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I have also noticed the drastic improvement of loading times. Excellent work guys!

Transgressions? The only transgressions I see might be the delays on some things, which are understandable considering the highest fidelity ED is making their stuff in. And long delays are normal even in other gaming branches. Duke Nukem 4ever anyone? Bugs are normal for any type of software. The game of the year, Skyrim, was initially so buggy that it was almost unplayable. Everything else is at ED's discretion, just like any other PC game developer out there. I don't see Valve taking orders on which weapons to model in their next first person shooter. I don't see Treyarch asking the community which city to demolish in the next CoD game. With DCS, you get what you payed for: a perfected simulation of a single aircraft. Have you ever received less than that?

It is funny though, that BS2 slow loading times (and also other modules' loading times, if BS2 is installed) aren't mentioned in the change log. Was this problem caused by something that IS mentioned in the changelog (digital signing, or map preloading perhaps)?

Confirmed: BS2 loading times are fixed. BS2 loading times: Before update: approx. 8 minutes After update: approx. 2 minutes A10C loading times: Before update: approx. 4 minutes After update: approx. 1:30 minutes Thank you ED, fantastic work!

Proof has been given several times. On this exact forum, a poll was done separately for eastern aircraft and separately for western aircraft. Less than 300 people voted in the 'eastern' poll. Over 2000 voted in the 'western' poll. This is proof enough that there is more interest in the community for a western fighter. But then again, 'polls are just polls and mean squat', as the opinion goes...

The thing is, you're complaining to ED, not to 3rd party devs who made their own decisions as to which planes they will model. And currently, DCS World is VERY even, as far as East and West are concerned. West: A10C P51D East: Ka-50 Su25T You can scrap the Su25T, as it's not a DCS fidelity plane, but on the other hand you can also scrap P51D, as it's not a modern combat plane, suitable for a modern battlefield. You're left with Ka50 and A10C, both DCS quality. Is that not even enough? "Oh, but I'm not flying helicopters" one might say. Irrelevant. There are two serious modern combat DCS modules out there, one is US, the other is Russian. That's pretty even in my view. Let's say, for instance, that the next DCS module happens to be a russian fast mover. That's a bit hypothetical, but still, let's try it. All of a sudden, you have one russian helicopter, one russian fighter jet, and to oppose it you have one US slow moving tank buster. Would that be even? Also, from all the 3rd party projects, which ones are closest to completion? Yep, a russian Mig 21.

I for one didn't say I don't WANT a russian plane. I do, very much. I'd love a DCS Su35. But I understand why in the near future ED can't and won't venture into that, the reasons have been stated already (lack of information, secrecy around the red defense industry, economic viability of a russian plane versus a western one (how many people would buy it), and ofcourse time). ED is more than well aware of which planes the community would like to fly, and they will do their best to accomodate as many wishes as possible, according to several factors: 1. which airplane does the COMMUNITY want the most? 2. CAN they do a specific airplane at all? 3. is there enough available INFORMATION on that airplane? Complaining about the lack of some airplanes won't make the process any faster. The community has already spoken and the majority wants a western fast mover. Info on those planes is available, and it's easier to get permission to model a western plane. It seems that all the pros go to a western plane. This has nothing to do with balance between red and blue. This has everything to do on what ED can do at all, and with what the community wants. And again, ED has no real control over 3rd party developers. Complaining about those projects being western biased, and then saying it's DCS that's western biased, that's a bit heavy. Noone is forcing you to buy 3rd party airplanes.

