Model Visibility Dependent on Resolution

The model visibility is the one thing I was looking forward to most with 1.5. Overall, I think it works very well, but it has one major flaw. It's highly susceptible to changes in resolution.

I did some testing last night because I was curious to break down how the scaling worked and how it represents fighters at different distances. I set up a scenario with F-15s out at 2.5km, 5km, 10km, 15km, and 20km. At first I was really happy with the results at my native resolution. The fighters were out there and easily visible, especially when silhouetted against the sky. I did not experiment enough to find the cutoff distance at which dots will no longer draw because I was soon distracted by another issue.

I remembered Wags talking about this as if it was based on pixel sizes. The problem with this approach is that lower resolutions (or higher field of views) will cause the planes to take up less pixels, but have the effect of making them even bigger. So, I decided to test that. I was also curious what the difference between Normal and Enlarged was.

Here's some comparison screenshots. All screenshots were taken with 2X AA.

It's best if you open these in new tabs and flip back/forth between the tabs. That's where you can see the differences the best.

Enlarged (2560x1440)

Enlarged (1366x768)

Normal (2560x1440)

Normal (1366x768)

There's a substantial difference in the size of the dots depending on your resolution. 2560x1440 dots have much more granularity and variety in their size with a very realistic feeling look on enlarged. 1366x768 dots on the other hand are much more uniform in size, but their opacity seems to be the defining characteristic in telling distance.

This also means that the most "realistic" setting will depend on your resolution.

This, I believe, easily explains the discrepancy in feedback. Those who run at lower resolutions will see a much bigger difference, and much bigger icons, than people who run at high resolutions. It has me considering running at lower than my native resolution to help with spotting. This is disconcerting though, and I honestly struggled with whether or not to post this because I worry now that servers will force this option off and remove 10 years of progress. Even if it flawed, I still would rather have it flawed than not at all.

Well, yeah, if the new settings "force" the rendering of at least a single pixel at low resolution, then it will appear much larger when upscaled.

What if the low resolution one or two pixel sized planes get their brightness scaled (depending on resolution) to appear somewhat equivalent to larger resolution renderings? Could that be an acceptable solution?

As of now, this is a setting that is set in the client interface.

The server cannot disable it, as it is a setting like "heat blur".

As I'm running 4k native I don't feel at a disadvantage, though. I have a crisp visual and it is possible to spot a P-51D flight against the sky @ 8nm plus, so I'm happy!

If someone likes to set his resolution to 800x600 to spot me @ 8nm plus, but gets a big blob that is easy to spot, so be it...

What prevented me from enjoying any A2A combat for years is finally fixed.

I think we have a good compromise here.

If people want to cheat, they will find a way... Simply change the ground textures against a plain light green texture with no contrast and spotting planes against the ground should be much simpler. I would rather lose a few fights than mess up the visual experience, though. ;)

Thanks for taking some screenshots. I doubt many people would really play at a non-native resolution though. If I'm interpreting this right, and you get a similar number of pixels regardless of resolution, then this sounds like the right way to do it so everyone can spot things at a similar distance.

I would like it to go a step further, and (past a certain distance) give you the same number of pixels regardless of FOV/zoom. I tried to calculate and I think I get around 100 pixels/degree at max zoom, which is probably close to real life, but I don't like having to rely on zoom to spot anything. I wish an easy to spot blob would appear when I have a comfortable realistic FOV.

Well put shagrat.

Could anyone clarify what do the available visibility options mean? Is it "old rendering"/"a pixel added"/"few pixels added"?

Could anyone clarify what do the available visibility options mean? Is it "old rendering"/"a pixel added"/"few pixels added"?

Off is the old rendering, plain and simple.

Normal and enlarged both do the same thing, but with slightly different settings.

When an object reaches a certain size on your screen, the game will draw an imposter sprite over the object. This sprite scales with distance until it reaches a minimum size where it stops getting smaller. That the sprite doesn't go below the minimum size is why you can see planes further away than before.

The only difference between normal and enlarged is that enlarged has a slightly larger minimum size.

