L/R Fire Lights and Master Caution Light too washed out to be useable

[Magic Zach]

I noticed this a year ago, surprised it hasn't been fixed yet.
Lights off
 

Lights on
 

There is barely any difference.  It's like the glass is frosted.  The Master Caution light just above the center of each screenshot is the same way

Edited November 12, 2021 by Magic Zach
master caution

[Victory205]

It was bad during daylight in the airplane too, but you could use your hand to shade the lights.

[Baz000]

Seems like I have the same problem with those and the master caution light in the day time too, but I can see it just fine at night in DCS.

I dunno if gamma settings make a difference but I have mine set to 1.8 from the default 2.2 that washes a lot of color out.

[RustBelt]

Heatblur insists they are working as intended at Gama 2.2. 

[Baz000]

The master caution really is a pain tho, especially because there is no alert sound played in the pilot helmet... It is just a flashing light, at least it was centrally located and within frontal field of view tho.

[RustBelt]

Yea, Heatblur and the pilots are pretty adamant that the tomcat had basically cheap pinball machine lighting for the annunciators. It's in desperate need of an LED upgrade kit. 

[Biggus]

I have the same issue at gamma 2.2.  Actually the front seat radio display is probably the more frustrating of the things that have this problem.  I'd love something like a toggle to shade areas under the mouse, like a reverse flashlight.

[Northstar98]

I agree that the lights are basically unsuable, but if that's the way it really was then it can stay as far as I'm concerned.

Though I can just about make out the master caution lights.

[draconus]

21 hours ago, Victory205 said:

It was bad during daylight in the airplane too, but you could use your hand to shade the lights.

Would be great feature for the upcoming pilot body.

[Magic Zach]

They look perfectly fine here, or at least no more worse than any of the other lights (that illuminate somewhat normally).  If the lights in DCS were as whitewashed as they are now just when they weren't illuminated, it'd be fine with it.  But the issues is just that, when illumintated they're still incredibly white and it's very hard to pick out a slight red hue that maybe-maybe-not was there before

Edited November 12, 2021 by Magic Zach

[LanceCriminal86]

As far as reference books go:

Lock-On No 18 F-14 A/B by Willy Peeters - F-14A+ cockpit of VF-74 in 1992, photos show the fire warning lights being opaque, almost white.

Uncovering the Grumman F-14 A/B/D by Danny Coremans - F-14A's cockpit has one fire warning white/opaque, and the other clear and red. Doesn't appear to be an illusion from flash or anything as it's consistent from wherever it's seen in the cockpit photos. Actually though, there's a closeup of the ACM panel and both warning lights look white/opaque, so either it was a different jet, or there IS something related to flash photography and the lights.

F-14B Upgrade cockpit from the same book shows both warning lights being opaque. The cockpit overall is HEAVILY worn, finish from the stick and the other annunciator lights surrounding the pilot's screens is mostly worn off.

F-14D  doesn't even appear to have those warning lights.

F-14 Tomcat by Dariusz Jezewski and Tom Zmuda - Opaque fire warning lights in an F-14A

 

 

I think there's a decent question to be considered, flash vs no flash, does that impact how the fire warning lights looked? Did they maybe have some kind of anti-glare layer in there that actually made them harder to see?

Lol guys, maybe the lights really just were that shitty? Here's video, no flash or anything going on, overcast day:

 

[LanceCriminal86]

Very brief glimpses here, tough to tell but it seems the sun is shining in the cockpit and some of the instruments are glared over, including the lights
 

 

[Baz000]

Yeah, but our particular annoying problem is being able to discern the left and right fire lights and master caution lights in daylight conditions being illuminated which indicates "Houston, we have a problem!" vs. non-illuminated state. And it is particularly troublesome with the flashing master caution, when you can't see it.

I would think knowing "Houston, we have a problem" would be pretty important to know ASAP. I can't even see them illuminated when I do the instrument lights test on start-up.

I'm not talking about how they look in a non-illuminated state (like your videos show, since they are not actively experiencing an engine fire at the time) I'm talking about how they look once illuminated. It is extremely difficult to see a difference between the two states.

I think my gamma is set to 1.8, which is what I understand Matt Wagner and some other developers from Eagle Dynamics use.

Edited November 13, 2021 by Baz000

[Magic Zach]

Either way, right or wrong, I wasn't happy with not being able to properly identify the conditions of these.  So tinkered with the textures a bit.
 

By default the actual text "R FIRE" on the right light when it's not illuminated wasn't actually aligned with the same text when the light is illuminated.  Probably wasn't noticed before because it's hard to tell when the light is illuminated or not anyways.  Either ways, fixed that while I was at it.

I can't upload the .zip for it here because you can't attach squat to these posts with a 5mb limit.  I uploaded to the UserFiles and it's pending approval for anyone that gives a care.  I'll try to come back here and post the link when it's approved.  If I forget, search it or @ me here.

[Magic Zach]

Readable F-14 MASTER CAUTION and L/R Fire Lights (digitalcombatsimulator.com)