bandit648

@Goa - I had the same AsRock Z370 Taichi motherboard as you and had to return it due to issues with trackIR and the board's USB 3.0. I think TrackIR has issues with the drivers being used for USB 3.0 on the Taichi. With trackIR plugged into the USB 3.0 ports my system would hang during restarts and BSOD. Since the Taichi has no onboard USB 2.0 ports I had to get a USB expansion board and that seemed to resolve the issue. I still returned it because two the SATA ports didn't work. I ended up replacing it with a Asus Maximus X Hero and I have no problems with my TIR. I'm not sure if this is causing your trouble but it's worth mentioning. Natural Point actually has something about USB 3.0 compatibility issues on their support site: https://help.naturalpoint.com/kb/articles/compatibility-notices-for-usb-3-0

I'm one of the "8700K 32GB 1080Ti NVMe" crowd. I'm on openbeta and I've been noticing bad stuttering in clouds since the last update or two back. FPS drops by nearly HALF and its STUTTER STUTTER STUTTER then back to smooth. Heavy clouds seem to cause the worst stuttering. With no clouds I can fly around with virtually no stutter. They recently made some changes to the clouds so that they match the settings in the ME better. I'm not sure if that had something to do with it. Mirrors are the other thing that causes a big fps hit. Normally its a 10-15fps loss with mirrors on for me. I know other things cause stutter like smoke from rockets and missiles. Hopefully a lot of this will get sorted out with the new Vulkan API.

What exactly is this mod supposed to do for 2D users? I'm mainly interested in improving AA quality. I don't have performance issues really. I have i7-8700k, 1080Ti and 32GB DDR4. I fly DCS at 1440p and usually run in-game MSAA x4. I installed this mod and it did what it advertises and disabled AA over most of the FOV. I guess I have to edit the config file to enable AA again over the entire FOV but what's the point? NVCP AA setting still don't work even with global settings. What am I missing?

While we're on the topic of lua editing, does anyone know if there are any settings that affect the brightness and view distance of runway lights?

I've been experimenting with lua settings for view distance in the hope that I can increase the range that you can see runway lights. The only thing I've found that affects runway light view distance is the view distance setting in options. There's a noticeable difference on the runway lights between low and extreme but even extreme is not very realistic. I've tried editing settings that made sense in Config\graphics.lua and Config\terrain\Extreme.lua but it doesn't seem to have any affect on the runway light view distance. Does anyone have any ideas or is this hopeless?

I don't really care about VR atm. I tried it with Samsung Odyssey and decided to wait for gen 2. For me, the lighting in DS is way better than what they had with HDR. The best performing solution I found for AA was SMAA with using reshade. Maybe you didn't read my earlier post in this thread where I said DCS has some of the worst AA in any flight sim currently? I hope they fix it soon. I just don't agree with not supporting them is the way to get what you want. I think if ED was just in business to rip people off they'd choose something more lucrative than building combat flight sims.

I don't know why people want to go back to HDR so bad. The lighting with DS is amazing. We just need ED to fix the AA. I was able to reduce the shimmering some by forcing SGSSAA in NVInspector but performance impact was too much. Most modifications via NVI or NVCP have no effect. Custom profiles don't work and you have to apply settings globally. While the shimmering is annoying I don't think the answer is to ask for refunds or refuse to purchase modules. I'm sure ED will fix this and they need our support.

If you can't see jaggies with AA turned off on DCS then you should get your eyes checked. And yes, you still need AA at 4k. I'm hoping ED is working on some fixes for AA because DCS probably has the worst AA of any flight sim currently. The shimmering is particularly BAD. I have same specs as the OP and run at 1440p. Performance hit with 4x msaa is too much.

I'd be satisfied just to see some screenshots or news about what's being done in the weather department. Prior to the 2.5 release it was said that ED was working on a completely new weather engine for 2.5. Then we got the "updated" clouds but there's been no news on the weather engine since then. Hopefully we'll see something soon. I'm really looking forward to the new night lighting as well. Night lighting and weather are two things that are long over due for improvements and have a huge impact on the general flying experience in the sim.

