1.5.1.46722.87 Model Visibility removal

[xXNightEagleXx]

Moderators please close this thread, this conversation is leading nowhere. Instead of discussing how to improve a feature that have been around years in professional simulators, because paid researches came to obvious conclusion that virtual computer cannot provide the same real visibility sensation and tried to compensate it, people are bashing a feature that is still in beta for A PRODUCT THAT IS STILL IN BETA.

 

If you don't like momentary unfinished/testing features you should not even sign up to a Beta and stick to the production version. In case you didn't sign up, you should just shut up and see what it will be. There is no sense to sign up to a BETA and whining because there are bugs or nothing is balanced, even less if you didn't. BETA purpose are to try the product and tweaks whatever needs a tweak, if necessary remove any feature that creates instability and in extreme case add features to increase stability (both gameplay and performance). It has been like this for ages.

Edited November 14, 2015 by xXNightEagleXx

[SharpeXB]

Isn't the whole point of having an open Beta test to evaluate and get feedback on the features?

[xXNightEagleXx]

Isn't the whole point of having an open Beta test to evaluate and get feedback on the features?

 

Sure, by someone that is actually trying the beta WHICH IS NOT YOUR CASE. Besides it should be about provide feedback and not whining, it is up to the dev to decide how to deal with the feedback.

Edited November 14, 2015 by xXNightEagleXx

[SharpeXB]

Sure, by someone that is actually trying the beta WHICH IS NOT YOUR CASE. Besides it should be about provide feedback and not whining, it is up to the dev to decide how to deal with the feedback.

Like I said before. I'm not using a common monitor resolution so whatever my observations might be they aren't really relevant for most. That's one reason why I actually don't feel compelled to try it.

Edited November 14, 2015 by SharpeXB

[vicx]

Been doing some tests with regards to resolution. Of course I expected some advantage to 4K but I was shocked to see how disadvantageous it is to have a 1080P monitor. Objects just disappear.

 

Of course ED has to do something about this. Or not depending on your philosophy. :)

 

When 5K monitors and 8K monitors start being used it is just going to become more obvious.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5K_resolution

Edited November 15, 2015 by vicx

[HornedGod]

Adding options is generally easy in a game (I speak from experience). What ED needs to do is provide plenty of options for the Model Visibility stuff. What I'd like to see overall is:

 

1/ Instead of the current off/small/medium/large options it should be turned into a more precise value. I know on the backend that each of these values is tied to a number of pixels that the imposter sprite renders at. Instead of a fixed pixel size, the imposter size should be a percentage of vertical resolution (or horizontal if user is crazy enough to play in a portrait mode). This would level the playing field with regard to 1080p, 4k, etc.

 

10 pixels (current large option) on a 1080p montior has a vertical percentage of 0.9259%. So let's say a slider was allowed to set any value between 0.0 and 1% (with increments of 0.05% to allow for 20 ticks on a slider).

 

2/ Allow for different settings for ground and air targets (sea targets as a third?)

 

3/ Allow for VR settings (i.e. both ground and air in addition to regular monitor ground and air).

 

4/ Put back in the alphaExp transparency usage (or make it optional too)

 

5/ Allow all of the above to be gated on the server. Server sets the max allowable settings for monitor ground and air, VR ground and air, etc. When you join a server, you use the server max allowed if your local setting is larger.

 

IMHO this setting is great. All ED has to do is take it to completion by adding in more user control and server gating.

 

Anything I missed?

[SharpeXB]

1/ Instead of the current off/small/medium/large options it should be turned into a more precise value. I know on the backend that each of these values is tied to a number of pixels that the imposter sprite renders at. Instead of a fixed pixel size, the imposter size should be a percentage of vertical resolution (or horizontal if user is crazy enough to play in a portrait mode). This would level the playing field with regard to 1080p, 4k, etc.

