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

[lens]

I had the same problem with invisible contacts around 5nm. I downloaded the latest Nvidia drivers for DLSS and it helped with both DLAA and MSAA. File to download here:
NVIDIA DLSS DLL 3.7.20 Download | TechPowerUp

The unzipped file is replaced in the bin-mt folder

 

 

[303_Kermit]

On 8/25/2024 at 2:55 PM, lens said:

I had the same problem with invisible contacts around 5nm. I downloaded the latest Nvidia drivers for DLSS and it helped with both DLAA and MSAA. File to download here:
NVIDIA DLSS DLL 3.7.20 Download | TechPowerUp

The unzipped file is replaced in the bin-mt folder

 

 

Problem stays even if I choose no smoothing at all, and no Anti aliasing at all. Problem doesn't seem to be graphic connected. If I host small skirmish of 6 planes for friends I see everything perfectly. Problems start after I add some more ground objects.

It's not Anti aliasing or any other type of smoothing connected problem.

[KoN]

Get the Hint ED , the spotting in VR is Awful . WWII server is now empty . Well Done . !!!!!

Flying in VR is awesome but your spotting is SOOOO BAD . !!!! 

What ever you have done FIX it . Hundreds of threads and Complaints on your spotting issues . 

Just flown online and I can not see a DAM thing in VR  . Switch to 1440p TV  and I see all , the difference is crazy silly . 

Where have you gone wrong . !!

[SharpeXB]

If dots in VR were as large as on a monitor they’d be gigantic. I don’t think most people liked that. VR is like sticking your nose right up to the screen of a display, the pixels are huge. That problem will likely persist as long as a pixel derived dot is used. 
Using a 4K screen with the dots enabled I don’t find myself seeing anything too egregious so I leave them on knowing everyone else probably does too. 

[MoleUK]

2 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

If dots in VR were as large as on a monitor they’d be gigantic. I don’t think most people liked that. VR is like sticking your nose right up to the screen of a display, the pixels are huge. That problem will likely persist as long as a pixel derived dot is used. 
Using a 4K screen with the dots enabled I don’t find myself seeing anything too egregious so I leave them on knowing everyone else probably does too. 

The problem is that the new VR spotting has taken the fun out of things for a lot of us. It's currently a lot easier to spot in flatscreen than it is VR, that can be tested fairly easily by swapping between the two on the same settings on some spotting mission tests.

I assume that the changes were not made with the intention that VR players should find it far harder to spot than flatscreen players, but that is the state of the game for a lot of us atm.

For me if I can't see a damn thing (as things currently stand) it is no longer a fun experience period, as a result I have stopped playing almost entirely.

I understand that some people may enjoy the reduced spotting, but from my perspective I would rather those players have an option to enable that playstyle for themselves rather than force the current lack of visibility on everyone else.

Edited September 10, 2024 by MoleUK

[Nightdare]

13 minutes ago, MoleUK said:

rather than force the current lack of visibility on everyone else.

 

Spotting shouldn't be easy in the first place, so forcing it to be bad for everyone would be the best natural choice

[SharpeXB]

Personally I would prefer to have the dots off, seems perfectly realistic to me and I can even still see aircraft at rather extreme ranges. Under good conditions a large modern fighter is visible in DCS at maybe 28 miles. That’s really too far although it’s so faint you probably wouldn’t notice it without knowing exactly where to look. But still…

The only way to make the system resolution agnostic is to not use dots at all. 

Edited September 10, 2024 by SharpeXB

[SharpeXB]

I wonder if the problem with VR is that the headsets are often not running their native resolution. They actually have a native resolution that’s “low” for spotting and sharpness due to how close the screens are to your eyes but they run higher sampled resolutions via pixel density settings. If the dot size isn’t determined by the native res but by the supersampling, the result is the worst of both worlds, low acuity and smaller apparent pixels. Super sampling on a monitor would have the same effect but most people don’t use that. Running a screen at native resolution gives you an honest effect of the dots. 

Edited September 10, 2024 by SharpeXB

[MoleUK]

1 hour ago, Nightdare said:

 

Spotting shouldn't be easy in the first place, so forcing it to be bad for everyone would be the best natural choice

Ok, force spotting to be just as bad in 2d as it is in VR right now and watch what happens to the playerbase.

There is 'realism' and there is 'fun'. Currently I have neither.

Dying shouldn't be easy in the first place, so forcing it to be bad for everyone would be the best natural choice. Therefore let us make it so you can only die once per 24 hours, and then be locked out from further play. This is a bit more realistic. Though really we could argue for permanent consequences.

