How Accurate is NTTR?

[MADLOU1]

This subject may have already been discussed to death and if so, I apologize. I just got NTTR after saying to myself for a long time, why would I want such a map? I decided to try it and boy am I really glad I got it. Its stunningly beautiful in my opinion and just flying around sightseeing is a real thrill.

 

I was flying around Los Vegas last night in a Huey and wondering what DCS'ers who live in the Los Vegas area think about it? Do any DCS LV residents see their actual homes or places of employment in the map? Just curious.

[Yurgon]

Can't speak for Vegas as I've never been there. But if you fly around the actual NTTR, you'll see lots of markings on the ground where there are all kinds of simulated ground targets IRL, including mock airstrips and airports. Compare these to satellite images (e.g. in Google Maps/Google Earth) and they should be exactly in the right place.

 

If you intend to fly training missions, don't miss out on the 476th NTTR targets - with these, you'll have the actual training targets exactly in the right spots. :thumbup:

 

Also check Bunyap's videos; he did some early impressions flying around the NTTR and he was pretty amazed at the level of accuracy.

 

As for Vegas itself, using Google Maps/Earth once again, I'd say it's probably dumbed down a bit for performance reasons, but flying across this city of several million people, I'm deeply impressed every single time (though I usually try to stay outside the city limits for nose abatement - we simmers are a weird crowd, aren't we? :D).

Edited September 7, 2017 by Yurgon

[Spudknocker]

Ya we are a weird bunch... it pains my soul to fly under 1000 feet or go transonic or super sonic over Vegas haha

[BuzzU]

I used to make a living at Trap Shooting Competition. I tried to find the range we shot at in Vegas but couldn't. That was back in the 70's and the memory is fuzzy.

[NineLine]

I used to make a living at Trap Shooting Competition. I tried to find the range we shot at in Vegas but couldn't. That was back in the 70's and the memory is fuzzy.

 

Except for major landmarks, in most cases the buildings are not accurate. They give the feel of the area, but doubtful you could find your house, or lawn ornaments :)

[Pikey]

The way I see how they do the blocks, the basic road layout looks accurate and the grids are given a generic "tile" of buildings. I think they dive a little deeper and adjust that also. The runways are pretty accurate though, they are taken right off the proper layout, I think even with the right taxiway labels. The textures are fairly representative of satellite view in google. This loses detail at ground level, but from altitude looks pretty good.

I don't think you could realistically make it much more accurate unless you tried to copy individual buildings, then the scale of effort vs reward would go right down. If you look at texture tiles from other sims cough, they rely on textures mainly, especially downloading satellite data directly (massive sizes) and then layer random blocks over the top to represent cities. This is the first time i've seen the detail done in this way, manually and relying less on the texcture and more on the models. It's ahead of the game in that respect.

[Buckeye]

I am flying to Austin, TX next weekend and then from Austin to Vegas Sunday-Wednesday; I can follow up with some impressions on the aerials when I return to comment on how accurate it looks visually coming in.

[USSInchon]

NTTR is probably about 90% accurate to real life. The airfields are about 95% accurate. Roads are mostly there, most airfields are there. The hotels/casinos are mostly modeled just with close looking names (to avoid copyright infringement).

[MegOhm_SD]

I have flown in and out of there a few times. The view of vegas strip landmarks (like the Luxor glass pyramid) from mccarran runway is pretty accurate.

[Ghostrider142]

Considering the scale of the map I think NTTR is fantastically done. It is stunningly beautiful at times, especially with the new lighting conditions. For someone who loves to spend hours making missions there is so much to work with even for a largely barren landscape.

[BuzzU]

Except for major landmarks, in most cases the buildings are not accurate. They give the feel of the area, but doubtful you could find your house, or lawn ornaments :)

 

Not a building, It was a shooting range outdoors on the outskirts of town. The only building I remember is the casino that took all the money I won shooting. :(

[Art-J]

1970s? Ha, the whole 3-miles long Stardust International Raceway on the outskirts of Vegas (at least "outskirts" back in the day) has been long gone since then, taken over by housing development and you're asking about some shooting range :D? I'd hazard a guess it's gone too.

[NineLine]

Not a building, It was a shooting range outdoors on the outskirts of town. The only building I remember is the casino that took all the money I won shooting. :(

 

I dont remember any shooting ranges being modeled, aside from NTTR itself that is :)

[hansangb]

There was a video of a guy who shot pics in Vegas. About a year before NTTR came out. And then compared it to the ingame video. It was pretty close. I think the guy was from NZ/AU with the F18 pit, maybe?

[=Panther=]

This subject may have already been discussed to death and if so, I apologize. I just got NTTR after saying to myself for a long time, why would I want such a map? I decided to try it and boy am I really glad I got it. Its stunningly beautiful in my opinion and just flying around sightseeing is a real thrill.

 

I was flying around Los Vegas last night in a Huey and wondering what DCS'ers who live in the Los Vegas area think about it? Do any DCS LV residents see their actual homes or places of employment in the map? Just curious.

