A big thank you ED for 2.1

[Mainstay]

I know ED had ups and downs the last few years when it comes to the Sim engine and modules that came out for it. We all had days where we yelled at our screen and cursed the people from ED.

 

But holy mother of jebus after a bumpy manual installation of Normandy and the asset pack I fired 2.1 up and I was really impressed.

First I tried flying in the Normandy map and it is beautiful.

Second I started Nevada and selected the cold start Su25 mission and I was amazed with the difference. It felt like a complete different simulator. That is in a positive way. The lighting and the feel I had while flying was so amazing it brought tears into my eyes.

 

I cannot express anymore in words my joy of flying in DCS.

Thank you ED and all in involved like the 3d party devs etc for making this Sim something as amazing as it is for now and the many years to come.

 

Clear skies!

[NeilWillis]

+1

 

I will be happier when the VR side of things has been nailed down, but this is indeed a milestone, and ED deserve a pat on the back for their hard work.

[Automan]

Yes, great improvement on feeling the immersion in Nevada +1

[hughlb]

I have been downloading and reading the forum - kind of disappointed that people are already shooting down the new renderer, performance, and even download speed of the update... Guys, 2.1 is a massive update with or without Normandy. The fact Normandy is included makes it even more challenging to iron out issues.

 

Expect bugs, and performance issues for the next few months, whilst ED refine all the new elements. As for downloading - we download at 800k on a good day in Australia. Stop whining.

 

Thanks for your hard work ED, I look forward to many exciting years ahead, with an accurate renderer and new map(s) to play with :)

[Dav IRL]

Installing now, very excited from what i have read in this thread, so how has Nevada changed?

[FragBum]

Installing now, very excited from what i have read in this thread, so how has Nevada changed?

 

In Rift the colour is different but there are new textures on most surfaces. I get drops in frame rates a bit off putting but can usually recover going to simpler parts of NTTR map, even in Nevada it self.

 

Some funnies with shadow colours but better behaved shadows.

 

TBH I still enjoyed flying the Huey and Gazelle in 2.1.x, time to do some tweaking. :thumbup:

.

[ThorBrasil]

DCS 2.1 is beautiful. Just need to correct performance. This is the criticism I see in every corner.

[Madbrood]

kind of disappointed that people are already shooting down the... download speed of the update

 

I get what you're saying - but I've been trying to download NTTR since last night, and I'm lucky if I'm getting 1MB/s. This is on a 200Mbps line, with 22Mbps up. When you're dealing with a 24GB client and a 31GB download for a map, the current torrent system just isn't that good. That said, I'm looking forward to checking out the new lighting etc.

[Kippy]

I was blown away when I first loaded up my A-10C on the Ramp at Nellis. While some say the new lighting makes everything look a bit too washed out, and I may have to agree the slightest bit, I was absolutely speechless when I got into the air. Looking around and seeing the desert, with the new lighting for the sky... and how the horizon gradually fades away, I nearly choked up a bit, It truly felt "real."

 

I also noticed, and I haven't flown in NTTR since the launch of 2.0.5, so I'm not sure if this is old news, that the black hot and white hot functions of the TGP actually seemed to work like they should! Targets were very visible from some miles out, which was a great relief from flying back at the Caucasus.

 

I then flew a night sortie, and was even more impressed. The night lighting has always been sublime with Nevada, but the new landing and taxi lights looked great, and made for a jawdropping taxi experience at Nellis. Flying through the night, watching the mavericks fly off the rail in a brilliant flash, seeing the gun produce some small light in the cockpit when firing, I was impressed beyond my words with the new update.

 

I did however, as expected with an Alpha, find a few bugs here and there. The A-10C cockpit lighting felt a little wonky, the side panels where all the switches are seemed to sort of.. glow almost. It's tough to describe, and it didn't feel right. I also immediately discovered that the TAD map didn't approve of the 2.1 update apparently, because it up and left. Wooo, black TAD. Wingtip vortices glow bright white when flying at night, and the HUD was very hard to read on the backdrop of the new sky. Overall, flying during the day I noticed a few times that my CPU Usage was hitting 100% causing stutters and my RAM was also near maxing out, I've never experienced this before. Give ED a month to finish the rough edges and take a look at performance, and I'm sure 2.1 will be a great update.

[Jamesp1]

I get what you're saying - but I've been trying to download NTTR since last night, and I'm lucky if I'm getting 1MB/s. This is on a 200Mbps line, with 22Mbps up. When you're dealing with a 24GB client and a 31GB download for a map, the current torrent system just isn't that good. That said, I'm looking forward to checking out the new lighting etc.

