2021 (and earlier) DCS Newsletter Discussion Thread

[kotor633]

Maybe you should first 'digest' the bad news and then think again before leaving a comment here. Yes it is annoying. I was already looking forward to April 7th, 2021. But if ED just needs time to test and fix any errors ... You should rather accept this small delay instead of having to find out after the release that it is wrong back and forth (it now has enough bad ones Examples given in the past!) And since glad that at least ED is playing with open cards and informing us accordingly.

[Steel Jaw]

sure alot of whining here.  sigh.

[Mistermann]

As a professional Software Product Manager I have nothing but empathy for the ED team and @BIGNEWY, as the "face" of the organization here.  

 

You try and be transparent and collaborative with the customer (us).  Customers want to know what's going on and get excited for new improvements or capabilities.  Providing planned dates is the best you can do in efforts to quench the thirst for status/progress reports. 

 

So what happens when a planned date isn't met these days?  Customer chaos. 

 

 

You lied! 

You're bums! 

You clearly have idiots on staff! 

etc. etc.

 

What I personally do when faced with these types of reactions is to remind myself these often come from customer excitement in using or purchasing the product.  It is easy for consumers to assume the degree of difficulty in creating/maintaining, in this case, DCS.  

 

Please don't get discouraged ED team.  Your efforts are appreciated.  I, for one, am thankful for your willingness to extend development and QA.  If this decision prevents a poor first experience, I am all for it!  

[Jackjack171]

ED, thank you for the update and please know that you are supported and appreciated 100%!

[Mars Exulte]

That newsletter lookin' fine...

 

 

Edited April 2, 2021 by Mars Exulte

[sthompson]

1 hour ago, Mower said:

sure alot of whining here.  sigh.

And precious little of it about the newsletter. They should start a separate thread about the pros and cons of different date announcements so I wouldn't have to scroll past all this stuff in this thread.

 

[Fri13]

On 3/19/2021 at 10:23 PM, twistking said:

lol. pre-calculated ray tracing reads like marketing-speak for baked-in-reflection. since we already have those, it's probably still only marketing-speak for "baked-in-reflection but more pretty this time"... i'm still looking forward to any improvment though, so thumbs up, i guess...

 

Pre-calculated ray tracing is not marketing. It is a method to get properly moving reflections without requiring to do ray tracing and so on hardware to do it.

 

When you have limited view points and fixed objects that will be reflected from fixed surface, you can pre-calculate the reflections and simply avoid all wasted ray tracing.

 

It will have some lighting effects simplified that real ray tracing would offer, but they are so minimal that it doesn't really matter.

 

So if example we get with 10% performance requirement a 80% of a effect, it is a great trade.

[Fri13]

What comes to progress reports I believe that it is better to inform customers with progress without schedule with them. They can be as simple as "We are again proceeding on X in good pace, we had some problems with X² and X³ features but they got solved". As that will nicely inform users/customers that progress is being made.

 

Then when it comes to schedule announcement, good ones are years, quarters and finally months with possibly date when guaranteed internally it is ready (in other words, work is already done and just waiting one to push upload).

 

Like estimations in quarters is good enough, I would even avoid "end of Q2" or "early Q4" kind ones and just stick "Q2" or "Q4" as it gives good amount time to people think it can be anything in 3 months, and hence can be more easily shifted if progress requires.

 

Once the schedule becomes more accurate, a specific month and week is possible be used. But then needs to be very sure and avoid "if all goes fine" kind statement with them that symbolize uncertainty.  So either being very assured about release, or very informative about reason why it might be delayed, as uncertainty is bad.

 

If a confirmed release date is required to be moved, like again 31st to 7th, it needs to be with good reason. It needs to be with explanation why it is better for customer/user that way, so it is very solid reasoning why no one would have wanted it to happen on earlier date.

 

Personally I am okay for the 7th for release (AFAIK it is the latest release day...) but that is because my situation. I would have not been feeling differently for 31st either, because there are many other things in life than sit and wait a update to an game. The feeling to wait something nice is good one, but it shouldn't cause kid like reaction when something doesn't come that was dreamed upon...

 

As at some point in life everyone should learn their priorities and who they can trust, even on small things. And if a company receives a such status on someone's values that it product release problems cause anger or hate, it should be worrisome signal.

 

 

 

[Mars Exulte]

23 minutes ago, Fri13 said:

And if a company receives a such status on someone's values that it product release problems cause anger or hate, it should be worrisome signal.

 

  Yeah, because kneejerk splurging totally isn't a thing on internet forums.