 

10 pixels (current large option) on a 1080p montior has a vertical percentage of 0.9259%. So let's say a slider was allowed to set any value between 0.0 and 1% (with increments of 0.05% to allow for 20 ticks on a slider).

The problem with this is that the game doesn't know what your monitor resolution is, it only knows the value you've set in the menu. The player can just set lower resolution in order to get lager sprites.

 

And all those options like different settings for ground, air, alpha are too numerous to be supported by the few servers which are ever populated.

[HornedGod]

The problem with this is that the game doesn't know what your monitor resolution is, it only knows the value you've set in the menu. The player can just set lower resolution in order to get lager sprites.

 

It's a percentage. You expect people to play at 640x480 to abuse this? At 1080p or above it won't make a perceptable difference if done correclty.

 

And all those options like different settings for ground, air, alpha are too numerous to be supported by the few servers which are ever populated.

 

They set the max allowed. If I prefer to have it set at 0.5% but the only server I like to fly on has it set at a max of 0.3% I can live with that.

 

I'm sure server admins would prefer the ability to set these options to reflect the kind of experience and players they want on their server. WW2 servers might want higher values than modern jets. On A10 or helicopter servers the grount target settings will be important. If server admins are unhappy with their populations they can adjust the settings to see if it draws more/different players. More options is almost never a bad thing (unless it leads to trivial differences or hard to see effects).

 

I forgot to also add:

 

6/ Potentially add a model visibility ONLY/zoom ONLY/Both option (again with server side control)

 

I still find myself using zoom occassioally even now I have model visibility on. I use zoom when the target I'm tracking is close enough to be a regular 3D model but I want to either see the marking on the aircraft (to tell if's its a player or AI on some WW2 servers) or if the aircraft is hugging the ground and I want to be able to track it better against ground clutter. This normally only involves zooming in slightly, so potentially only allow a much more limited zoom in MV only setting.

Edited November 15, 2015 by HornedGod

[SharpeXB]

It's a percentage. You expect people to play at 640x480 to abuse this? At 1080p or above it won't make a perceptable difference if done correclty.

 

 

 

They set the max allowed. If I prefer to have it set at 0.5% but the only server I like to fly on has it set at a max of 0.3% I can live with that.

 

I'm sure server admins would prefer the ability to set these options to reflect the kind of experience and players they want on their server. WW2 servers might want higher values than modern jets. On A10 or helicopter servers the grount target settings will be important. If server admins are unhappy with their populations they can adjust the settings to see if it draws more/different players. More options is almost never a bad thing (unless it leads to trivial differences or hard to see effects).

 

I forgot to also add:

 

6/ Potentially add a model visibility ONLY/zoom ONLY/Both option (again with server side control)

 

I still find myself using zoom occassioally even now I have model visibility on. I use zoom when the target I'm tracking is close enough to be a regular 3D model but I want to either see the marking on the aircraft (to tell if's its a player or AI on some WW2 servers) or if the aircraft is hugging the ground and I want to be able to track it better against ground clutter. This normally only involves zooming in slightly, so potentially only allow a much more limited zoom in MV only setting.

It's simple math. 5 different option combinations require 5 different servers. But there's only ever enough players online to fill one of them. Most people would rather be on a full server. And the easiest set of game aid options to agree on is to have none. The range of choices you're proposing are so complex nobody could agree on them.

[Ktulu2]

I've noticed that the size of the sprites is bigger when less zoomed. This is what, to me, makes it impossible to do any visual range estimation. If i'm fully zoomed i'll see that my target is at say 4 NM, but if zoomed out it will look like i'm in gun range. No idea of how to solve this, but that's realy something that should be looked into.

[vicx]

Adding options is generally easy in a game (I speak from experience). What ED needs to do is provide plenty of options for the Model Visibility stuff.

 

HG, I agree.