 

Agreed. Downloaded on my work's gigabit connection at 300KB/s.

 

Download speed it pretty important when you're downloading tens of GB becuase otherwise you have to leave your computer on all night.

 

Not that 2.1 works for me now anyway; after all the hassle of updating it's now completely broken and the slow download prevents me from retrying it from scratch :-(

[cthulhu68]

I see great potential here. I had to lower settinngs slightly, daytime lighting needs some love, a few random crashes but for a very early release it looks great ( make that jaw-dropping at sunset).

Thanks for all the hard work ED Team!:thumbup:

[zerO_crash]

+1

 

I will be happier when the VR side of things has been nailed down, but this is indeed a milestone, and ED deserve a pat on the back for their hard work.

 

Indeed, superb update. :thumbup:

[msalama]

Indeed, superb update.

 

The best ever IMHO. Was a veritable crapstorm to install and setup, but now that I've got it sorted, I'm absolutely blown away by how beautiful it looks and how well it runs. So kudos ED - this is indeed a major, major update to the sim :thumbup:

[Cibit]

I love it, thanks for all your hard work so far. I am pleased to be around at this great time in flight sim history. The sense of extreme heat in Nevada with the new lighting is surreal and I am just about to go fly in Normandy with my trusty Utility Helicopter 1 find a shady spot near a river and have a virtual picnic

 

Bonsoir;)

[rogonaut]

yea on second visit and with graphic settings adapted its a different ball game. really is nice hype is back

[Jumbik]

The misty morning in one of the Cold start instant missions in Normandy made my jaw drop.

 

Nevertheless I'm a bigger fan of modern airplanes so Nevada and MOST notably the upcoming Caucasus map is the thing I'm looking forward to the most.

 

ED won a battle with 2.1, now they have to win the war with 2.5. :)

[Mking]

Yes big thx to ed team. Thx for you hard work for us players !

[NeilWillis]

I get what you're saying - but I've been trying to download NTTR since last night, and I'm lucky if I'm getting 1MB/s. This is on a 200Mbps line, with 22Mbps up. When you're dealing with a 24GB client and a 31GB download for a map, the current torrent system just isn't that good. That said, I'm looking forward to checking out the new lighting etc.

 

The issue will be made worse because everyone is trying to download it as soon as it is available.

 

It's a pain, but it is just a matter of letting it run. It's just a huge download, being made when the servers are flat out.

[AKULA_OPTIMUS]

Cannot wait for the unified version 2.5 so I can finally buy Nevada and Normandy:joystick:

[Madbrood]

Download speed it pretty important when you're downloading tens of GB becuase otherwise you have to leave your computer on all night.

 

And with my computer next to my bed (and only a loud stock cooler) that's not an option for me :(

[rajdary]

Totally agree, ED has done a great job, it is really a big difference in my point of view. The most important change by far the new lighting effect, its just so much more real. I really start appreciating it when i go back to 1.5 Caucasus.

[LcSummers]

Yes,

 

a big hug from my side.

Even with bugs, its an outstanding work. I like the new look of the P-51 in the sun and the map. The new lighting is outstanding, i cant get off my eyes.:thumbup: The landing lights are fantastic, tried them on the 51-er.

 

Thanks to all of you

[AMEDooley]

So my take is a bit more complex than a good job ED. This new lighting system has some amazing potential. It feels to me like the afternoon feels like an afternoon looks visual with the new lighting system. The problem is the sun is too powerful and washes out everything. Kind of like being in a pool all day. At night and dawn/dusk is where this system really shines. I can tell you flying VR exclusively has been not enjoyable at night. There is no fear of hitting the ground or need for NVG's before cause everything was bright and really looked just like daytime with only a black sky instead of blue. Now it's dark! I still wish I could turn down the brightness level in my HMD a bit more to get a really good feel. But this at night has been huge for immersion.

 

They do need to clean some stuff up, such as the blue or teal shadows and MSAA problems, but overall this new system looks great. Looking forward to what changes they make to make it work the way they intended it to. So it's kind of a mix bag for me, but the positives out weigh the negatives right now.

[pepto]

I'm not sure how many of us in the sim community branch into other video games but I can honestly say with confidence that 2.1 has some of the most realistic looking graphics out there, massive props to ED for their hard work! :D

[JokerMan]

I'll add a note of thank you also .... ED are building and moving the project along and the potential is there. So thank you ED and given the payed forward trust the community has placed with you, here's to you knocking it out of the park.

 

EA is great instalment. It has a lot of potential but of course, it's not complete yet is it. As long as the updates keep coming, as a community, we can't really ask for more.