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

[Tippis]

3 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

People seem to be able to document the problem here.

No they can't. You're just not familiar enough with the topic or with VR or with DCS in general to understand what the problem actually is, so instead you insert your usual imaginary issue and refuse to accept what people are actually telling you.

Look at what they're describing. Look at the thread you linked. Try reading. Notice how they speak of very different issues.

 

7 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Again in the absence of that I’m left with the assumption that the “problem” is either unrealistic expectations

By the way, this is rich coming from the guy arguing in favour of being able to see targets from 40nm away and then trying to support that catastrophic nonsense on the notion that it is more realistic than any of the solutions that actually have to do with spotting rather than hardware compensation.

You want to keep your advantage and make sure no-one else gets one as well. We get it. Your foot-stomping to maintain this imbalance in your favour is futile and has failed every time you tried it. Maybe you should start using arguments instead.

Edited September 30, 2024 by Tippis

[draconus]

12 hours ago, Creampie said:

No need for a detailed report. It's bad the company knows its  bad, the community knows its bad and continues to try and make support for it yet you can't seem to understand that.

You want detailed reports like you're relevant to the matter or while having no real constructive thing to say

Right, at least I took the time to test how it behaves with different settings (AA methods, VR DP, "improved spotting dots") then made a mission for everyone to easily test for themselves on their own hardware.

Guess what? No one actually came back with their result that say they can't see a target in reasonable distance or it disappear at 2-5nmi. No one. Zero. Because it clearly shows you can still see the rear aspect F-16 at over 8nmi in DCS.

With "it's bad" you're just stirring the pot, with "no real constructive thing to say".

[chichowalker]

Last update broke disable option for this functionality. I have this option disable and now I can see Tie fighters coming along my cockpit at 40 NM distance.

Enviado desde mi SM-G981B mediante Tapatalk

[Simultaneous]

Likewise for me spotting dots are now permanently on.

 

Huge update and thank you very much ED. However it was perfect before with spotting dots off for me. Very realistic. I get that some people want or need them, but we must be able to turn them off please. They are stuck permanently on and it is quite ruining the experience for me. 

 

Please patch this quickly so that spotting dots can be turned off again.

 

Many thanks.

[Turbonix]

Yes, same for me! These new and according to the change log "improved" spotting dots technology is just terrible and absolutely breaking immersion in VR! 

And it doesn´t make any difference to enable or disable the option for "improved spotting dots" in the main menu.
I played around with different resolutions settings, DLSS, DLAA but nothing seems to improve this mess.

AMD 7800X3D
RTX4080
64GB RAM 6000Mhz
Quest 3
OpenXR 
Win11

[Avenger31]

Same here, so disapointed

[Wilbur44]

How on earth did this spotting update make it through?? This is terrible!! Black boxes all over our screens in VR?!? SEND IT! Lmao.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Exorbit]

Yup. ... I only fly VR, I wish I could turn those off again. I like to be surprised, keeps me on my toes. 

On the upside, great performance improvement, very smooth VR experience now. It's great.

 

BTW: Using Pimax Crystal, Native res, PD: 1, Quadview and DFR.

Edited October 1, 2024 by Exorbit

[Turbonix]

ED wanted to improve spotting for everyone to give us the feeling to have eyes like an eagle:

what we get: 

Edited October 1, 2024 by Turbonix

[Creampie]

17 hours ago, draconus said:

Right, at least I took the time to test how it behaves with different settings (AA methods, VR DP, "improved spotting dots") then made a mission for everyone to easily test for themselves on their own hardware.

Guess what? No one actually came back with their result that say they can't see a target in reasonable distance or it disappear at 2-5nmi. No one. Zero. Because it clearly shows you can still see the rear aspect F-16 at over 8nmi in DCS.

With "it's bad" you're just stirring the pot, with "no real constructive thing to say".

It's almost like you thought for a second that you did something useful.

While I can understand that if everyone had the same monitor or played on the same res this would in fact be relevant

The fact that the difference in 4K, 1440 & 1080 have a very significant difference is a pretty big and widely accepted & acknowledged by community & devs issue

Until that is somehow made consistent across the board of resolutions (scaling) this topic unfortunately does not change for the better.

