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

[PawlaczGMD]

On 11/4/2024 at 6:08 PM, SWAR1 said:

Spotting is Junk again in VR with the pimax crystal. I can't see anything. It was perfect for me before the update. Higher-resolution VR needs bigger dots. Make a slider if you can't figure it out.

Same feedback from me on the Crystal. I'll live for now, but would like to see headset-specific settings or some customization soon.

[MoleUK]

On 11/6/2024 at 5:22 PM, Parkour said:

Yes. I just want the ability to turn them OFF in VR. Once Eagle Dynamics does that, I can finally leave this message board and go back to actually playing DCS. 

 

21 hours ago, Bounti30 said:

You are wasting your time.
ED is in a logic in which our request is not part.
What's more, they don't even have the kindness to respond.

I have a partial fix for the bug that makes dots disappear. While you may not want the fix, you could actually manually trigger the bug to make all dots dissappear if that's what you'd prefer.

For any SP mission, place ground units at cardinal points around where you want to fly. Two stacks of 100 abrams at each cardinal point will do, but they have to be within 80km of where you want to fly.

This will delete all air dots currently due to the bug. Alternatively instead of reducing the draw distance as I suggest here, you could do the reverse. That will (probably) make them disappear when ground units are placed even further away. But you need plenty of ground units placed in the mission.

 

11 hours ago, PawlaczGMD said:

Same feedback from me on the Crystal. I'll live for now, but would like to see headset-specific settings or some customization soon.

Check the fix in the above thread. Passes IC. I would suggest reducing the object distance to 40km to start to get more air dots to appear.

Edited November 7, 2024 by MoleUK

[sthompson]

On 11/6/2024 at 11:55 AM, Tippis said:

The problem is that this would have the exact opposite effect: the reason we're getting new dots is that the old ones are notorious for how completely uneven and random they are, ensuring that there is no chance of ever getting equitable results that are suitable for PvP.

Unlike labels (which are a UI layer that the player can pretty much arbitrarily redesign unless you jump through significant hoops to stop it), the whole point of spotting dots is to try to make as equitable a solution as possible. It might not be fully there yet for a number of reasons, but ultimately, there shouldn't be any setting at all.

Since the two are nothing alike, you can't treat them the same. It would be like if you could disable explosions on the logic that you can disable the BDA window and if you absolutely everything, you may come to the very nonsensical conclusion that they do the same thing. They don't, obviously, and that's why one can be a setting and the other one shouldn't be.

 

None of this makes any sense to me. I stand by my original statement: Make spotting dots optional, with servers able to force them off for PvP if the server owner thinks using them is not sufficiently "equitable."

[BeerNfrites]

Has it ever been communicated by ED what the end goal here is?
e.g. we expect a fighter sized aircraft to be spotted at 3/6/9/12nm against a clear sky in daylight.

Is there a list of headsets which have had the spotting dots adjusted. As I read that the Quest Pro had been reworked but they still aren't great IMO.

[Why485]

38 minutes ago, BeerNfrites said:

Has it ever been communicated by ED what the end goal here is?

This has never been communicated.

[Gun Jam]

Dot size looks okay now in reverb g2 in my opinion

[303_Kermit]

Heatblur Cold War server. Today. Map Syria We fly with GCI - our own.
-12-o clock 10 nm Viggen 
-no joy 
-6 nm directly in front of you
I zoom in zoom out
-3 nm!
Then I see him. 9 O'clock shadow in 300 yards range.

It's pure desperation. Tomorrow I shut down all extra terrain features. maybe it will help? It's not that dot is too small or too big. Problem is that the dot is not there at all. 

Can we please have DCS 2.5  again? I tried literally all possible settings. Result is always the same. Empty server 1 vs 1 , 2 vs 2 - contacts are perfectly fine. About 16nm Range. Big server  , many objects - nothing is visible.

[MoleUK]

29 minutes ago, 303_Kermit said:

Heatblur Cold War server. Today. Map Syria We fly with GCI - our own.
-12-o clock 10 nm Viggen 
-no joy 
-6 nm directly in front of you
I zoom in zoom out
-3 nm!
Then I see him. 9 O'clock shadow in 300 yards range.