- graphics engine - physics engine - Georgia map - modeling all the buildings, making textures, placing object within the map - modeling all the trucks, tanks, AI airplanes, and making all these behave like the vehicles they are (a truck has to drive, an airplane has to fly...) - support for hardware - graphic interface for the menus - mission planner - network support for online play ... the list goes on and on and on. You're forgetting that within a few years, Ka-50, A10C and P51D were released, and along side that ED released a FREE DCS World with a flyable Su25 airplane. And ofcourse Combined Arms. All this is a bit different from modeling ONE airplane as a mod, isn't it? And don't forget that developing a 'simple' airplane like P51D took a bit of time to get it to today's fidelity. Now imagine developing something really complex, like F18 or SU35, to include all the systems, fully clickable cockpit, fully simulated airplane with every system that's on the original airplane... Also don't forget that ED hasn't been sleeping, they've been developing a new graphic engine, EDGE, to complement the Nevada map. You payed for A10C and possibly for other airplanes. And that's exactly what you received. Does purchasing a DCS airplane make you eligible to complain about the lack of new Russian planes? It does not. If you think it does, then please, go to your nearest MacDonalds and complain to them that you'd rather eat pizza than burgers. Maybe they will listen to you. It has been stated in another thread on this forum that there was a poll for russian aircraft, and a poll for western aircraft. Russians received almost 300 votes total, while the western aircraft received over 2000 votes. Just from these numbers, what would be the most logical course of action for ED? Developing an airplane that would interest 300 people, or developing one that over 2000 people would buy?

Again, my estimate was a low one to show a possible minimum, which is already pretty high compared to how many simmers would buy a DCS product - even my low estimate calculated a necessary 10.000 copies sold :) As for credits: I'm pretty sure most of those people were involved on a per-project basis, meaning they didn't work a whole year, 40 hours per week, exclusively on one airplane. This means their wages were financed by other stuff they did, as well as this particular project. It would be interesting to see how many man hours went into developing a single airplane (this number could then be divided by 1.900, which is approximately the yearly hour quota of an average employee, thus giving us an estimate of how many full-time employees are needed for a single DCS aircraft to be developed within one year).

@LostOblivion: yes, those are pretty low wages for decent programmers, but it does depend on the location: US programmers are by all means payed considerably more than Russian. Over here in Slovenia, 1.500 to 2.000 euros net wage is considered pretty good even for programmers. My estimate was meant to give some sort of a low point, just to make everyone understand just how many copies of DCS games need to be sold, MINIMUM, just to sustain the company (DCS World part of it, anyway) and keep it alive. Profit margins that some people here like to talk about are probably something ED can only dream about. Sure, they have other projects (for the airforces etc), but it's kind of pointless to finance a commercial product like DCS A10C from the defense projects they do for big customers. Each project should be self sustaining. All this just makes me respect ED even more, as they've provided us with unparalleled simulations in a world where their product has a pretty limited audience. Kudos.

People also seem to have a difficult time understanding the entire 'niche market' problem ED is facing here. If developing ONE airplane to DCS fidelity takes 1 year for 5 people, this means you have to provide 60 paychecks in one year. And I've probably underestimated how many people are at ED working on DCS projects. If an average paycheck costs the company 3000 USD, do the math: 180.000 USD per year. Add to that any licences ED has to pay to aircraft companies, hosting services for high bandwidth servers etc, software and hardware developers need, not to mention office space... If a DCS airplane costs 50 USD, ED needs to sell 5000 copies minimum just to brake even. And since I significantly underestimated the ED team size and development costs, let's say 10.000 copies. Not to even start thinking of turning profit, just sheer breaking even. Are there 10.000 people enthusiastic enough to buy a DCS quality airplane? It is perfectly sensible for ED to plan, for instance, a fast mover that their market research said would sell well (or better than a russian counterpart). In the meantime, everybody should chill and head to ED's online store and BUY something, to support this great company and their awesome work. The more you buy, the more developers they will be able to hire and the faster the planes will come to light, including more ruskies.

