Please, remove unnecessary liveries from DCS builds. Put them in separate packs

[Furiz]

1 hour ago, okopanja said:

IMHO: in 99.99% such high visual fidelity is not needed, since you would need to get really close to them. Therefore it would be interesting to address this disk usage growth somehow (few ideas were given).

I agree here, not needed to have tons of built in liveries that we won't even see if we don't get close to the module, specially high resolution ones. Not to mention fictional liveries like Ukraine, Russia etc on the Hornet (I know they don't take much space but it builds up), completely unnecessary,

make such liveries optional.

[draconus]

12 hours ago, Furiz said:

Not to mention fictional liveries like Ukraine, Russia etc on the Hornet (I know they don't take much space but it builds up), completely unnecessary,

make such liveries optional.

I don't have "space problems" but fictional liveries have no place in DCS imho. Off to the User files.

[MAXsenna]

I forgot to address this. MP segregation can be solved as well. If a manager could replace hi res liveries with low res or generic ones, then it becomes possible allow people with different livery folders to coexist. It's also not like the mismatch isn't handled in DCS as is. It just shows a missing livery texture.

It even could be linked to servers, so if you don't have the liveries a server requires, click the "retrieve" button and off you go.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Slippa]

Or dare I say it, a livery manager? (Runs for cover ).

I’m on Windows 10 too. I’ve had messages warning me my DCS days are numbered unless I upgrade. My setup won’t support Windows 11 so I’m unsure where I’ll be in a few months time.

[MustangSally]

19 hours ago, Irisz said:

Ask Chizh, I personally saw him in a conversation where he talked about it!

 

Windows 10 is not supported, so it is not up to date!

 

Running DCS World with a 10-year-old AMD FX processor is a serious joke! You can be an interesting tester if you don't even know that Windows 10 is not supported!

 

 

 

 

17 hours ago, Chizh said:

I didn't say that. Win 10 is still fully supported.

 

Oh dear!

[draconus]

2 hours ago, Slippa said:

I’m on Windows 10 too. I’ve had messages warning me my DCS days are numbered unless I upgrade. My setup won’t support Windows 11 so I’m unsure where I’ll be in a few months time.

What messages? If your hardware is capable of running Windows 10 it will run Win11 too. There are workarounds for that artificial limit.

[MAXsenna]

What messages? If your hardware is capable of running Windows 10 it will run Win11 too. There are workarounds for that artificial limit.

Yes, he's talking about the TPM, which the Updater makes you well aware of, because MS wants you to switch. I'm in the same boat, and I have couldn't bother to upgrade yet.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Slippa]

I am, cheers Max.

I’m also stringing along using Bootcamp on a Mac. Something about my system not being compatible with running Win11 and the fact that they’re pushing forward, seemed like I might be in a bit of a pickle soon? I don’t really know to be honest?

[MAXsenna]

Ask Chizh, I personally saw him in a conversation where he talked about it!
 
Windows 10 is not supported, so it is not up to date!
 
Running DCS World with a 10-year-old AMD FX processor is a serious joke! You can be an interesting tester if you don't even know that Windows 10 is not supported!
 

Well, my Intel (3970X, MB doesn't support much OC'ing unfortunately), has been running fine since May 2013. Luckily I got myself 32Gigs at the time, and my Titans in SLI were coping until 2.9. Then they lost support on my system. To fix it, I got myself a second hand 2080Ti. (NO REGRETS!!!) And now I run DCS all graphics maxed out. Even Ultra Shadows. I do not have stutters and get 30+ FPS, even in the Marianas. Which I AM happy about. I can imagine others wouldn't be. Oooh! My screen is 2560x1600.
Now, I do agree with you and others that DCS could probably benefit some more from optimisation. (Taz1004 anyone?).
Cheers!

