Black Shark Graphics, updated?

[Callsign.Vega]

Hello,

 

I have been following Black Shark for quite some time and it looks to be a really good sim. I have a question though: is the graphics engine getting any updates with BS or is it using the same one that LOMAC does, designed years ago?

 

The reason I ask is, I have been playing the demo of Microsoft Flight Sim X. The graphics in that sim are simply amazing. They will also support DX10 when it launches with Windows Vista. I have been browsing the latest screen shots of BS and the graphics are starting to look really dated. Has anyone heard of any thoughts on a graphics engine update for BS?

 

I know graphics only make up part of a overall excellent sim, but great graphics usually never hurt! :thumbup:

[Shotsx74]

right now prob not

[Ukr_Alex]

Sorry but how do they look dated?

 

I think they look spectacular, sure the ground textures aint that great, but as far as models, detail, lighting, shading goes it looks great.

[SuperKungFu]

You are not simply talking about a graphics update, its more like changing the entire game engine which will not happen at this stage. Remember BS is an addon, not completely revolutionize the engine. And plus, the graphics are not out dated :music_whistling:

[firesoldier845]

Hello,

 

The reason I ask is, I have been playing the demo of Microsoft Flight Sim X. The graphics in that sim are simply amazing. They will also support DX10 when it launches with Windows Vista.

 

I too have been playing with FSX and the graphics are amazing, but they come at a heavy price in performance. I hope DX10 gives it a boost but I'm not expecting any miracles. Have u seen the commercial on TV for FS X? THe sim looks like it's a slideshow in the commercial, you can easily see that the fps is terrible in the commerical. I got a good laugh out of it.

 

The graphics though in LockOn are nice and I'm happy with them for now.

 

cheers

[Sleek]

Sorry but how do they look dated?

 

I think they look spectacular, sure the ground textures aint that great, but as far as models, detail, lighting, shading goes it looks great.

 

I'm with you on this one :thumbup:

[Disso]

Dated!? Are you kidding me? Graphics is one of LOMAC's strongest selling points in addition to its immersion, flight dynamics, damage models, modeling, and systems (to those not coming from F4).

 

LOMAC graphics are still the best out there for any combat simulator, and still any flight simulator at all, other than FSX. LOMAC's engine never stops to amaze me, and when I'm up there patrolling the Crimean skies, I can't help but to watch the beautifully rendered sunset, self-shaddowing, canopy scratches, and water reflections. LOMAC still has effects no other sim has, such as heat blur and sun glinting through overcast.

[ARM505]

FSX is a truly terrible fps hog. The demo is bad enough, and apparently the full version is worse since you won't be flying around islands with plenty of sea around them. At it's best, it may arguably be better than LOMAC (although the new BS models seem quite a bit more detailed graphically and the BS helo itself is, systems wise, a hell of a lot better), but if you turn the sliders up, it's a complete slideshow.

 

Plus, people are touting DX10 as FSX's saving grace, once it's released. As far as I understand it, FSX is DX9 software at the moment. Merely installing Vista and DX10 is not going to make it run any better. Quite the opposite, apparently, since almost every game runs 10-15% slower on Vista. FSX will require a DX10 patch in order to use DX10. I know I'm speculating to a degree, but that's how it looks to me at the moment. I'll be sitting on the fence on this one for the moment.

[Bendak]

FSX is a truly terrible fps hog. The demo is bad enough, and apparently the full version is worse since you won't be flying around islands with plenty of sea around them. At it's best, it may arguably be better than LOMAC (although the new BS models seem quite a bit more detailed graphically and the BS helo itself is, systems wise, a hell of a lot better), but if you turn the sliders up, it's a complete slideshow.

 

Plus, people are touting DX10 as FSX's saving grace, once it's released. As far as I understand it, FSX is DX9 software at the moment. Merely installing Vista and DX10 is not going to make it run any better. Quite the opposite, apparently, since almost every game runs 10-15% slower on Vista. FSX will require a DX10 patch in order to use DX10. I know I'm speculating to a degree, but that's how it looks to me at the moment. I'll be sitting on the fence on this one for the moment.

 

Microsoft claims FSX is DX10, and it runs on DX9 (backwards compatible) but not in DX8 and when you have DX10 installed it should run smother as MS say they re-worked the framework to have the DX10 game have direct access to the hardware and not trough the GDI.

 

Vista is still in beta, it´s not fair to compare it with XP performance for gaming.