It's pure desperation. Tomorrow I shut down all extra terrain features. maybe it will help? It's not that dot is too small or too big. Problem is that the dot is not there at all. 

Can we please have DCS 2.5  again? I tried literally all possible settings. Result is always the same. Empty server 1 vs 1 , 2 vs 2 - contacts are perfectly fine. About 16nm Range. Big server  , many objects - nothing is visible.

Follow the instructions here and set object distance to 40000. It should make dots appear for you again.

It's the ground units that make air dots dissappear atm, it's why it's so badly affected ECW in particular.

 

Edited November 7, 2024 by MoleUK

[rob10]

1 hour ago, BeerNfrites said:

Is there a list of headsets which have had the spotting dots adjusted. As I read that the Quest Pro had been reworked but they still aren't great IMO.

There are none YET.  ED has been adjusting the overall dots, but nothing headset specific has been released.  The only reason it may look better in the Quest Pro is because it was changed globally and the current version happens to be OK for that headset.  Which is exactly why they are working toward headset specific settings (because a global setting clearly doesn't work on all headsets).

[PawlaczGMD]

7 hours ago, MoleUK said:

 

I have a partial fix for the bug that makes dots disappear. While you may not want the fix, you could actually manually trigger the bug to make all dots dissappear if that's what you'd prefer.

For any SP mission, place ground units at cardinal points around where you want to fly. Two stacks of 100 abrams at each cardinal point will do, but they have to be within 80km of where you want to fly.

This will delete all air dots currently due to the bug. Alternatively instead of reducing the draw distance as I suggest here, you could do the reverse. That will (probably) make them disappear when ground units are placed even further away. But you need plenty of ground units placed in the mission.

 

Check the fix in the above thread. Passes IC. I would suggest reducing the object distance to 40km to start to get more air dots to appear.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, but that's not it. I tested it in a self-built SP mission with just 10 aircraft in front of me at various distances. There are 0 ground units in this mission. I was aware of this bug, but for me it looks like an issue with dot size resolution scaling. Dots were close to good for me before the latest patch. Now they're back to invisible, as they were before dots were increased across the board.

Edited November 8, 2024 by PawlaczGMD

[waterman]

This is getting more stupid each day.

Have i got this right ?

Users are being told the fix is to place hundreds or thousands of tanks to remove the spots / dots from the sky ?

 

 

 

[Tippis]

8 hours ago, sthompson said:

None of this makes any sense to me.

Ok. Let's go over the basics then. Let's see where your expectations clash with how DCS does things.

The reason we have the dots today is because without them, things are actually much much worse. It's been a long process, but ED have finally realised that their old spotting mechanics were worst-in-class and very very dumb. They are now trying to remedy that fact.

DCS' rendering of 3D models is very simplistic. As long as something exists to render and might show up on the screen, it is rendered, This means there is no sensible upper bound for how far you can see stuff like airplanes, only a lower bound of how small they can be drawn before there is no point in drawing them at all. Only then does DCS cull them from the rendering.

This has a couple of consequences:

• At high enough a resolution, planes are rendered out to maximum simulation distance. If you know where and how to look, you can see planes at 80nm. Eighty. Eight, zero. That is at the very least 10× farther than you should. Some would argue 20×. A more normal scenario still lets you spot them at 50nm if there is something to guide your eye — still an order of magnitude farther than you should.
• At low enough a resolution, planes are rendered very big at longer distances. You won't be able to see them as far out as in the high-res scenario (maybe “only” 30nm if you really push it and has everything in your favour), but you will see it very clearly because of how big your pixels are. It can't be rendered any smaller, and it hasn't crossed over the “don't render” threshold.
• At the very edge of rendering, the target may dip in and out of max range and flicker back and forth between visibility states. This makes them still faint, but very obvious at the distance where they should be the least obvious imaginable. This may be hidden by the use anti-aliasing, but that's yet another a client graphics setting that you don't know and can't control.
• You can use variable FoV to adjust those limits on the fly and cause target-revealing artefacting to occur on command.
• There is no telling what the other guy sees and how you appear to them. If you spot someone at 20nm, they may have had you clearly on their screen since you were 40nm away from them, or alternatively, they might not be able to see you for another 10nm. Not because of how good/clever/eagle-eyed either of the two of you are, but because that's what the game decides to show you. You have no way of overcoming this and no way of controlling this inequitability.

