Cant adjust NVG Brightness

[TerminatorLips]

Hey Guys

 

its not possible for me to adjust NVG Brightness. Is it a bug?

[Eaglewings]

Hey Guys

 

 

 

its not possible for me to adjust NVG Brightness. Is it a bug?

Yes. Check you keybinding for NVG, I think to increase and decrease, you use ctrl and alt with key that turns on the the NVG.

[shagrat]

RShft+Rctrl+H to increase brightness and Ralt+Rctrl+H to decrease IIRC.

[Eaglewings]

RShft+Rctrl+H to increase brightness and Ralt+Rctrl+H to decrease IIRC.

That is it.

[Harlikwin]

Hey Guys

 

its not possible for me to adjust NVG Brightness. Is it a bug?

 

Its actually a bug that you can. You can't adjust real ones.

[Britchot]

It's been a number of years since I used NVGs (AN/PVS-7Bs), but I believe there was a manual gain control. Yes, it isn't brightness but it did affect the level of amplification. I assumed that was what the simulator is trying to replicate.

[Harlikwin]

It's been a number of years since I used NVGs (AN/PVS-7Bs), but I believe there was a manual gain control. Yes, it isn't brightness but it did affect the level of amplification. I assumed that was what the simulator is trying to replicate.

 

It must have been many years. PVS-7's be they A/B/C/ or D never had any sort of variable gain control. They did have an IR illuminator you could click on/off. The most common device that does have a manual gain control is the PVS-14 monocular. Or if you're old enough the PVS-4's had it too, but you weren't wearing those on your head. The Aviation goggles that DCS commonly models are the ANVIS, either the AVS-6 or 9 (9's are usually used on fixed wing platforms while 6's on rotary and mainly differ only in the objectives used) and those for a great many reasons don't have any sort of manual gain control. All modern NVG's do have an automatic brightness control to prevent overload of the system under high light conditions.

 

Overall the way NVG's are modeled in DCS is again a pretty poor approximation of what the real world systems do and ignores many limitations. The DCS solution is to basically take the rendered daylight image and make it green with a bit of scintillation of "graphix" effect. It in no way models the fact that with modern Gen3 NVDs you aren't actually looking in the near IR part of the spectrum, where some every day things do look quite a bit different compared to what you get in DCS (Hi trees!), nor does it deal with any of the problems you have when looking at bright objects in your FOV. Or what "dim" objects that might show up as quite bright look like either. And at least in VR they don't give you the reduced FOV that NVG's have.

 

Anyhow, I know why they give you the option in game I guess to make it easier. But it doesn't exist IRL.

[VampireNZ]

The NVG's I used while flying had adjustable gain.

 

Also the fact they make everything blurry in the cockpit in VR and are unusable for anything other than pure VFR at night out the window is also 'pretty poor' - not getting fixed any time soon either by the looks.

[Captain Orso]

From my experience, using the NVG's in the Harrier is not so bad. FLIR is almost useless, and yes, you cannot use NVG's inside the cockpit for looking at anything really. But you can simply flip them up and see normally. Don't forget to setup FLIR right after take-off so that you can flip it up to the HUD with a click just in case.

 

So NVG's are good for flying around. Vision is excellent, although I've never tried anything like a2a combat in NVG's.

 

Once you are within about 20 NM's you will want to switch back to normal vision to do your targeting, whether thru DMT or Litening II.

 

LMAV's on targets lit by JTAC's are a piece of cake, of course.

 

Targeting with the TPOD works pretty well, although the IR picture seems to be the same as from FLIR, which from what I've read is like 10 year old sim-technology and is being overhauled at this time, so we should expect it to improve some time in the future.

 

Using AUTO mode is really just the same at night as during the day. You are not really looking at the target itself, but at the HUD queues.

 

I've never done CCIP at night, but you would do that it the NVG's. The HUD is perfectly visible in the NVG and the view of the ground is great for at night. I imagine you could combine with the HUD FLIR to be able to seek out hot targets quicker, but I haven't tested it out yet.

 

Bad thinks at night are:

- Tool-tips will blind you.

- The Kneeboard will blind you badly.

- The chat window in MP is not sooo blinding, but not good either.

- Same goes for menus and displayed texts.

- Switching to the F10 map..... 8)

 

I'd rather fly at night than with low cloud cover. I hate getting pressed to the ground. If you've never done it, try it out. You might find is to be pretty fun.

[Harlikwin]

The NVG's I used while flying had adjustable gain.

 

Also the fact they make everything blurry in the cockpit in VR and are unusable for anything other than pure VFR at night out the window is also 'pretty poor' - not getting fixed any time soon either by the looks.