 

1/ Instead of the current off/small/medium/large options it should be turned into a more precise value. I know on the backend that each of these values is tied to a number of pixels that the imposter sprite renders at. Instead of a fixed pixel size, the imposter size should be a percentage of vertical resolution (or horizontal if user is crazy enough to play in a portrait mode). This would level the playing field with regard to 1080p, 4k, etc.

 

This is an essential thing to focus on. My testing IN DCS 1.5.1 BETA WITHOUT SPRITES shows outrageous advantages to having a high resolution monitor. I am pushing sythentic testing into 5K and 8K resolutions just so it can be seen very easily in screenshots and can't be disputed.

 

10 pixels (current large option) on a 1080p montior has a vertical percentage of 0.9259%. So let's say a slider was allowed to set any value between 0.0 and 1% (with increments of 0.05% to allow for 20 ticks on a slider).

 

I know what you talking about but this type of suggestion will need an image for those people who are more visual thinkers.

 

2/ Allow for different settings for ground and air targets (sea targets as a third?)

 

Yep this makes sense.

 

4/ Put back in the alphaExp transparency usage (or make it optional too)

 

I think it is back in and it is also applied more agressively to objects that aren't sprites. I'm sure this is to remove the ability for high resolution users to see infinite distances. Without sprites they still have a gross advantage because they don't experience popping. Popping on low resolutions occurs at ANY zoom levels and is completely arbitrary. Objects just dissapear even when they appeared on screen five zoom levels earlier.

 

5/ Allow all of the above to be gated on the server. Server sets the max allowable settings for monitor ground and air, VR ground and air, etc. When you join a server, you use the server max allowed if your local setting is larger.

 

I want to see server gates for everything. Let people be server nazis if they want, it is the public ends up choosing the winners and losers.

 

IMHO this setting is great. All ED has to do is take it to completion by adding in more user control and server gating.

 

Would agree that this is the start of something good.

 

Anything I missed?

Yes ... still a lot of unanswered questions regarding VR. There is no zoom in VR. The agressive sprite behaviour that people complain about in this thread is not even enough to bring VR users to parity with non-VR users. VR will need a unique and powerful solution.

 

Even after being wowed by clarity and detail of the screenshots I took doing 5K testing ... when I put the VR headset on and spawned into a virtually real cockpit, it didn't matter as much that I was having trouble seeing objects 1 NM away - what I could see at arms length and within 1/2 NM was so awesome. I didn't want to go trade even Dk2 VR for a 5K monitor. No deal!

Edited November 15, 2015 by vicx

[vicx]

I've noticed that the size of the sprites is bigger when less zoomed

 

KT ... there are two aspects to this.

 

ED initially added this sprite feature to stop popping. It is to stop aircraft falling into aspects that cause pixel rendering errors which make the object dissapear and reappear randomly. This is a pretty terrible rendering bug to have and can happen at even high resolutions.

 

So that is the minimum sprite size for objects in realsitic visual range. This is a small value ... 3-5 pixels. The alphaexp is to fade out the effect so that you don't have blobs at long distances.

 

On an average monitor you need conservatve values for minimum and agressive values for alphaexp.

 

On a VR headset you need totally different values and probably an entirely new algorithm because of the fisheye distortion of the eye images. VR users will also need a tweaked alphaexp value different to desktop users.

 

The other feature that ED is trialing with sprites is if you can fly without zoom. This use of the sprite system is for WW2 fliers but it also has applications for VR.

 

VR has no zoom and won't have zoom because people will throwup if it isn't done with a lot of care.

 

I say again VR HAS NO ZOOM.

 

WW2 fliers just want to fly the plane with more authenticity. This means they don't want to zoom their eyes to follow their threats. This requires an application of the sprite system so that things appear when they SHOULD, without Zoom being required. This accounts for aspects of the sprite system that you find confusing. ED is testing two use cases at the same time. Both features could be made separate IMO.

 

If you are confused ... think of 1.5 as a testbed for features that, might not be for you or might not be ultimately used by you or by your type of aircraft.

