Broken replay tracks in DCS in 2021

[Showtime112]

Thank you for your reply. I have learned how to cope with this issue to some extent. I shoot scenes in segments etc. The Mirage /Tomcat situation really frustrated me because with those two, nothing works.

Generally, it's not too bad for me personally. My channel will have less competition because few people will be bothered to struggle with the replay track It is, of course bad for ED because they are missing out on a lot of free advertising.

I just hope that it will be placed in some future schedule and that five years from now, it's not still in the 'we can't do it now but maybe someday' category.

[MTM]

I too have long been frustrated with the replay bugs and I hope ED can find a way to fix it without rebuilding the whole thing from scratch. One thing I've personally noticed with the replay inaccuracies is that (at least in my experience) player inputs during the replay are the main thing interfering with the accuracy of the replay. I've tested this many times and it seems pretty consistent. If I watch a track without touching the controls, changing the views, using time accelerate, etc. then the track usually plays perfectly. But that means I'm watching the whole video from inside the cockpit when I want to get an external view of the action. As soon as I go to an external view, the inaccuracies start building up. 

I don't have the first clue about programming, but could this be something that multicore support can fix? In other words, have the original player inputs processed on one CPU core while inputs during the replay are on a separate core so they're not competing with each other.

Just some random thoughts from an enthusiastic amateur who loves DCS and hopes to see this fixed. 

[brovo]

I tried this morning, touched nothing and with 15 seconds it was wrong, I shoot missiles out into nothing and the bandits are not even close to where they were the first time. I hate it

[alphagamer4]

OP here. Just 3 observations:

1. I created this thread back in January 2021, yet it took the DCS devs almost 1 year to post a response. While I'm sure they had their reasons to respond after a lengthy delay, the optics aren't good. It gives one the impression that the DCS devs simply don't care about their customers.

2. For all intents and purposes, the "replay" system isn't one at all. It's basically a debugging tool. The sooner the DCS devs rename this misnamed functionality, the better off all will be.

3. I don't expect the DCS devs to fix this "replay" system anytime soon. Why should they? They already have my and your money. All I can do now is no longer support DCS nor buy any more of its products. Unlike many gamers, I won't throw a tantrum. Instead, I'll vote with my wallet and spend money on the products of other game devs who have consistently shown that they care about their products and have pride in doing all that they can for them, regardless of whether any additional funding is budgeted or not. Look at the "No Man's Sky" devs for an example of how to treat your gaming community the right way (i.e. fixing one's mistakes and then building upon that).

Edited December 13, 2021 by alphagamer4

[Rudel_chw]

19 minutes ago, alphagamer4 said:

All I can do now is no longer support DCS nor buy any more of its products.

 

To me, it seems like a bit extreme reaction ... yes, the track replay is almost non functional ... but I use DCS mostly as an air combat simulator, so this does not affect me too much, perhaps it would bother me more if I was into DCS to create movies or trailers, but the simulation itself works well enough to fulfill my dreams of piloting combat aircrafts. What I do for now, is to record my screen using nVidia's Shadow Play when I need a movie of my flight ... not the same as a Track replay, but for my needs it works.

 

[alphagamer4]

21 hours ago, Rudel_chw said:

To me, it seems like a bit extreme reaction ... yes, the track replay is almost non functional ... but I use DCS mostly as an air combat simulator, so this does not affect me too much, perhaps it would bother me more if I was into DCS to create movies or trailers, but the simulation itself works well enough to fulfill my dreams of piloting combat aircrafts. What I do for now, is to record my screen using nVidia's Shadow Play when I need a movie of my flight ... not the same as a Track replay, but for my needs it works.

 

Based on YOUR needs, I can see how you think I my reaction is extreme. However, you cannot say the same based on MY needs.

Based on MY needs, I believe my reaction is justified. Don't call a tool "replay" when it is really a "debugging tool". Don't tell your customers that you can't fix a problem because you don't have the budget for it. Fix the problem because you know the functionality isn't working as you've marketed it to your customers.

[MTM]

@alphagamer4 I feel your frustration my friend. But bailing on DCS over the replay misbehaving is like turning down a date with Margo Robbie because you didn’t like her accent in The Wolf of Wall Street. We’ve got to cut the devs a little slack. They’ve made a phenomenal sim! 