I've tested the Black Shark 2 theory and can confirm: I deleted the Ka-50 folder from the mods/aircraft, and as soon as that was done, loading time was reduced drastically. Now, the splash screen only appears for about one minute (compared to over 3 minutes before deleting BS2). I then restored the Ka-50 folder from the Recycle Bin and tried running the sim again. Once BS2 was restored, the splash screen was again stuck on my screen for about 3 minutes before proceeding to the loading screen. I also tested the loading of A10C compared to Ka50. The Warthog loads significantly faster than BS2. The splash screen part is the same for both modules: about 3 minutes. But once loading starts, BS2 takes quite a bit longer to load. And once you get into the cockpit, A10C is responsive immediately (looking around, flying), while BS2 took quite some time before I was able to do anything with it. Here's the comparison: A10C loading time WITHOUT BS2 INSTALLED: 1:30 minutes or less (from the moment I click 'fly mission' to the moment the plane is flyable and responsive) A10C loading time WITH BS2 INSTALLED: approx. 4 minutes BS2 loading time: approx. 8 minutes (from the moment I click 'fly mission' to the moment anything works in the sim, like looking around, clicking in the cockpit, controls responsive etc). So, looks like BS2 has something to do with the long loading times. If it helps the dev team: my BS2 installation is the UPGRADE, not standalone.

I thought the tally of DCS-quality machines is at 2:1 for the western tech (West: A10C and P51D; East: KA50), of which only two are meant for the modern battlefield, which puts the current tally at 1:1. So I don't get the whole idea of ED and DCS being biased towards western aircraft. ED has no control over what 3rd party developers decide to go for. And ED's decision for the next DCS-fidelity plane will be completely understandable, if they go for a western fast mover, if a western plane will be a bigger market success and if it's easier to get all the necessary data to properly model a western fighter. As a fan of russian planes, I too would very much like to see a DCS Su-27/35, and would buy it instantly if ED decides to make it, but at this point I'm just happy ED exists and is willing and capable of providing us with the highest fidelity planes. Honestly, their work is so amazing that y'all should just be grateful there's a team of people crazy enough to do this for a handful of enthousiasts.

Running a decent machine: AMD FX-Series FX-8150, 3,6 GHz (box), AM3+ Asus M5A99X EVO, AM3+ Kingston HyperX DDR3 4x 4 GB 1600 MHz Kingston SSDNow V200 128 GB, SATA III (system disk) Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 2 TB, 7200 rpm, 64 MB, SATA III (DCS World installed here) Gigabyte Radeon HD 6950, 1 GB, PCI-E Windows 7 ultimate 64bit, all the latest drivers and updates installed Installed modules: DCS World BS2 A10C P51D FC3 As I've experienced drastically different load times on this exact same setup, when the only thing different was DCS World version, it is impossible that my hardware could be the problem. Version of DCS World from November 12th: 1:30 minutes total load time Version of DCS World from November 14th: 4 minutes total load time Sure, some loading time might be saved if I get a second SSD disk and install DCS World there (an option I'm seriously considering), but still: it's obvious the problem is in the latest update. A problem which I am sure ED will fix in due time. The old-school approach mentioned by bmon40 works :smilewink:

Makes no difference here. With the Aero-off feature disabled (or with it enabled), loading time is about 4 minutes (3 minutes of which are on the splash screen with DCS World 'not responding'). This is after the last update on november 14th. The previous version (from nov. 12th) loaded in under 1:30 minutes.

What does Rise of Flight / Channel Map have to do with DCS World / Nevada Map? Nothing? Then why bring it up?

Ohmy, flight simulators are meant to be played on as large monitors as you can afford, and ofcourse with as high a resolution as your system can play without problems. I'm playing on a 1920x1080 resolution on a 27'' monitor, and even this is starting to look like too small a monitor. There is a reason why serious simmers set up their system with 3 monitors in Eyefinity: immersion in the game is just so much better if you've got more monitor surface in front of you.