[Drac]

7 hours ago, Mower said:

Thanks for all you guys do.  Yes, it's a business, but I love DCS so very much.  Be well.

Have you given up on the other sim...?

[Steel Jaw]

1 hour ago, Drac said:

Have you given up on the other sim...?

Bored with the Viper, the Hornet is a superior weapons platform.

[Eldur]

14 hours ago, Gryzor said:

Edge came in 2015 in 1.5 update, not in 2018. What we had in 2018 was updated caucasus terrain.

 

 

I guess that's kind of a myth, or rather something not exactly clear. 1.2, beginning with 1.2.2 (IIRC) ran like a bowl of screws on my rig back then and 1.5 didn't change any of that, although meanwhile, switching to nVidia bettered that a bit. OTOH when the 2.0 Alpha dropped, that one had a bunch of new graphics settings and ran like a charm (which speaks for it having a new engine) and I was eagerly awaiting 2.5 to get the rest of DCS running properly - literally. 1.x versions run on TFCSE, but 1.5 included some new features of, but not the whole new engine. Anyway, that's all past and not the topic.

 

As for the newsletter, I totally dig the DVD boxes in the shelf with the DCS F-14 product shot on one of them visible. But I reckon there's still space for a Rainbow Dash plush to the right of that, I mean with all the Top Gun references in MLP...

 

The terrain shots do get better every time as well, guess that will be a great map!

[Drac]

33 minutes ago, Mower said:

Bored with the Viper, the Hornet is a superior weapons platform.

We spoke a couple of times on the other Forum.  I totally agree with you plus VR...the only way to go.

[Steel Jaw]

2 hours ago, Drac said:

We spoke a couple of times on the other Forum.  I totally agree with you plus VR...the only way to go.

 

The other sim is getting VR, I have seen it.  Plus a new DX11 grafix engine.  I have seen that too.

 

As for DCS VR, cant until I replace my dang monitor first.

Edited April 3, 2021 by Mower

[Eisprinzessin]

Really no easter sale? 

[Gierasimov]

 I thought I would never touch any other map but DCS Syria, but man, seeing how Marianas one coming along. Stunning.

[twistking]

20 hours ago, Fri13 said:

 

Pre-calculated ray tracing is not marketing. It is a method to get properly moving reflections without requiring to do ray tracing and so on hardware to do it.

 

When you have limited view points and fixed objects that will be reflected from fixed surface, you can pre-calculate the reflections and simply avoid all wasted ray tracing.

 

It will have some lighting effects simplified that real ray tracing would offer, but they are so minimal that it doesn't really matter.

 

So if example we get with 10% performance requirement a 80% of a effect, it is a great trade.

 

Well, i googled pre-calculated ray tracing and all results somehow hinged on that dcs newsletter. For me that means that the technique used is either pioneered by ED engineers (which i doubt), or it is a solution that's commonly refered to by another name. In this case "pre-calcualted ray tracing" would still be a marketing term, would it not? Again, i am sure that those new reflections look great and all, but since most offline-rendering is raytraced since decades now, all pre-calculated shader effects and even textures could be called "pre-rendered raytracing". Do you get my point?

It was not my intention to bash ED, i simply prefer technical terms in my newsletter, so that those that have an interest in understanding the technology, can easily read up on it...

[Mars Exulte]

I'd say offhand ''pre-calculated ray tracing'' is the sort of stuff used for those ''hand drawn'' scenes that look so good in some games. The concept of raytracing is nothing all that new in itself, the ''new'' is dynamic calculation suitable for mass deployment in generic, random environments on a large scale. Something like a cockpit, which is a static, never changing environment, is ideal for pre-calculated lighting. Dynamic calculations in that context would be wasted cpu cycles for little real gain compared.

 

  So it will definitely be an improvement over hard baked textures, since they'll be ''real'' reflections, but they won't be dynamically generated. You'll probably see occasional situations where it looks slightly ''off'' as a result, but should pass muster most the time.

[Pizzicato]

4 hours ago, Mars Exulte said:

 Something like a cockpit, which is a static, never changing environment, is ideal for pre-calculated lighting.

How is a cockpit a "static, never changing environment"?

• Console, instrument, and flood lights can be turned on and off
• Warning lights can turn on and off
• MFDs and DDIs can be switched to different pages with different displays
• MFDs and DDIs can be adjusted in terms of brightness, contrast, and gain
• The throttles, sticks, pedals, and various switches and levers can all change physical position, casting shadows and requiring different reflections
• Rolling, pitching, and yawing the aircraft changes the shadowing of the cockpit and the associated reflections
• Different environmental condition such as flying under/through clouds changes the lighting

All of those things (and more) directly affect the lighting, shadows, and reflections within the cockpit. 

