w.i.p New spotting is great / New spotting is overcooked feedback thread

[Eldur]

9 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

Hi, 

we will be taking in the feedback from everyone over the coming days and tweaking in future updates.

thank you

I'd suggest that any changes should probably result in an option selector in the difficulty settings that can be set and enforced on all clients in a multiplayer environment. This is the only way to get most of the people happy, by giving them all the options to choose from. Those should be the prior system, the current one and probably new one that's kinda a blend of both which probably should be the default one as well.

 

Wouldn't want to have better visibility for a patch or two, only to have it taken away from me just because most of the community thinks it's not realistic and maybe even making a radar for finding bogeys superfluous (which it totally shouldn't). Ever player/simmer is different and they all have different setups. Making it possible to scale it to everyone's preference is the right way to go. It also makes it more barrier free for people with vision impairment. And making it so that a server can enforce a setting will kill any discussion about exploiting it right at the get go. We've been through that with the label thing a lot already. And I think using the label system as a substitute workaround in the past for what was added now apparenty (didn't have the chance to try it myself yet) is a thing that needs to be replaced, and the moment for that is right now with the new approach. It just needs ways to customize for best possible personal experience.

[Flappie]

From what I read, VR image sharpening feature might be responsible for these big black squares.

[lester]

@Flappie I wasn't able to disable new dots in VR the way it described in the patch notes:

There are other reports about it too. Maybe I did something wrong or maybe sharpening affects it as you wrote? I do have DLSS and DLAA enabled and sharpening set to 0.5 as suggested.

Checked 2D with just DLAA too: new dots are still there

Edited October 20, 2023 by lester

[McVittees]

I like it. Better than before - easier but still hard to spot stuff.

[BIGNEWY]

We will be looking at feedback and tweaking as necessary in future updates. 

thanks 

[Bazz_Mulder]

I'm unable to disable new spotting feature aswell. 

My autoexec.cfg is working fine as I have other commands there.

Anyone with better luck?

 

[Hobel]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb chichowalker:

It's disgusting and unreal. I can not deactivate it adding the line in autoexec.cfg. Very nice to be able to increase visual settings with DLSS but not good to see a big dot at 30 NM from your position. This kind of demands has to be discussed with real pilots before being implemented, it's my point of view. In real aircraft operations when flying, it depends on weather, visual environment and more things, the distance from where you can have tally or visual can be different, but normally is below 5-10NM. My recommendation is to have the opportunity to deactivate as an option in DCS settings.

Enviado desde mi 21051182G mediante Tapatalk


 

As already mentioned, evidence would be very helpful here. 

  -picture

  -resolution

  -graphics settings

 

That would support fine tuning.

on other systems you see the dots max to 12-15nm miles so how do you get your 30nm?

[average_pilot]

In my opinion spotting needs a physics based approach. This way there will be less room for subjective opinion and it will be more about tuning whatever optics model ED may come up with.

Not really knowing what I'm talking about, but I can imagine it would be about the amount of light energy reflected by the aircraft that is reaching the camera, how much it represents of the total light reaching the camera, some lens diffraction model to turn the physical speck into a light dot of certain size on the camera sensor... Actually shooting in the dark, but, doesn't it all sound nice?

Edited October 20, 2023 by average_pilot

[Hobel]

vor 7 Minuten schrieb average_pilot:

In my opinion spotting needs a physics based approach.

The difference and the main task is that the final result is almost the same on all systems.   What's the point of having a perfect result on 3440/1440 if everything above or below it delivers completely different results?  

so the feedback here is precisely what is being asked for.   How does spotting work on different systems 

[average_pilot]

18 minutes ago, Hobel said:

The difference and the main task is that the final result is almost the same on all systems.   What's the point of having a perfect result on 3440/1440 if everything above or below it delivers completely different results?  

so the feedback here is precisely what is being asked for.   How does spotting work on different systems 

That was my point, making it so that the final size and contrast against the background depends only on the optical properties of some model of light and camera sensor and not the final screen resolution.

Edited October 20, 2023 by average_pilot

[falconzx]

My feedback is:

3840x2160 No DLSS, MSAA4x= Perfect, smooth transition from imperceptible dot to a recognizable one from 30 to 10 nm
3840x2160 No DLSS, TAA or DLAA= tends to be too small
3840x2160 DLSS Quality, Balanced, Performance= slightly too small
3840x2160 DLSS Ultra Performance= blurry, and probably too big at medium/close range.
1920x1080 No DLSS, MSAA4x= Too big in general and dramatically increasing FOV
1920x1080 No DLSS, TAA and DLAA= maybe the size here is correct but lacks of smooth transition

Tested on a 32 inch 4k display.

Edited October 22, 2023 by falconzx

[Grodin]

In vr the new spots are gigantic. At first i tought i have lots of dark puffy clouds in the horizon but they ended up being these new spots.

[Vakarian]

1 hour ago, average_pilot said:

That was my point, making it so that the final size and contrast against the background depends only on the optical properties of some model of light and camera sensor and not the final screen resolution.

