DCS Features Wish List

[Rhino4]

A clickable kneeboard for the A-10C pilot with several pages of checklists, frequencies, ect. (kinda like the clickable kneeboard in falcon 4.0 except expand the idea a bit.

[scatter]

I'd love the RCTL ENTER overlay to also show the autopilot inputs (perhaps in a different colour).

 

Actually it'd be nice to have additional autopilot data (like current mode) on it as well.

[TKMR]

Extract from Armed Action as narrated by Lynx Pilot, 847 Naval Air Squadron, UK, Call-Sign Scooby:

 

".......It was an awesome, terrifying sight to behold, each consecutive eruption on the ground making our TOW's look like mere homemade devices by comparison.

 

A second Warthog followed up with two bombs of it's own, pulverising two more tanks, before the first came back in for a final run, this time just a few hundred feet above the ground. It was a breathtaking sight, this ugly, evil-looking bastard of a machine, with it's snarling teeth painted on the nose and it's two big, cumbersome-looking engines sitting on it's back spitting out exhaust fumes, lumbering towards the date palms at about 300mph.

 

Watching it approach that low, although I knew what was coming, I was still stunned by the ensuing spectacle. When it got within 600m of the date palms, the Gunner opened up with his 30mm cannon, spewing up a 100 foot wall of sand into the air as hundreds of rounds strafed the tanks and the date palms.

 

The intensity of the fire and almost artistic impression it created in the sand made the spectacle horrifying and beautiful all at once. As we turned for camp, a long, high drape of dark smoke hung over the lines of tanks and trees, like the final curtain had come down. It had been a truly painful and dramatic performance in this little sideshow in the wider theatre of War......"

- James Newton

 

 

 

 

 

Effects as illustrated, currently lacking with the damage model re Ground Units etc would definitely aid :)

 

Win.

 

That's something I've always felt was seriously lacking in DCS and Lockon, was really good particle effects. The ones now seem very... bland considering the weapons being used.

 

And no, I don't expect Hollywood over-exaggerated effects, just something more... pretty, and realistic.

 

The rotor wash is really nice, now expand on that. P=

[toby23]

Can we expect a Landclass/ Scenery update some time soon?

 

I love flying in DCS, the cockpit is second to none.

After flying FSX with all the add-ons though, everything happening outside of the cockpit in DCS well, kind of sucks...

 

I appreciate that this is running on an older engine and that you guys made some minor adjustments and updates but it still detracts from the immersiveness and believability, which is a shame considering you have the best combat simulator on the market.

 

Q. Will we, at any time in the future, be seeing an updated scenery engine?

Perhaps a more open engine that we could also easily develop add-ons for?

 

Personally, I would like to see:

 

1. More detailed Mesh.

2. More realistic ground textures, water textures and autogen placement, similar to what FTX has developed for Australia. Their 3d night lighting also looks great.

3. Better clouds, no need for hi-def, I would be happy with high quality 1024 textures

4. More AI in game. For example, in ArmA2, there are planes, cars and people going about their business regardless of what you are doing. This all adds to the believability and immersiveness.

5. A preview of skins, when you want to change the skin, before the mission starts.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love DCS but am sure that with all the talent you have in-house and all the talent out here, DCS could be so much more.

 

Keep up the good work,

 

Toby

[zokier]

DCS: Warthog is supposed to have more detailed ground, especially the Nevada training grounds. There has also been hints of better clouds. AI will probably still be the weak point.

[Feuerfalke]

The question is not if we'd like that - of course we do.

It's also not, if ED should work on that - of course they will.

 

The only question is, WHEN we will see these improvements.

 

 

But after all, you can't pick out the strong points of a dozen games and want it all included into one game. If it was that easy, why do you have to name different games at all ;)

[toby23]

Feuerfalke, it's not about picking the best bits out of two other sims.

It's about providing examples of what I would like to see.

[Feuerfalke]

Feuerfalke, it's not about picking the best bits out of two other sims.

It's about providing examples of what I would like to see.

 

What's the difference?

[Hawg11]

"Q. Will we, at any time in the future, be seeing an updated scenery engine?

Perhaps a more open engine that we could also easily develop add-ons for?"

 

The tools are publicly available for modders to create terrain.

[Spider76]

im wondering if scenery update comes how much fps drop will be? etc..

[Hawg11]

...similar to what FTX has developed for Australia. Their 3d night lighting also looks great.

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=746248&postcount=17

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=713217&postcount=10

[Martillo1]

I would like to see a multithreaded engine first ;)

[Ovenmit]

I'd rather have smarter AI and proper trees than better graphics

[Feuerfalke]

I would like to see a multithreaded engine first ;)

 

Considering how many people are still using single or dual-cores and Windows XP, I doubt the multithreading engine will give the larger part of the community much benefit.

[ZaltysZ]

Proper rendering of water surface at altitudes other than sea level would be great too. :)

[Martillo1]

Considering how many people are still using single or dual-cores and Windows XP, I doubt the multithreading engine will give the larger part of the community much benefit.

 

Are you serious? :huh:

[Feuerfalke]

Are you serious? :huh:

 

You can test it yourself with Rise of Flight, if you want.

 

A dual core is minimum requirement for RoF and its the multithreaded engine, but Quad-CPUs are recommended to really benefit from it.