 

DCS 2.0 will arrive with NTTR and you won't need the sprite system for flying A10-C missions and F15 missions in NTTR but after NTTR other theaters will be arriving and VR will be taking off and that is when the sprite system is going to be required. All the testing needs to be done now in DCS 1.5 ... it is a smart approach.

 

I prefer that ED are testing this stuff in public instead of behind closed doors. I would hate for excessive negative feedback to cause them to reconsider this approach.

Edited November 15, 2015 by vicx

[Ktulu2]

Thanks for your answer, I didn't try to do negative feedback, just didn't see anyone talk about this yet and as an f15 flyer it did affect me a lot so I didn't wanted it to be forgotten, that's all

[SharpeXB]

ED initially added this sprite feature to stop popping. It is to stop aircraft falling into aspects that cause pixel rendering errors which make the object dissapear and reappear randomly. This is a pretty terrible rendering bug to have and can happen at even high resolutions.

Other flight sims accomplish this with high quality antialiasing I believe. For a really bad example check out vanilla Cliffs of Dover where the aircraft do indeed flicker and have whole pieces of them vanish even when seen at quite close range. I'm not plugging War Thunder but they have a good bit on their new graphics engine and this particular issue. It sounds like they used to have a "Sprite" or "fly" they called it but have since discontinued that method, as much as I understand it. I don't have WT installed.

 

On a VR headset you need totally different values and probably an entirely new algorithm because of the fisheye distortion of the eye images. VR users will also need a tweaked alphaexp value different to desktop users.

It would be a good idea to have a separate setting enabled only for VR as long as it doesn't bestow unrealistic advantages.

 

The other feature that ED is trialing with sprites is if you can fly without zoom. This use of the sprite system is for WW2 fliers but it also has applications for VR.

ED is not trialing "without the zoom", that has never been stated in any of their communication I've seen. All flight sims have a variable FOV for good reasons and every developer understands this as well as the vast majority of the players. Just because one or two people like yourself can't seem to understand the concept is not a fault in the game design.

 

It sounds like your goal is to just handicap all other players down to the level of the DK2. Why is that reasonable?

 

DCS 2.0 will arrive with NTTR and you won't need the sprite system for flying A10-C missions and F15 missions in NTTR

Actually the visibility issue affects modern combat the most since they have weapons which can actually strike targets that far away. If you can see a target several miles away, you can engage it. You should perhaps get some experience with all the DCS modules before offering so many suggestions.

Edited November 15, 2015 by SharpeXB

[vicx]

It would be a good idea to have a separate setting enabled only for VR as long as it doesn't bestow unrealistic advantages.

 

Let me show you unrealistic advantages. And this is just one tiny example ... this only shows one model of aircraft, and doesn't even cover ground vehicles, contrails, etc.

 

 

So have a guess what a 1080P user can see in identical circumstances.

 

They see this. The orange circle indicates popping and the red circle indicates the fact that the object is never seen..

 

 

And lastly what a VR user sees.

 

 

So about those "unrealistic advantages". Don't tell me you didn't know, that YOU ALREADY had all the "unrealistic advantages" ... just by playing with a 4K monitor. It is obvious to everyone.

 

Still this is not the conversation I want to have, I don't want to talk about 'cheating' or 'advantages' or all this other BS. If I wanted an "unrealistic advantage" I WOULD just buy a 4K TV. It is not secret knowledge ... everyone knows this. BUT I don't want to buy a 4K TV because I'm not looking for PVP glory.

 

I want to play DCS in a VR HMD because it feels awesome. I don't need VR to be equivilant to a 4K monitor ... I just need to able to virtually and literally ... see just a little bit better.

 

A 4K TV player can read the bort number on an F15 1km away but you got a problem with a VR user who wants 3 pixels. :lol:

[SharpeXB]

So why do you need to prove that it's better to have a higher resolution screen? That's an obvious fact. And it's not an "unrealistic" advantage, your real eyesight is better than even 5K is.