[1Wolf]

As a workaround, I wonder how difficult it would be to simply create some sort of start/stop recording functionality and have it save it off into separate track files.  BigNewy and others say that your best bet is with short tracks.  So I wonder if it would be a simpler stopgap solution to simply allow the player to start/stop recording and save at will so that just as you get into a situation you might like to view later you can hit the record key combination, then as soon as its done hit the "stop/save" key combo and save that off as file01.trk.  Then later in that same mission you encounter something else you think you might like to view, and once again you hit the record key combo to start recording and a couple minutes later when that situation is resolved you press the "stop/save" key combo and it saves a file02.trk.

Then you can go back and look at a bunch of smaller/shorter replays that have a higher percentage chance of being correct.

If that were a possible stopgap fix that didn't involve rewriting the whole thing, I'm sure that would help almost everyone from content creators to just those who'd like to learn from the dogfight they just finished.

[alphagamer4]

14 hours ago, MTM said:

@alphagamer4 I feel your frustration my friend. But bailing on DCS over the replay misbehaving is like turning down a date with Margo Robbie because you didn’t like her accent in The Wolf of Wall Street. We’ve got to cut the devs a little slack. They’ve made a phenomenal sim! 

I believe a better analogy is I gave Margot Robbie hundreds of dollars to decorate our summer home only to find out that she failed to purchase key furnishings and worse, lied about it by calling a dresser a bed. Where is all the DCS product sales money going? How is it being allocated? Cutting any game dev slack only gives them permission to leave key features unfinished. Do what you want with your money. I know what I will do with mine.

[draconus]

18 hours ago, alphagamer4 said:

Cutting any game dev slack only gives them permission to leave key features unfinished

It's not a key feature and never was. This is primarily flight simulator and second - digital battle ground simulator. Please, have a read on "key features" again:

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/products/world/

btw: It's a free product (core) so you had all the time and possibility to check the features before investing any further. You were already given an anwer on the status of tracks in DCS - move on.

Edited December 15, 2021 by draconus

[Jutter]

I too have been a person overly frustrated by the broken replay system!! This is well known to be buggy and inaccurate! Never once in the last two years have I seen a remotely accurate F-14 replay track, never comes close, typically if I'm taxing in the Tomcat.......or Mirage which I just recently purchased, it'll just taxi off into the grass. Sometimes "taking off from the runway", just ends in a hard pitch down into the runway shortly after rotating. Point being that out of the hundreds of times I've tried........ It has always failed.... Specifically in the Tomcat! This issue is more prevalent in third party modules than Eagle Dynamics' own, in my experience, and like many, have read paragraph after paragraph about broken track files in forums like this over the last couple years. Now I may have missed something somewhere along the line in the search for the perfect replay from a module not willing to give it to you, so this may or may not be news to some, or many, HOWEVER!! I did stumble....and I mean stumble into a.........Workaround? I dont know what you would call it but for the first time literally ever, I watched a completely ACCURATE track from both the Tomcat and Mirage! I Was left absolutely dumbfounded!! Did I just find a "fix", "Workaround", or whatever you want to call it to an issue that haunted me for years?.......or is this something well known and I'm late to the party. If that's the case, I'm Sorry! One last thing, my testing has been limited and strictly on SP. TRK files...not MP. It has also been limited to about only 10 minutes of flight time in a Demo routine, and no AI aircarft flying! However within this time frame I have gotten nothing back but perfect replays, Even tried to trip it up and pause and fast forward the track. still replays back accurately! Soo if you're interested to this point.....its fairly simple, if you want to watch an accurate SP replay track, simply load up DCS World and watch your saved Track.........that's it! That is to say, you cannot do any real flying or gameplay! Most people like myself tried to watch tracks after having flown the mission we wanted to replay, obviously with aircraft like the Tomcat and Mirage 2000, not possible and replays broken every time. Now if you save a track you want to watch, you save the track, EXIT out of DCS WORLD and then load back in, watch your track and enjoy! Please note that after you do this and watch your now accurate replay track that if you go right back into flying, anytime you finish your flight and try to "replay" or "Watch Replay" It will be Broken Again! You need to exit DCS world First and load back in. Now you may watch the replay accurately as many times as you want just as long as thats ALL you're doing in the first start-up of the DCS! Hopefully this works for you guys, I really hope it does....it did for me! like I said, my testing was limited, but hopeful so far! 

