Today's patch added the entire shaders folder to IC, effectively blocking every quality of life mod that accessed that folder

[draconus]

12 hours ago, NineLine said:

We have submitted the mod for review, we have received the first version that includes some aspects of the mod plus additional variables.

Any plans/work on the sun glints on distant aircraft? It's the most important effect revealing the enemy IRL. The tech is already there on cockpits and near LOD aircraft.

[Gunjam]

I'm glad it's being worked on, but I am apprehensive about this reflection/glint talk going on. Spotting range is extremely exaggerated with the dots right now. The last thing we need is some gamey glint/reflection which is guaranteed at all angles and hours of the day and at silly ranges. How much chrome and reflective surfaces do you see on fighter aircraft.. hmmm

[maxTRX]

1 hour ago, Gunjam said:

I'm glad it's being worked on, but I am apprehensive about this reflection/glint talk going on. Spotting range is extremely exaggerated with the dots right now. The last thing we need is some gamey glint/reflection which is guaranteed at all angles and hours of the day and at silly ranges. How much chrome and reflective surfaces do you see on fighter aircraft.. hmmm

I'm with on that one... instead of silly dots, maybe some better (darker?) transition texture.  This reminds me how hard it is sometimes to spot a grey jet from the ground or even the air, at around 3 ~ 4 miles away, in the sunny, blue sky. Sure, looking at the right part of the sky we can spot a small (non-smoking and non-reflecting) jet from a descent distance, look away for an instance and it takes a few seconds to spot him again, if lucky and a 10/20 vision , had it for a while... not anymore. 

[KoN]

On 5/19/2023 at 7:35 PM, NineLine said:

Dear all,

We needed to first block files that were being exploited. We are now working on adapting the spotting mod to suit users and server owners alike for better gameplay. I understand your frustration when something no longer works the same as it has, but we are working towards a better solution than what was available before.

The same goes with the reflections, while I understand some liked to remove them completely, we need a better solution and I will be submitting that to the team as well. 

We already have our first version of the improved dots in an internal build and will be testing, tuning and tweaking and hopefully, we can show something soon.

Thanks.

About time and it's a welcome start trust me . WWII and cold war server's need this . Other flight sims have pulled it off . You know the ones I mean . I'm very pleased it's being worked on.

How ever why has it taken ED so long to address this . Looking at this thread there are many compliments from many years ago over certain things that still haven't been addressed. 

Edited May 25, 2023 by KoN

[draconus]

12 hours ago, Gunjam said:

I'm glad it's being worked on, but I am apprehensive about this reflection/glint talk going on. Spotting range is extremely exaggerated with the dots right now. The last thing we need is some gamey glint/reflection which is guaranteed at all angles and hours of the day and at silly ranges. How much chrome and reflective surfaces do you see on fighter aircraft.. hmmm

You'd be surprised, it doesn't need be chrome or specially reflective. It's enough when it's flat or polished. Here's a Raptor:

Viper:

Eagle:

https://youtu.be/f4pa2Acke-o?t=225

https://youtu.be/f4pa2Acke-o?t=282

Now these are close shots and not really most reflective or best cases (didn't want to spent whole day looking for examples) but it's enough to see it as a glint from many miles away. That'd make them not black dot but white dot - with a halo! Same for small windows and cars on the ground, very noticable from very far distances.

One more - look at the aircraft on the right: https://youtu.be/f4pa2Acke-o?t=291

Of course it has to be the right angle and LOS to the sun.

[[HOUNDS] CptTrips]

Just a thought...

I was looking at this post: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/40253-mission-editor-hot-tips/?do=findComment&comment=3955123

(And a later post showed this has been applied to a MP server successfully I guess.  https://taskgroupwarrior.info/2020/labels-the-love-hate-relationship/ )

I'm not suggesting you much with labels (unless you wanted to.)  But I was intrigued on how this was working.

I guess if it finds that file embedded in the mission, it allows that to override the one in the clients default install folders?  Kinda neat for a MP server to be able to control that.

I haven't tried it myself.  I'm curious if that works even with IC turned on.  Could this same approach work for fx file?  I have no idea if that would work.  It would be cool if it did.

It would be a cool behavior.  It would allow the server to control\override the behavior without turning off IC and opening everything for malicious agents mucking with their local files to gain advantage.

But again, I have no idea if that would work for the fx file.