 

Which NVG's were those out of curiosity? NZ is flying in New Zeeland?

 

And the blurry in the cockpit is realistic (ish), you have exactly one focal plane with NVG's and its set at infinity for flight per regs. Ground use, with dualies you often can set one close and one far, but at the expense of depth perception which is prohibited for flight since that's fairly important to have. IRL, you can look under or to the side of the NVG to look in the pit.

Edited July 2, 2019 by Harlikwin

[Harlikwin]

From my experience, using the NVG's in the Harrier is not so bad. FLIR is almost useless, and yes, you cannot use NVG's inside the cockpit for looking at anything really. But you can simply flip them up and see normally. Don't forget to setup FLIR right after take-off so that you can flip it up to the HUD with a click just in case.

 

So NVG's are good for flying around. Vision is excellent, although I've never tried anything like a2a combat in NVG's.

 

Once you are within about 20 NM's you will want to switch back to normal vision to do your targeting, whether thru DMT or Litening II.

 

LMAV's on targets lit by JTAC's are a piece of cake, of course.

 

Targeting with the TPOD works pretty well, although the IR picture seems to be the same as from FLIR, which from what I've read is like 10 year old sim-technology and is being overhauled at this time, so we should expect it to improve some time in the future.

 

Using AUTO mode is really just the same at night as during the day. You are not really looking at the target itself, but at the HUD queues.

 

I've never done CCIP at night, but you would do that it the NVG's. The HUD is perfectly visible in the NVG and the view of the ground is great for at night. I imagine you could combine with the HUD FLIR to be able to seek out hot targets quicker, but I haven't tested it out yet.

 

Bad thinks at night are:

- Tool-tips will blind you.

- The Kneeboard will blind you badly.

- The chat window in MP is not sooo blinding, but not good either.

- Same goes for menus and displayed texts.

- Switching to the F10 map..... 8)

 

I'd rather fly at night than with low cloud cover. I hate getting pressed to the ground. If you've never done it, try it out. You might find is to be pretty fun.

 

Pretty much my experience as well. Anything you need to do in the pit you do with NVG's off, and honestly most night flying I do I rarely use them outside of TO/Landing in the harrier. TPOD is a must at night for targeting IMO, unless using JTAC's. It would be nice to get a better FLIR model which is modeled even worse than NVG's (yes hot ocean and smoke, I'm talking about you).

[VampireNZ]

Which NVG's were those out of curiosity? NZ is flying in New Zeeland?

 

And the blurry in the cockpit is realistic (ish), you have exactly one focal plane with NVG's and its set at infinity for flight per regs. Ground use, with dualies you often can set one close and one far, but at the expense of depth perception which is prohibited for flight since that's fairly important to have. IRL, you can look under or to the side of the NVG to look in the pit.

 

Yes aware you can look under them for the cockpit - which is why the cockpit had specific NVG qualified lighting installed. Problem is in DCS in VR the NVG view is the entire view.

[Britchot]

It must have been many years.

20, yeah, fair enough. Though I did mount a PVS-4 on my M-16A2, once. Once.

 

Yes aware you can look under them for the cockpit - which is why the cockpit had specific NVG qualified lighting installed. Problem is in DCS in VR the NVG view is the entire view.

PeterP had a wonderful mod for the A-10C, a while back. Too many breaking updates has kept me from a lot of mods, though.

[shagrat]

PeterP had a wonderful mod for the A-10C, a while back. Too many breaking updates has kept me from a lot of mods, though.

 

When was the last time you switched on NVG in the A-10C, or any plane for that matter. You might be surprised, they updated the NVGs years, ago... ;)

[Britchot]

Harrier and Hornet within the last few months, in VR, though.

[Harlikwin]

Yes aware you can look under them for the cockpit - which is why the cockpit had specific NVG qualified lighting installed. Problem is in DCS in VR the NVG view is the entire view.

 

Yeah, the FOV in VR is unrealistic, unless you pretend to be using an AVS-10 quad gog which is roughly 100 degrees like most VR headsets (but was never used much for a wide variety of reasons). Still can't look under them either. Doing a 40degree FOV mask should be easy enough to do in VR so you can have the full toilet paper tube with green plastic on the end experience. I also don't think it would be hard to simulate the look under by having a keypress where the TP tube is moved up in your FOV and say you can see the cockpit in the lower third or something like that.

 

PS. Still super interested in those variable gain NVG's you were talking about.

[Harlikwin]

20, yeah, fair enough. Though I did mount a PVS-4 on my M-16A2, once. Once.

 

You almost made it to the PVS-14 era then. :)

[VampireNZ]

PS. Still super interested in those variable gain NVG's you were

talking about.

