2.1 First Impressions (I know, it's Alpha) :-)

[gavagai]

Also, if I remember correctly, both Wags and some pre-release reviewers (not completely sure about Wags though) claimed that the Normandy performance isn't significantly worse than then current NTTR version (small performance drop is to be expected due to higher level of details in Normandy). Now both terrains suffer noticeable performance drop compared to 2.0.5.

 

Again, not bashing ED in the slightest (this is what Alpha is for!), but it is time to admit there's something wrong with the current graphics engine.

 

Yeah, I took them at their word when they said performance was similar to NTTR. Something must be wrong.

 

I'm scratching my head over why this lighting change was done in the first place. Are we trying to keep up with the Joneses? Why now? Why ever? I don't care what other game titles are doing. If they had only improved spotting at 1nm I would have been very happy. I don't see much difference there.

[OnlyforDCS]

I think the lighting change is absolutely great! It just needs a little bit of tweaking to get it to look just right at different times of day.

 

Im sure ED are aware of that and working on it. In the meantime we can ask our favorite server hosts to host early morning/dusk missions.

 

Im more worried about these performance issues. If it's a matter of installing a new VC++ Redistributuable, then Eagle Dynamics should put that in BOLD PRINT somewhere or even include them with the update.

[cthulhu68]

Woah, need to try that VC++ redistributable. Maybe I already have it installed but could you post a link please?

It's included with 382.33 gforce driver I used fot gtx970 and I assume other newer drivers.

[Bearfoot]

So, my initial impressions regarding performance in Normandy in 2.1 ...

 

Pretty good.

 

I'm getting 45 FPS, even low to the ground over Cannes. 90 FPS higher up.

 

It's weird because I've found myself struggling on 2.0 NTTR to get 45 FPS in a few scenarios, when other people with similar rigs have had no issue.

 

I have an i7-4790K OC'd to 4.7, 1080 TI, 16 GB @ 1800, running OR with the latest NVIDIA drivers [EDIT: this is the NVIDIA driver that was updated a couple of days ago; I remember at least one person reporting that this noticeably improved performance].

 

I will post screenshots of my settings later on. I will also fly those bugbear of NTTR missions that brought me to 23 FPS in 2.0 and see if there is any change.

 

Also, I should note that my Normandy testing so far is just me in a Huey/Gazelle/P-51/Mig-15 flying around or the dogfight instant actions. So maybe richer or more complex scenarios may knock things back.

 

I am also terribly disappointed that the Spitfire gunsight is still wonky, and I have to switch off ASW to have it useable. I wish the devs would at least respond as to whether or not this is on their horizon, even if they cannot fix it at this time :(

[FragBum]

Okay I have dialled down some settings and I am now getting good FPS in Rift, but still some funny colour and shadow stuff.

 

Post in another thread for details of what worked for me for now.

 

YMMV good luck. :thumbup:

Edited May 28, 2017 by FragBum
typo

[wilbur81]

 

-Trees are too bright and stand out innaturally. The same issue was present in early Normandy videos, in the latter ones, it seemed to be not so pronounced. Haven't took a look at Normandy yet, maybe it's better there, but in Nevada, you see distant building blending with terrain and fog just as they should, and bright, almost luminous trees right next to them, as if they weren't affected by distance at all.

 

The trees were one of the very first things I noticed as well in 2.1. They look very cartoon-ish and bleh with this new lighting system. Honestly, I have marveled at how beautiful Nevada's lighting looked before this latest update. I know they are going to work on it, but a new lighting system seems superfluous given how beautiful the 'old' 2.0.X one was/is. I feel like a lot of things need(ed) fixing in DCS 2.+, but the lighting system wasn't one of them in my book.

[Zimmerdylan]

Of course it's buggy.

 

If it wasn't buggy, it wouldn't be an Alpha, it would be a production release...

 

Was that not obvious ?

 

LOL....Point well taken.

[Zimmerdylan]

Yeah, I took them at their word when they said performance was similar to NTTR. Something must be wrong.