 

And even then, going from dual to quad will increase performance by roughly 30-40%.

[Boberro]

Of course I would like to see new, especially in these aspects:

 

 

• roads don't seem to be made of asphalt
  
• cities are really abandomed, they look like Pripet - I mean there is no life signs, no streetlights, road signs, bilboards ect.
  
• terrain is uber flat, no grass (but we've seen there will be grass in future andscreens, so ;])
  
• new clouds
  
• no life in game except military, example animals :D
  

 

This is small list, rest is in anothre segments of requests.

[Martillo1]

You can test it yourself with Rise of Flight, if you want.

 

A dual core is minimum requirement for RoF and its the multithreaded engine, but Quad-CPUs are recommended to really benefit from it.

 

And even then, going from dual to quad will increase performance by roughly 30-40%.

 

So you get "only" 30-40% increased performance by going multithread. Not bad, at least IMHO.

 

But it is true, technological progress is no sense, let's go back to Intel 8080 :doh:

[Feuerfalke]

So you get "only" 30-40% increased performance by going multithread. Not bad, at least IMHO.

 

But it is true, technological progress is no sense, let's go back to Intel 8080 :doh:

 

Funny. :yay:

 

But you forgot that this increase of speed is the difference between the minimum requirement of a Dual-Core a 30-40% to a Quad-Core. But the bad news follows: A 40% increase of nothing is still nothing. What framerates are you expecting from minimum requirements?

That's on full detail a difference of 15 vs 23 FPS - if you are lucky. Not to mention the many people who only have Single-Core CPUs...

 

And then put that into relation to BlackSharks current performance gain of 75-100% on maximum settings (!) when going from Single-Core to Dual-Core under Vista, going from 20-30 FPS to 40-60 FPS.

 

 

And if you ask me for my personal opinion:

RoF doesn't have so much better optics over DCS that I can live with the barely 30FPS RoF runs at on my machine with full details. And I play DCS with full details at 120-150FPS on medicore machines even lower than RoFs minimum requirements.

 

 

No doubt multithreading DCS will come, but there are surely more important things to consider, right now.

[Cionara]

Don't know what exactly you're arguing about but I would love to have Multithread-Optimized-Engine, too.

And even if performance is maxed out as it is (it's not, sometimes only around 40fps with 4.2Ghz OCed Core i7)

that would open up possibilities to add civillians and stuff said above.

[Feuerfalke]

Don't know what exactly you're arguing about but I would love to have Multithread-Optimized-Engine, too.

And even if performance is maxed out as it is (it's not, sometimes only around 40fps with 4.2Ghz OCed Core i7)

that would open up possibilities to add civillians and stuff said above.

 

... for those with hardware like yours and mine, while single- and dual-core users will suffer from lower framerates.

 

That's exactly, what we're discussing about ;)

 

 

BTW: We already have a multithread-optimized engine - just no multithreading engine.

[Cionara]

Yea but you know, then just add more effects for users with multiple cores which they can activate.

Single Core users get the same performance as before and dual/quadcore users get the opporunity to

activate more traffic or animals or civillians or whatever :D

Also the new Multicores aren't that expensive anymore. Get a Q6600 for a hundred bucks, oc it with standard Voltage to 3 Ghz

and that's it. Dual cores are even cheaper and most new games/sims require them.

 

Imagine ED would not have build in smoke because some people only have a Radeon 8200 8mb graphics card.

You have to go with the time...

Edited September 17, 2009 by Cionara

[Feuerfalke]

Yea but you know, then just add more effects for users with multiple cores which they can activate.

Single Core users get the same performance as before and dual/quadcore users get the opporunity to

activate more traffic or animals or civillians or whatever :D

 

True, but then we are back to my original point:

 

There's simply more important things to do, like collideable trees, dynamic campaign, interactive AI, VOIP, etc - thing all can profit from. ;)

[Martillo1]

Funny. :yay:

 

But you forgot that this increase of speed is the difference between the minimum requirement of a Dual-Core a 30-40% to a Quad-Core. But the bad news follows: A 40% increase of nothing is still nothing. What framerates are you expecting from minimum requirements?

That's on full detail a difference of 15 vs 23 FPS - if you are lucky. Not to mention the many people who only have Single-Core CPUs...

 

And then put that into relation to BlackSharks current performance gain of 75-100% on maximum settings (!) when going from Single-Core to Dual-Core under Vista, going from 20-30 FPS to 40-60 FPS.

 

 

And if you ask me for my personal opinion:

RoF doesn't have so much better optics over DCS that I can live with the barely 30FPS RoF runs at on my machine with full details. And I play DCS with full details at 120-150FPS on medicore machines even lower than RoFs minimum requirements.

 

 

No doubt multithreading DCS will come, but there are surely more important things to consider, right now.

 

I do not know you, but for me 23 fps against 15 fps is the difference between a slideshow and a quite playable game.

 

You state that dual-core is better than single-core, of course. And quad-core is better, and octo-core is better... if software is programmed with multi-threading in mind. For that is the tendency these days in hardware, so software has to go the same way.

 

The difference between our points of view is that you prioritize polishing some aspects of the game before using programming resources to improve its performance, and I think the performance leap will permit solving those issues more easily through the new computing power available.