I hope so. Surprisingly weather generation and clouds are one of the more difficult things to model in a flight sim. Even P3d, xp11 and others struggle with it. I'm really curious to find out what the 2.5 engine can handle in the weather department. Oddly enough they stripped out the ability to enable the experimental clouds that were present in 1.5. I wonder if they scrapped that and went a different direction.

No doubt about that! However, I see they managed to update the night lighting for the SOH map and that is HUGE in my opinion. I usually don't like flying at night in DCS because you can't even see runway or aircraft lights from more than .5 km away. Hopefully we get some updates on the weather engine sometime in the near future. It was certainly one of the big things with 2.5 that I was looking forward to.

I recall hearing a while back that there were plans to update the weather engine in 2.5. Along with improved night lighting this was one of things I was really looking forward to with 2.5. It appears the improved night lighting visibility is finally being rolled out in the SOH map which is great. I wonder if we'll get the weather update with SOH or later this year? We really need better fog, cloud layers, etc. Looking forward to at least getting some WIP screenshots of whats being done in this area.

You're right, a fictional conflict doesn't bother me. Of course most scenarios in DCS are going to be fictional. My point is that the Viggen doesn't fit in any theater of conflict outside of Northern Europe, where other jets are more versatile. Can the F-14 fly in Northern Europe cold war scenario? Yes. Straight of Hormuz? Yes. Georgia? Yes, even though it was retired during the time period it's still plausible. Now, if you like the Viggen all of that doesn't matter. You would fly it anywhere because you just like the jet and want to enjoy the chance to fly it. It is possible I could end up purchasing the Viggen because I desperately want a high speed strike jet in DCS like everyone else. I own A-10C but I could never get into it. The A-10 is just so SLOW it drives be nuts. Even though I'm personally disappointed in the Viggen choice by LNS I'm still happy its being developed. It just shows the variety of air frames we are getting in DCS. There's something for everyone. The only thing that confounds me is the fact that no 3rd party developer has taken up development of the F-16 yet. It's probably the single best modern jet to model in a combat flight sim. Arguably the most successful multirole fighter ever built, flown by over 25 nations worldwide, the list goes on and on.

When did I state that LNS owes me something? I understand how much time and effort goes into these modules and I support LNS in producing the Viggen if that's their choice. Any new jets and theaters coming to DCS is a good thing. I personally am not that interested in the jet. However, If they release a cold war scenario/theater that includes the F-14B then I'll be all over that. :smilewink:

I think it's great we're finally getting a supersonic strike aircraft for DCS and if they do actually include a new theater then that's great as well. I'd probably be more interested in the theater than the Viggen itself though. My problem with the Viggen is it's a jet that's never actually been used in combat and has no place outside a fictional conflict between Sweden and Russia. A strike jet like the Tornado would have been a much better choice in my personal opinion. It's flown by multiple countries around the world, has been used in several real world conflicts and easily fits into any modern theater or scenario. These jets have to compete for my time to learn them and for that reason the Viggen is out for me. Just not enough interest in learning that air frame for me to devote the time.

+1. Another random jet that has no place in any existing or planned theaters. I think it's great someone is finally developing a strike aircraft but this was a strange choice indeed.

I enabled it to just have a quick look and then disabled it. Definitely a step in the right direction. Obviously they still need some work but hopefully we'll get clouds similar to what's in prepar3d currently. What a difference cloud layers and different cloud types will make! I hope they implement different cloud types like stratus, cumulus, and cirrus. I'm guessing with the engine update to dx11 this certainly should be possible. Just having layers of puffy cumulus clouds wouldn't be as satisfying.

I'm hoping we see it in 2.0 but I have my doubts given that we haven't seen any screenshots of the new clouds yet. The new weather effects desperately need more realistic looking clouds. Volumetric fog would be another nice thing to have.

Hi everyone, I'm getting back into DCS and have been playing the 1.5 beta a lot in the last several weeks. It's so exciting to see the progress and the direction ED is going with DCS. One of things I'm really looking forward to is the new clouds. I see the cloud layers are "in progress" on the roadmap. Can we expect new clouds in the 1.5 beta, 2.0/NTTR map, or later? I'd be more than happy just to see some screenshots of the new clouds at this point. The other thing I'm really hoping to see an improvement on is the night lighting. Up close aircraft and runway lights look fantastic but at distance it quickly fades out at just a few kilometers.