 

The first thing I did was bomb my block, my house survived because it's not there. :thumbup:

 

The bases are modeled to some great detail, although a lot has changed especially on Nellis and Creech. The landmarks are there as well, if you haven't go to the dam.

 

One area I wish had more detail was Rainbow Canyon. :joystick::pilotfly:

[SkateZilla]

the ID4 Alien City ship crash site needs some detail too.

[REDEYE_CVW-66]

I stayed in Vegas for a week this summer. I drove in, but I flew out. What I saw was instantly recognizable. The map appears very representative. However, the colour that dominated the landscape where shades of brown and grey, not so much the orange-hue present in DCS. The colour of ash came to mind. Even so, when I looked around I could see all the things I expected to in the right location. All in all a well done map.

[Gaz]

I have flown and photographed with the Air Force around the NTTR,I found the look of the area amazingly lifelike when at height and the colour in general on the area was spot on being kind of Brown.

Now after the 2.1 release I find it far too pink looking in normal daylight flying in VR,sometimes its more being in the film The Martian!

I notice people often post amazing screenshots mostly at sunset but does anyone else find in the day its just too pink now or have I missed a thread on this?

My rig is a Asus Rampage V,64gb Ram with GTX1080 and M2 drive that I built just for DCS.

[Zimmerdylan]

The urban areas like downtown Las Vegas, Parump, and the other towns are generic and as was stated by Sith, many major landmarks aside, it's just generic flight sim type scenery. Although the new Vegas Strip is there, the older areas like Freemont Street (Where all the old rat pack flicks were filmed) is not there. But all in all, it's probably the best rendition of Vegas I have seen in a flight sim. I purchased a Vegas map from another sim and god I hate to even go there after flying the DCS map. I just flew into and out of Vegas (the real Vegas) last week as I do pretty regularly and I happened to notice some of the smaller populated areas that DCS seems to have managed to place in there pretty nicely.

The desert areas look really good and pretty much like a desert looks from 10,000 feet and above. And as a whole (especially when set to late day) the desert makes the map IMO. All in all I really enjoy the Vegas map and since I don't spend tons of time looking for flaws in it as I know it can never be perfect, I find it quite easy to imagine that I'm flying over Vegas. And as another poster said, the closer you get, the less believable it is. But that's just flight sims in general.

The only thing I kind of notice and that bugs me once in a while is the silly names they have for the casinos, and the lack of realistic show ads around town. It can really bug me once in a while. When I and others asked about this issue in the very beginning, ED just sighted copyright issues. And they also made it clear after being badgered by nitpickers over a time that this is just an imaginary rendition of Vegas and not actually Las Vegas. So I'm guessing it's kind of a touchy subject with ED. To our defense, in all of the other versions of Vegas for sims that I have, all of the names are accurate and the signage is also pretty darn close. So I fail to understand ED's reasoning. But It's really not that big of a deal any more. I enjoy it because it's a very nice, well detailed map.

[Torso]

I have flown and photographed with the Air Force around the NTTR,I found the look of the area amazingly lifelike when at height and the colour in general on the area was spot on being kind of Brown.

Now after the 2.1 release I find it far too pink looking in normal daylight flying in VR,sometimes its more being in the film The Martian!

I notice people often post amazing screenshots mostly at sunset but does anyone else find in the day its just too pink now or have I missed a thread on this?

My rig is a Asus Rampage V,64gb Ram with GTX1080 and M2 drive that I built just for DCS.

 

I think you are so spot on and I can say in VR, ESPECIALLY at night, this pink undertone that is somehow prevalent really shows up badly. I have screenshots showing how bad it is. I wish they could remove this pink base color that is used. I have not seen it in other sims at all day or night time lighting. I have raised the pink tone issue in other threads regarding night time lighting issues but there is not a specific thread about this pink tone that exists in 2x I believe.

Edited October 7, 2017 by Torso

[Victory205]

The dry lake color in the sim is too dark. Texas Lake, Groom lake, Bear Paw, etc are all much lighter, and can be seen easily for miles. Google earth shows what I am talking about.

 

The sim color makes georeference more difficult as a result of the dark lake depiction.

[gnouze]

I have flown and photographed with the Air Force around the NTTR,I found the look of the area amazingly lifelike when at height and the colour in general on the area was spot on being kind of Brown.

 

Now after the 2.1 release I find it far too pink looking in normal daylight flying in VR,sometimes its more being in the film The Martian!

 

I notice people often post amazing screenshots mostly at sunset but does anyone else find in the day its just too pink now or have I missed a thread on this?

 

My rig is a Asus Rampage V,64gb Ram with GTX1080 and M2 drive that I built just for DCS.

 

 

 

Hi all

 

The color should be more brownish, I agree. Go and see my photos from a real flight along NTTR, above Rachel, Student gap, Worthington ridge, etc. This was in march. I don’t know if it gets lighter, sandy color, in summer.

 

Gnouze

 

 

 

 

 

Envoyé de mon iPad en utilisant Tapatalk

[MonnieRock]

Hello Everyone,

 

Will we ever get Winter snow on Mount Charleston?