The only thing Germany and France are bailing out are their own banks. Greece (and I am talking about its people) has never seen a single cent of all those billions of euros of bailout money. The 'bailout', which is a temporary consolidation of the national debt, is actually just another loan that the Greek people will eventually have to pay - most likely by selling their entire economy to foreigners and ending up in a hellhole of third-world wages. This loan did however prevent Greece from calling for bankruptcy (a scenario where German and French banks would effectively be screwed). Bailout? More like capitalistic take-over. The greek people are not protesting just for the heck of it. Sorry for the off topic rant. Stealth... Yeah... The problem with stealth is that it is, eventually, only temporary. If a generation of planes life span is about 20 years, will F22 and F35 stealth technology really remain stealthy for that long? Let's say the Chinese develop a sensor that will see those two planes in 10 years time... The US just threw billions of dollars into technology that might end up obsolete before the 6th gen planes are developed.

For the past several days I've been flying missions here and there, and these loading times are really getting to me. The original 1.2.2 release had a long delay before the mission started loading (just the DCS splash screen visible, with DCS World not responding). Back then it was about a minute and a half on my PC because of that delay. The update from November 12th sped up the loading considerably, I would say the splash screen wasn't on screen for longer than 40 seconds. But the update from November 14th, and the latest current version of DCS World, made things worse again. This time, it takes up to 3 minutes before the splash screen disappears and the actual loading begins. This means I sit in front of my PC for 3 minutes looking pretty silly, waiting for the sim to load, for 20 times a day or more. Since I'm currently re-flying the same mission over and over, I was wondering if it would be possible to add "Restart mission" on the Quit menu in the sim? And if this button worked by simply respawning the situation from point zero, and if nothing would have to load again, this would make the whole experience that much better (no quitting to DCS World GUI and flying again and waiting for the sim to load again)... Just an idea...

That's what I do. Simple enough procedure.

My guess would be that FC3 updated to the same version, when you used the Updater to update DCS World. The updater does update all the modules to the most current version, after all.

I noticed when flying A10C (or any other aircraft with mirrors, for instance FC3 SU-33), the sea looks like a matte color blob with no textures. In fact, it looks like the sky extends down and where the sea should be displayed, the sky shows up instead. It would be nice to have the sea in the mirrors darker hued to make it different from the sky. I have noticed that every once and again, the sea textures (with waves) show up, momentarily, just to disappear again. Attached is a screenshot of what the sea looks like in A10C over here. In FC3 SU33 it looks even worse (almost completely white). System specs: M5A99X EVO AM3+ mobo AMD FX 8150 proc 16GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM Radeon 6950 1GB SSD Kingston v200 SATA3 128GB (for system) HDD Seagate 7200 SATA3 2TB (DCS is installed here) Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit All the recent drivers, DCS (A10C, P51D, KA50, FC3) updated today (nov. 14th).

Yes, the 12th update made loading faster. But today's update again pushed loading way back... Tested when flying a FC3 aircraft, and it felt over 2 minutes of splash screen, and DCS World was 'not responding' during that time, according to Windows task manager.

If you ever owned a MS Flight Simulator, you'd know that addon planes cost money. Some addon planes cost 20, 30 dollars. And those addon planes are just that: addon planes. They have no in-game story, no special scenery, no historical setting, nothing. It's just a blank plane to fly within the Flight Simulator world. And for 20, 30 dollars, those planes aren't half as well simulated as DCS P51D, they don't have half the features, you can't use every system on the simulated plane EXACTLY as it would be used on a real one... So, for 40 bucks that you pay for DCS P51D, you're getting ten times the airplane, compared to almost any addon plane for MS FS or (for instance) X-plane. Ofcourse, a correct era scenery and correct geographical placing, along with a nice campaign, would be nice. But for the money you're paying, you're getting a really good deal.

Over here, DCSW turns off Aero by default, and the desktop flashing occurs anyway. I won't be running the game in full screen for long as I'm about to install 8-inch LCDs (for MFD use), and that sort of setup can only be used in windowed mode (as far as I know). So, if this problem only happens in full-screen (and not in windowed mode), then I won't be having this problem for long...