38 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

I wonder if the problem with VR is that the headsets are often not running their native resolution. They actually have a native resolution that’s “low” for spotting and sharpness due to how close the screens are to your eyes but they run higher sampled resolutions via pixel density settings. If the dot size isn’t determined by the native res but by the supersampling, the result is the worst of both worlds, low acuity and smaller apparent pixels. Super sampling on a monitor would have the same effect but most people don’t use that. Running a screen at native resolution gives you an honest effect of the dots. 

 

There are hundreds if not thousands of possible software/hardware setups for VR, which is why this one size fits all approach is somewhat self-defeating.

Of course there is one approach that potentially addresses all this (dynamic scaling), but it has been ruled out as a solution for whatever reason.

Edited September 10, 2024 by MoleUK

[SharpeXB]

33 minutes ago, MoleUK said:

There are hundreds if not thousands of possible software/hardware setups for VR

Yeah but the dots are just sizing themselves based upon a certain pixel density I assume. They get smaller for low resolutions and bigger for large resolutions, I assume. The old 2.8 system I think was just a single pixel which meant low res got larger dots. That’s what the fix was supposed to be afaik

What happens in VR if you run 100% native?

[Nightdare]

51 minutes ago, MoleUK said:

Ok, force spotting to be just as bad in 2d as it is in VR right now and watch what happens to the playerbase.

 

You can't say with certainty that the diminishing of the playerbase is due to spotting

 

51 minutes ago, MoleUK said:

There is 'realism' and there is 'fun'. Currently I have neither.

 

Probably because you don't like to be challenged, which probably explains your following words:

 

51 minutes ago, MoleUK said:

Dying shouldn't be easy in the first place, so forcing it to be bad for everyone would be the best natural choice. Therefore let us make it so you can only die once per 24 hours, and then be locked out from further play. This is a bit more realistic. Though really we could argue for permanent consequences.

And again you're wrong, dying is very easy, It's actually so easy, anyone can do it

...how about you try again and come back with an actual rebuttal instead of failed sarcastic counter

[MoleUK]

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

Yeah but the dots are just sizing themselves based upon a certain pixel density I assume. They get smaller for low resolutions and bigger for large resolutions, I assume. The old 2.8 system I think was just a single pixel which meant low res got larger dots. That’s what the fix was supposed to be afaik

What happens in VR if you run 100% native?

Unfortunately it gets more complicated due to various AA and upscaling techniques. DLAA and quad view for example.

I can't get dots to appear as well in VR as they do in flatscreen period atm. I can just zoom out in flatscreen and get dots to immediately 'pop' far better than they ever do in VR.

37 minutes ago, Nightdare said:

 

You can't say with certainty that the diminishing of the playerbase is due to spotting

Yes, I can only speak to the experiences of myself and others who I talk to. It has had an effect, and not a good one.

37 minutes ago, Nightdare said:

Probably because you don't like to be challenged, which probably explains your following words:

It's true, I can't stand debate. I run away from it and can't engage at all.

37 minutes ago, Nightdare said:

And again you're wrong, dying is very easy, It's actually so easy, anyone can do it

...how about you try again and come back with an actual rebuttal instead of failed sarcastic counter

It's so easy to die. And realistic too. So let us disable accounts upon death, this is reflective of reality.

If the aim is realism, when a pilot dies then naturally you must you die. Game over.

Unless of course the aim of gameplay is more than merely realism. Perhaps the aim of the game is some level of fun as well as a touch of realism.

But no, that can't be right.

Sarcasm aside, the aim of the game is FUN. If you insist on rules that almost no others enjoy, what do you think happens to the game? It dies. Because you drove away all the other players. I think we can agree that nobody wants this outcome. At least I hope so.

Edited September 11, 2024 by MoleUK

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, MoleUK said:

Unfortunately it gets more complicated due to various AA and upscaling techniques. DLAA and quad view for example.

DLAA isn’t as good at showing the dots as MSAA from what I see. Truth is I think it looks better since it doesn’t flicker like MSAA. But it puts you at a disadvantage. Again that might be due to changing the native resolution via upscaling. What happens if you run VR without upscaling?

[MoleUK]

6 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

DLAA isn’t as good at showing the dots as MSAA from what I see. Truth is I think it looks better since it doesn’t flicker like MSAA. But it puts you at a disadvantage. Again that might be due to changing the native resolution via upscaling. What happens if you run VR without upscaling?