 

I'm scratching my head over why this lighting change was done in the first place. Are we trying to keep up with the Joneses? Why now? Why ever? I don't care what other game titles are doing. If they had only improved spotting at 1nm I would have been very happy. I don't see much difference there.

 

Unfortunately, I did the same. But I should have really though that through. When it comes to this kind of stuff, you cannot afford to rely on someone else's word simply because they have a completely different set up than you do. Even if they have similar hardware.

I see that there are a lot of people having a great time on this map so it isn't terrible. For me, it seems that Normandy was designed with higher end hardware in mind.

But again, it's early alpha. And I remember back in the early days when pretty much everything was the way it is with Normandy right now for me. It's like ED is starting over with all of this new tech. All I can do is let it play out and see where it goes.

I will eventually upgrade my system. I have always been a middle of the road guy when it comes to gaming hardware. I do not invest in the high end gaming stuff because this isn't my passion, it's a very fun hobby. My rig is part of a high end recording studio for professional musicians. That's where all of my resources go because that's my living. I do not use social media, or really computers at all outside of my work and this sim.

My dissatisfaction with Normandy isn't a big deal. I'm glad that lots of people are getting something positive from it. I have confidence that eventually I will too.

I do remember being very happy when Vegas came out because it ran well and looked stunning to me. I was hoping for the same luck with Normandy.

[Rotorhead]

Yeah, I took them at their word when they said performance was similar to NTTR. Something must be wrong.

 

I'm scratching my head over why this lighting change was done in the first place. Are we trying to keep up with the Joneses? Why now? Why ever? I don't care what other game titles are doing. If they had only improved spotting at 1nm I would have been very happy. I don't see much difference there.

 

Well, I agree and disagree - just as Wilbur says few posts above mine, current 2.0 lighting looked more than good enough, and things that aren't broken are usually better left without fixing.

 

On the other hand, what's wrong with keeping up with the Joneses? I am not one of those who claim that a good simulator has the right to look ugly as long as it's detailed and realistic in the simulation aspects (read: physics, instruments, etc), or even that true simulator must look ugly :doh:

 

Why, if I can have both good simulation and good looks, of course I want both! After all, visual fidelity is part of realism, too! What's the use of having wonderfully modelled avionics in an ugly 2D cockpit that constantly reminds you you are using an computer program? For me, not much.

 

And as for DCS looking good as it is, yes, it does. However, luckily for us, DCS is a platform that is here to stay for a while, and will start to look dated sooner or later. Just compare pre-1.5 Caucasus with current Nevada, and you know exactly what I am talking about. Give it a few years and this is how 2.0 NTTR is going to look like compared to other sims.

 

Just compare the two first screenshots in this post, with and without Deferred shading. Can you honestly say there's no difference and no future potential? Sure, unlike other things, like the improved spotting you mentioned, it's not an immediate concern and we could hapilly go without it for a few more years maybe. But I can see why ED wants to have these things out of the door before the big 2.5 merge.

 

As long as the intention goes, I am certainly happy with what I see, that DCS is constantly moving forward and is going to stay THE simulation platform to go for years, maybe decades to follow. As for the execution though, it's not just there yet and I will only repeat myself if I agree with you and say there is something wrong right now. But again, I am sure ED will iron it out before it goes out of alpha.

[Ala12Rv-watermanpc]

Well, I will try to expose my initial impressions. First of all, I want to say that after reading people wondering why changing the lighting was a need and that it looked nice before, etc. I cant disagree more with you guys...I think its a well needed improvement and also I want to say that graphics OF COURSE DO MATTER!

 

I think it was Rotorhead who said it, a brilliant simulation in a dull, ugly and unrealistic environement worths NOTHING imho...it can be useful for a military perspective, but we are not training to be real pilots nor DCS is pointed in that direction so any visual improvement is very welcome in my book...in fact, I hope they continuously keep updating visual department in a regular basis instead of a big change every 10 years...btw, you can go to the screenshots thread and take a look at the screens made with 1.2 version maybe then many will realize how many and how important improvements have been done.

 

That said, of course there are many things that need to be fixed and improved/tweaked.