[Mars Exulte]

26 minutes ago, Pizzicato said:

How is a cockpit a "static, never changing environment"?

  Because it's a stationary environment with not a lot of changing light sources or unforseeable variables? You know... a cockpit?

 

26 minutes ago, Pizzicato said:

• Console, instrument, and flood lights can be turned on and off ''and lots of other stuff''

  So, like, static lights that are entirely forseeable and always present and therefore can be easily allowed for with static calculations? It's a cockpit. You're not going to randomly have a will o' the wisp in there generating unpredictable lights. It's static, you know... a cockpit with one person in it and predictable light sources! They're also unlikely to bother with ''forty seven MFD screen reflections''. You're not likely going to be able to read what weapons are on your hardpoints on the SMS in the reflection on your canopy @@

 

26 minutes ago, Pizzicato said:

• The throttles, sticks, pedals, and various switches and levers can all change physical position, casting shadows and requiring different reflections

  Again, static environment with entirely forseeable variables like controls that are always present? It's also unlikely whether they'll bother with rendering them moving because... AGAIN static calculations. It is NOT ''dynamic ray tracing'' so it's NOT going to bw calculating all this crap on the fly.

 

26 minutes ago, Pizzicato said:

• Rolling, pitching, and yawing the aircraft changes the shadowing of the cockpit and the associated reflections
• Different environmental condition such as flying under/through clouds changes the lighting

  Yeah, kinda like we already have? And kinda like the stuff that is likely to be abstracted to a large extent because it's not being dynamically rendered? That's the whole point of them being ''PRE-calculated''. This isn't that complicated.

 

26 minutes ago, Pizzicato said:

All of those things (and more) directly affect the lighting, shadows, and reflections within the cockpit. 

  Most of which is entirely predictable, because, as has been said repeatedly, the cockpit is a static environment with not a lot of stray, unpredictable variables. Аnd again, it's NOT being dynamically rendered so those ''stray unpredictable variables'' are EXACTLY the sort of thing that will be abstracted to a large extent.

 

 

 

   Note : if your cockpit or car interior ARE unpredictable dynamic environments, you should probably clean some of the garbage out or at least try not to do barrel rolls while swimming in trash.

[Pizzicato]

36 minutes ago, Mars Exulte said:

  Because it's a stationary environment with not a lot of changing light sources or unforseeable variables?

 

I think I pointed out a whole bunch of changing light sources - literally dozens of them - plus a whole bunch of unforeseeable variables. 

 

So your counter is "If you ignore every single dynamic and unforeseeable variable, it's clearly a static environment."

 

Sure. Have it your way.

 

Edited April 4, 2021 by Pizzicato

[Mars Exulte]

I don't know if you're misunderstanding or simply desperate to ''win'' on the internet, it's extremely obvious what I meant by ''static environment'' but sure, whatever makes you happy.

[draconus]

Whatever it is, it's likely better and more realistic than what we have atm - ie. baked in static refelections. We'll see and judge soon.

[MNissen]

On 4/3/2021 at 9:11 PM, Eisprinzessin said:

Really no easter sale? 

Could be Russian Easter dates, Orthodox?

[Pizzicato]

15 hours ago, Mars Exulte said:

I don't know if you're misunderstanding or simply desperate to ''win'' on the internet, it's extremely obvious what I meant by ''static environment'' but sure, whatever makes you happy.

 

I guess I'm misunderstanding something, but I've no idea what. I genuinely don't understand what you mean by static environment, but I'm totally open to an explanation. What I don't get is the statement about the cockpit being "a static, never changing environment".

 

From a lighting and reflection standpoint (which I think is what we're talking about), it's the absolute opposition as far as I can see. There's an almost infinite number of permutations of lighting conditions with the cockpit, and they're changing on a moment to moment basis as the aircraft moves through space. The time of day is changing, clouds are obscuring the light, the orientation of the aircraft relative to the light sources is changing, the status and brightness of the internal lights and displays is constantly changing. Surely that's the definition of a "dynamic, ever-changing" environment, not a "static, never changing" one? 

 

From a rendering engineer's perspective, that sounds like a totally unpredictable, ever-shifting combinatorial nightmare.

Again, I'm not looking to be difficult or argumentative. I'm just trying to figure out how our perspectives are so diametrically opposite.