resolved New spotting is great / New spotting is overcooked feedback thread

[Aviator78]

Spotting in VR definitely needs an improvement, or simply a deactivation of the current improved spotting for VR users. Those do not need any radar, they can spot the blobs from 30+km away and enjoy a significant gameplay advantage over non-VR users. This bug has degraded multiplayer significantly.

For non-VR users I feel the improvement is great. For the first time I can actually spot enemy dots within 10km range...

Edited June 18, 2024 by Aviator78

[Cheese16]

As others have stated, it really depends on the equipment. I used a Valve index up till around Feb. And thought the new dots were awful. They were way too big and disappeared way too early, so objects in the middle ground would effectively dissappear. It made anything between 3-10 miles completely invisible and anything over 10 miles impossible to miss. I could lock up a su27 at 20miles, watch it close in and just disappear but keep the lock until it was on top of me. 

 

Now after switching to a Quest 3 everything is almost invisible until they're under 3 miles. The spotting dot almost doesn't exist. Ground targets are also much harder to see. It would be really nice to just have a slider for this

[ustio]

I have a theory but i cant prove it yet. it seems if your PC is struggling with performance, the spotting become worse

Currently playing with I5-10400, RTX 3070, 32GB RAM with an app the constanly clears cache. I can't spot anything while flying on Enigma while flying F-4, F-1 even when i jettison the canopy since they run heavy on PC. however, when im flying F-5, Mig-21, contact are way easy to spot even when im 20 miles out.

 

Edited July 24, 2024 by ustio

[KoN]

On 7/24/2024 at 3:30 PM, ustio said:

I have a theory but i cant prove it yet. it seems if your PC is struggling with performance, the spotting become worse

Currently playing with I5-10400, RTX 3070, 32GB RAM with an app the constanly clears cache. I can't spot anything while flying on Enigma while flying F-4, F-1 even when i jettison the canopy since they run heavy on PC. however, when im flying F-5, Mig-21, contact are way easy to spot even when im 20 miles out.

 

 

Nothing to do with performance. This is a graphic bug . Blunt reply . 

 

[Why485]

On 7/24/2024 at 10:30 AM, ustio said:

I have a theory but i cant prove it yet. it seems if your PC is struggling with performance, the spotting become worse

Currently playing with I5-10400, RTX 3070, 32GB RAM with an app the constanly clears cache. I can't spot anything while flying on Enigma while flying F-4, F-1 even when i jettison the canopy since they run heavy on PC. however, when im flying F-5, Mig-21, contact are way easy to spot even when im 20 miles out.

I have no evidence of this either, but I also have a much harder time when my FPS is low. I think this has more to do with it being more difficult to physiologically identify motion when the game runs at low FPS versus high FPS though. Low FPS means there's less information for your eyes/brain to process as potential movement or contrast.

[MAXsenna]

I have a theory but i cant prove it yet. it seems if your PC is struggling with performance, the spotting become worse
Currently playing with I5-10400, RTX 3070, 32GB RAM with an app the constanly clears cache. I can't spot anything while flying on Enigma while flying F-4, F-1 even when i jettison the canopy since they run heavy on PC. however, when im flying F-5, Mig-21, contact are way easy to spot even when im 20 miles out.
 

Are you saying you increase FPS if you pop the canopy. Need to try that.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[ustio]

18 hours ago, MAXsenna said:

Are you saying you increase FPS if you pop the canopy. Need to try that.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk
 

No what im saying, because F-4 has a darker canopy than other aircraft, i thought that was the reason why spotting in that aircraft is difficult. But it turns out that was not the case.

 

Even when there are nothing in the way, im having a hard time seeing a contact. So i assume your FPS has something to do with the rendering 

 

Edited July 27, 2024 by ustio

[KoN]

On 7/27/2024 at 3:12 AM, ustio said:

No what im saying, because F-4 has a darker canopy than other aircraft, i thought that was the reason why spotting in that aircraft is difficult. But it turns out that was not the case.

 

Even when there are nothing in the way, im having a hard time seeing a contact. So i assume your FPS has something to do with the rendering 

 

 

Are you in VR . 

[ustio]

2 hours ago, KoN said:

Are you in VR . 

No 2D

[KoN]

22 hours ago, ustio said:

No 2D

Have you tested since last patch update , try the F4 again , then jump into the F5 , see if there are differences in the spotting. Try to do this same server and times . Because DCS has this weird shading go on . 

Also try reshade if no joy . 2D is far superior than VR . 

VR is broke . You can't see anything anymore. The only headset I've heard is doing ok is pimex crystal. 

[Volator]

18 hours ago, KoN said:

You can't see anything anymore

So the super-huge blobs for (some) VR users are gone?

[Thorns]

G2 with 4090 13900K. Up until the last update spotting planes in WWII (real, no labels) wasn't too bad. You could see the enemy dot within 10nm turning into an airplane around 4-5nm. Now it's blindman's bluff. Can't see an enemy plane until he is shooting you. What happened. I hope ED (pleaseeeee) gets this figured out, because this sucks in VR now. And, 4YA server is warping so bad...it's bad.

 

[SharpeXB]

Some examples of what I see with the 2.96 Spotting Dots

Notice the difference between the Dots Off in both 4K and 1080p, the lower resolution still has a big exploit over players at higher resolutions who switch the dots off. Dots Off simply reverts to the old 2.8 setting. It's not a true Off function.