 

My first impressions werent good also but I will try to make a little good/bad things list I found so far (only few hours) basically about visual things which is the main reason of the 2.1 version:

 

GOOD:

 

-LIGHTING!!!!! Of course it must be fine tuned but its A HELL OF A BEAST IMPROVEMENT imo. It looks much closer to real life (although midday light could be improved, it looks somewhat flat and dull at anything between 11h to 15h)

 

-Glowing Haze. Love it and its very close to real life also.

 

-Feeling of height.

 

-Smooth smoke.

 

-Shadows dissapearing due to objects exiting the screen fixed.

 

-HDR. Despite it can be tuned a bit, I find it very nice and the changes in luminance are very smooth and also close to what you can expect in an evironement full of light.

 

-Light flashing on things. Also very nicely done, in fact, I would like to make this effect more intense in buildings/cars and general objects in the ground as I couldnt make the flash at very little height...its like they were too cautious with this effect but in real life, pilots can see the sun light flashing at miles. I guess its one of those effects that get tamed down carefully but in real life things use to be very prominent so I think this effect should be more evident.

 

-Water. In general (I will say something in the bad things.

 

-New trees.

 

-Shaders in cockpit.**They must be fined tuned no doubt, but as I said with the light flashes, things in real life use to reflect strong, shine strong, change colour strong, etc. no problem in doing this effects as they should so no need for constrain.

 

-Shadow color in terrain and cockpit. Shadowing in terrain is MUCH better now. No more too dark shadows of buildings over the terrain, now they have a correct color and intensity looking a lot better. Also, cockpit shadow color is better at times where the sun is low in the horizon (dusk/dawn), and there are proper shadows at those hours (before, at dusk shadows were totally washed out and with incorrect color/intensity).

 

-Light Tint. Things are tinted with the ambient light A LOT better...just set a dusk time and enjoy the strong red tint envolving everything, just like IRL.

 

-NTTR textures. MUCH better than before and I think the colors are now also improved and richer.

 

 

BAD (I know this is an alpha and WIP but those are my impressions):

 

-Shadows. I think its been said already. Shadows and self shadowing is a clear step backwards. Maybe ED is trying to do a kind of "soft shadows"/"CH Shadows" here but I think it makes things worse for the little punctual improvement they can achieve. Shadows in a flight sim are dominated for the sun light (obviously) and thus they use to be HARD shadows with well defined edges. Also, a lot of little detail in small objects like antennas gets lost with such a low resolution shadows. Also cockpit shadows are very jagged.

 

-Shimmering. Damn, there is a lot of it, especially in the trees.

 

-Full terrain shadows are not working properly and/or htey have very low quality resulting in very flickering shadows and a clearly visible "seam line" were they are loaded.

 

-Water. Several things here...first, white foam in waves need a quite crazy wind speed to show up which I think is not realistic. Also, they appear and dissapear too quickly and at some wind configs they appear all at the same time and then they go at the same time also. Low rendering distance for waves and white foam. Second, the water's surface waves dont get smaller as you climb so they look same size at 20ft than 20.000ft. Third, reflections are too low res at distance.

 

-Terrain/textures/cities in normandy look a bit too repetitive and generic, like there is no place special or different from other.

 

-Terrain mesh in NTTR still having lower resolution than in 2.0.3 ver. (especially at far distances) despite the textures look much better as well as colours now.

 

-Performance. This is an important issue now. Despite things are looking better in general now, I must say that maybe not so good to justify the fps hit...with my system I have serious problems to keep 30fps at some places in not maxed out settings which I think is too much for the visual improvement we are having.

 

I think thats all so far, sorry for the long post. Hope it can be of any help also for devs.:thumbup:

Edited May 27, 2017 by watermanpc

[Oscar Juliet]

BAD:

-Shimmering unless you crank the MSAA which kills performance.

-Blue shadows with or without deferred rendering

 

 

 

Alright so I'm not crazy. The new shading looks weird and not proper. Then when you turn it off it looks worse. The shadows look like someone took blue water color brush and dragged it on the dirt. Now I am wondering if its a bug with the new system or what.