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

I am, cheers Max.
I’m also stringing along using Bootcamp on a Mac. Something about my system not being compatible with running Win11 and the fact that they’re pushing forward, seemed like I might be in a bit of a pickle soon? I don’t really know to be honest?

Oh yeah, buddy! Keep forgetting about you running on a Mac. Maybe there's a virtual TPM for Bootcamp somewhere? I'd say there's no need to switch yet in any case.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Slippa]

5 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

a virtual TPM for Bootcamp somewhere? I'd say there's no need to switch yet in any case.
 

My technical knowledge being what it is I had to look that up .

I could do without shelling out for another setup too so good to hear I should be ok, cheers.

[Wyvern]

On 5/27/2024 at 8:03 PM, Irisz said:

Windows 10 is not supported, so it is not up to date!

what are you even talking about? I've seen you talk weird bs like that across multiple posts, trying to claim things that arent true, without properly researching what youre even saying.
Please for the love of god, dont derail topics by spreading misinformation or by posting things that arent part of the conversation. I get youre trying to improve DCS, just like everyone else here. But just claiming things and making them look like absolute facts! is not the way. Try to keep that in mind, thank you.

[SkateZilla]

On 5/28/2024 at 11:06 AM, draconus said:

What messages? If your hardware is capable of running Windows 10 it will run Win11 too. There are workarounds for that artificial limit.

the last few Windows 10 updates, MS has Snuck in "Everything is Better with Windows 11" full screen pop up ads.

[draconus]

On 5/28/2024 at 2:40 PM, Slippa said:

I’ve had messages warning me my DCS days are numbered unless I upgrade.

I meant this one but maybe it was just metaphor or mental shortcut.

[Beirut]

On 5/28/2024 at 6:09 AM, draconus said:

I don't have "space problems" but fictional liveries have no place in DCS imho. Off to the User files.

 

I like fictional liveries. I was delighted that my Ka-50 came with an RCAF skin. And I add RCAF liveries to all my aircraft. 

 

I'm just here for the fun of flying and I like my domesticated planes. 

[Slippa]

If fictional skins weren’t included I wouldn’t be flying the Phantom in one.

I wouldn’t be using Windows if I could fly DCS without it. It’s always trying to ram something down my throat I don’t want. Spent hours trying to get rid of bleedin ‘Edge’ before. Bloody thing’s a zombie I can’t kill off.

The more ‘management’ I can have over any of this stuff is better for me and while I’m at it, thanks to all the wizards that come up with the things we do have here, mod managers and the like. Skates type of thing etc. Ideal .

[Irisz]

I think it's pretty obvious that people have been pointing out for years that DCS World's oversized textures are getting worrisome! I have also expressed concern about this. I also described the solution that the basic DCS World that we install without the current skins must be installed on everyone's computer so that it takes up little space!

I propose 2 solutions to the problem!

I think a reasonable solution is that, just as skins with huge textures are possible in the settings of DCS World, it should be possible to install a LOW and HIGH texture package! These two packs should apply to ALL textures!

If you install the LOW texture package, you can achieve the maximum resolution of the LOW texture package with the HIGH texture setting. If you use the Medium or Low setting, you can set the texture resolution even lower and thus the memory usage required by DCS World will be much less. Also, it will take up much less space and allow more people to be here with us in this amazing simulator!

If you install the High texture pack, you will get the current version that requires a lot of VRAM and memory, and those who need it will get what they want.

This is a simple installation change during the installation of DCS World where it asks the user if they want to install a Low texture pack or a High texture pack. If you choose the Low option, further updates of DCS World will also contain Low textures, if you install the High texture pack, the current DCS World will be available with high texture resolution!

For this, a developer has to convert all textures down to have a Low texture option and mark DCS World with SD and HD!

I think this is the solution! I only use a basic DCS World with an FC3 product and I did not install the new patch with the F4 Phantom and the SSD takes up 145 GB. I have another CA product that I don't use and the other free map for DCS World that I use is not installed.