 

Edited May 25, 2023 by [16AGR] CptTrips

[SharpeXB]

I don’t quite see the purpose of dot labels, they look exactly like the distant aircraft. So why bother?

And I can't quite understand the trouble some seem to have with spotting, these aircraft are all easily visible even at 5 miles (because they're moving) which is a reasonable distance to expect seeing them at. Isn't this what everyone else sees?
This is using 2160p with 4xAA which according to some accounts should make me blind, but I can see all these contacts quite well  

Edited May 25, 2023 by SharpeXB

[[HOUNDS] CptTrips]

18 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

I don’t quite see the purpose of dot labels, they look exactly like the distant aircraft. So why bother?

Well, as I said, I wasn't necessarily suggesting anyone change the labels.  It was just about wondering how far the configuration file override extends.  If it would apply to things like the dot.fx file.  It might just be lua files.

I wouldn't mind if servers allowed dot labels.  I'd stick with red and blue.  Black would just look like a shader dot.  I think the colored dot icons are a in between to help old geezers like me who's eyesight ain't a good as it used to be.  I'm not lobbying for that, but I wouldn't mind.  I guess that's why fighter pilots are usually youngsters.  

You could toggle label on and off to tell if it's a dot label or just something else.  I  think the dot labels give you a little help without totally trashing your view with text.

$0.02.

[edit]  I probably want it more for ground targets than air threats.

 

 

 

Edited May 25, 2023 by [16AGR] CptTrips

[KoN]

9 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

I don’t quite see the purpose of dot labels, they look exactly like the distant aircraft. So why bother?

And I can't quite understand the trouble some seem to have with spotting, these aircraft are all easily visible even at 5 miles (because they're moving) which is a reasonable distance to expect seeing them at. Isn't this what everyone else sees?
This is using 2160p with 4xAA which according to some accounts should make me blind, but I can see all these contacts quite well  

 

So I looked at the first photo. What am I looking for. 

So there is your answer .

There is a history of DCS and it's spotting issues it goes years back . It's got that bad some one made a mod so we can all see a 1080p pixel. 

Many combat flight sims have had same issues but they have made a fix . 

Zoom in and out and your targets will vanish. 

Get into combat range and that dot will vanish as it becomes a 3D pixel . 

Spitfire pilots could see across the channel the Luftwaffe forming up . 

Real pilots think it's harder to see in DCS than actually sat in their Real cockpit. 

People don't come here to make things up and cause fuss for attention  . We want DCS to move forward with the times . 

Fast graphics, affordable VR headsets . A New generation that likes to stay in their bedroom .

 

Edited May 26, 2023 by KoN

[SharpeXB]

8 minutes ago, KoN said:

So I looked at the first photo. What am I looking for. 

On a still screenshot of course they’re hard to see. In the actual game they’re very easy because they’re moving and the real image is much better. 

Edited May 25, 2023 by SharpeXB

[Daemoc]

A pixel at 4k is a 1/4 of the size of a pixel at 1080 assuming the monitors are equal in size.

Running 4k without dots is easier to spot aircraft than 1080 without dots. Especially with a larger screen. Your pixel density is higher at 4k so the object can be rendered smaller/farther away. (or 4x the detail at any given range)

The dots are easier to see than a single pixel of an object and they are rendered closer at lower resolutions.

Looking at a 4k screenshot on a 1080 monitor without a zoom function loses all that fancy pixel density which is probably why the KoN still can't see them.

Lastly, the difference between "label dots" and the visual aid "distance dots" is the label dots are always rendered, even when the object is right in your face. You don't have that invisible object range between dot and no dot. The down side is that label dots can be seen through clouds, buildings, trees, and at 100 miles away.

[SharpeXB]

3 hours ago, KoN said:

Spitfire pilots could see across the channel the Luftwaffe forming up .

You can see a flight of bombers in this game from 15-20 miles away too. Realize they were seeing whole flights of aircraft, not individual ones like people try to do in DCS MP

3 hours ago, KoN said:

Get into combat range and that dot will vanish as it becomes a 3D pixel .

Use a higher res so you don’t see pixel dots. Problem solved. 

1 hour ago, Daemoc said:

Running 4k without dots is easier to spot aircraft than 1080 without dots.

So maybe they should get rid of the pixel dots and then everyone can move on to 4K. Bring DCS into the current decade 

1 hour ago, Daemoc said:

Looking at a 4k screenshot on a 1080 monitor without a zoom function loses all that fancy pixel density which is probably why the KoN still can't see them.