 

Physics/optical based approach doesn't work, as your monitor has a finite number of pixels to represent a point in space. You have to account for a screen resolution, otherwise you get system that was on before this update. When I set my resolution 1920x1080, I can easily spot aircraft in the VCCT bubble. Same environment but on 3440x1440 or 3840x2160 and I'm blind as a bat.

Reason is, for the same point in space, 1080 resolution has 1 pixel, but 1440 or 2160 resolutions have 4 or 8 pixels, meaning the actual dot is rendered smaller. The result? The smaller resolution, the easier spotting. 

It really sucks that we all strive for better graphics, better fidelity, but to be able to see anything you basically have to run as smaller resolution to get any sensible spotting available.

 

Transferring IRL spotting to a video game is not that simple, as in video games on a computer screen you generally see less far away than you would be able to see IRL and that needs accounting for

[average_pilot]

That's why I mention lens diffraction. AFAIK that's what turn very thin light rays, like the ones coming from stars, into a spot of a certain size in a camera sensor and our retinas. And with that information a witty pixel shader would turn it into a proper spot of proper color/constrast accounting for the screen resolution.

Anyway, if it's a stupid idea just ignore my comment. It seemed like a great idea in my head.

[chichowalker]

As already mentioned, evidence would be very helpful here. 
  -picture
  -resolution
  -graphics settings
 
That would support fine tuning.
on other systems you see the dots max to 12-15nm miles so how do you get your 30nm?

VR Reverb G2
DLSS quality, sharpening 0.5, LOD slider at 0.8
Resolution override with toolkit 3300x3225
DCS textures high
Clouds high
Water medium
Rest of AA modes off.
Anisotropic 16x
Shadows low
Terrain shadows flat
SSS off

Distance of the contacts known by AWACS or airborne sensors.

Enviado desde mi 21051182G mediante Tapatalk

[twistking]

10 hours ago, twistking said:

I agree. Unfortunately for me, i have 1080p monitor, so that excessive visibility is all i know since forever. In good weather, i never ever locked a bandit with radar before i could easily see him visually. I was hoping that the 2.9 update would finally make spotting more realistic...

i want to add, that this is for 2.8 and earlier. i have not yet tested 2.9.

[SharpeXB]

8 hours ago, Hobel said:

Yes, but this has to work for all kinds of resolutions, everyone here has different hardware.  The thing certainly still gets fine tuning

 

BTW.   It would be helpful if pictures were posted of what distance the dots were actually seen, no feelings of "that might have been 20nm", what resolution  And graphic settings, there are many different reports of the new spotting

 

I just checked my track and discovered this bandit was indeed a KC-135. Above comments removed until I can test further. 
PS I understand this feature is about dots. If you see an actual aircraft outline that’s not the new spotting. 

Edited October 20, 2023 by SharpeXB

[evilnate]

I like it. If others don’t, maybe add slider to reduce size or draw distance?

[SharpeXB]

5 minutes ago, evilnate said:

I like it. If others don’t, maybe add slider to reduce size or draw distance?

There shouldn’t be player controlled visibility settings. It would wreck multiplayer and divide it up with settings. That’s what happened last time with the Model Enlargement feature. The goal I’m sure is to have a solution that works well enough for everyone. 

[DayGlow]

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

There shouldn’t be player controlled visibility settings. It would wreck multiplayer and divide it up with settings. That’s what happened last time with the Model Enlargement feature. The goal I’m sure is to have a solution that works well enough for everyone. 

I don't see any issue if it's only to make it smaller than default. Have a slider with 100% as the top so if someone thinks the dots are too big they can reduce them. No advantage is gained this way. 

[SharpeXB]

Just now, DayGlow said:

I don't see any issue if it's only to make it smaller than default. Have a slider with 100% as the top so if someone thinks the dots are too big they can reduce them. No advantage is gained this way. 

But then the player is forced to decide between an ugly game or being at a disadvantage. I think we want to get rid of that dilemma. 

[Daemoc]

This is the entire point of the exercise. Make the spotting fair for everyone.

They have to start somewhere, and it is a lot better than before. I would rather deal with big dots than spamming zoom to see objectsat anything more than CRT resolution.

I am sure it will change as they fine tune it.

Edited October 20, 2023 by Daemoc

[SharpeXB]

Here's what I see in both 4K and giving it the "cheat test" by dropping my res to 1080p

EDT: after trying this out more I find myself thinking these dots are simply too big and too visible. They seem to be nothing more than the dot labels forced on.

I can't easily see the bandits at extreme range really any better than before and only slightly better at closer distance of about 14 miles. This is maybe a little better than in 2.8 but not really extreme. These targets are in ideal conditions, they're moving, and I know where to look, otherwise they'd be realistically difficult to spot.

And a big thank you! to ED for fixing the replay feature that now works for testing like this.

Edited October 29, 2023 by SharpeXB

[SharpeXB]

This actually seems good to me.

 

[falconzx]

Question for ED Devs:

Is the new spotting simulating an increase/reduction of the dot visualized when the LOD is the lowest ( for example HIGH FOV but close range) based on the actual target visible surface?