If I look at the CoreMods folder, which takes up 111 GB of space and could be halved, only 55 GB of space could be freed up in my case! Which is quite a lot!

Imagine the users who use 500+ GB of storage space, how much storage space would be freed up!

THERE IS ANOTHER SOLUTION!

This solution saves users more storage space!

It is very simple to implement and I think the developers would like it better too!

Installing DCS World would look like only 1 skin is available for each aircraft and no more! So this is the default installation!

If you need more skins, install the skin pack from the module manager, which contains all the skins of the current CoreMods folder!

I consider this to be the best solution because it saves even more space and speeds up DCS World itself because on online servers there would only be 1 skin per aircraft and if several people play with several different skins, only the same 1 skin would have to be loaded into the VRAM and memory !

In order for users to have more skins, simply select the skins separately in a pack that can be installed with the module manager, the skin pack that is currently used by the CoreMods folder!

So the bottom line! If you install DCS World, 1 plane 1 skin option will be available by default! You have to write a script so that if you don't install the skin pack for DCS world, the skin options that can be set are there on online servers and in single player, but the script will only use 1 default skin that takes up little storage space!

I think this is a good compromise and allows more users to play the game without having to waste a lot of storage space by storing skins on the SSD that you don't even have the purchased product with!

 

Let's see what people write about using outdated processors on the forum: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/349544-cpu-bound-with-only-20-30-fps-even-with-lowest-settings/?do=findComment&comment=5441919

Then let's see if the Low texture setting is not enough to play DCS World with 32 GB of RAM! So, on the subject, I strongly reasoned that the dear developers should not overdo the size of the textures because it limits the number of users and those who do not have enough income cannot buy such expensive computer parts to play DCS World! Therefore, if you reduce the size of the textures, there will be many more players and many more satisfied users who will happily give you money to make ED more successful!

Here is the topic that shows that even Low texture is a lot because DCS World consumes 32 GB of RAM and the game is unplayable because the developer feels like an artist and uses DCS World as a studio where he exhibits his paintings and this is quite a problem for DCS World: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/349544-cpu-bound-with-only-20-30-fps-even-with-lowest-settings/

I understand professionals who use up-to-date technologies and I respect how smart they think they are to follow trends and technologies, but unfortunately the problem is that this does not move the success of DCS World forward, but backwards! I would like to respectfully inform everyone, don't hate me because I criticize, but realize that sometimes things don't go in the right direction and this hinders the development of DCS World!

 

Regarding the topic of Windows 10, whether it is supported or not! In this regard, I agree that it is supported, but it strongly does not represent the future and does not support the latest Intel processors with P and E cores, for example! It is only justified if you play DCS World with a very old computer, otherwise Windows 11 can be installed for free even on a 6-year-old computer!

A successful and bright future for ED! I ask the developers of ED to consider the development of DCS World in the future in such a way that it uses as little memory and VRAM as possible, because in this way many more people can be here in our simulator and many more people can give money to ED!

Thank you for your time and patience in putting up with my criticisms! Everything I criticize is done to make DCS World even better and more enjoyable!

Successful landing!

Edited June 5, 2024 by Irisz

[bies]

Fictional liveries are ok-ish, but obviously they shouldn't be mandatory. Only optional. Modules are big enough even without them.

[SkateZilla]

For every user saying there's too many liveries, there's a user saying there aren't enough.

It's Catch-22.

That being said, any solution would require extensive re-work of the textures core and modules *(how and what they download).

Having the option to delete CoreMods for jets you know you'll never need, maybe the best solution, but there's always going to be a case of MP Textures Required, etc.

[Exorcet]

Just now, SkateZilla said:

For every user saying there's too many liveries, there's a user saying there aren't enough.

It's Catch-22.

That's not a problem. A manager allows both to be satisfied. I want the manager in order to have more liveries, but the ability to save space is a bonus.

