PeaceSells

Let's say you're both at high altitude - let's suppose 9000 m. Does staying lower than your opponent in this case still make a difference?

Thanks for the clarification! It seems all the methods proposed in this thread already exist in other FC3 planes, so it would probably require minimum effort to be implemented, but the benefit would be huge. Actually, this is not truly a benefit, but more of a fix. Cmon ED, you know you want do do this!

Looks like there are 3 waypoint buttons at the top of that panel, for 3 possible waypoints (or pre-programmed airfields) total, like in the Su-25A? I suppose they would get illuminated when selected, just like in the Su-25A, or simply appear depressed? If that's the case, I can't think of a simpler and at the same time more realistic and cooler way of doing it.

^^To be honest, I've never lowered textures settings before, only in 2.5 I was forced to start searching for stuff to lower and discovered that the texture settings have MAJOR impact on frame-rate on my system (only 2 GB of video memory). I planned to start a thread like this days ago, with many screenshots, but kept postponing and now of course someone else beat me...

+1 Interesting that for the same aircraft, at the same texture setting, you get parts of the cockpit unreadable and parts perfectly readable. See the attached pics for the Huey, one is at low texture setting and another is at high texture setting. See that the countermeasures panel is perfectly readable at low setting, while the rest is unreadable. Please also note the difference in frame rates!! This could make DCS 2.5 playable at lower end PC's!! Unfortunately, this also happens to the A-10C, and medium textures are also unreadable. It's actually impossible to play the A-10C in any other setting than 'high'! It's worth mentioning that the Ka-50 has 100% perfectly readable and beautiful cockpit all around at low texture settings, and high FPS! So there's gotta be a fix for the A-10C and the other aircraft!!

The problem with the black dot, even if it gets adjusted for realistic distances, is that it's black, thus too easy to spot against the sky and almost impossible to spot against dark terrain (reason why everyone only flies very low to the ground). There's probably a reason why fighters aren't usually painted in black, but in light blue or silver... Some even are light blue when looked from below and dark green/brown camouflage when looked from above... I don't have much knowledge of 3d engines, but maybe there should be a way to have good model visibility still using the aircraft own colors, or close to it? Anyway I have the feeling that they are still adjusting the black dot, it seems to me that now they remain visible for longer and grow in size as the aircraft gets closer, until it disapears, where before it would just disappear still kinda far. It might be just my impression though. Anyway I like to think that the black dot is a temporary solution and they will implement a more realistic visual representation of the aircraft, considering how important it is to have have the right visuals, both for the game and for the simulation.

After playing 2.5 for some time now, with deferred shading on and no anti-aliasing at all, I can say that model visibility has increased noticeably in relation to 1.5, IMO. Everything looks significantly more vivid and sharp now. But the infamous 'black dot' is still there and still visible at distances up to about 60 km, though (even missiles). It's still easier to see aircraft over enormous distances than aircraft close to you and this visibility increases even more if you zoom out. I think visibility should be very low for aircraft far away and gradually increase as it gets near (same for zoom)...

^^ but did your fps increase?

All right, I see now I've made a mistake. The field where you choose 2x, 4x, etc. in Nvidia's panel doesn't refer to FXAA, it refers to some other AA type from Nvidia, as you said. The field for FXAA only has two options: ON or OFF. With this clarified, I was finally able to test ability to spot black dots in the sky. I've played the Su-27 instant action "Intercept" and saved the track. Then I replayed the track once for each AA setting, while recording via GeForce Experience. Results in order from better spotting (black dot most visible) to worse spotting (black dot least visible): 1) No AA at all (black dot most visible) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOFXtNfyP5o 2) In-game MSAA 2x + Nvidia panel AA 2x "enhance app setting" (black dot still well visible) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4D42yrmzfw 3) In-game MSAA 2x + Nvidia panel AA 2x "enhance app setting" + Nvidia FXAA (black dot hard to see) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qObUrQNMX6w 4) Only Nvidia FXAA (black dot effectively invisible) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrLa43-MSTk Youtube compression does make the difference harder to see, but to my surprise it's still well visible. You will need a good pair of eyes though. At my 10 o'clock you will see 2 missiles (2 black dots) - one mine and one from my wingman - heading from left to right on the screen towards 2 contrailing bandits heading from right to left on the screen (also black dots, but contrailing) until impact. To see each black dot, wait till you see explosion, rewind a little and you will see the black dot heading towards its respective impact. Except for the video with FXAA, in which you see no black dots.

