2.5 update first impressions

[Zimmerdylan]

OK.....so here we go. Anyone wishing to offer up opinions?

 

Remember, this post is all my humble opinion.

 

My first impression.......WOW! Impressive! Honestly! a lot smoother than I thought it would be.

At very first, I really didn't see much difference from 1.5 Georgia (except trees......lots of friggin trees). But E.D. was on to something with those trees. They make a world of difference. As you glide along the landscape, the movement of the passing foliage that seems to be "everywhere" makes the whole flight experience come to life as it almost feels as though the perspective ratio has improved. Otherwise: The distant scenery moves and passes in a much more cohesive manner against the trees. Movement feels much more fluid. So I cannot stress enough how much the trees help the old 1.5 map. And then.........I set it up for October. Woa!!! If you like autumn, you'll love the new seasonal features in 2.5. Again, outstanding.

The buildings look good. I personally don't see a ton of difference. There are some new buildings ans textures but from what I see, they really don't seem to make or break Caucasus. However....I use to wonder why I did not appreciate the urban areas of 1.5 against Nevada. Today I figured out why. Blacktop. Caucasus never really had a whole lot of hard surface down there. Huge factories would just be plopped down into a green pasture. I noticed today that they added this much needed feature to many of the new buildings. It really ads to the landscape.

Some of the things I found kind of strange about Caucasus are still there. Nuclear plants every couple of miles always kind of make me chuckle. They're still there. But to the defense of E.D. I have never been there and for all I know every house has a nuclear cooling tower. Some of the roof tops are a little bright for me, and when you get up in elevation the trees look a little funny.

2.5 seems to be a bit twitchy on my rig but it's still much better than the first time I flew on Normandy so I can't really complain. I won't complain anyway because for a first day beta map, I'm pretty stoked about it over all.

 

Great job guys! And I really appreciate what you did here!:P

[rrohde]

For me, everything looks likes it's meant to be - coherent, natural, realistic... it all makes sense. You fly around the new Caucasus, and wherever you go, and look, and ultimately land at, it looks just like it should. Homogeneity comes to mind. Hard to explain, but this 2.5 Caucasus build brings a lot of things together for me. That alone is a huge achievement on ED's part. So congrats - I cannot wait what else is in store for us. :)

Edited January 31, 2018 by rrohde

[wolle]

Love the new trees. Flying in a chopper over the new vast forests is just breathtaking. The only beef I have so far is that the didn't increase the number of buildings in towns, as far as I can tell, instead there are ground textures that look like the foundations of buildings. If they add real buildings instead of those stand-in textures, it will be perfect!

[VAF [136] Striker]

ED really hit it out of the ballpark with the new map. It's better than I ever expected and well worth the wait. I'm getting excellent performance on my GTX-970 setup. I love the new speedtrees!

[sze5003]

For.me it doesn't look much more different in VR with 1.8 pixel density.

 

I mean it does look nicer, sharper and more colorful due to deferred shading being on. But on the ground trees still look flat. Overall it's a much nicer experience. The A10 cockpit is much more a vibrant dark in VR in 2.5 again due to deferred shading. But at least it was smooth. I'm using the same settings jabbers used when he did the VR settings YouTube video.

[FOXFIRE TWOONE]

Love the new explosion effects and ground shake. Sun is too bright with clear sky's. Just a quick take. :thumbup::thumbup: More to come.

[msalama]

Had to leave the DL running overnight, but all installed now and fired up for the first time. Seems to run smooth and F/S is good - stays nailed at 60 just as it should. No time to test thoroughly yet, but my first impressions are nonetheless positive. Great work guys, will fly the heck out of her later when I get off from work :thumbup:

[SonofEil]

I hadn't flown Caucuses in years. Once open alpha came out I more or less abandoned 1.x being already kind of burnt out on it.

I am so happy to be back. Right away the colors are much better and the needed terrain mesh resolution increase is wonderful. No more flying through bare jaggy pyramids. And of course trees trees trees!! My first descent into the mountain valleys blew me away.

On the performance side I'm also really impressed! I ramped most sliders to max thinking 'let's watch the slide show.' Nope, buttery smooth at all altitudes. I can get some jitters when releasing huge amounts of ordinance at one time, like a 76 rocket salvo, but that's to be expected. I also wouldn't be surprised if that gets smoothed out eventually.

As for still-needed improvements I'll agree with some of the previous posters, the towns feel neglected. There just isn't the level of detail you see in Nevada or even Normandy. Hopefully they get fleshed out in future updates.

[MemphisBelle]

update finished over night. Unfortunately my System seems to be insufficient for 2.5 now. By having an A-10C on Ground in a small mission, I had roundabout 50 - 70 Frames. That applies for 1.5.8. In 2.2.0 I had roundabout 40-50 Frames ...on NTTR Map.

First try now drops that rate down to 12 on Caucasus, with all the exact same settings. Still have to check for Nevada though.

 

Anyone else having similar experiences? I know that I need to upgrade and this will definately happen.

[Drag80]

update finished over night. Unfortunately my System seems to be insufficient for 2.5 now. By having an A-10C on Ground in a small mission, I had roundabout 50 - 70 Frames. That applies for 1.5.8. In 2.2.0 I had roundabout 40-50 Frames ...on NTTR Map.

First try now drops that rate down to 12 on Caucasus, with all the exact same settings. Still have to check for Nevada though.

 

Anyone else having similar experiences? I know that I need to upgrade and this will definately happen.

 

To play latest games, you have to have latest hardware. Thats a bitter reality of gaming.