 

But the real fact is, Lomac is not outdated, it´s amazing!

 

I fail to see were this graphis are outdate!

 

 

[Mustang]

arghhhhh!!!! the jaggies!!! they make my eyes bleed LOL Bendak, try some Anti-aliasing, makes lockon even more beautiful ;)

A good example of how stunning lockon can look http://forum.lockon.ru/showthread.php?t=19061

[NEODARK]

Oh god the jaggies, my eyes, my eyes... :p

 

that said, better land textures, buildings, speedtree would go a long way to make LockOn muh, much better.

[spugnut]

I agree with Bendak.

 

I've tried out FSX, and although I appreciate all the new features and tweaks I still feel that for general ambience LOMAC still spanks it. And when I setup FSX to run at the same FPS as LO, it actually looks slightly worse than FS2004 did.

 

(Besides, in LO you can stack a kite into the deck and watch it fold oh-so-prettily instead of getting the green 'crashed' notification in the top left!)

 

Oh, and by the way a big 'HI!' to all those on the forums. :)

[Bendak]

arghhhhh!!!! the jaggies!!! they make my eyes bleed LOL Bendak, try some Anti-aliasing, makes lockon even more beautiful ;)

A good example of how stunning lockon can look http://forum.lockon.ru/showthread.php?t=19061

 

 

Yeah, i know, i've turned it on already. Those are old pics that i had at hand and was fast to be posted. I tough it would have a huge fps change, it's AA4x now and i didn't realy noticed any change.

[ALDEGA]

Sorry but how do they look dated?

 

I think they look spectacular, sure the ground textures aint that great, but as far as models, detail, lighting, shading goes it looks great.

Half of the 3D models in Lockon come straight from Flanker 2.x... I would call that literally dated.

 

Moreover the water effect is ... basic, the terrain mesh is ... basic.

Lighting on the trees is ... sometimes simply wrong..

Some smoke effects are visible ... through clouds.

 

The framerate ... could be better. (better not drop any flares ... near a town, or look in the direction where other units are, even if they're not visible)

 

Let's be honest, Lockon is 3 years old.

 

The three best looking things in Lockon are the Ka-50, Su-25T and F/A-18 models ;)

 

Don't get me wrong, the graphics are satisfactory overall (and not the main issue), so don't start flaming me.

[Callsign.Vega]

Aldega, as the original poster, I agree with you completely. I am sure BS will kick ass and the graphics are still not bad, having people say they are spactacular is going a bit overboard. A lot of the stuff in BS does look like it came from Flanker and a lot of the ground textures are just horrible. Now keep in mind, myself being a real combat helicopter pilot, we fly as low as we can go and in a sim graphics mean a whole lot in that regard. What looks good at 20k feet might not look so good at 20 feet. Here are a few examples:

 

BS water/mountains, huge ground textures and pointy mountains:

 

 

 

FS X water/mountains, granted with some serious hardware:

 

 

 

City in BS, gotta love transparent buildings:

 

 

 

City in X:

 

 

 

Not to mention look at the ground textures and trees in this close ground view in BS:

 

 

 

 

Another thing that always drove me crazy with the LOMAC engine is the transparent objects like buildings and trees. Really detracts from the realism.

 

Anyways, like I said it will be a good sim and I will buy it but the graphics, are getting dated this day and age.

[Capt.LoneRanger]

The mountain-lake is a photoshoped image. That's what they aimed for with DX10 support - but there is no system operating in DX10, except some betas of Vista and there is no DX10 capable gfx-card on the market. :thumbup:

 

 

Other than that, why don't you post pictures of a plane stalling out in FSX, or a gear giving in under pressure or an explosion or even contrails from wings of curving a/c. :smilewink:

[ARM505]

The much publicised shot of the lake with the mountains, sun rays etc is NOT FROM FSX. It's some kind of photoshop impression of what somebody *thinks* FSX would look like with DX10.

 

I can't believe a relatively mature market such as the sim market still falls for the 'don't worry, it'll all be brilliant and all problems will be solved with the next patch/with the next DX iteration/with a driver update'! Personally, I'll just wait and see what the actual product delivers instead of saying 'This will be the greatest thing ever!' Surely most here are experienced enough in this hobby to take that view?

 

Edit: Loneranger (naturally!) a bit quicker on the draw there than me!

[britgliderpilot]

The one thing I have never, ever thought while flying Black Shark is that it needs better graphics!