     Soooo, after doing more testing, Unfortunately, this trick does NOT work on MP Tracks. Also the longevity of the track is unknown really, the original tomcat track I was using for testing did eventually break, However this was right after I downloaded the update to openbeta! Not sure if that had anything to do with it, I just deleted the track and made two new ones. they all play back perfectly and haven't giving me a problem since! 

Edited December 24, 2021 by Jutter
More Information

[Rudel_chw]

1 hour ago, Jutter said:

if you want to watch an accurate SP replay track, simply load up DCS World and watch your saved Track.........that's it! That is to say, you cannot do any real flying or gameplay!

 

Thanks for the tip .. I will give it a try. 

[Jutter]

Just now, Rudel_chw said:

 

Thanks for the tip .. I will give it a try. 

Please let me know how it works!!! 

[Rudel_chw]

5 minutes ago, Jutter said:

Please let me know how it works!!! 

 

Will do, I'm finishing a case 1 Training mission for the T-45 and I'd love to be able to replay it from external view. Will let you know.

[311Gryphon]

I've had many, many, many tracks that didn't play properly despite me not putting any new inputs into them, so just loading the track and watching it without flying or hitting any keys doesn't necessarily work.  It's actually quite frequent that your plane will still plow into the ground.  The following are things that I find to be quite broken almost all the time:

Tomcat (every track I've ever played is extremely broken)

Carrier landings (your plane will not be aligned with the carrier and will "land" in the ocean)

A-10C II (any time you use the TGP it will wind up being miles away from where you actually set a SPI and that seems to confuse the sim and send your plane flying to the wrong locations, also any weapon you employed using the SPI are going to miss by miles)

Dogfights seem to be about 50/50 (your plane will wind up following nothing or being in the wrong place so the enemy that you killed doesn't die and will eventually launch missiles that were never launched at you and you will die)

These things aren't necessarily ALWAYS broken (except the Tomcat and A-10C TGP stuff) but they get quite frustrating.  Anyway, my initial point is that just replaying the track doesn't necessarily result in a clean replay.  At least all of this has been my experience, added to the pile.  Thanks.  

[Jutter]

1 hour ago, 311Gryphon said:

I've had many, many, many tracks that didn't play properly despite me not putting any new inputs into them, so just loading the track and watching it without flying or hitting any keys doesn't necessarily work.  It's actually quite frequent that your plane will still plow into the ground.  The following are things that I find to be quite broken almost all the time:

Tomcat (every track I've ever played is extremely broken)

Carrier landings (your plane will not be aligned with the carrier and will "land" in the ocean)

A-10C II (any time you use the TGP it will wind up being miles away from where you actually set a SPI and that seems to confuse the sim and send your plane flying to the wrong locations, also any weapon you employed using the SPI are going to miss by miles)

Dogfights seem to be about 50/50 (your plane will wind up following nothing or being in the wrong place so the enemy that you killed doesn't die and will eventually launch missiles that were never launched at you and you will die)

These things aren't necessarily ALWAYS broken (except the Tomcat and A-10C TGP stuff) but they get quite frustrating.  Anyway, my initial point is that just replaying the track doesn't necessarily result in a clean replay.  At least all of this has been my experience, added to the pile.  Thanks.  

Did you read my entire post???? It was a solution post! I get how it all works Bud! just try it!! Appreciate the breakdown tho......happy holidays

[Rudel_chw]

5 hours ago, Jutter said:

Please let me know how it works!!! 

 

Hello,

I'm getting this error when I try to Save a Track at the end of the mission:

 

 

If I check the folder, the track file indicated in the message, is not there:

 

 

The dcs.log has no message related to this. I will check some more during the week-end, and return here afterwards.

Regards,

 

Eduardo

 

PD: As usual, a quick search trough the forum gave me the answer to my issue:  

 

I had the track recording disabled to save space when I used to play MP.

 

I tested your tip with a 5 minute flight on the Viggen, and it worked perfectly ... usually every single track of the Viggen resulted on an incorrect replay. Thanks a lot 

 

 

 

Edited December 23, 2021 by Rudel_chw

[Flappie]

@Rudel_chwHave you, by any chance, disabled track recording in your "Saved Games/DCS.../Config/autoexec.cfg" file?