 

Your idea is simply to handicap all other players down to the level of the DK2

And the DK2 isn't even the real consumer Oculus device, it's just a prototype. I'm sure Oculus headsets will be coming along shortly with 4K or 5K per eye. I'm interested in VR myself but I would will wait for the headsets to get to that level of quality before thinking I can use them really effectively in a CFS

[Solty]

I am OK with current implementation. Is it server side or is it client based? Because jets can have medium option while smaller WW2 planes focused servers can go with large setting.

[xXNightEagleXx]

So why do you need to prove that it's better to have a higher resolution screen? That's an obvious fact. And it's not an "unrealistic" advantage, your real eyesight is better than even 5K is.

 

Your idea is simply to handicap all other players down to the level of the DK2

And the DK2 isn't even the real consumer Oculus device, it's just a prototype. I'm sure Oculus headsets will be coming along shortly with 4K or 5K per eye. I'm interested in VR myself but I would will wait for the headsets to get to that level of quality before thinking I can use them really effectively in a CFS

 

His solution could be VR/Resolution detection that filter out players in MP (current engine already does not allow resolution changes while in game). I guess you are afraid that it is easy to believe that more people would go rather with a VR solution than a 4K monitor, which will invalidate your expenses by providing less players to play with.

[SharpeXB]

I guess you are afraid that it is easy to believe that more people would go rather with a VR solution than a 4K monitor, which will invalidate your expenses by providing less players to play with.

I think even more people will go with VR that's 4K or higher. I'll bet you see headsets like that within a year or so. And I'm not worried about "invalidating my expenses". Consumer electronics are all disposable. As soon as there's something better than 4K I will get it and toss this screen :smilewink:

5K looks pretty cool

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2983727/displays/are-you-ready-for-5k-we-are.html

[vicx]

And it's not an "unrealistic" advantage, your real eyesight is better than even 5K is.

 

Oh really? What about a 5K monitor with a 15 level zoom? You do realise that adding zoom makes it possible for a 4K monitor to be better than eyes without zoom.

 

I mean I just showed that if you have a big 4K TV and you use the Zoom in DCS then you can read the bort number of an aircraft 1km away. What happens when you go to 8K and still have zoom ... can you read the fighter patch on the pilots shoulder from 1km away?

 

===

 

Do you really want me to explain this with more words? When the 15 level zooming system used in DCS was first designed and the FOVs were selected, what was the monitor size that ED were considering. What assumptions were in the the design document. Lets take a guess and say that 1080P was rare and 4K TV sized monitors were not even considered in the design document (this is when they first chose the default FOVs and the Zoom levels).

 

So now you have 5K monitors becoming available with 8K after that and maybe now it IS possible to Zoom in on aircraft and see detail that is impossible. The maximum zoom level becomes unrealistic. So yes at some point ED are going to have to consider that the high end displays combined with zoom functionally exceeds human eyesight. They will have to scale the zoom back unless we decide as players that it is OK to have better than real life eyesight. I admit that sometimes it is fun to have super eyes and I would leave it in as an option. Servers can disable it ... whatever.

 

I hope I do not have to explain that again.

 

====

 

And then there is VR.

 

Yes VR is coming in at lower resolution ... and it can't zoom, but because it has a lower resolution does not make it low end because a VR HMD will cost more than a 4K TV and it will be considered a premium experience. People will want it. It is actually possible that VR will become very desirable and very common even before a 4K HMD becomes available. What if the first Oculus Rift sells in the millions and many of those people want to play DCS. What should ED do?

 

Should ED let them experience a simulator where they can't see anything? That would be a poor business decision. I don't think ED are poor at business. They will improve the VR experience.

 

You can complain about the new features but after a point it does no good. We really do know your position now.

