1.5.1.46722.87 Model Visibility removal

[terminator363]

Just remove "enlarged" option. Problem solved.

[vicx]

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

 

I think that SERVER FLAGS are a great idea and something we need to use. If you check my post a page back you will see that I have identified gameplay problems that are emerging with the use of high resolution monitors. This is a serious issue that is just going to get more and more extreme with 5K and 8K. Once people find out that being LORES means they don't even get to see a HIRES enemy that CAN see them ... people will be pissed. Trust me they will be pissed off. They will prefer not to play on the same server as HIRES players. Absolutely justified.

 

So in DCS you will have

• HIRES players
  
• LORES players
  
• LORESVR players
  
• HIRESVR players
  

 

Putting HIRES/LORES/LORESVR/HIRESVR flags on servers is very good place to start. If ED put FEATUREX, FEATUREY, FEATUREZ into full release then flags for FEATUREX, FEATUREY, FEATUREZ on servers makes perfect sense too. Everyone can choose the way they want to play and who they play with and/or against.

 

Just doing nothing is not a serious option.

 

===

 

You can complain about reducing player counts on servers by using SERVER FLAGS but this is not what happens in other online games. SERVER FLAGS give players peace of mind. They know what they are getting when they connect to a server and this encourages more participation. You end up boosting overall numbers.

 

===

 

I really don't see any other serious suggestions that even try and solve existing problems. Most suggestions here just want to ignore problems that other people have and protect their advantage.

Edited November 17, 2015 by vicx

[Decibel dB]

Just to correct some misconception about the guys with UHD 4K resolution have a spotting advantage that is wrong. I have one a 40" and I fired up DCS yesterday and try a Saber vs Mig15 server. I still can't spot on DCS 1.5, let alone dogfight without label. I still didn't try the model visibility however

[vicx]

Well you do have an advantage compared to a LORES player trying to do the same thing. I don't suggest that spotting is easy for HIRES players just that they have more chance than a LORES player.

 

It is a general observation that spotting IS hard and Sharpe and some others have suggested that you just have to learn to use the zoom. Sure that is A way to do it ... but it doesn't always feel natural or fit into a warbird dogfighting scenario. This is why even some HIRES players would like to have a feature that lets them dogfight without having to zoom. In real life you don't have to zoom so it's not an unrealistic expectation to want this as an OPTION in DCS.

 

Of course HIRES players playing with a special FEATUREX need to be on a server that allows FEATUREX and HIRES players in that combination. That way Sharpe and others can avoid playing with you ... if that's what they want.

[Decibel dB]

LORES, HIRES, FEATUREX You lost me there. What I mean is that on a 40" monitor 1080P spotting is easyer but on 40" monitor 4K the image is clearer and reading of the instrument is better.

 

If you are talking about VR yes I agree I sold my DK2 mainly for that

[Decibel dB]

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:

 

Just a quick question Vics what 5K monitor you took those screen shot with? Because unless you took those 3 screen shot on 3 different monitor at their native resolution this is irrelevant right?

Edited November 17, 2015 by Decibel dB

[vicx]

What I mean is that on a 40" monitor 1080P spotting is easyer but on 40" monitor 4K

 

You mean spotting is easier on a 1080P than on a 4K? Maybe you feel this is true but it is not technically true and my testing is showing this. If I posted uncompressed video you would even more clearly see the advantage that HIRES guys have.

 

Maybe you are not a technical person but I assure you that 4K windowed is the same as 4K fullscreen. Now can you see how the shots were made. Do you think that DCS in windowed mode is different to DCS in fullscreen?

 

So would yuo like to dispute my results? ... then take some screenshots yourself and post them. These shots are taken with no AA and with MODEL ENLARGEMENT feature OFF. Just so you know there is a bug when you change this option you must restart DCS. I tell you this just so you don't get caught out. So take all the screenshots in windowed mode at different resolutions just as I have. Do this just so that you can be convinced there is no trickery ... I assure there is not but prove to yourself anyway. Maybe the only reason you haven't already done this yourself is because you are not that interested in the results.

 

If you just want things to stay as they are and for nothing to change ... that is OK. Now we know your position.

Edited November 17, 2015 by vicx

[Decibel dB]

What I am telling you is that if you don't have a screen with the pixel density on a 5K or 4K resolution your screen shot are miss leading. You can DSR as much as you want to an 8K res and look at it on a 1080p the picture will not be the same as much as if I downgrade my resolution to 1080p it doesn't look like it was when I had a 1080p monitor. Try to watch a UHD movie on a regular HD TV.