Wait, are you guys saying it's not FXAA because it's set as "enhance the application setting"? What do you guys imagine it is if it's not FXAA?

In that case, thank you! I'll notify NVIDIA right away that their control panel is wrong.

Lol, did you even look at the pics I posted? That's FXAA, it's written on it, lol. My card (GTX 770) came out before NVIDA's MFAA technology, it doesn't even have that option in the control panel.

^^ Yes in NVIDIA control panel it does, take a look, those are some of the options I get, although it's in Portuguese:

^^ Yes, the only time I tested was in 2.5 with DS on. With FXAA 2x the difference in spotting the black dot is not that big, but the difference is clearly there. I sometimes even think of enabling FXAA 2x despite that, because of the benefits against the shimmering (at least in Caucasus). I haven't made my mind completely yet. Plus I didn't test yet the other FXAA options. It would love to see other people also do spotting tests with their own eyes, to see if they come to the same conclusions than me. What I know, though, is that FXAA isn't "true AA", it's a post-processing effect - maybe that's why it doesn't show in screenshots.

Thanks for that. I always had Visib Range at extreme or ultra, but thanks to this pic I've experimented with 'just' high and the gain in performance is stunning, while the shorter view seems to be still more than one would need...

Be very carefull with FXAA, cause it blurs stuff and makes enemies harder to spot in my experience. For example, with just FXAA 2x, the infamous 'black dots' that represent planes and missiles at certain distances get harder to spot. Without the FXAA, I can see if my missle is going for the target or going to miss, or see the enemy missles separating from from their planes at distances of 60 km (maybe more?). With FXAA 2x, I can't see that very well. Didn't even experiment with more FXAA. Though, FXAA does remove that annoying sparkling in the world all around you due to the lack of AA, so it can be good for a video (considering it won't disappear in videos like in screenshots?)

I was about to post the exact same thing and coincidentally I have a GTX 770 too. Reducing TEXTURE and TERRAIN TEXTURE from high to low/medium increased fps A LOT! BUT... The cockpit is unreadable in some aircraft with TEXTURES set to medium or low. Letters are blurry. Interestingly, the Ka-50 is perfectly readable with TEXTURE set to low. The Huey at low TEXTURE gets a part of the cockipit unreadable and another part perfectly readable. The A-10C has many parts unreadable even at medium TEXTURES. Other parts are perfectly readable. It seems there's something odd that probably needs fixing.

Somebody that has a GTX 970 or higher. Please tell us if MFAA (not MSAA or SMAA or FXAA or whaterver) in Nvidia panel has any effect in game.

From what I remember reading a while ago, MSAA can't be set through Nvidia's panel, but if you have a GTX 970 or higher, there's the MFAA option. I think you can set that and it will have effect in DCS?

You can set anisiotropic filter through Nvidia panel. It works and causes almost 0 fps loss.

You have to look very carefully to the top-left corner of you screen. It is very small and red.

I guess the thing is yesterday I had to do a reinstall (Fresh Start) of my Windows 10. It didn't erase my DCS folders (I had 1.5.8 Release and 2.2 Open Alpha) and today I used DCS repairer to get these 2 running again without having to redownload. Then I used the command prompt updater to update the Release version to 1.5.8 Open Beta, which seemed the fastest way into 2.5, in my particular situation. The result was an image very similar to the image in the first post, even though I checked my settings and did have deferred shading enabled. I guess, due to all the unconventional repairs/updates that I did, something went wrong and deferred shading was off even though it was marked as on. I'm doing a complete reinstall of DCS from scratch and I guess it will solve it. I hope it also helps with the performance. It was said that performance should be on par with NTTR 2.2, which my system can handle - not stunningly, but still nothing compared with what I just experienced. FPS wasn't that low, but there was a high input lag. I guess the fresh reinstall might address that. Plus my system isn't below specs, according to the official requirements.

^^HDR is set to off automatically when Deferred Shading is on.

Mine looks the same. And much more laggy than Nevada 2.2. I even started reinstalling DCS thinking there was something wrong on my end... unfortunately there isn't...

You are the man. Thanks a lot. Rep on the way, lol