DLAA definitely doesn't help yeah (especially in motion). I've tried various different resolutions, both with and without DLAA. None lead to the same ease of spotting as flatscreen atm. Particularly as you can zoom out in flatscreen and make the dots immediately 'pop'.

Edited September 11, 2024 by MoleUK

[draconus]

I see lots of empty statements. What aircraft at what distance you didn't see? We can do tests and compare. Use this mission and test for yourself.

If the server is empty you're suggesting only VR players were playing before and all those VR players experience the same problem? That doesn't seem to match the statistics. Nevertheless if it was true - everybody has the same disadvantage so what's the problem, right? Or if you think you're at disadvantage but feel highly competitive it'd be smart to use your monitor instead. And when the realism is not fun for you or your goal, what stops you from using labels?

From my last tests AA method (or no AA) and downscaling/upscaling (also PD) can affect a bit the spotting but not significantly. I heard most complaints from high resolution VR headsets users.

[SharpeXB]

4 hours ago, MoleUK said:

Particularly as you can zoom out in flatscreen and make the dots immediately 'pop'.

This is particularly noticeable and distracting. Potentially unrealistic as well since the apparent size of a dot can be exaggerated. It’s a phenomenon inherent to dots, possibly the only way to avoid this is to get rid of the them altogether. 

12 hours ago, MoleUK said:

the aim of the game is FUN.

The aim of a sim is realism. And realism is what should be fun for sim players. Look at the real world detection ranges and try to imagine that in the game. Right now in DCS you can easily see aircraft in excess of what you be able to to IRL

Edited September 11, 2024 by SharpeXB

[MoleUK]

5 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

This is particularly noticeable and distracting. Potentially unrealistic as well since the apparent size of a dot can be exaggerated. It’s a phenomenon inherent to dots, possibly the only way to avoid this is to get rid of the them altogether.

Of course it's unrealistic, the entire zoom function is unrealistic.

5 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

The aim of a sim is realism. And realism is what should be fun for sim players. Look at the real world detection ranges and try to imagine that in the game. Right now in DCS you can easily see aircraft in excess of what you be able to to IRL

You don't actually want realism though. You don't want to sit through hours of briefings and debriefings before and after you fly. You don't want to have to quit the game every time you die, instead of hitting respawn. You don't want to go through a court-martial whenever you accidently friendly fire something.

Because you don't want actual realism, you want an approximation of realism. Actual realism isn't very fun, not even in this game that we play.

And it is a game, there's an easy way to tell. Join a multiplayer server quick, get in a jet and hit '. You'll happily see all your air kills, ground kills and deaths listed. And your score for the videogame you're playing right now.

I understand that some people would rather scream "It's a simulator not a game!", but it's very much both. And given that we don't want actual realism in this game that we play, we settle for many approximations to best enjoy it. To make it more fun.

The current VR spotting approximation isn't fun or accurate, at least imo. So it fails on both counts. Spotting can literally never actually be 100% accurate to RL even if you wanted it to be, due to playing with pixels on a screen, rather than looking through a glass canopy and atmosphere.

But it would be nice if this particular approximation were tweaked a bit again, which it appears it will be eventually. Hopefully for the better.

Edited September 11, 2024 by MoleUK

[SharpeXB]

6 minutes ago, MoleUK said:

Of course it's unrealistic, the entire zoom function is unrealistic.

Zoom view is needed on a monitor to duplicate a lifelike FOV and/or peripheral vision. Also the only way to duplicate real world visual acuity is to enlarge the image. VR players even use the zoom for that reason. If there was an eye chart in the game, how would you be able to read the 20/20 line in the way a real pilot would be required to? Zoom in. 

[SharpeXB]

42 minutes ago, MoleUK said:

You don't actually want realism though.

Certain realism isn’t feasible or desirable to recreate on a PC game. Realistic visibility can be approximated though. And again the real world level of this is far lower than lots of players imagine. I think the preponderance of icons and dots in video games has convinced many people otherwise. What I see on my screen without any dots seems to equate to real life accounts. 

42 minutes ago, MoleUK said:

And it is a game, there's an easy way to tell. Join a multiplayer server quick, get in a jet and hit '. You'll happily see all your air kills, ground kills and deaths listed. And your score for the videogame you're playing right now.

Depends. Some have this hidden. I kinda agree with that. 

42 minutes ago, MoleUK said:

You don't want to sit through hours of briefings and debriefings before and after you fly.