Enter spotting dots.

First of all, spotting dots are not labels. Anyone who says they are is objectively wrong and ignorant, and you can safely ignore everything they say because it will be equally clueless. Labels are UI elements. They may be shaped as dots or they may be a screen-filling detailed info dump on the target, but they are still just that: UI elements that put information on the screen. They're also fully user-configurable rather than a fixed thing that everyone sees so they don't even look the same to begin with, no matter how much some people desperately try to confuse them.

Spotting dots, on the other hand, are part of the simulation — specifically of the cognitive system of perception. Spotting dots let us address the above issues with raw geometry rendering in a number of ways:

• You can set a controllable hard cap on how far out they are rendered, and set a controllable curve on how they fade into complete transparency. This is tied to an in-game parameter — distance — rather than out-of-game circumstances such as pixel count. If you want to be fancy, you can add in additional parameters like size and aspect. As such, the same rules will apply to everyone.
• You can fully replace the 3D model beyond a set and controllable distance, so that no matter what the client is set to, there is no geometric artefact left to be rendered and to cause all the above issues. This will also apply to everyone.
• You can control how and when that dots transition into full 3D models, and give that a good safety margin and fade zone so there is no flickering in and out of visibility. Again, same for everyone.
• Since it is always the same for everyone, you know that if you can see them, they can see you, and if you can't, then neither can they. Well… subject to differences in size and aspect, if those parameters are included in the process.
• You can set a fixed size for what is supposed to be the smallest thing the pilot can see. How this translates into pixel count will still be a function of display type and resolution, but that is at least controllable, rather than having the client decide if they want to see targets as tiny dots out to low-earth-orbit, or as huge dots out to beyond-BFR-missile-range.

Since we suddenly have all that controllability, we can adjust visibility of far-off targets to match real-world data of what the eye can actually see. There is no concession for FoV — the size is the size, no matter how much you try to zoom in or out, and you won't see targets farther out just because you are roleplaying as a secret bird-eye-transplanet cyborg in this flight simulator. You cognitive process is weird, and rather than letting pure geometry and out-of-game circumstances dictate what you can and can't see, we can try to simulate how small things are simply lost in the noise, and how some noise can be processed into more information than the eye alone can pick up.

Dots are more controllable and more realistic than pure geometry for the purpose of rendering targets at the very far edge of visibility. They let us quickly and easily simulate things that 3D models can't (unless we introduce distance scaling, which is politically verboten in this game for no sane or sensible reason).

As a realism setting, they could possibly be considered comparable to g-onset effects — a bodily system and limitation that works non-linearly and weirdly, and we have a setting to just turn that noise off if we don't want to bother with it. But the difference that makes this comparison flawed is that g-effects don't change depending on how the client is set up. If they're on, they work in one specific way and you get the same outcome for everyone who has them on. If they're off, they also work in one specific way, and that is also the same for everyone who has turned the effects off. The raw geometry rendering you'd get if you turn dots off does not work like that. It's almost defined by how variable and different the results are for everyone.

 

 

Note, this is what dots provide, not where they are currently at in DCS. We still have the problem that they are rendered at far too high distances, and that the dot size isn't fully fixed and equitable across displays. The transition from dot to model also need a second (third, fourth…) pass to make sense.

In addition, as we have discovered, there are some very curious bugs that cause them to only be selectively rendered, which rather defeats the point of having everyone see the same thing. If you, as a single person, get different results, then it's clearly not ready for prime-time as far as making everyone else get the same results.

Again, ED are trying to remedy this positively antique flaw in the game, and it is already for the better than the old system, but we are… ehm… not fully there yet, let's say. Ultimately, spotting dots will just be part of how the game simulates the pilot (hopefully well) and there's no reason to maintain obsolete and inherently broken code as an option.

 

8 hours ago, sthompson said:

Make spotting dots optional, with servers able to force them off for PvP if the server owner thinks using them is not sufficiently "equitable."