Please don't accuse me for things that I didn't say.

I'll repeat again, I CAN'T see shit and the model enlargement don't work with crossfire I wish they fix it so I would be able to see something. I can't judge NOR DID I ever about the current system

[xXNightEagleXx]

What I am telling you is that if you don't have a screen with the pixel density on a 5K or 4K resolution your screen shot are miss leading. You can DSR as much as you want to an 8K res and look at it on a 1080p the picture will not be the same as much as if I downgrade my resolution to 1080p it doesn't look like it was when I had a 1080p monitor. Try to watch a UHD movie on a regular HD TV.

Please don't accuse me for things that I didn't say.

I'll repeat again, I CAN'T see shit and the model enlargement don't work with crossfire I wish they fix it so I would be able to see something. I can't judge NOR DID I ever about the current system

 

It depends. You are totally right if you are trying to compare the result of 1080P screenshot to a DSR downscaled to 1080P. However the result is not "misleading" if you are comparing true resolution generated textures.

 

That said it is a known issue of ED engine that cause drawing issues for far/small objects (without AID). The higher the resolution, the lower the chance that its rendering is skipped.

 

vicx examples seems to respect the true resolution for all screenshots, if so then we can clearly see the far/small object issue. There are two way to correct this, improve everything needed to match our eyes (resolution, zoom, etcc....) or compensate it by using smart scaling techniques (what has been done for years in professional simulators). Obviously the first one is the hardest because it requires the technology (which still don't exist when it a matter of eye fidelity) and money (people needs to open their wallet, so even if we have the tech if it is too expensive people will not buy it), until then smart scaling is the way to go and should be adapted to technology progression.

 

One thing that it is important to note is that smart scaling itself is not a unique algorithm, there are many different techniques with different results. Just because you don't like how ED implemented it, it doesn't mean that all smart scaling will disappoint you. Moreover, it doesn't mean that ED will not change/tweak their smart scaling implementation.

Edited November 17, 2015 by xXNightEagleXx

[OnlyforDCS]

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.

 

 

You keep pushing to keep DCS in the stone ages with regards to model visibility options. You stand behind this with your insanely powerful PC and Monitor setup, and claim "fairness" as your motive. Do you think it's fair that only people with 10,000 $ gaming rigs can are allowed to play this game fairly? People are not dumb you know, and neither is ED. Thankfully this thread has been moved to the wishlist section, but it deserves to be closed.

Edited November 17, 2015 by OnlyforDCS

[dburne]

You keep pushing to keep DCS in the stone ages with regards to model visibility options. You are stand behind this with your insanely powerful PC and Monitor setup, and claim "fairness" as your motive. Do you think it's fair that only people with 10,000 $ gaming rigs can are allowed to play this game fairly? People are not dumb you know, and neither is ED. Thankfully this thread has been moved to the wishlist section, but it deserves to be closed.

 

+1 , very much agree...

[SharpeXB]

What I am telling you is that if you don't have a screen with the pixel density on a 5K or 4K resolution your screen shot are miss leading. You can DSR as much as you want to an 8K res and look at it on a 1080p the picture will not be the same as much as if I downgrade my resolution to 1080p it doesn't look like it was when I had a 1080p monitor. Try to watch a UHD movie on a regular HD TV.

Correct. It's impossible to see a 4K or 5K picture on a 1080p screen in the same way that it's not possible to see a 1080p picture on a 480p screen. If you create a custom resolution output for the graphics card and uncheck full screen you'll just see the same 1080p screen with an enlarged image, but that doesn't give you the effect that the real display does by shrinking that and fitting it to your screen. I'm not sure how those tests are done above.

You also can't look at a 4K screenshot on a 1080p screen because the monitor will just downsample it.

 

You keep pushing to keep DCS in the stone ages with regards to model visibility options. You stand behind this with your insanely powerful PC and Monitor setup, and claim "fairness" as your motive. Do you think it's fair that only people with 10,000 $ gaming rigs can are allowed to play this game fairly? People are not dumb you know, and neither is ED. Thankfully this thread has been moved to the wishlist section, but it deserves to be closed.

I had a 1080p screen for all these games and used that for years. So I'm entitled to an opinion on using one.