 

 

A number of those screenies are not representative of the way Black Shark actually looks - as you should be able to verify even now if you bother to crank the graphics all the way up on your own machine ;)

 

 

FSX . . . . . does indeed look droolworthy!

Despite those screenies, I don't believe the ground textures are going to be that nice at low level. Zoom in to the point where you can see an individual car on the ground and I reckon they'd be about the same as the last FS.

Flight Sim has been useless for NOE flight for as long as I can remember - it's not designed for it, it's designed for navigation at "sensible" altitudes. I don't see it changing here as a result of these screenies.

 

On a similar note, I'd like to see the trees in FSX close up.

 

 

Lomac's terrain mesh is pointy. Got to grant that.

 

Models - in the process of being updated.

 

Trees - would love them better. Good at high altitude in a forest, not so great right up close.

 

Please remember on the pace of upgrading some of these things that there are some things you can do easily when you're Microsoft, and can't do easily when you're a 30-man game studio in Moscow ;)

 

To be honest, I think Lomac's doing pretty well even without Microsoft's limitless resources taken into account - can it be improved further, yes . . . . . but I have no problems at all with the graphics in Black Shark.

 

edit - a quick note on that FSX city shot.

Lens flare effect. Nice.

Shiny-rooved buildings. Nice - I haven't seen buildings with rooves that reflect the sun like that, but then they build them differently over the pond.

Water on lakes - eerily familar from Lomac.

Distant scenery - eerily similar to Lomac.

Clouds - eerily similar to Lomac.

High level clouds - nice, but there's something wrong and I can't put my finger on it. I think the sky's too deep a blue, and I get the feeling that quantity of cu with that high level stuff doesn't fit.

Ground textures - underneath the 3D buildings and trees, satellite photography a la F4. Down low . . . . . ?

 

It's good, it's better - but be serious guys, it's not as enormous a leap over Lomac as some people seem to be suggesting!

[Pilotasso]

I loath FS sims for not being able to have the graphics anywhere near decent level of deatil without blowing every PC out of the water, past present and future. Actual deatil will be worse to puke levels and you wont get rid of S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-Stu-t-t-t-tters!! :)

[Glowing_Amraam]

Guys, when lock on was released it had the best graphics around, and today it still manages to stand on its own. Now, imagine how the next-gen version of "lockon" will be, or whatever it may be called? ;)

[tflash]

Guys, I'm flying FSX (the full, Deluxe version) with two screens at high res and high settings on a relatively mundane 3 GHz Pentium IV of course with a decent graphics board. And yes, since FSX fully supports Core Duo architecture, it even runs better on my laptop.

 

I think Lockon's graphics are awesome, but FSX really is very, very good also. What I always liked about FS is that you can have many windows, on multiple screens. This is what I miss the most in Lockon since I'm an "external views" kinda guy. Not really what the online air-to-air dudes need, but for aerial photography you really need multiple screens.

 

On my rig FSX is dimensions better than FS2004. The FM's are also very good, and I have to say I really like piston engines, I miss that in Lockon ;)

 

A very technical precision sim like Lockon BS really needs multiple windows to look at the flight and action from different angles. This is the whole idea of simulation, that you can train by having better views on the situation.

 

The incredible accuracy of BS means we will also want the utmost best graphics. I hope therefore BS will sport shader 2.0 support and the other goodies. Otherwise it will just be blown away by any sequel to Battlefield II and the likes.

[Capt.LoneRanger]

Guys, when lock on was released it had the best graphics around, and today it still manages to stand on its own. Now, imagine how the next-gen version of "lockon" will be, or whatever it may be called? ;)

 

You want to tell us something? Is there a life after BS? :music_whistling:

[JG27_Arklight]

Now, imagine how the next-gen version of "lockon" will be, or whatever it may be called? ;)

 

Lock-On 2 : The Search for Decent Code

 

?

 

:D

[JG27_Arklight]

And yes, since FSX fully supports Core Duo architecture, it even runs better on my laptop.

 

 

 

Are you referring to the fact that the Intel Core Duo is dual core? Because FSX does NOT fully support dual core technology. In fact, I think FSX hardly even utilizes the 2nd core. That's one of the complaints from some of the forum members over at Avsim.

[tflash]

Technically, it is more complex. FSX is a dual core application, but since most of the work is display updates and this is done by a single thread, you do not see the full benefits some had expected.