  

Just now, SkateZilla said:

That being said, any solution would require extensive re-work of the textures core and modules *(how and what they download).

Having the option to delete CoreMods for jets you know you'll never need, maybe the best solution, but there's always going to be a case of MP Textures Required, etc.

It will take work to do, but that's the nature of improvements. It's worth doing. It doesn't have to mean ED drops everything else though.

[SkateZilla]

8 hours ago, Irisz said:

Regarding the topic of Windows 10, whether it is supported or not! In this regard, I agree that it is supported, but it strongly does not represent the future and does not support the latest Intel processors with P and E cores, for example! It is only justified if you play DCS World with a very old computer, otherwise Windows 11 can be installed for free even on a 6-year-old computer!

A successful and bright future for ED! I ask the developers of ED to consider the development of DCS World in the future in such a way that it uses as little memory and VRAM as possible, because in this way many more people can be here in our simulator and many more people can give money to ED!

Thank you for your time and patience in putting up with my criticisms! Everything I criticize is done to make DCS World even better and more enjoyable!

Successful landing!

 

Windows 10 is still fully supported by DCS, Also confirmed by Dev.

Windows 10 has ~70% of the O/S Market share, removing support for it at this stage would be illogical, Considering moving to only Supporting 11, Adds nothing to the sim.

As for Intel and 13/14 Gen and P-Cores and E-Cores, they don't work as they should even on Windows 11, it's not a DCS Problem, it's a global driver / OS Scheduler problem.

As for Liveries, 
If it were up to me, which it's not. I'd add Liveries section into the updater categories, then, convert every Livery name to to [AIRCRAFT NAME][NATION][LIVERY NAME] Naming Scheme, as well as give Every Livery a module_id, ie F14A_USN_VF103.

So when a new Aircraft is put into coremods, it would be the shape files, AI files, and the default textures.

Liveries should be placed in \Mods\Liveries\{Aircraft Name}\ Folders.

Thus, decreasing update sizes, etc,

Having Module ID's and Liveries separate, will also allow servers to prompt "Module: [AIRCRAFT NAME][NATION][LIVERY NAME] is required to join this server.

This should also extend to User-Files, Give each user Files Livery a Hash ID, technically every uploaded file is assigned a content ID already anyway.

Have the Manager access User Files and populate those liveries, even if as a separate section.
 

[Irisz]

Improved the above post!

During the installation of DCS World, only 1 skin is installed for each aircraft!

These are the codes that are needed for the different aircrafts. In order for DCS World to find the skin for the aircraft using the code, you need a UNIVERSAL CODE! What this means is that during the default installation of DCS World, only 1 skin is available for each aircraft type, this code will be included in the code of all skins. This ensures that if there is no installed skin in the list that the user wants, then the DEFAULT CODE skin will be added to the aircraft!

In the current DCS World version, if the user does not have the skin installed, some ugly texture will be added to the aircraft. With the help of the new UNIVERSAL CODE, only 1 skin will be added to the aircraft, any other skin chosen by another user on another plane of the same or different type!

However, it is still important that the size of the texture be reduced!

HERE IS THE SOLUTION! ALL textures are radically reduced and VRAM and RAM usage is also reduced, in return the FPS increases: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/322190-32-bpc-textures/?do=findComment&comment=5180533

Here, the solution emphasizes that the user does not notice any visual difference! See for yourself, it reduces the 65 MB texture to 5 MB without any visual difference! This is a wonderful solution! I tried to talk about this in all my other posts, that this is necessary and I wanted to express this somehow!

If someone were to perform this conversion on the entire DCS World library and permanently keep it that way forever, it would be a huge step forward! This is also an existing solution that is ideal for the happiness of DCS World users!

Edited June 6, 2024 by Irisz

[Exorcet]

I'm a bit hesitant to reduce the default DCS livery list to one per plane, but reduced livery sizes I have less concerns about. Low res liveries could also help with perceived MP issues, either by offering low file size liveries that are easy to install, or by mapping liveries to a default low res livery that looks vaguely similar. By doing that you get around the need to download a livery to join a server while also solving the issue of two players seeing different things.