For the above reasons, it would have to be the other way around. For PvP, if the server owner thinks they want an equitable scenario, they need to be able to force them on. Otherwise, the client gets to choose how visible targets are to them, which is not going to fly in a PvP setting. If you can't force it on, you can't maintain all of those “same for everyone” points.

Same goes for PvE servers, but from a different angle. If the PvE server owner thinks they want a realistic (or just controllable) scenario, they need to be able to force them on. Otherwise, they are removing a part of the simulation and get wildly nonsensical and unrealistic outcomes on the client end. If you can't force it on, you can't maintain all those hard caps and tweaks to match real-world performance and you have no idea what the player will see in your otherwise carefully crafted mission setup.

If you want to make dots optional, and offer the ability to let players set up their own visibility rules, then sure, let's do that. But realise that that's what you're doing and the consequences of allowing that freedom. If you want controllability, the necessary “force” option needs to be in the direction of forcing them on because you can't leave that control to the player.  In a small way, it's like letting the client decide g effects, but with infinitely more variable outcomes depending on how the client is set up.

[chichowalker]

Check the fix in the above thread. Passes IC. I would suggest reducing the object distance to 40km to start to get more air dots to appear.

Reading this I pretty sure now that fucking dot can be removed. Why is difficult to implement removing awful square from DCS options?. I don't understand..

Enviado desde mi SM-G981B mediante Tapatalk

[Dallatorre]

Hello ED.

I want to report that the spotting dots as per the latest patch works flawlessly on my high-end VR setup. the dots are small and non-intrusive, they are not visible from billion of miles without zooming in and they disappear when the enemy model is somewhat visible. 
tested in few online and single player sessions , I hope you'll fix it for the other lower and higher resolution headsets!

specs:

Oculus Quest 3 (godlike resolution)
RTX 4090
no dcs supersampling, no framegen, no quadviews.

Edited November 8, 2024 by Dallatorre

[Turbonix]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Dallatorre:

Hello ED.

I want to report that the spotting dots as per the latest patch works flawlessly on my high-end VR setup. the dots are small and non-intrusive, they are not visible from billion of miles without zooming in and they disappear when the enemy model is somewhat visible. 
tested in few online and single player sessions , I hope you'll fix it for the other lower and higher resolution headsets!

specs:

Oculus Quest 3 (godlike resolution)
RTX 4090
no dcs supersampling, no framegen, no quadviews.

 

What means "godlike resolution" to you?

With my RTX4080, OpenXR, DLAA and x1.3-x1.4 Q3 native resolution it is horrible.

its so bad since the last six weeks. I even don´t Play DCS anymore just because of this mess and I went back to the other sim, where spotting is MUCH more realistic and doesn´t have any freaking dot(label) system.

and yes @Tippis it is a forced on label system. To me it feels an behaves just like that. Whether its (wannabe) dynamic rendered and not meant to be an UI feature, or not. 
It is still an overlay in front of an otherwise "normally" rendered object. Call it what ever you want, but it is what it is.

Edited November 8, 2024 by Turbonix

[Dallatorre]

47 minutes ago, Turbonix said:

What means "godlike resolution" to you?

 

I only play with VDXR since all the mess by OpenXR and oculus Runtime, that is the preset resolution on VDXR

Edited November 8, 2024 by Dallatorre

[Tippis]

6 hours ago, Turbonix said:

and yes @Tippis it is a forced on label system. To me it feels an behaves just like that.

Nope.

Well, maybe it “feels” like it, but it isn't one and doesn't behave like one. Other than one being dots by necessity, and the other having the option to also be dot-like, they are in every single way different from each other. One is a UI element and behaves like a UI element — user-controllable, sits on top of an apart from the world, is rendered in its own layer. The other is a simulation element and behaves like a simulation element — exists in the world, reacts to other in-world features, and is rendered as a world object (admittedly with backwards z-culling at the moment but that just reinforces the point). No amount of feelings changes this simple fact.

  

15 hours ago, chichowalker said:

Reading this I pretty sure now that fucking dot can be removed. Why is difficult to implement removing awful square from DCS options?. I don't understand..