I’m sure there are some people that do

42 minutes ago, MoleUK said:

You don't want to have to quit the game every time you die, instead of hitting respawn.

I’ve seen some SP campaigns where you can’t respawn if you’re dead

42 minutes ago, MoleUK said:

You don't want to go through a court-martial whenever you accidently friendly fire something.

And your career is finished if you kill a friendly.

Realism in a sim doesn’t mean the game is a literal duplication of the real world, it means that it attempts to be a realistic game. 

Edited September 11, 2024 by SharpeXB

[draconus]

2 hours ago, MoleUK said:

You don't actually want realism though. You don't want to sit through hours of briefings and debriefings before and after you fly. You don't want to have to quit the game every time you die, instead of hitting respawn. You don't want to go through a court-martial whenever you accidently friendly fire something.

You certainly confused realism (what is possible IRL) with RL events. Yes, it's a game but one of the very specific genre - study combat flight simulator. You decide where and when this simulation starts and ends. So of course you don't die IRL, only the pilot in the simulation can die. You can repeat the simulation with the same or other pilot any times you want.

It's on the user to either make it more a game or the hardcore sim. For one user the most fun is shooting stuff and for the other the whole immersing mission from hours of briefing, long cold start including all bits and tests, then long ingress, a few minutes of action (if any) and then long flight home and checking the debriefing.

You may not like realistic visibility so there are game options for you: labels or dots.

And you still didn't provide any meaningful example of aircraft that disappears for you. "It's worse than on monitor" is not good enough to make any change.

[=475FG= Dawger]

2 hours ago, MoleUK said:

Of course it's unrealistic, the entire zoom function is unrealistic.

You don't actually want realism though. You don't want to sit through hours of briefings and debriefings before and after you fly. You don't want to have to quit the game every time you die, instead of hitting respawn. You don't want to go through a court-martial whenever you accidently friendly fire something.

Because you don't want actual realism, you want an approximation of realism. Actual realism isn't very fun, not even in this game that we play.

And it is a game, there's an easy way to tell. Join a multiplayer server quick, get in a jet and hit '. You'll happily see all your air kills, ground kills and deaths listed. And your score for the videogame you're playing right now.

I understand that some people would rather scream "It's a simulator not a game!", but it's very much both. And given that we don't want actual realism in this game that we play, we settle for many approximations to best enjoy it. To make it more fun.

The current VR spotting approximation isn't fun or accurate, at least imo. So it fails on both counts. Spotting can literally never actually be 100% accurate to RL even if you wanted it to be, due to playing with pixels on a screen, rather than looking through a glass canopy and atmosphere.

But it would be nice if this particular approximation were tweaked a bit again, which it appears it will be eventually. Hopefully for the better.

 

Spotting in VR right now, for me, is the most realistic its ever been for me on my G2. I can barely see a dot at 10 miles if I know where to look and the aircraft get a dark silhouette against the sky somewhere around 2-3 miles. A lot of the previous disappearing aircraft no longer happens but some still does.

It certainly isn't anywhere close to the Real World. Frankly, its garbage compared to real world, especially at visual fight ranges. Blurry, fuzzy mess when you should be seeing sharp detail.

Whether or not its fun is a matter of personal preference. If you lack BFM skill, invisibility is a superpower. 

If you actually like a fight against a human opponent, current spotting is not much fun.

The lack of fun for MP folks can be seen in the lack of population in visual range PvP servers but MP is a tiny fraction of the intended audience.

[SharpeXB]

15 minutes ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

If you lack BFM skill, invisibility is a superpower

I’m gonna guess 90% of the pilots in WWII never saw who killed em and pilots fighting it out like Udet vs Guynemer or Richthofen vs Hawker was almost non existent. 

[draconus]

Currently more than 2400 players on standalone DCS plus over 800 on Steam. I can't see any trend here related to spotting updates.

https://steamcharts.com/app/223750

[Zakson85]

1 hour ago, draconus said:

And you still didn't provide any meaningful example of aircraft that disappears for you. "It's worse than on monitor" is not good enough to make any change.

Sorry, I will butt in on the conversation. From your comments I conclude that you are satisfied with the current state of dots in DCS. How detailed a description of the problem do you need to believe that the dots in dcs disappear?

[SharpeXB]

I don’t see aircraft disappearing. I do see dots vanishing although the aircraft they highlight are still quite visible. The dots vanishing is an inevitable consequence of using dots.  

 

Edited September 11, 2024 by SharpeXB