But it's not necessary to run tests to prove the obvious, that having a higher resolution screen is better. Everyone knows that.

 

And it's going to require an "insanely powerful PC" to run VR devices as well.

Edited November 17, 2015 by SharpeXB

[OnlyforDCS]

 

I had a 1080p screen for all these games and used that for years. So I'm entitled to an opinion on using one.

But it's not necessary to run tests to prove the obvious, that having a higher resolution screen is better. Everyone knows that.

 

And it's going to require an "insanely powerful PC" to run VR devices as well.

 

Oh ok, I think I follow your logic. More money == Good. Poor people == Bad. I get it now, silly me, thinking that the 0.1% couldn't reach into my favorite hobby and try to ruin that for me too. :doh:

[SharpeXB]

So in DCS you will have

• HIRES players
  
• LORES players
  
• LORESVR players
  
• HIRESVR players
  

This is unworkable because there aren't enough players online to utilize all these options. Having 4 choices means dividing up the players by a factor of 4. Most days there might be 8-12 people online. So your goal is to split up 12 players onto 4 different servers?

It just doesn't work. It doesn't even work to add a single option to switch Enlarged Models On or Off since that still divides the players up by 50%. This isn't a genre with thousands of players online. So you can't be that particular about choices.

[SharpeXB]

Oh ok, I think I follow your logic. More money == Good. Poor people == Bad. I get it now, silly me, thinking that the 0.1% couldn't reach into my favorite hobby and try to ruin that for me too. :doh:

Says the guy who still has $2,000 of gear in his signature :music_whistling:

 

I have identified gameplay problems that are emerging with the use of high resolution monitors. This is a serious issue that is just going to get more and more extreme with 5K and 8K.

It's not a question that higher resolution screens are an advantage. They are.

 

But when 16:9 Full HD 1920x1080 monitors first became available for the PC, were they regulated server-side in games? I don't think they were. No doubt 1080p widescreen monitors were a huge advantage in flight sims over the previous 4:3 standard def CRTs

In fact the increase in quality from SD to Full-HD is much more pronounced than the difference between 1080p and UHD

I don't know of any game that has screen resolution as a server side setting though.

What happened instead is most every player just went and bought a 1080p screen. Same thing will happen today.

[Decibel dB]

If you want to have online player they need to be able to spot contact. Plain and simple Sharpe. We are not interested to go fly blind.

[SharpeXB]

If you want to have online player they need to be able to spot contact. Plain and simple Sharpe. We are not interested to go fly blind.

Every player wants that. There are better ways to accomplish that though than what ED has right now with this Enlarged Models setting, particularly as it stands right now. In the form that it is currently it will just get disabled as a cheat and therefore it won't benefit anyone online since no servers will end up running it. Especially the modern era ones since it basically replaces radar

[vicx]

the model enlargement don't work with crossfire I wish they fix it so I would be able to see something

 

Sorry Decibel, I did not know that ATI users were unable to evaluate the new feature. I give you credit for actually wanting to see a BETA feature for yourself to see if it can have some value for you. So far I also haven't seen you claim that other people don't need it ... so you are way ahead of some people.

 

Also I am not saying that you should be stopped from using a feature that can help you spot targets easier with a 4K monitor. That would be your choice and you should be able to play how you want. I would agree with other people that if a server operator wanted to set flags based on RESOLUTION or based on FEATURES they want to allow or disallow. That would be their choice too. Everybody gets to choose.

 

I think you are wrong about value of the images I have posted ... I have to say that a technically proficient person IS able to view and evaluate these images (exactly as they are).

 

If you only want to focus on one thing in those images ... pay attention to the RED and ORANGE circles. They show the biggest existing problem. On low resolution displays ... aircraft just don't show up OR they pop in and out of existence between odd and even zoom levels and other random times. You don't get this as much on a 4K monitor as you do at 1080P or in VR.

 

I stand by the utility of these images and I also extend the invitation for you to submit your own images. You have an ATI card ... I have node idea how ATI cards render DCS. You might have heaps of problems compared to someone with an Nvidia card. You should post some images so we can look at them. You have to edit graphics.lua to force screenshots to be PNG images instead of JPG but that is all that is required.

 

Finally even though there are rendering problems for ED to fix, I agree with other posters who also want more than just a fix for rendering problems. I would love a completely modern flight sim that doesn't only rely on 15 levels of zoom to be able to see things. I am playing more and more in VR and VR has no zoom so of course I need some kind of feature.

