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Glideslope needle is nicely lit, but you can barely see the localizer. Also the ILS needles on the ADI are the only ones not affected by UV lighting knob, so there's no way to make them brighter. On the screenshot below you can see, or rather not see, the localizer needle that is in the centre of ADI.

HSI course setting does not take into account the magnetic declination. Which causes CDI to show incorrect deviation from course. For example here I'm parked on the runway heading 028 and tuned to LSV tacan at the opposite end. Bearing pointer shows correct direction to the beacon (25 degrees), yet CDI is centered when I set the course 37 degrees on the HSI, not 25. This difference happens to be the magnetic declination on this map (12 degrees). Same problem exists with VOR. CDI should be centered when course setting is the same as bearing to station. The two pointers should align. VOR and TACAN use magnetic bearings.

Flat shadows are created by making a flattened version of each object and drawing it as shadow. This is an older method of creating shadows, not very efficient when there is a lot of high-poly objects around (like on a ramp) but it does not put as much load on the GPU as the GPU-based "default" shadows. For example when flying over a city where there are many simple buildings and trees, it will perform better. But why in 2.8 there's so much more geometry generated with flat/off shadows, and why even "default" option reports a lot of extra geometry for no apparent reason, I've no idea. That's the question to ED devs. Another example is the same mission tested in VR. Standing in the parking spot and looking to the right. You can see that "Default" shadows in 2.7 put a bit more pressure on the GPU, but less load on the CPU, so it's always a tradeoff. Either way, RTX4090 + 5800X3D is able to make 90 fps on "High" preset in this particular scene (just barely). That's simply not possible in 2.8. Even with "default" shadows, there's noticeably higher load on both CPU and GPU comapred to 2.7. "Flat" shadows in 2.8 are abysmal, with 30% increase in CPU frametimes compared to the same setting in 2.7. Only turning the terrain objects shadows OFF brings the performance back, but the CPU load is still suspiciously high, higher in fact than 2.7 with default shadows on. No wonder with all that extra geometry created for no reason, as explained in the first post. 2.7 preset HIGH, terrain objects shadows default: 2.7 preset HIGH, terrain objects shadows Flat: 2.8 preset HIGH, terrain objects shadows default: 2.8 preset HIGH, terrain objects shadows Flat: 2.8 preset HIGH, terrain objects shadows OFF: hornetReadyRampVR.trk

I used the Hornet ready on the ramp instant action mission comparing both the latest DCS 2.7 and 2.8.1 which was uploaded to "stable" branch yesterday. Using clean DCS "saved games" folder, "high" graphics preset, just changing the Terrain Objects Shadows option. So it's the same track, the same preset and the same conditions in both cases. The tests are on a PC with Ryzen 5800X3D, RTX4090 and 64GB ram, in this scenario the game is CPU limited all the time. The results, according to the built-in stats are: Version Objects Shadows FPS Objects Triangles 2.7.18 Default 139 1511 1,5 milion 2.7.18 Flat 130 2689 2.8 milion 2.7.18 Off (doesn't work) - - - 2.8.1 Default 131 1700 2,5 milion 2.8.1 Flat 111 3880 6,4 milion 2.8.1 Off 133 3880 6,4 milion Several issues are clearly visible: 1. Even with terrain shadows set to off, the game is preparing all the shadow related geometry like it would with Flat shadows. Which is A LOT, especially for something that is never displayed on the screen. It may be related to the fact, that this option still creates shadows in 2.7 even when OFF, and it might not have been correctly disabled in 2.8. 2. Flat shadows generate a lot more geometry in 2.8. In 2.7 the increase between "default" and "flat" is 86%. In 2.8, the increase from "default" to "flat" is 155%. I'm not surprised that Flat shadows create extra geometry, as I understand they work by creating a "pancake" version of every model and add it to the scene as shadow. I'm not even surprised that this option in both 2.7 and 2.8 generates less FPS in this particular scene, as it doesn't work well when there's a lot of high poly models around. It still works better when there's a lot of shadows from a simple geometry, like flying over a city. But what's surprising, is the huge jump in generated geometry between 2.7 and 2.8, which is reflected in FPS hit: 7% in 2.7, but 15% in 2.8. 3. Flat shadows look nothing like they did in 2.7. In the previous version they were sharp and aliased. In 2.8 they are smooth and blended. Don't think it comes for free. 4. Even in a "best case" scenario with "default" shadows, DCS 2.8 is creating 66% more triangles for no apparent reason at the same game settings, according to the metric in game. It looks like the poor performance in VR is just a reflection of worse 2.8 performance overall. It's just that people playing the game in VR are more susceptible to 10-20% drops in performance, while on a monitor it may not be noticeable if the game now makes 110 FPS instead of 130. Also with a weaker GPU the results will look different, as it will mask the problems with CPU being overloaded with extra geometry in 2.8. 2.7 flat: 2.7 default: 2.8 default: 2.8 flat: 2.8 off: hornetReadyRamp.trk DxDiag.txt

I think this blurb is meant to imply that individual members of the team have previous experience, not the company itself.