[DD_Fenrir]

28 minutes ago, Exorcet said:

I'm a bit hesitant to reduce the default DCS livery list to one per plane, but reduced livery sizes I have less concerns about. Low res liveries could also help with perceived MP issues, either by offering low file size liveries that are easy to install, or by mapping liveries to a default low res livery that looks vaguely similar. By doing that you get around the need to download a livery to join a server while also solving the issue of two players seeing different things.

It would seem you fundamentally misunderstand how DCS Liveries work in the multiplayer environment.

No livery is transmitted or received over the net traffic - there is no bandwidth budget spent at all on coloured pixels. All that is compared is the description.lua. If one on your machine matches that associated to a skin being used by a fellow server user, it will load apply the texture file from the livery bank on your machine.

[Exorcet]

16 minutes ago, DD_Fenrir said:

It would seem you fundamentally misunderstand how DCS Liveries work in the multiplayer environment.

No livery is transmitted or received over the net traffic - there is no bandwidth budget spent at all on coloured pixels. All that is compared is the description.lua. If one on your machine matches that associated to a skin being used by a fellow server user, it will load apply the texture file from the livery bank on your machine.

I realize that the liveries aren't downloaded. I was mentioning the low res MP skins in response to concerns posted by others about the implementation of a livery manager system.

[Northstar98]

17 hours ago, SkateZilla said:

For every user saying there's too many liveries, there's a user saying there aren't enough.

It's Catch-22.

No it isn't, a livery manager would allow both sides to have what they want without a single compromise apart from maybe multiplayer (where missing liveries use whatever default is defined).

I want more of the liveries I'm interested in, I want less of the liveries I'm not interested in a livery manager would allow me to do that without issue.

Ultimately, I can manage what modules are installed/not installed, I can manage what terrains are installed/uninstalled and I can manage what additional campaigns are installed/uninstalled, why shouldn't I be able to manage what liveries are installed/uninstalled?

Some modules and every campaign only represents a tiny fraction of the total install size, so it would appear that argument against it is completely moot.

17 hours ago, SkateZilla said:

That being said, any solution would require extensive re-work of the textures core and modules *(how and what they download).

Can you go into more detail about this? The updater and repair utilities are already able to scan for and redownload liveries, excluding those in an unmodified/undeleted state. It's already able to exclude liveries from being downloaded so long as certain criteria is set. Same for the module manager when it comes to modules, terrains and campaigns. All we would really need it to do is to check 1 more criterion before it downloads anything.

Personally even if it meant deleting whatever files manually and configuring which it should ignore in a configuration file would be perfectly sufficient.

In any case, the default behaviour of any livery manager should be to download everything, as what happens now and if users what to opt out of certain liveries, they can do so. Users who don't wish to do so need not touch it.

17 hours ago, SkateZilla said:

As for Liveries, 
If it were up to me, which it's not. I'd add Liveries section into the updater categories, then, convert every Livery name to to [AIRCRAFT NAME][NATION][LIVERY NAME] Naming Scheme, as well as give Every Livery a module_id, ie F14A_USN_VF103.

So when a new Aircraft is put into coremods, it would be the shape files, AI files, and the default textures.

Liveries should be placed in \Mods\Liveries\{Aircraft Name}\ Folders.

Thus, decreasing update sizes, etc,

Having Module ID's and Liveries separate, will also allow servers to prompt "Module: [AIRCRAFT NAME][NATION][LIVERY NAME] is required to join this server.

This should also extend to User-Files, Give each user Files Livery a Hash ID, technically every uploaded file is assigned a content ID already anyway.

Have the Manager access User Files and populate those liveries, even if as a separate section.

Yes, this would be perfect.