 

===

 

If the thread was to finally focus on the actual original post, that would be good. To remind people ...

 

To my eyes, the new setting, even at Large, is nowhere near as good as the previous Model Visibility.

 

The old (sic) way had the distant 3D model replaced with a scaled and alphaed billboard, and you could always spot the transition between the billboard back to the 3D model. It wasn't ideal but the greater clarity at range was very much appreciated, especially in a warbird.

 

Yes the method between 1.5.0 and 1.5.1 appeared to change. I lost my 1.50 copy but I'll see if I can redownload it from ED servers. 1.5.0 definitely looked better in VR.

[SharpeXB]

No doubt the current zoom level is set to approximate 20/20 vision for a player on a desktop sized 1080p or lower res monitor. Would that ever be reconsidered in the future? Only when large very high res screens are available for 100% of the players. Changing your FOV already has an inherent advantages and disadvantages, since when you zoom in you are tunnel-visioned. So it's basically self regulating.

[vicx]

It would be technically possible for ED to reduce the maximum level of zoom based on what resolution you are running. I mean that would stop "unrealistic advantages".

 

---

 

Anyway how about that new feature that works for VR and people with low resolution monitors. How do you think the resolution factors into that, should the sprite be scaled based on resolution? Maybe in VR the zoom action could scale the size of the sprite instead of modifying the fov. This gives VR user the equivalent of a zoom.

Edited November 16, 2015 by vicx

[SharpeXB]

Well the other factor at play besides the resolution is the size of the screen. Since life sized monitors aren't practical for many players, the zoom view will always have utility.

[Why485]

Adding options is generally easy in a game (I speak from experience). What ED needs to do is provide plenty of options for the Model Visibility stuff. What I'd like to see overall is:

 

1/ Instead of the current off/small/medium/large options it should be turned into a more precise value. I know on the backend that each of these values is tied to a number of pixels that the imposter sprite renders at. Instead of a fixed pixel size, the imposter size should be a percentage of vertical resolution (or horizontal if user is crazy enough to play in a portrait mode). This would level the playing field with regard to 1080p, 4k, etc.

 

10 pixels (current large option) on a 1080p montior has a vertical percentage of 0.9259%. So let's say a slider was allowed to set any value between 0.0 and 1% (with increments of 0.05% to allow for 20 ticks on a slider).

 

2/ Allow for different settings for ground and air targets (sea targets as a third?)

 

3/ Allow for VR settings (i.e. both ground and air in addition to regular monitor ground and air).

 

4/ Put back in the alphaExp transparency usage (or make it optional too)

 

5/ Allow all of the above to be gated on the server. Server sets the max allowable settings for monitor ground and air, VR ground and air, etc. When you join a server, you use the server max allowed if your local setting is larger.

 

IMHO this setting is great. All ED has to do is take it to completion by adding in more user control and server gating.

 

Anything I missed?

 

I think that's a little too complex for a gameplay setting. If it were up to me, the only option I would expose to the user would be the percentage size option as that's the most important one. Maybe have separate options for air and ground, but that's also something that could just be a hardcoded and derived value such as always being 50% of the size of air targets. Those are the options that should be available for server enforcing, and available for the player to modify.

 

Having it set as a percentage of your current resolution is absolutely critical, as (and I'm going to keep saying it as long as it's true) it's very bad to have a system like this so sensitive to what resolution your monitor is running. Smaller resolutions need to have smaller values for minsize or else you get the reverse of 1.2 where the lower your resolution, the easier you can see targets.

 

VR is a special case, and it's an option that should only appear if you have a VR device plugged in, and those settings should only be used when VR is in use. Honestly, I'm not too concerned about restricting VR users beyond preventing them from setting completely silly values.

 

The rest of the values should be set by ED.

Edited November 16, 2015 by Why485

[VikingTsunami]

I'm fine with the smart scaling options as long server admins can force it to whatever they want to use for their server.