 

Still I hope that ED can improve on what they have done so far.

[Decibel dB]

Every player wants that. There are better ways to accomplish that though than what ED has right now with this Enlarged Models setting, particularly as it stands right now. In the form that it is currently it will just get disabled as a cheat and therefore it won't benefit anyone online since no servers will end up running it. Especially the modern era ones since it basically replaces radar

 

I can't argue with that. DCS as it's stand now have all those beautiful aircraft and map's on the making, but the online community his almost non existent. I would be curious to know the percentage of the player base that go online. Let's just imagine 5% of the people who have DCS decide to come and play online because they can see things. Can you imagine how fun it will be? Can you picture how this can grow?

 

ED have listen to the community and acknowledge the problem, me think. They are working on it and hopefully in few updates we will have something better then what we have now.

 

my 2 cent

 

o7

[Decibel dB]

Hi vicx, you obviously have more technical knowledge that I have but ask yourself this. If you could see with a 1080p the same that with a 2160p screen, there will be no use of buying a 4K monitor don't you think. Just a beefy GPU would do. No?

[dburne]

DCS 1.5 is obviously still a beta product, a work in progress. We have seen the Model Enlargement feature change between beta builds. Currently there are options for Off, Small, Medium, and Large. It just recently got moved to the Gameplay tab.

 

I think it is obvious ED are testing and trying different things out, in these beta builds. Undoubtedly there will be more beta builds forthcoming, and maybe more changes.

Not to even mention, we still have 2.0 to go along with it's beta builds...

 

I would not get too worked up just yet on what we currently have available to test, undoubtedly it will change more as the beta moves forward, and likely again in 2.0 beta builds.

 

I have every confidence in the end, ED will come up with a solution that satisfies most of the player base. It will be interesting to see how they continue to tweak this new feature going forward.

[blkspade]

Hi vicx, you obviously have more technical knowledge that I have but ask yourself this. If you could see with a 1080p the same that with a 2160p screen, there will be no use of buying a 4K monitor don't you think. Just a beefy GPU would do. No?

 

For the purpose of the test he's running it in a window has the game render at a higher resolution but the extra pixels are off screen. You effectively end up seeing and focusing on 1080p slice of the whole image. At a 1080P native the area being focused on has less pixels available, to being with.

[SharpeXB]

Also I am not saying that you should be stopped from using a feature that can help you spot targets easier with a 4K monitor. That would be your choice and you should be able to play how you want. I would agree with other people that if a server operator wanted to set flags based on RESOLUTION or based on FEATURES they want to allow or disallow. That would be their choice too. Everybody gets to choose.

There are not enough players online in a niche game like this to allow for so many choices. It's just not feasible.

[xXNightEagleXx]

There are not enough players online in a niche game like this to allow for so many choices. It's just not feasible.

 

 

There are, there are. It is just that some people are divided between the two SIMS and those who play with dcs but ignore current dcs multiplayer. In fact, there are new people jumping to the other simulator after they have been brought to flight combat world by DCS. It is just a matter of attract them all but there are a lot of work to do to archive that. We all know that until DCS does not simulate also the war environment and/or offer a modern multirole, there will be a considerable amount of players who will keep ignoring dcs or at least its the multiplayer

 

PS: I didn't even considerate WW2 gamers pool.

Edited November 17, 2015 by xXNightEagleXx

[SharpeXB]

There are, there are. It is just that some people are divided between the two SIMS and those who play with dcs but ignore current dcs multiplayer. In fact, there are new people jumping to the other simulator after they have been brought to flight combat world by DCS. It is just a matter of attract them all but there are a lot of work to do to archive that. We all know that until DCS does not simulate also the war environment and/or offer a modern multirole, there will be a considerable amount of players who will keep ignoring the multiplayer

 

PS: I didn't even considerate WW2 gamers pool.

It won't work. You can look at the same server list I can. Most servers are just empty. You might see maybe 30 people on a single server on a good day. And DCS is a complicated study sim, it's not like War Thunder or another more simple game. So that acts as a barrier to getting more players online. With the large maps it takes 50+ players to even hope to make a decent game otherwise they'd just fly around an empty map and get bored and quit.

There are already enough server choices considering ping or era or time zone etc. it's impractical to divide them up further.