 

Performance wise I never changed any settings and anti aliasing seems to be a problem now. Unless you turn MSAA on which eats my performance it is jaggy central. I was playing the day before the update so I happened to see the night and day difference the new update made.

 

It is poor in my eyes. Though everything still works properly. The A10c autopilot was fixed. Though I wish by default the TACAN on a prestart aircraft had the volume knob off.

[NineLine]

Yeah, I took them at their word when they said performance was similar to NTTR. Something must be wrong.

 

I'm scratching my head over why this lighting change was done in the first place. Are we trying to keep up with the Joneses? Why now? Why ever? I don't care what other game titles are doing. If they had only improved spotting at 1nm I would have been very happy. I don't see much difference there.

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=188118

 

It is considered an Alpha release, but it does seem like the build was a little rougher around the edges than planned. I know ED appreciates everyone's patience.

[gavagai]

Please don't make a strawman out of what I said guys. I appreciate the nice graphics, but I will continue to insist that being able to track a contact against the sky and ground clutter at 1nm is a little more important.

 

I will be patient for improvements.

[_Dredd]

After a long hiatus, have been playing for the afternoon and I really love the new lighting.

Looks like there's some issues with alpha map lighting with the new Shading/rendering system, such as navigation lights, KA50 HUD lighting, and some other lighting textures.

Hoping they can fix these to complement the new lighting system.

 

Looking forward o the next updates to come.

[Ala12Rv-watermanpc]

The more I play, the more I like the new lighting...in fact, Im starting to get used to it and I think I wouldnt change a thing because maybe touching the hdr would mess with the fog or the oposite and the "next gen" look may go to hell...

 

@gavagai:

 

Mate, have you tried to fly for a nice while?, different time of day, etc. I can very nicely spot target very far no problem, it just takes a sec to adapt to ilumination changes...just saying.:thumbup:

[NineLine]

@gavagai:

 

Mate, have you tried to fly for a nice while?, different time of day, etc. I can very nicely spot target very far no problem, it just takes a sec to adapt to ilumination changes...just saying.:thumbup:

 

 

This is a good point, its new to all of you, you may have to give it some time. That said, its going to improve as well.

[Vandal71]

I wish they would stop trying to self-shadow and light trees. It has never looked natural in any game I've ever played. Just change the trees to a nice dark green and be done with them.

 

Also the way the trees LOD pop when flying low drives me up the wall. I would rather have a lowpoly basic tree with no LOD than to have to watch the popcorn show.

 

The lighting I'm still up in the air on, but my Normandy looks nothing like the quality that was shown in the ED videos. Truthfully, the Caucus map with Starways textures is more pleasing to the eye. I really don't want to have to run early morning or late afternoon just so the whole scene doesn't get washed out.

 

The best thing would be to give the user some control over the lighting and tone mapping. The ability to turn off tree self shadowing and tree lighting would be great also. I think that would make a lot of people happy.

[Ala12Rv-watermanpc]

This is a good point, its new to all of you, you may have to give it some time. That said, its going to improve as well.

 

 

Thanks!...As I have said in other threads, the more I play it, the more I like it!!

 

 

I wish they would stop trying to self-shadow and light trees. It has never looked natural in any game I've ever played. Just change the trees to a nice dark green and be done with them.

 

Also the way the trees LOD pop when flying low drives me up the wall. I would rather have a lowpoly basic tree with no LOD than to have to watch the popcorn show.

 

The lighting I'm still up in the air on, but my Normandy looks nothing like the quality that was shown in the ED videos. Truthfully, the Caucus map with Starways textures is more pleasing to the eye. I really don't want to have to run early morning or late afternoon just so the whole scene doesn't get washed out.

 

The best thing would be to give the user some control over the lighting and tone mapping. The ability to turn off tree self shadowing and tree lighting would be great also. I think that would make a lot of people happy.

 

 

Several things here mate...the trees in real life have a very wide color gamut, but dark green trees would probably look very dull and boring...I can assure you that in real life, trees can look very clear and "shiny" green while Normandy map trees are in a mid position (not too bright not too mute).