Aaand despite all the feedback posted in this thread for two months, the issue has been pushed to stable today. Are we allowed to be disgruntled now? They didn't even fix the flat shadows, just left the option broken as it is.

Turn off terrain objects shadows. "default" was always costly, the more units and objects in view. "Flat" is still broken in 2.8, and not flat at all. They look like "default". So far "off" is the only option that lets me play the game with performance comparable to 2.7. You can still crank the main Shadows option on the left to "high", so you get a nice cockpit and self shadowing on the aircraft, plus clouds and mountains shadows. "Terrain objects shadows" only controls shadows on the ground from buildings, trees and vehicles.

For a start, Flat Terrain Objects Shadows are still broken and cost much more FPS than they used to in 2.7. Although 'high' DCS preset is not using those IIRC.

As explained above, it's a problem of the framerate not matching refresh rate, and can only be completely solved by reprojection or running the headset at full refresh rate. Now that your PC can consistently make more than 45 fps, you can first try with reprojection on.

5800X3D heats up considerably due to the cache layer on top of the CPU itself. It's just the nature of the CPU, anything below 90C is fine, at or slightly below 90C is where you'll see throttling. Also the way it heats up is different than with 5900X. 5900X would report highest temperatures at light workloads (2-4 cores) when the voltage is highest. With all-cores workloads it will lower voltages, clocks, and stay relatively cool. 5800X3D on the other hand gets warmer the more cores you put to use.

Apart from the common performance issues in 2.8 unrelated to any particular module, I also find the Ka-50 to have worse performance than any other helo, including Apache and Mi-24. It is about 10% more taxing on the GPU, despite having much less detailed cockpit and no second crewmember station in the front.

You need to set terrain object shadows to something other than Off to see shadows under aircraft.

The one on the right. The left option I have on high I think.

Going full screen never gave me noticeable gains in DCS in VR, besides, both shots in my original post were made in windowed mode. 3 weeks and 2 patches later, flat shadows are still broken, and with them enabled, the performance is just as bad as I showed in the first post.

Yep. They changed something, because now flat shadows do not disappear at close proximity. But the flat shadows still look close to "default" option and they suck similar amount of performance (a lot). Nowhere near what we had in 2.7.

Can you change the tacan channel knobs clickspots to work with mousewheel instead of mouseclicks? Just like the VOR frequency knobs work right now. Scrolling is easier than clicking a dozen times to set the required channel.

I have a custom snapview saved under Num0, and using Ctrl-Num0 to switch between the snapview and default view works fine, until I switch to outide view, then it stops working. Normally you can switch between default view and snap view by pressing Ctrl-Num0 repeatedly, but after the following sequence it breaks. 1. Press Ctrl-Num0 to switch to snapview. 2. Press F2 to go outside 3. Press F1 to go back in the cockpit 4. Now you are back in the snapview 5. Press Ctrl-Num0 again. Now depending of if you are in VR or 2D, different things happen - if you're playing in VR nothing will change, you are stuck in the snapview - if you're playing in 2D, then the snapview will change but not to default view, but some other angle. Both behaviours are wrong. After pressing Ctrl-Num0 the view should go back to default cockpit angle. CockpitViewToggleBug.trk

Yes, the performance hit with 2.8 is not limited to VR. The thing is, from the data I showed in the first post, CPU frametimes went up by 30% while GPU frametimes went up by roughly 10% at the same settings. So for people who run DCS at GPU limit, they only saw about 10% drop with 2.8, while those limited by CPU saw 30% drop. On a monitor with 100+ FPS, that's not even perceivable without FPS counter. But in situations where DCS framerate is limited by CPU performance (like heavy missions or MP), a 30% drop becomes very noticeable. VR users are also more often dialled with the settings near the limit of their PCs, so any drop like that will kick them out of the "sweet spot".

Well, ED themselves already renamed this whole forum to DCS 2.8, and the newsletter last week proclaimed 2.8 was released, not even mentioning the beta anywhere. Seems a clear message to me. https://forum.dcs.world/topic/304804-official-news-2022/?do=findComment&comment=5073724 Anyway, the problem hasn't been fully resolved yet, let's hope it will be fixed before beta branch gets copied to stable.

Note that 5800X and 5800X3D are not the same CPUs. You want the latter.

The most cost effective option would be AMD 5800X3D (recently they had a price cut), a decent B550 AM4 motherboard, and keep the current DDR4 ram. With other platforms like the latest Intel or AMD AM5, you'll be spending almost twice the money for very little gains over 5800X3D.

Thanks. Looks useful. I've been playing the tutorial mission, so no way to adjust it there.

Ok, then are you sure the rockets firing interval is correct? Right now it takes good several seconds to empty each pod, so if you aim and start firing in a dive at optimal parameters, the pods will still be firing while you're already pulling up and evading. Maybe it's 40ms instead of 400ms between rockets, something along these lines.

It's not placebo, just different terrain shadows settings, one has been fixed, the other (flat) was not.

The rockets in ripple mode will continue to fire for several seconds until the pod is empty, even after the weapon button on the stick is released.