 

I am sure you are..but that's the kind of capability info we don't go around posting in random internet forums, especially for people that are 'super interested' lol :thumbup:

[Harlikwin]

I am sure you are..but that's the kind of capability info we don't go around posting in random internet forums, especially for people that are 'super interested' lol :thumbup:

 

LOFL, you sound pretty full of it. Nothing like having variable gain is top secret in that regard in NV world unless a potentiometer is "top secret" :megalol: . If its an active duty US system and you are an active duty pilot frankly I'm surprised, as most recently I've seen plenty of old school ANVIS still in service, the AVS-10's got yanked for various reasons. If its foreign mil "ok". The F35 HMDS uses a sensor fused helmet not traditional NVGs anyway and thats about as "top secret" as it gets.

 

In any case its totally irrelevant to the harrier we have which absolutely uses/used AVS-9's which have no manually adjustable gain.

Edited July 3, 2019 by Harlikwin

[VampireNZ]

LOFL, you sound pretty full of it. Nothing like having variable gain is top secret in that regard in NV world unless a potentiometer is "top secret" :megalol: . If its an active duty US system and you are an active duty pilot frankly I'm surprised, as most recently I've seen plenty of old school ANVIS still in service, the AVS-10's got yanked for various reasons. If its foreign mil "ok". The F35 HMDS uses a sensor fused helmet not traditional NVGs anyway and thats about as "top secret" as it gets.

 

In any case its totally irrelevant to the harrier we have which absolutely uses/used AVS-9's which have no manually adjustable gain.

 

Lol alright settle down. It is just plain old ass-covering, as I am well aware how seriously our 'foreign' military takes this sort of stuff (I am not U.S). Like over-the-top secret squirrel stupid...but hey I didn't make the rules I just try to stay out of trouble. :thumbup:

 

Like I am not even joking man, I guess if you haven't been operational aircrew before you won't be aware how serious the military is regarding security and information etc. Bottom line we were told not to discuss capability (yes that includes the addition of any potentiometers as you put it) regarding anything. I mean even the capability of our EO turret....that you could just go to the manufacturers website and read all the advertising specs on it if you wanted to - but we weren't allowed to mention any of its capability. Sounds stupid I know - but thems the rules I am afraid. I am sorry it upsets you so much.

[shagrat]

Harrier and Hornet within the last few months, in VR, though.

Ok, can't say for VR. But it was updated for normal screens, for a long time.

[Harlikwin]

Lol alright settle down. It is just plain old ass-covering, as I am well aware how seriously our 'foreign' military takes this sort of stuff (I am not U.S). Like over-the-top secret squirrel stupid...but hey I didn't make the rules I just try to stay out of trouble. :thumbup:

 

Like I am not even joking man, I guess if you haven't been operational aircrew before you won't be aware how serious the military is regarding security and information etc. Bottom line we were told not to discuss capability (yes that includes the addition of any potentiometers as you put it) regarding anything. I mean even the capability of our EO turret....that you could just go to the manufacturers website and read all the advertising specs on it if you wanted to - but we weren't allowed to mention any of its capability. Sounds stupid I know - but thems the rules I am afraid. I am sorry it upsets you so much.

 

No worries. I'm just rather curious, I personally have thousands of hours "under the green" with literally almost everything fielded by the US since the 60's up to the more modern "fusion" sets including aviation sets. A bit less familiar with Euro and Soviet era kit, but again I've used most of the more common sets. And the Euro stuff for aviation is more or less the US stuff with euro tubes in it.

 

That being said, from an aviation safety perspective manual gain and high light cutoffs on NVG's is basically a no go, hence my surprise when you said it, as in general variable gain is of dubious usefulness even on ground sets and there a lot of reasons not use it on aviation sets in general. So maybe you can tell me what the actual advantage of variable gain on an aviation set is that outweighs all the negatives?

[Harlikwin]

Ok, can't say for VR. But it was updated for normal screens, for a long time.

 

Yeah the flat screen toilet paper tube effect is "ok" with TIR. The issue with VR is you just get the whole FOV as "green".

[shagrat]

Yeah the flat screen toilet paper tube effect is "ok" with TIR. The issue with VR is you just get the whole FOV as "green".

Ouch, that's even worse than the old oval stretch-lense... I have no idea, why it is so different in VR.

EDIT anyway the old mod likely won't help with that either. Seems related to the way VR renders the layers?

[Harlikwin]

Ouch, that's even worse than the old oval stretch-lense... I have no idea, why it is so different in VR.

EDIT anyway the old mod likely won't help with that either. Seems related to the way VR renders the layers?

 

Yeah its not great. It "seems" like it should be easy to do, put a mask on the scene like non VR, but who knows.