The Dots On in 4K appear as big spots and you can watch them vanish as soon as they get closer.

[SharpeXB]

What's interesting here is 4K and 1080p aren't so far off from each other although with either in 1080p or in 4K (these are all the Dots Off setting) the aircraft become visible at some pretty extreme ranges. The 1080p dots stand out a bit more severely but not much.

[Phantom12]

Unplayably horrendous in a Rift CV1. Admittedly the blobs were a bit much before but even those were better than what we have now. There is still the fundamental issue that you can spot airplanes at anywhere between 10 and 30 miles but when they get within 3 miles or so they are invisible even across the circle from you in a turn where they should be easiest to spot.

[SharpeXB]

3 hours ago, Phantom12 said:

There is still the fundamental issue that you can spot airplanes at anywhere between 10 and 30 miles but when they get within 3 miles or so they are invisible even across the circle from you in a turn where they should be easiest to spot.

Yeah that’s what I see in the “4K Dots Vanishing” screenshot above. It’s taken right after “4K Dots On” when the dot changes to the 3D model. I can still see the models easily at that range, but it looks awkward. 

[Eraseri]

I noticed during my testing that 1440p has larger dots than the 1080p. I encourage other people to test 1440p against 1080p to verify my findings 

[Notarobot]

cant' see <profanity> in VR anymore as far as enemy aircarft spotting is concerned

[SharpeXB]

In my testing I noticed MSAA is much better for spotting than DLAA. Those shots above are all MSAA x4, I might have tested the 1080p “exploit” with it Off but I can’t recall. I prefer how DLAA looks but for spotting none of those dots would be visible at the extreme ranges. Honestly that’s more realistic though. 

[Why485]

Today's patch notes say:

Quote

Spotting Dots: Tuning and fix of blurring of spotting dots by TAA and DLAA. We are looking at the feedback and this change may improve some things. Current feedback is overall balanced and we will be looking further into this to make new adjustments.

However, this does not seem to be the case. Dots smear and blur post-patch in DLAA and TAA just the same as they did before the patch.

This gif is using TAA.

This is a screenshot (enlarged 3x) using DLAA.

DLAA is fancy TAA, so the results are the same. Both will smear and blur dots and other small details/objects. It's inherent to how they work and makes them somewhat uniquely unsuited for a combat flight sim without some kind of special handling in the rendering pipeline.

Edited August 9, 2024 by Why485

[Phantom12]

As soon as I saw "we consider this good now" in the patch notes I knew they will have touched nothing and given up on it. Same problems as before: spotting planes at 10+ miles is easy, as soon as you start manuevering at what should be WVR its close to impossible to keep things in sight even if you try to stay padlocked the whole time.

[SparrowLT]

I dont know what they did but i cant play in servers like Enigma anymore and i could with no problem

 

its annoying and it totally broke the game for me . enemy planes are completly INVISIBLE to me under 5nm.. im done with this and as from yesterday im not playing anymore in servers with labels or chevrons disabled becuase for the last 5 months i havent able to spot enemy players near me.. and i know they are there.. AWACS and CGI are telling me preciselly where they are ..i know they are there but there is nothing there.. zoom in..zoom out ..nothing.. if they get too close and the game renders the jet i might be able to see them and if they are too far (beyond 5nm) i see a dot more or less small but bellow that its like if the game simple doesnt render them... so i 99% of the times end up in a 2 circle fight with an invisible enemy until i simply die by someone who aparently can see me very well..

 

ITs completelly broken and useless and really urges me to uninstall the game and just move on with BMS..

 

Oh and im in a 23" 1080p monitor.. not a 1440 or 4K .. tried with the "improved spotting dots" option enabled and disabled.. doesnt make a difference to me  im using MSAA 2X ...and yes 5-6months ago i could see people in Enigma or with labels/chevrons disabled nearby.. wich is what made those servers fun as it was pure mark 1 eyeball gameplay ... now its just the game insulting and spitting at me

 

 

 

made a test in offline vs 2 MIG-25s ..i can see their dot at 11nm ... but once near merge they are just gone (second screenshot wich is at less than 5nm)

[Zakson85]

I described the problem and made a video showing the dots disappearing. I feel like my greatest achievement was having ED remove the dots completely in VR Currently, in order to see anything on the Enigma, the visual effects have to be drastically reduced. Low resolution, basically everything set to LOW, allows you to see your opponent. But it takes away all the pleasure from the beautiful graphics. We have text-based accurate surgical guidance. But we can't see each other when flying wing to wing. It's hard to call the current state of spotting enjoyable and fun. I only fly WW2 and Cold War. It's hard to call this era currently playable online.

I described disappearing contacts on large servers here:

the topic died forgotten ;(

[SharpeXB]

4 hours ago, SparrowLT said:

enemy planes are completly INVISIBLE to me under 5nm

I doubt that’s literally true. At this range you shouldn’t need spotting dots to see them, the 3D model will be clearly visible. 

4 hours ago, SparrowLT said:

i can see their dot at 11nm ... but once near merge they are just gone

This is a phenomenon inherent to using the spotting dots. At a certain range they will just vanish. Perhaps it’s better to just turn off the dots so the transition isn’t so abrupt.

Its normal to lose sight of opponents in realistic gameplay, they don’t say “lose sight lose the fight” for no reason. 

[303_Kermit]

Contacts are invisible for me above 3-5 nm. I mean in real environment - Heatblur cold war server. Not sterile offline mode.