Aluminum Donkey

Thanks for the input everyone! Think I'll hold off 'til it's on sale cheap in maybe 3-5 years :) AD

Just wondering, since it's a work-in-progress. Does it at least have a reasonably functioning A2A radar and gunsight yet? I have a TM Cougar HOTAS, fitted with Hall effect sensors and Leo Bodnar's USB control board, so the F-16 is the only module that my HOTAS is actually a realistic representation of! :) Considering how expensive the module is I'm curious if it's really a barebones early-release with most of the stuff not working yet... In other words, how far along is it? Thanx AD

Are you using Adaptive Refresh? In other words, does your monitor support Freesync or G-Sync? Reason I ask is now that Nvidia graphics driver also support Freesync, I enabled it on my system and it's the only thing that's ever made a really significant improvement in my stuttering problems with DCS. Also, 2.5.6 stutters a *lot*. Everybody's griping about it. It's probably something that ED is going to have to sort out in the coming months/years, and there's nothing that us end-users can do about it because we didn't write the program :) Finally, one last thing, install and run Nvidia Inspector and make sure that Nvidia Ansel is turned off. It's used for recording game footage, and can cause stuttering. AD

I have no way of knowing what the Caucasus part of the world really looks like since I've never been there... But, flying through the tree-filled valleys is really cool :) I gotta admit that while some parts of the Caucasus map are a little bland and "cardboardy", some of it really is just gorgeous. The NTTR and Gulf maps really do kind of pale by comparison. I just wish the Caucasus map looked good in the summer. It's just weird. The autumn and winter seasons are great though! AD

It eats a wee bit, but doesn't seem too serious. It doesn't seem to me that there's really a huge difference in the way it looks either, it's just darker. AD

...but can't see the cockpit in 2.5.6.? With the Gamma set to get the ground looking good (usually pretty low), the cockpit is really, really dark. The solution (for now) appears to be turning off Cockpit Global Illumination. The 'pit is now clearer and the ground looks good! :) You still get the shadows moving around in the 'pit when you roll it, but it's easier to see everything. :thumbup: Just stumbled across this now. Peace and happy warfare AD

I don't find the framerates to be any worse (with SSLR turned off, of course) than 2.5.5. It's the constant stuttering. It even stutters when I move the mouse around and look. Sometimes it stutters when I roll the aircraft. Weird & annoying. AD

Anyway, glad I'm not the only one griping about stuttering in 2.5.6 :) I have a decent rig, and framerates are great, but the stuttering sucks! Fix it ED! Honestly, aside from the improved night lighting draw distance, I don't really see any improvement and the sim now runs poorly. Shadow draw distances are actually worse, giving the maps a rather bland look at altitude. That sucks because I really liked the older version of the sim, and got it running relatively stutter-free for quite a while. Not any more, back to Stutter City! AD

Nvidia PhysX is proprietary (owned by Nvidia exclusively.) DCS doesn't use it for that reason--kind of like RTX Raytracing. AD

Thanks everyone, I've got it mostly sorted out now. They did, in fact, mess around with the Gamma scale :) I played with in my graphics driver settings a bit (442.19) and it's good now. Peace :) AD

Already done that, but I've used the same display settings for years. Every other game looks good, DCS just seems to require very low Gamma settings. 1.2-1.3 or thereabouts looks pretty good, but cockpit textures are very dark just like in 2.5.5. AD

Everything is *extremely* bland and washed out at 2.2 gamma setting. 1.2 seems ok. Cockpit is really dark, can't see texture details and instruments can be hard to see, but ground looks good. AD

I do like that one, but I usually set it to 55, otherwise everything else starts looking really weird :) I'm using a VA monitor (HP Omen 32") and it has vibrant colors and high contrast, so everything on it looks good. I'm just noticing that cockpit textures are easier to see now, but the ground scenery looks really washed out, so ED appears to have drastically changed the Gamma scale. The ground starts to look good again when I set Gamma to 1.0 to 1.1, but then the cockpit textures are really dark/lack detail. AD

Loving the extra draw distance for lighting at night. But other than that, I can't notice much of any difference in the sim at all other than that the ground textures appear to be washed out and bland looking. I had a handle on that previously by adjusting the Gamma setting, but now I have to turn it way down low (to 1!) to get away from the bland/cartoonish ground textures. Caucasus Autumn map used to be gorgeous, now it (and other maps) just seem very bland. Any ideas? Tried SSLR, just kills framerates and doesn't make much difference... Deleted fxo/metashaders2 and no difference. AD

Nothing 3rd or 4th gen. It might be cool, but I wouldn't call any of them "eagerly awaited". F-22, F-35, or Eurofighter Typhoon?! Oh F*ck YEAH! :D AD

Awesomeness! This stuff is exactly what DCS World needs, instead of more early-release modules that won't get finished for 5 years :) AD

Don't worry about it, I haven't played a mission in DCS for a dog's age without seeing this at the end! Ain't war hell? ;) AD

They're both the same thing. Open Beta is just a newer version. So, Open Beta is what everyone uses. "Stable" is just a stale version of Open Beta :) AD

Since you're in Austria, they're made of Kabuhm-stoff :) The rough surface on some bombs is a layer of insulation, for bombs that are carried on aircraft carriers. It increases the time needed for the bombs to cook off if there's a fire on the carrier. AD

Shouldn't be a problem. I'm pretty sure DCS will recognize as many USB input devices as your operating system can detect, and it's a lot. So just go ahead and, as they say, "Plug & Play"! ;) AD

ED likes to do things like that. By the time something actually gets released, it's been talked about for so many years that I'm no longer interested. The Hornet module is really pretty cool, but I bought it when it was first released in Early Access. It's not finished yet, and I'm already mostly done with it :) AD

Don't turn blue and pass out holding your breath. It'll happen when (i.e. If) it happens. AD

Anything different about them? Or just a re-release of the identical map?

That's too bad... Why are they doing it then? Will there be any advantage at all besides not using a Microsoft product? It's still gonna run on Windows... AD

I mean real gaming, not Irritable Crows or whatever phone games the hip kids are into these days :) AD