[MemphisBelle]

To play latest games, you have to have latest hardware. Thats a bitter reality of gaming.

 

true...as said, I know that I have to upgrade my rig and I will do so...just takes still a little saving time...if just the current prices for hardware wouldnt be so bad atm.

[Flappie]

Here are my first impressions in order of appearance:

 

1. This is smoooth ! :thumbup:

2. Oh, the shores are as ugly as seen in the Caucasus comparison thread. :(

2. Trees are pretty but they are showing at the very last moment... uh wait, let's play with the graphic settings! (-> trees and clutter to the max)

3. This is laggy over Batumi ! :(

4. Lemme just get back those old settings... no, not like this...

5. Still laggy over Batumi ! :( I go from 65 to 12 fps in a snap.

6. I've read those threads. :P OK, I'll fix that tonight. Time to go to work!

 

Conclusion: I hate the new shores and hope they won't stay that way. I'll try to stay away from the shores, or just ignore them. I love the new trees and will try not to hug them too often, now that they can harm. :D

[Drag80]

true...as said, I know that I have to upgrade my rig and I will do so...just takes still a little saving time...if just the current prices for hardware wouldnt be so bad atm.

 

True...hardware is going up through the roof. I built my pc for approx $2500 eight months ago. Now everything is up atleast 30%. Later I Wanted to upgrade RAM from 16 to 32 but could not due to the price increase.

 

But look at this. The system has not only given me awsome gaming experienced but also mined 3.0 Etherum coins in the last eight months which is today above $3000. and still going strong. 24 hrs 100% load since I got it.

Edited January 31, 2018 by Drag80

[QuiGon]

How I can update my dcs 1.5.8 to 2.5? I didnt see any version of 2.5 available for download in DCS site...

DCS 2.5 is currently only available as an update to the 1.5.8 Open Beta. If you don't have the 1.5.8 Open Beta you can use the DCS updater to convert your 1.5.8 Stable installation to 2.5 Open Beta.

[QuiGon]

I have a stable installation of 1.5.8. So i just have to update it into 2.5 from DCS updater?

Exactly

[schurem]

rmember the new hotness (deferred shader) and MSAA do not play nice (yet). choose one or the other if you have bad frames.

[Wizard1393]

rmember the new hotness (deferred shader) and MSAA do not play nice (yet). choose one or the other if you have bad frames.

 

These settings gave good results for both visual quality and performance on my rig:

 

No jaggies and performance is very good.

 

In game:

MSAA 2X

 

Nvidia control panel:

All settings application controlled exept:

MFAA: enabled

[Mr_sukebe]

Some thoughts:

- I was able to copy my folders for my existing 2.2 missions and controls directly from 2.2 to 2.5. So far, all of the missions I've tried have worked and for the aircraft I've flown, controls are doing what you'd expect.

- Did use deferred shading, which is lovely. Had to disable MSAA though as it caused stutters for me.

- Initial load times, particularly for terrains were slow. My guess is that on the first time around, the game is doing a lot of calculations. Post that, load times were faster than 2.2.

- Couldn't see any ship wakes, could be because I have water setting to low, but I thought that worked in 2.2

- Nights really are DARK now. I have a std mission that I practice my huey landings onto a frigate at night and in poor weather. Wow, could see nothing but the ship lights now

[KeyCat]

This says it all.....

 

Hugging a tree = Booom!

Tree (and other objects) = No AI LOS

Higer mesh resolution

 

Best update since LOMAC 1.0 for all rotor heads as well as CA commanders :thumbup:

Edited January 31, 2018 by KeyCat

[grunf]

Those trees... they are killing me... literary. :D

[sze5003]

These settings gave good results for both visual quality and performance on my rig:

 

No jaggies and performance is very good.

 

In game:

MSAA 2X

 

Nvidia control panel:

All settings application controlled exept:

MFAA: enabled

I've read that changing stuff in Nvidia control panel doesn't affect your display in the occulus for VR. I kept deferred shading on but it's still kind of a mess in some cockpits.

 

Also, can you no longer fly through trees? I haven't tried that yet.

[Oubaas]

Beautiful work, Dev Team! I've got everything installed, Caucasus, NTTR, Normandy, all my modules. It's a whole new world and everything works great and looks amazing. You've created a masterpiece!

[BitMaster]

I only flew via RDP as my keyboard is broken, but hey, it was fluid !

 

Lots of trees, better buildings/structure etc from what I could see on the blurred RDP screen.

 

Postman, I need that "USB" Keyboard !!!!!! damn, no PS2 on my mobo, what a freakin' nightmare having 2.5 ready 2 go and cant type my PWD to log in...waaaaahhaaaaa

[Zimmerdylan]

true...as said, I know that I have to upgrade my rig and I will do so...just takes still a little saving time...if just the current prices for hardware wouldnt be so bad atm.

 

This is a big fear of mine. My pooter is getting older and I know my time is limited. Thankfully, 2.5 runs pretty well on my rig so I have a little more time. I cannot see purchasing a whole new setup unless something catastrophic happens and I cannot work on it. After all.......it's not really a gaming rig. DCS is just a low priority hobby for the most part.

[jcbak]

Sadly, I'm not seeing the dramatic differences that everyone on this thread is seeing. There are more trees....with perfect edges. The terrain is washed out and still has the bluish tint. With DS, the gamma setting either makes the terrain look good with a overly dark cockpit or the terrain is too light with a perfectly lit cockpit. It could be something that I have set wrong. I do appreciate the work that went into this, but honestly it's not a game changer for me. I haven't flown any helos yet....that could change my mind. I may need to learn RESHADE.