Of course it can be removed. But doing so is a bug. That should give you a hint as to why they don't want to make it an option. The whole point of the exercise is to get away from the state of affairs where something as critical and universal as spotting can be turned on its head and abused for all kinds of unintended means.

Edited November 8, 2024 by Tippis

[SparrowLT]

On 11/7/2024 at 11:20 PM, 303_Kermit said:

Heatblur Cold War server. Today. Map Syria We fly with GCI - our own.
-12-o clock 10 nm Viggen 
-no joy 
-6 nm directly in front of you
I zoom in zoom out
-3 nm!
Then I see him. 9 O'clock shadow in 300 yards range.

It's pure desperation. Tomorrow I shut down all extra terrain features. maybe it will help? It's not that dot is too small or too big. Problem is that the dot is not there at all. 

Can we please have DCS 2.5  again? I tried literally all possible settings. Result is always the same. Empty server 1 vs 1 , 2 vs 2 - contacts are perfectly fine. About 16nm Range. Big server  , many objects - nothing is visible.

This is exactly whats killing this server for me.. its exactly whats happening to me ..last time was an A-10A .. head on ..same alt , we had CGI , he was coming straight... nothing ahead.. then sudenly he is allready behind

[Parkour]

8 hours ago, Dallatorre said:

Hello ED.

I want to report that the spotting dots as per the latest patch works flawlessly on my high-end VR setup. the dots are small and non-intrusive, they are not visible from billion of miles without zooming in and they disappear when the enemy model is somewhat visible. 
tested in few online and single player sessions , I hope you'll fix it for the other lower and higher resolution headsets!

specs:

Oculus Quest 3 (godlike resolution)
RTX 4090
no dcs supersampling, no framegen, no quadviews.

 

I also have a Quest 3 with a RTX 4090 running in Godlike with Virtual Desktop in VDXR with no supersampling, no frame gen and no quad views.

I still see the black squares which don't go away until under 2nm. It looks horrible and is completely immersion breaking. They don't look like jets, they literally are black squares flying at you until the black square disappears well within visual distance revealing a jet that was hiding behind it.

@Dallatorre Please post images of your graphics settings in DCS along with the VR settings page so I can compare but I am simply not seeing the same thing you are.

This is exactly why we need the ability to TURN OFF Improved Spotting Dots in VR.  This would fix everything for single player and if severs want to enforce them to be on or off, so be it.

 

Edited November 9, 2024 by Parkour

[BeerNfrites]

On 11/9/2024 at 12:01 AM, Parkour said:

I also have a Quest 3 with a RTX 4090 running in Godlike with Virtual Desktop in VDXR with no supersampling, no frame gen and no quad views.

I still see the black squares which don't go away until under 2nm. It looks horrible and is completely immersion breaking. They don't look like jets, they literally are black squares flying at you until the black square disappears well within visual distance revealing a jet that was hiding behind it.

@Dallatorre Please post images of your graphics settings in DCS along with the VR settings page so I can compare but I am simply not seeing the same thing you are.

This is exactly why we need the ability to TURN OFF Improved Spotting Dots in VR.  This would fix everything for single player and if severs want to enforce them to be on or off, so be it.

 

 

Are you 100% sure these aren’t neutral dot labels?

I run a Quest Pro on godlike through VD, MSAA with quad views but set at 100%. I’m running PD at 1.0.

The dots I see are very faint and are visible at 14nm (if I don’t know where to look I have a hard time seeing them) by about 9nm they are replaced by the model, still barely visible.

If anything, I find it more difficult to maintain tally under 3-4nm.

[Bounti30]

And still no news from ED

[Dallatorre]

2 hours ago, BeerNfrites said:

Are you 100% sure these aren’t neutral dot labels?

I run a Quest Pro on godlike through VD, MSAA with quad views but set at 100%. I’m running PD at 1.0.

The dots I see are very faint and are visible at 14nm (if I don’t know where to look I have a hard time seeing them) by about 9nm they are replaced by the model, still barely visible.

If anything, I find it more difficult to maintain tally under 3-4nm.

I'm sure because you can't have dots on Contention server

On 11/9/2024 at 1:01 AM, Parkour said:

I also have a Quest 3 with a RTX 4090 running in Godlike with Virtual Desktop in VDXR with no supersampling, no frame gen and no quad views.

I still see the black squares which don't go away until under 2nm. It looks horrible and is completely immersion breaking. They don't look like jets, they literally are black squares flying at you until the black square disappears well within visual distance revealing a jet that was hiding behind it.

@Dallatorre Please post images of your graphics settings in DCS along with the VR settings page so I can compare but I am simply not seeing the same thing you are.

This is exactly why we need the ability to TURN OFF Improved Spotting Dots in VR.  This would fix everything for single player and if severs want to enforce them to be on or off, so be it.

 

 

attached on this reply
On my video you can see how the dots look: Hunting F-16s in the F-4 Phantom: DCS Shadow Reapers 80s PvP server (full mission) and I love how they look.

Only mod I run is the reduced VR radio message font size.

Settings only visible on the Quest headset: VR bitrate 400MBps

 

RTX 4090 (565.90) Studio Driver

Intel 13th gen 13700K

RAM 128GB

Windows 11

 

 

 

 

Edited November 10, 2024 by Dallatorre

[Parkour]

@Dallatorre Thank you very much for the settings. I really appreciate it.

However, after using your settings, I still see the enemy aircraft as large black squares that remain black squares until they are very close. This screenshot with your settings is hard to see, but it is literally a black square firing flares. I don't see the black square disappear until very close revealing an actual mig behind it.  This is from the 1v1 mission for the F/A-18.

Its become very apparent that Eagle Dynamics simply need to allow us to TURN OFF the Improved Spotting Dots in VR as everyone has different preferences and opinions on what they want in terms of spotting enemy aircraft.  I personally don't want any spotting aids, thus no black squares, over the enemy as it ruins my immersion. 

Thanks again for taking the time to share your settings.

@BIGNEWY Any word if the ability to turn off spotting dots in VR will come in a future patch? 
 

Edited November 11, 2024 by Parkour

[KoN]

On 10/31/2024 at 3:45 PM, Parkour said:

I just don't understand why they use a black square for a parachute, a ship, debris from a destroyed aircraft, and an actual aircraft at the same time.

Playing last night I had 4 dots in my view in VR, all of them the same size, ALL of them were the items listed above. I couldn't tell what was what visually. It was just horrible.

If you can't turn off Improved Spotting Dots in VR, at least try to make them actually MATCH the color of the target.

 

 

They have made all objects the black blob, even your weapons when fired , fire some rockets and watch your black blob streak to it's target. Last time I played this game. That's what I saw . 

On 11/1/2024 at 4:44 PM, SharpeXB said:

Those dots are gigantic! Do people seriously need these to see anything in the game? That’s crazy. Another post here showed these appearing on targets 30 miles away

 

We have all been telling you sharp for months it's different in VR.  

[KoN]

On 11/5/2024 at 9:23 PM, SWAR1 said:

thank you, maybe the issue

 

It's not lucky if you play multiplayer and one person can spot you 10 miles away and you have no idea where they are. If they can't figure it out get rid of all spotting dots then and even the playing field for everyone.

 

 

It's been going on for months as a multiplayer only man , I know exactly what you are talking about. Your not alone in I can't see anything in multiplayer. 

Some people here need to exit DCS and try another sim .

And see the difference in the spotting fiasco.

Because DCS is well behind in this matter . Well behind. 

The spotting looks like 1980s block graphics on a spectrum 128 .

Lol  

Sort this embarrassing spotting issue out ED. 

On 11/10/2024 at 2:29 PM, Dallatorre said:

I'm sure because you can't have dots on Contention server

attached on this reply
On my video you can see how the dots look: Hunting F-16s in the F-4 Phantom: DCS Shadow Reapers 80s PvP server (full mission) and I love how they look.

Only mod I run is the reduced VR radio message font size.

Settings only visible on the Quest headset: VR bitrate 400MBps

 

RTX 4090 (565.90) Studio Driver

Intel 13th gen 13700K

RAM 128GB

Windows 11

 

 

 

 

 

Are you using wireless or cable with your quest3