Screenshots don’t translate well to forum uploads. The real image looks vastly better. Although I can still see those planes including the one at 4.9 miles looking at that image on my iPad (zoomed in). And again in the game they’re moving. 

Edited May 26, 2023 by SharpeXB

[draconus]

7 hours ago, KoN said:

Real pilots think it's harder to see in DCS that actually sat in their cockpit.

Meaningless statement without the setup details.

Also "3D pixel"? What da?

Edited May 26, 2023 by draconus

[cfrag]

3 minutes ago, draconus said:

Meaningless statement without the setup details.

Agreed. What DCS setup where those pilots using?

(Warning: tongue-in-cheek. I'm a bit frustrated with this thread's signal-to-noise ratio. I'm just doing my part  )

 

[Nedum]

On 5/20/2023 at 2:02 PM, SharpeXB said:

This mod is a clear an example of cheating as there can be. That’s obvious to everyone. Including ED apparently.  

I have to stop here, quoting you.

OMG.

I hope you don't use any kind of TrakIR, a VR headset, Necksaver, a HOTAS, Paddles, etc. (please ED, do not "fix" them too). ;)

So who is the person to say what is cheating or not?

Yes, nobody should cheat, and yes, we all know that would never happen. Sad but true.

There are so many possibilities to abuse the shaders and ED should stop that.

But before that, ED must fix the most annoying problems, staying in game since years.

They try to simulate things which they can't simulate the right way (Shadows, especially cloud shadow casts, cockpit reflections, and so on).

In RL, a little change of your view point can give you a free sight, around the reflections. In RL, even at a cloudy day, with clouds over the whole sky, trees and everything around casts slight shadows. I can see colors, and I can see every object as it should during cloudy daytime. In DCS every cloud shadow casts switches the day to a near nighttime.

It's a way too dark with clouds and a way too bright without them. That we have to fight with double shadows since years, might be a part of this problem.

But the most annoying thing is the build in "cheating" by ED for spotting since !!years!!. Change your resolution to very low (800*600) and you can spot enemies !!20 times!! earlier as the guy (or gal) with a 4K resolution. It's a sim or a game? If DCS wants to be a sim, ED should do it the right way before they release the "simulation stuff". We don't need wrong simulations of Reflections or Shadows, if we have to turn them off to "fix" the cloud shadow cast problem, that shouldn't be the way to go, but it is since years. So we have to "cheat" to fix game engine problems.

ED should start to fix the most annoying problems they know for years (spotting, reflections, over saturation and shadows), and most of the anger would be gone in no time. I really wish they would start to do that asap.

 

 

[SharpeXB]

5 minutes ago, Nedum said:

They try to simulate things which they can't simulate the right way (Shadows, especially cloud shadow casts, cockpit reflections, and so on).

Indeed better rendering would go a long way towards helping this issue. Good reflections would require ray tracing, right? Then there’s HDR10 support which nearly every other game today has. Imagine having 1 billion colors instead of 16.7 million, that would certainly help. 
I do think DCS is the best at this aspect among the few (2 of them) CFS games today. 

[cfrag]

5 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Good reflections would require ray tracing, right?

No, just more performance. That's the crux for all flight sims. Ray tracing is merely a different method for generating images, and although RT by itself is much more processor intensive, the algorithm gives you reflections almost for "free", they are not as much of an issue as they are with the painter's algorithm that used today by most graphics engines (including DCS). Performance is the issue, not reflections.

8 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Imagine having 1 billion colors instead of 16.7 million, that would certainly help. 

Only of your hardware (monitor/HMD) supports it (many if not most displays have a limited color gamut, especially backlit LED-based ones). Plus, of course, the fact that HDR requires more data for all textures, requiring more RAM and performance (standard RGBA uses 32 bits per pixel = 4 bytes), HDR RGB up to 96bits per pixel (12 bytes) - that's up to 3 times as much data per pixel. Processing that much more data will put an additional strain on your GPU, data bus and storage subsystem. Moving 3 times as much data through the bus will congest it. 

