's not possible to add proper linked roads, parks, pavements, parking areas, etc to create a fully built tile due to the way that the tiles fit together. It's fine when the tiles align nicely, but occasionally around the map you'll find some that overlap each other quite a lot at odd angles, but I am working on ways to minimize the impact when it occurs and this is primarily why you only see short windy dirt roads and not straight tarmac ones. The towns and larger industrial areas still have some of those features as is at the moment though that I kept from the original textures, here are a couple of examples: I'm currently working on a couple of fixes that we've spotted on the 229th testing, specifically with how the lighting works at night which I expect to take a couple of days to fix for all of the seasons (28 tiles per season!). I'm also re-touching some of the dirt roads that I'm not happy with as well, but I'm hoping to still submit this first version to ED by the weekend.

Effectively, yes I removed the existing textures containing the 2D village textures and replaced them with new ones with tree bases, dirt roads and some other small details which align with the structures. As for how it looks when 10-20 should appear from a distance, the second and third images of each version show approximately 30 of these village tiles together.

All files, links and screenshots updated, all taken with Diveplane's Shadows, Mustang's Clouds, PeterP's HDR and SweetFX 1.4 with PeterP's settings in Spring. Recommended for Helicopter Pilots; My original version with blended textures from Toby23's Low'n'Slow and Enhanced Terrain Mod & Rocky's Trees here (321MB) in JSGME format; or Toby23's Low'n'Slow & Rocky's DTAC Trees with this version here (392MB) Recommended for Fighter Jocks; Rocky's DTAC Terrain & Trees with this version here (842MB) or Toby23's Enhanced Terrain & Rocky's Trees with this version here (341MB) or Foxbeard's Terrain & Rocky's DTAC Trees with this version - Removed due to claims of Plagiarism (T@ker -> Foxbeard) All versions are JSGME and 1.2.7 compatible First, here is the stock DCS without any Terrain mods: Here is what the mod looks like with my version: Here is what the mod looks like with Toby23's Low'n'Slow: Here with Rocky's DTAC Terrain & Trees: Here it is with Toby23's Enhanced Terrain Here it is with Foxbeard's Terrain Mod

+1 even if it's only AI, I'd love to see this in game

+1

Want it, Want it, Want it!

Thanks, it appeared not long after your post.

I'm going to jump on the the sale for the Mi-8 and I've just gone to the store to purchase it. It shows as $19.99, but when I click on it to buy, the price is still $49.99. It's the 20th here in Australia, and on GMT now, is the sale starting in the US time zones?

I think we all knew this was coming, Wags even posted the day that the Steam sale started to say that there would be an ED sale coming soon and that it would cover the entire store... I've bought everything so far at full price except the Mustang, and that's really because it's not my type of plane (don't hate me), and the same can be said of the Mi-8. That said, Belsimtek/ED will be getting $20 from me that they wouldn't have been getting before, and I dare say that the same is true for a lot of the DCS community, therefore, more sales... But I feel your pain having experienced it with the Huey. The real danger here though is that this pattern is repeating itself, and in the long term ED will see more and more people holding out for the sales to pickup the airframes unless they simply must have on launch day. F-86... yeah, I'll pick it up on sale, F-18...? Take my money now, I'll pay double to reserve the first download!

Nice one yet again Mustang :)

+1

Just a heads up that Steam have changed the discount available on the Huey. I looked about 2 hours ago for a friend of mine and it was US$9.99 with the 80% discount, but it's been reduced to a 10% discount now and is $44.99

I was having similar issues after the last 1.2.5 upgrade and a complete clean out and re-install fixed all my FPS issues just like Tusler has posted. It's worth doing if they're bad. I had a consistent 17-20 FPS before and went to a consistent mid 40's after

After upgrading to 1.2.6 smoke markers are no longer effected by the wind whilst other types of smoke are:

So over the course of a few days I completely wiped all DCS content from my computer and started from scratch with a full new build of the latest version, and all of the FPS issues have gone. I now have an average FPS of 45, spiking up to 120 and dipping down to high 20's under load (cities + smoke + Full effects)... Maybe it was some tweak that I've long forgotten, maybe it's a result of update upon update upon update but I'm happy and flying high again :thumbup:

Looks very interesting :) Application sent

Yes it is, and yes I appreciate that it's not the same level of simulation, and yes I appreciate that there are a lot more things going on under the skin of DCS, especially with aircraft like the A-10, but if you look beyond that at the stability and the way the multi-player code works, and yes the incredibly pretty rendering engine it puts DCS to shame.

Fly in the harder levels, Historical at least and the rewards are much higher, then find the planes in your tiers that provide the best rewards ( hover your mouse over the plane and check the Reward Multiplier ) and you'll start pulling the XP and Lions (currency) in. First thing you have to really try and do with War Thunder is get online with a buddy and fly together. It makes a massive difference to have somebody on your wing that won't run off after the first enemy they see. The second thing is about War Thunders planes though, and you should really try to find a plane that you can fly well, and this might not always be the one that you wanted, or the one that you just must have. I for example was focused on getting the later model Spitfire's unlocked when I first started out with War Thunder, but I absolutely love the tier 3 Bristol Beaufort and always bag a great score with it, almost always coming in the top 5 and it's not a plane that I wanted to fly or had any attraction to, it just clicked for me... Now my AI gunners are almost maxed out, my bombing skills are good enough to consistently hit a moving target from above 5000 ft and I really have no burning desire to fly much else despite the fact that I've unlocked up to tier 11 in the RAF line, mostly from this one single aircraft.

I appreciate your views, and I know I'm not comparing apples for apples here and I'm talking about an engine developed nearly 10 years ago compared to a brand new one, so please don't jump off the deep end with stating that they're not the same, but... Have you ever flown in the Full Real Battles mode in Warthunder? My system with all settings MAXED out acheives an average of 120fps, DCS with the same and No other non essential processes running other than T.A.R.G.E.T and Track IR gets an average of 18... No tweaks, no special hardware, and that IS a beta product. I have always been a fan of ED's work all the way back to Flanker and own every module and version of Lock On and DCS that there is to support a company putting their all into a sadly dying breed of game, but for at least the past 2-3 years there have been issues and problems with almost every release and update and as much as it kills me to say it, I'd rather see all of their efforts put into making what we have a stable and reliable platform before another line of code is written for any more modules.

Whilst a lot of you guys have gone to some tremendous lengths here to point out ways to modify a system and use 3rd party software and tools, albeit for free to the community (and credit to you) to improve the performance issues that many of us are facing, it doesn't address the issue that there are significant performance issues for many of us in DCS 1.2.5, and it shouldn't be up to us to find solutions to fix these problems, we're paying customers and the whole platform seems to be in a constant state of beta... If you hadn't already guessed, I also am experiencing stutter and poor fps since updating to 1.2.5, less so in single player, but the fps loss is still there to the point that I have shelved DCS again until the next patch comes along...