 

About the pop-in you are right, I said it in previous post, there is a too evident "seam line" at which high detailed trees are loaded and thus the pop conr like thing...also, the trees self shadowing acts in a similar way, there is also a very noticeable line at which self shadows appear but you can at least get rid of this by changing terrain shadows from "default" to "planar" :thumbup:...I hope ED to fix this asap as full shadows are great an the real deal (also performance will get a hit of course)

 

Finally, I want to recommend you also to give another chance to the lighting!!:) ...we are used to a very "monitor-like" image with very limited and controlled dynamic range. Of course the total DR of the monitor remains the same, but ED made a great job imho to give DCS an HDR-like look...there is more "light" in the world and we need to get used to it. It can be slightly adjusted but I would be worried to lose the vibrant and shiny way DCS look now. Really pal, I though this at first also, but now, its the opposite, when I try 1.5 it looks like meh :noexpression:, where is the light and HDR???;) it looks so outdated and "artificial-computer graphics" compared with the much more organic and alive way in 2.1...

 

Maybe it would be a nice idea to include the ability to enable "helmet sun glasses" now for all planes (not kidding, it would be a nice feature :) )

 

Also, things are not washed out imo mate, things in real life use to look very foggy when in flight...if you look at real videos you will realize that its very uncommon to see full clear visibility and they not only made the fog but also tuned it to make it look "bloom" which is together with the HDR what makes things look bright but at the same time REALISTIC!!:thumbup:

[Baracuda]

Testing alot of settings and changing gamma is a bit better better colours and finetuning other things gives me a bit more dept.

I have to look now how the water textures doing.

Edited July 26, 2017 by Baracuda

[JABO2009]

sorry, but after the latest updates and install of the normandy map , normandy,nttr the plane skins and cockpits with there instruments went from almost photo realistic to cartoonisch. I have the feeling I am playing an 80s game the way the graphics look now. Tried and turned every setting on and off but nothing worked ,sorry to say but I was more satisfight with the old graphics without the new lightning system , deffered shading etc. Hope it wil be almost photo realistic again in the near future

 

 

For now disapointed.

 

 

sorry to say but your reply sounds very much exaggerated... "like 80s game ?" come on ...

 

I had my first impressions in NTTR yesterday ...first few flights in 2.1

 

I noticed some issues regarding lighting and some plane exterior details appear a bit to too shiny / "glass effect" (already known issue and going to change) ...

 

... but Overall, NTTR is a truly amazing Map !!! the Level of Detail is mindblowing ! the Nevada Theater immersion is undoubtedly there ...

 

 

 

 

 

.

Edited July 26, 2017 by JABO2009

[Esac_mirmidon]

Some perspective:

 

Tornado from Digital Integration: 1993

 

 

DCS F-5E: 2017

 

[Baracuda]

i apologize.

 

 

Was a stupid expression indeed.

 

 

My own lag of surching further was the cause of this dumb post of mine.

I have it all set the right way now and looks way better .

 

 

Deferred shading on

Gamma 1.3

 

 

did it for me besides some other finetunes.

[Esac_mirmidon]

No need to apologize.

 

Indeed for me, deferred shading off looks quite bad. Sometimes is not so obvious the changes one must adjust in the graphics options to have the best looking.

 

This is why sometimes a pic or two are the best helpers to find the problem and get the solution.

 

Glad you like it more now.

[AG-51_Razor]

After a lot of tweaking and messing around with settings, I have arrived at a point where this is, by far, one of the most beautiful flight simulations I have ever seen - to include several professional flight sims that I have had occasion to train in. I am getting a very consistent 60 fps in almost every setting - over the strip in Vegas or flying over the middle of Caen in Normandy. However, my biggest issue with 2.1 is the exceptionally long load times at the beginning of a mission. It takes as much as 5 minutes to get the cockpit to completely draw for the first time when joining a MP mission or starting a SP mission for the first time. At first I assumed that it was a problem with my own machine but I have since found that the rest of the members of my squad are experiencing the same issues. In some cases, the game crashes while trying to join a MP mission. I have no doubt whatsoever that ED will figure this out and come up with a fix but until then, ...... I will put up with it! :lol: