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

[Tippis]

1 hour ago, draconus said:

Ok then, unless you want to simulate gravitational lense, aircraft scale linearly with distance.

…in pure measurements, but those don't matter. It's what you see that matters. That's what the graphics need to simulate. That's where scaling has a place in simulation.

Again, if we want to have an actual simulation, we can't rely on something as simplistic as just trigonometry. That is not how we perceive the world. It's the same mistake as all the old nonsense about our eyes only see [some random number] frames per second, so that's what the monitor should display. It's a cognitive process. We want to simulate a signal processing machine operating on bad data. Trigonometry will not yield a realistic answer.

 

1 hour ago, draconus said:

If the fov is correct (VR) your eyes will become natural limit.

…in 15-20 years when we can also assume that everyone runs on >90°-coverage displays with sub-MoA pixel densities, raytraced, HDR, eye tracking and foveated rendering and player distance ranging — even in pancake — and are absolutely not allowed to change their settings in any way.

But what about here, now, and also any time the player can choose to change their settings? Whenever we need to have a hard cap on how far out targets are rendered (and this will always be the case) because otherwise targets are drawn, and thus can be seen, when they shouldn't be. Or they will pop in and be tremendously obvious, when they shouldn't be.

There are no good or even viable ways around this to create a realistic result other than a solution that uses scaling for intermediate distances and non-geometric rendering at the extreme limit of vision. It is also vastly more trivially implemented than all the other rendering techniques to hide distant targets, and more tweakable to reach that realistic outcome. It also solves the problem of leaning in and having a zoom function — an infinitely less realistic feature than scaling could ever possibly be… but where's the campaign to get rid of that? If realism is your goal, and you want it now rather than in DCS 7.0, you need to overcome this false notion that we should forego realism because the numbers feel wrong.

 

1 hour ago, draconus said:

Not a problem currently - majority of people rather complain about not seeing anything or unrealistic squares.

…both of which could be solved with a spotting simulation that didn't try to rely on a single solution to solve a multi-levelled problem.

 

38 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Because the system is totally exploitable and unequal in effect. 

…and that's exactly why it's a ultimately a bad idea to let people turn off the dots, ironically enough. And let's not forget that you were all in favour of such an exploitable and unequal system when you were on the beneficial end of the equation, and have been campaigning hard against all attempts to make it equal and non-exploitable.

Edited December 4, 2024 by Tippis

[Bounti30]

Okay, let's get started.
Nothing beats experimenting for yourself. 
Will this be a top ?
Or a flop ?

Edited December 4, 2024 by Bounti30

[SparrowLT]

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

Are you implying that you think you should see a high aspect MiG-21 at 20nm? Or even 5nm which would still be very difficult under some circumstances. 

 

 

Not impliying.. 20nm is too far... but bellow 10/5? i can see GA aircraft at nearly 10nm and i use prescription glasses and im shortsighted..i can spot easily GA and helicopters in our area arround 5nm from our runway or the local airfield even when im not lookin for them, and i dont have a specially good at all sight with glasses.. if you know where to look (ie CGI is telling you or radar has it) preciselly spoting a MIG-21 at 5nm shouldnt be much hard

 

Edit: i never said should see them at 20nm.. i was telling yersterday experience how the CGI guided me from 20nm to merge and they never ever showed yo anywhere visually.. they were on radar tough

Edited December 4, 2024 by SparrowLT

[SharpeXB]

3 minutes ago, SparrowLT said:

 

Not impliying.. i can see GA aircraft at nearly 10nm and i use prescription glasses and im shortsighted..i can spot easily GA and helicopters in our area arround 5nm from our runway or the local airfield even when im not lookin for them, and i dont have a specially good at all sight with glasses.. if you know where to look (ie CGI is telling you or radar has it) preciselly spoting a MIG-21 at 5nm shouldnt be much hard

Well a MiG-21 from nose-on is a dot about the size of its pilot. But I can see very distant aircraft in DCS on a 4K screen (with the spotting dots off), perhaps too far to be realistic. But they’re very hard to spot and you’d really need a radar lock to find them. What I see (again dots off) seems to comply with realistic values. It’s easy for me to see fighters at 5mi. 

30 minutes ago, Bounti30 said:

Okay, let's get started.
Nothing beats experimenting for yourself. 
Will this be a top ?
Or a flop ?

I don’t see anything in the new Change Log about the Spotting Dots…

 

[SparrowLT]

In any case i ordered a new monitor finally.. 27" 1440p ... since aparently my old 23" 1080 is quite a handicap here..

[Bounti30]

17 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

I don’t see anything in the new Change Log about the Spotting Dots…

 

will we ever see anything?

[Qcumber]

...

[Zakson85]

you have a new fog, so stop bothering the devs about some single dots

[Parkour]

Nothing has been fixed for VR and the "Improved" Spotting Dots in 2.9.10.3948.  We still have the big black squares covering everything. I've included screenshots of the mig from the 1v1 mission for the F/A-18, a picture of the "parachute" which is also a big black square exactly the same size as the mig was so you can't visually tell the difference between a giant white parachute that has a black square on it versus a mig that also has the exact same size black square on it. 

Yes, I verified that Improved Spotting Dots is turned off, but in VR it still makes no difference.  Looks like we wait until sometime in 2025 for it to be fixed... maybe. 

Mig aka Black Square:

Parachute aka Black Square (Yes, these are different images and this is actually the parachute from the ejected pilot of the mig)

Verification of Improved Spotting Dots off after the encounter.

So sad.

Edited December 4, 2024 by Parkour

[Tippis]

2 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

But I can see very distant aircraft in DCS on a 4K screen (with the spotting dots off), perhaps too far to be realistic.

And fixing that is exactly what the spotting dots do. They're already an improvement even if the end result sill make them show far too far out and even if the end result skews towards the too obvious. But you're not getting your 40nm spotting back, nor are you getting back your precious advantage over others who don't see targets that far out — the tweaking continues and we'll end up in a state where you will have to play on a level playing field.

Sucks, huh?

[Bounti30]

No surprise ....

[Phil C6]

Hi I play on a flat TV in full HD please tell me i missed something in my setting, the game seem blurry (short range 0.5Nm to 10Nm), label are blurry too when moving (no AA here because don't like the blurry effect)

Best regards

[draconus]

47 minutes ago, Phil C6 said:

label are blurry too when moving

Check "motion blur" option and "depth of field".

12 hours ago, Zakson85 said:

you have a new fog, so stop bothering the devs about some single dots

That's the thing - the "dots" are not single dots here, they are multiple pixel blocks!

14 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

with the spotting dots off

You can't turn them off!

11 hours ago, Parkour said:

Yes, I verified that Improved Spotting Dots is turned off, but in VR it still makes no difference.

It won't make a difference because they changed what this setting does some time ago. Now it's about how it behaves on zooming - check the option's description when hovering mouse over it.

[draconus]

14 hours ago, SparrowLT said:

In any case i ordered a new monitor finally.. 27" 1440p ... since aparently my old 23" 1080 is quite a handicap here..

The pixel density will be higher on your new monitor so spotting single pixel will be harder But maybe you get "lucky" and the "dots" will reveal as squares for you

[SharpeXB]

4 hours ago, draconus said:

You can't turn them off!

Right. I just mean the setting. On a monitor the setting toggles between the old v2.8 and the new v2.9 “Improved”. I think the old version produces a single pixel which is essentially invisible in 4K. I’m seeing actual 3D models, not dots. So for me “off” really seems like off.

Edited December 5, 2024 by SharpeXB

[Tippis]

7 hours ago, draconus said:

You can't turn them off!

You can, if you do it right, but it's a bit of a bug… some might even say an exploit.

[MoleUK]

7 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Right. I just mean the setting. On a monitor the setting toggles between the old v2.8 and the new v2.9 “Improved”. I think the old version produces a single pixel which is essentially invisible in 4K. I’m seeing actual 3D models, not dots. So for me “off” really seems like off.

In flatscreen turning them off does work fairly well yeah.

In VR the closest you can get to turning them off is running into the 100 dot bug, or enabling quad view. Having over 100 ground units present can eliminate dots, enabling quad view will significantly squash them regardless of any ground units being present.