So if you run a HDR-based raytraced algorithm, you may get better visual cues like glints and shadows, i.e. the picture is much prettier, maybe even more realistic. And you'll get a frame rate that is reminiscent of the venerable A2FS1 flight sim by SubLogic (my first, and fondly remembered, flight sim): some 4-6fps  

As great as flight sims are looking today, they are still severely limited by graphics performance. I don't think that we are even near any foreseeable plateau here, so I'm really excited to see what's coming next.

[MadKreator]

So I threw on my quest 2 last night for the fun of it and hopped in  server ( tbh never used vr for more than free flight) and even the default spotting is ridiculously easy compared to my 5120x1440 monitor… even ground targets have a fat black spot even through cloud cover.. I can 100% see why people are up in arms on the spotting thing if this is what they’re used to! To me it immediately felt too gamey but thats from years of learning to pinpoint microscopic dots on the widescreen lol I’ll admit it was kind of nice but  felt too easy. Instead of me making markpoints( guesspoints in my case) preflight,  on my tads and searching the area for targets, just glance out the window there’s big black dots all over where other fighters and ground targets are lol  just drop bombs through the cloud cover from 15k feet, no need to drop down to the deck to actually find them It really took away the difficulty I’m used to in dcs. If thats how the new” improved” spotting will be on every resolution, I’ll pass

[draconus]

11 minutes ago, MadKreator said:

ground targets have a fat black spot even through cloud cover

Congratulations! You've found a MT bug reported 3 months ago and already fixed in current beta.

[MadKreator]

Just now, draconus said:

Congratulations! You've found a MT bug reported 3 months ago and already fixed in current beta.

I figured that was a bug.. I’m on current open beta and was on MT.. they really should “fix” it better then, whatever they fixed , apparently didn’t work

[Why485]

20 minutes ago, MadKreator said:

It really took away the difficulty I’m used to in dcs. If thats how the new” improved” spotting will be on every resolution, I’ll pass

This is not what a good spotting system would be like. I think those who are so virulently opposed to one, who I must also point out are very much in the minority at ~5% according to a recent poll, don't understand that. They speak as if people are asking for big colored labels, and that's just not the case.

For example, with a good spotting system, the accident visualized in this video could absolutely still happen.

 

Edited May 26, 2023 by Why485

[MadKreator]

20 minutes ago, Why485 said:

This is not what a good spotting system would be like, and I think people who are so virulently opposed to it don't understand that.

For example, with a good spotting system, the accident visualized in this video could absolutely still happen.

 

Definitely not opposed to a GOOD spotting system, I was just blown aback by the difference between what I was used to compared to how it was in the low resolution of the quest 2 ( maybe it was because of vr too). Being a game and not real life, there should be some assistance, but I was not thrilled seeing black dots that were significantly larger than the aircraft at distance. Whatever is going on in that video does look good. Not too easy, not too difficult, smooth transitions of the models, good contrast on both, yet not so overdone where you can blatantly see everything right away.   I didn’t see the small jet at all on the first watch until it was too late. Thats a very realistic approach. The airliner was very easy to spot against the flat sky, but the private jet was very well camouflaged by ground clutter,  when you didn’t know it was there. 

Edited May 26, 2023 by MadKreator

[SharpeXB]

47 minutes ago, cfrag said:

Only of your hardware (monitor/HMD) supports it (many if not most displays have a limited color gamut, especially backlit LED-based ones)

Sure but that’s literally every TV today and you can buy one for the price of a joystick. 

48 minutes ago, cfrag said:

Processing that much more data will put an additional strain on your GPU, data bus and storage subsystem. Moving 3 times as much data through the bus will congest it. 

Theoretically perhaps but I haven’t see any performance drop when using HDR in any other game. DCS and one other flight sim are the only games I have without HDR. Nearly every other game today has this, it’s not an exotic feature. 

52 minutes ago, cfrag said:

Ray tracing is merely a different method for generating images

I imagine this is what you’d want for good state of the art reflections. Poorly done these would look like random flash bulbs in the sky. 

55 minutes ago, cfrag said:

As great as flight sims are looking today, they are still severely limited by graphics performance.

Well DCS as it stands now is neither great looking or performance demanding. It’s quite dated in many respects and now with multi core has quite a performance overhead, never mind Vulkan coming soon. That windfall maybe needs to be spent on something worthwhile. We don’t need Minecraft running at 200fps. 

[MadKreator]

1 minute ago, SharpeXB said:

We don’t need Minecraft running at 200fps. 

[draconus]

4 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

performance overhead

In VR it's always performance deficit.