Would agree with Shags ... this is a non-issue. Consider the poor bastards on laptops ... they don't have much. At least give them some blurry pixels. You can't be the pixel cop without hurting the little guys.

If people with big fancy monitors wanna cop a blurry picture to get an easier look at things I wouldn't blame them either. You get old and you get old eyes. Sometimes you should get glasses but you buy a bigger monitor instead. I'm using a 2010 DELL 30" 2560x1600 IPS. I do think it's a little hard to see the dots because they are so little but yeah I probably need glasses. :)

At 4k on a 28" monitor the problem is even worse. You may as well not even have ENLARGED on for all you can see.

It would be really nice if the solution scaled to the resolution to give similar results.

As it is a solution that basically suggests buying a giant monitor or using a lower resolution.

In my opinion we should first establish whether it's a final solution. As far as I know it's not.

In my opinion we should first establish whether it's a final solution. As far as I know it's not.

Fair if true. And for what it's worth the game does still look good at 1080p, so it's not like I can't play at that resolution to take advantage of the feature, but I think 4k is going to become more common as time goes on and people will want to use their monitors at native resolution, so it would be nice to have it effective at those resolutions too.

In any case this thread would be fine for someone from ED to chime in to comment on the matter. What I'm trying to say is I don't know if it would be a good idea to bump the big 'smart scaling' thread right now.

The server cannot disable it, as it is a setting like "heat blur".

Big issue then. You can spot a tank in snow from 50km now on. Even drunk. That would be great to have server setting. :music_whistling:

Big issue then. You can spot a tank in snow from 50km now on. Even drunk. That would be great to have server setting. :music_whistling:

50km?

It would be really nice if the solution scaled to the resolution to give similar results.

Don't you mean scaled to the size of the monitor?

Scaling to the resolution wouldn't do anything.

You can spot a tank in snow from 50km now on. Even drunk.

Not on my monitor. What the hell do you have and what are your settings?

50km?

He is exaggerating... or he uses 800x600 resolution?:music_whistling:

A realistic distance in winter is 4-5nm - without zooming in and when you "use binos" (zoom in to the maximum) 9-10nm is hardly manageable if you pause the sim and search the ground meter by meter... that is with Model Visisbility set to "Enlarge"

If I set resolution to FullHD (1920x1080) it is the same, some 9-10nm if(!) I max zoom in and pause and search a bit, realistic 4-5nm and that requires good eyes and to know where the tanks are!

I would suggest people try things before they post any wild guesses...:huh:

Don't you mean scaled to the size of the monitor?

 

Scaling to the resolution wouldn't do anything.

 

 

 

Not on my monitor. What the hell do you have and what are your settings?

No I meant what I said. 1 pixel at 1080p would take about 4 at 4k to look the same...

I would suggest people try things

You mean like test something before making a wild claim. We all wish.

Gonna PM you xaos.

It would be really nice if the solution scaled to the resolution to give similar results.

The problem with that is that different monitors have different pixel sizes, and people sit at different distances from their monitors. I'm not sure there is any way to make this fair, but I quite like the current solution. I for one would never lower my resolution below native to cheat, and I think most people in DCS are fairly mature about things like this.

No I meant what I said. 1 pixel at 1080p would take about 4 at 4k to look the same...

If the monitors are the same size and aspect ratio, 4 pixels on 2160p looks exactly like 1 pixel on 1080p.

Big dots are good :)

Big dots are good :)

I agree.

I fly at 1080 (my screen's native) and just got my first two Mig-15 kills in the Sabre. I certainly prefer the new enlarged setting. Feels much more realistic in terms of being able to actually spot the enemy at distance. I was still looking all over to try and find them and by no means were their dots large when at a mile or so.

I run 2560x1440 and even then its really hard to spot Tank's in green terrain. I use enlarged and i find its really good for my resolution, it wont make spotting too easy. Air targets are perfect but ground targets are still bit too hard to find even i know where to look. But it depends lots of terrain textures , i think that stock are bit hard for eyes

I've lost count already of the ammount of times I've reached out to the screen to wipe away a small fleck of dust only to find it wasn't any such thing!!

Just saying...lol..