Neither of these things are intended or ideal (they both need fixing), but if you want to reduce or eliminate dots in VR both methods can work.

Edited December 5, 2024 by MoleUK

[Bounti30]

Still no improvement in VR spotting dots
Still no money fpr new modules and maps....

[BIGNEWY]

1 minute ago, Bounti30 said:

Still no improvement in VR spotting dots
Still no money fpr new modules and maps....

That is fine we understand, but it wont help make the fix happen any quicker posting here. 

We will hopefully have a change soon, testing internally with some changes including disabling them.  

[SparrowLT]

On 12/5/2024 at 9:38 AM, draconus said:

The pixel density will be higher on your new monitor so spotting single pixel will be harder But maybe you get "lucky" and the "dots" will reveal as squares for you

I think you still dont understand the problem..

 

The problem is not "i cant see enemy jets 40nm away".. or 20 ..or 10

The problem as has been proven by MoleUK its the dots dissapearing when there is many ground units.. my problem was never "i didnt saw them at 40nm" ..it was that i knew exactly where they were cause CGI and radar had them ..but up to the merge they were invisible and then poped out when really close..i even posted screenshots where you could see no dot at all with the enemy 2-3nm in fron and then  a few seconds later (with timestamps in the screenshot) the MIG-21 merging with me visible in the top of the screen that just poped..

 

When i do offline missions i can see dots at arround 15nm away clearly .. the problem i have is mostly in Enigma/Heatblur cold war was as thats the only server i play wich has all visual aids disabled (labels, chevrons)

Edited December 13, 2024 by SparrowLT

[draconus]

12 hours ago, SparrowLT said:

my problem was never "i didnt saw them at 40nm" ..it was that i knew exactly where they were cause CGI and radar had them ..but up to the merge they were invisible

And how would new monitor help you with that? Look again at what post I quoted.

[TheFreshPrince]

In this picture, there is an enemy fighter jet at only 2 miles distance, good luck finding it:

[virgo47]

4 hours ago, TheFreshPrince said:

In this picture, there is an enemy fighter jet at only 2 miles distance, good luck finding it...

After a while, probably the first time after a few patches I got into an A2A mission, training mission. There was an Il-76 5 km ahead of me, and I had serious troubles to find it in the sights with zoom. It was partially a color/lighting thing, but I can't believe in real life I'd not see such a big thing when I looked at it directly.

No simulator will ever be 100% realistic in this matter - the only question is how well it translates the reality to a screen (in my case 1440p). 2D screen is especially challenging as there is no stereoscopy, so if the colors blend, we're screwed. Of course, VR has its own set of challenges, there is a resolution-vs-visibility discussion for monitors, etc. It's not an easy problem.

It is a matter of practice as well, especially when it comes to  "spot" a moving dot. But when there is no dot to see, no shimmer, no movement, nothing, not even when you look straight at it, it's objectively not good.

[MoleUK]

On 12/14/2024 at 7:45 AM, draconus said:

And how would new monitor help you with that? Look again at what post I quoted.

Because he's mostly flying on ECW, he doesn't get any air dots atm due to the number of ground units present in the missions on that server. Only the plane itself is rendering, which can be very hard to spot due to other factors like anti-aliasing effects interfering with very small sized rendered objects at a distance.

So increasing monitor size at that point can actually help quite a bit, since increasing the monitor size will increase the visual size of the plane model.

When that bug is interfering, it currently really helps to play on a 42 inch+ monitor/TV. Resolution doesn't really matter as much there afaik. There is also the workaround to reduce the global draw distance to get less distant ground units rendering and interfering, but that only goes so far since it only takes 100 ground units to start hitting the cap.

Still have my fingers crossed that that bug gets fixed in the next patch or two, since it's continually serving to interfere with dot size balancing feedback imo.

Edited December 16, 2024 by MoleUK

[draconus]

19 minutes ago, MoleUK said:

So increasing monitor size at that point can actually help quite a bit, since increasing the monitor size will increase the visual size of the plane model.

We're talking about new 27" 1440p vs old 23" 1080, not a great size difference while pixels will be even smaller.