[Rudel_chw]

10 minutes ago, Flappie said:

@Rudel_chwHave you, by any chance, disabled track recording in your "Saved Games/DCS.../Config/autoexec.cfg" file?

 

Yes, that was the problem .. I had forgotten about that setting, that I used back on my MP days. Thanks for the input. 

[Flappie]

You're welcome.

[MAXsenna]

I too have been a person overly frustrated by the broken replay system!! This is well known to be buggy and inaccurate! Never once in the last two years have I seen a remotely accurate F-14 replay track, never comes close, typically if I'm taxing in the Tomcat.......or Mirage which I just recently purchased, it'll just taxi off into the grass. Sometimes "taking off from the runway", just ends in a hard pitch down into the runway shortly after rotating. Point being that out of the hundreds of times I've tried........ It has always failed.... Specifically in the Tomcat! This issue is more prevalent in third party modules than Eagle Dynamics' own, in my experience, and like many, have read paragraph after paragraph about broken track files in forums like this over the last couple years. Now I may have missed something somewhere along the line in the search for the perfect replay from a module not willing to give it to you, so this may or may not be news to some, or many, HOWEVER!! I did stumble....and I mean stumble into a.........Workaround? I dont know what you would call it but for the first time literally ever, I watched a completely ACCURATE track from both the Tomcat and Mirage! I Was left absolutely dumbfounded!! Did I just find a "fix", "Workaround", or whatever you want to call it to an issue that haunted me for years?.......or is this something well known and I'm late to the party. If that's the case, I'm Sorry! One last thing, my testing has been limited and strictly on SP. TRK files...not MP. It has also been limited to about only 10 minutes of flight time in a Demo routine, and no AI aircarft flying! However within this time frame I have gotten nothing back but perfect replays, Even tried to trip it up and pause and fast forward the track. still replays back accurately! Soo if you're interested to this point.....its fairly simple, if you want to watch an accurate SP replay track, simply load up DCS World and watch your saved Track.........that's it! That is to say, you cannot do any real flying or gameplay! Most people like myself tried to watch tracks after having flown the mission we wanted to replay, obviously with aircraft like the Tomcat and Mirage 2000, not possible and replays broken every time. Now if you save a track you want to watch, you save the track, EXIT out of DCS WORLD and then load back in, watch your track and enjoy! Please note that after you do this and watch your now accurate replay track that if you go right back into flying, anytime you finish your flight and try to "replay" or "Watch Replay" It will be Broken Again! You need to exit DCS world First and load back in. Now you may watch the replay accurately as many times as you want just as long as thats ALL you're doing in the first start-up of the DCS! Hopefully this works for you guys, I really hope it does....it did for me! like I said, my testing was limited, but hopeful so far! 

Awesome tip man, thanks!
Happy holidays!

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk

[Jutter]

15 hours ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

Hello,

I'm getting this error when I try to Save a Track at the end of the mission:

 

 

If I check the folder, the track file indicated in the message, is not there:

 

 

The dcs.log has no message related to this. I will check some more during the week-end, and return here afterwards.

Regards,

 

Eduardo

 

PD: As usual, a quick search trough the forum gave me the answer to my issue:  

 

I had the track recording disabled to save space when I used to play MP.

 

I tested your tip with a 5 minute flight on the Viggen, and it worked perfectly ... usually every single track of the Viggen resulted on an incorrect replay. Thanks a lot 

 

 

 

 

Your very welcome! please note that this does not work with MP tracks! Also right after downloading the update today, it did break the single tomcat track i was using for test and was inaccurate! I deleted it and made a new track and it has been fine since. since then, I did about a 45min flight bombing with the tomcat... It played back perfectly, and did two touch and goes on the carrier with the tomcat, also played back perfectly!

[Rudel_chw]

1 hour ago, Jutter said:

since then, I did about a 45min flight bombing with the tomcat... It played back perfectly, and did two touch and goes on the carrier with the tomcat, also played back perfectly!

 

+1 Yesterday I did a 15 minute flight with the T-45C and the track played perfectly, including a Bolter and a good Trap ... so, good tip, thanks a lot 

[MTM]

+1 

Tested this workaround yesterday and this morning. It hasn’t been 100% accurate but it’s a massive improvement. Thanks Jutter!

[Nealius]

Jutter’s technique only works one certain modules for me. The Tomcat is hopeless. The only reliable workaround I’ve found is to host on a dedicated server then use that track file.