 

 

[Parkour]

Confirmed the "Improved Spotting Dots" are unable to be turned OFF with others in my DCS squad. This is both on the Quest 3 and Pimax Crystal headsets.

Per the patch notes: "Improved Spotting dots.  Adjusted appearance of spotting dots in VR to be close to their previous state. We are looking at feedback." 

Here is my feedback, they suck. Please revert the change back to DCS 2.9.7.59263 and/or fix the ability to turn them off so it can once again look like it did in DCS 2.9.7.59263.  The current implementation of the VR "Improved Spotting Dots" literally look like graphics from an Atari 2600. There is no more detail of the planes going from a very faint gray/white dot, into a fine gray line, then a thin line with a dot on top for the tail, and then finally into an airplane.  The ground targets are just as bad turning from a brown square literally the size of a house then snapping into a tank.

It is incredibly immersion breaking to see the amazing VR visuals of the cockpit and sky to only be jarringly brought back to reality by graphics from the 80s. Even the planes from Lucas Arts Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe look better than the current implementation of the "Improved" Spotting Dots.

The image below is with them turned ON.  The image at the bottom is with them turned OFF. These are taken from the F/A-18 mission 1v1 by flying straight at the target. This can not be as you intended it to be. (You need to enlarge the image to see them as these are captures from VR. Yes, they are that pixelated and square.)

 

Edited October 1, 2024 by Parkour

[seven10]

I could see how this would be helpful for some, especially depending on their resolution or pd settings. However, the setting to turn it on and off as others reported is broken. For my current resolution settings of 4480x2272 and pd set at 1.0 they are blocky and very noticeable under 10nm and seem to fade out around 5nm. I personally would rather have a working option to turn them off.

[YoYo]

Unfortunately, the last patch ruined what was well done in my opinion. In VR, those big, terrible big boxes that most people were struggling with returned. I don't know why they touched them. Only a few voices complained about what was there, the rest thought it was a step forward, although not perfect. Now we have two steps back.

Radar is no needed now, tested and I see air targets from 30 nm. Ups.

 

Edited October 1, 2024 by YoYo

[Gretsch_Man]

Same here. Improved Spotting Dots are now forced on and look super ugly in VR.

[YoYo]

Dots and clouds problem back too: 

 

[chichowalker]

Would be nice a hot fix or at least auto exec command line to disable it, as previous versions.

Enviado desde mi SM-G981B mediante Tapatalk

[gorzasty]

Very bad, BIG dots returned! Be afraid of VR cheaters! :)

Wysłane z mojego VOG-L29 przy użyciu Tapatalka

[PawlaczGMD]

As someone who was crying about not seeing aby dots in VR in this thread, I have to agree that they are too big now...

I use a Pimax Crystal at 100% resolution. To summarize:

Before update: Virtually no spotting dots, spotting very difficult, I felt like I was at a huge disadvantage against flat screen players. Watching any 2D video, black dots were quite easy to spot, I did not see that at all in VR.

After update: Dots are too huge. Spotting is too easy, they are almost as big as dot labels at some distances and conditions. For example, I think the dot is like 10x bigger than the actual object for a WWII ship, it gets much harder to spot it as you zoom in and dots go away.

 

My feedback: let's tune the system to something in-between the two. I would like the dots to be there in VR, but not be so obtrusive. I am pretty sure that the dots were not as huge as they are now some updates ago (but were completely absent for me for a while, before this update).

Alternatively, just eliminate dots FOR EVERYONE. Let's keep cooking...

[Why485]

1 hour ago, YoYo said:

Dots and clouds problem back too: 

This never went away. It's been a persistent problem since the dots were introduced.

[Dangerzone]

My suggestion would be for now - until ED nail this - to have a new autoexec setting called Dotsize.

A value of 1 set's the dot size to what ED is currently working on.

A value of 0 turns it off

A value inbetween reduces the dot to that %. 

This first meets those concerned about 'cheaters' because it wouldn't allow the dot to be > 1 (or what ED has now). However it would allow users to tweak and lessen their dots (or eliminate them completely). So if ED has removed the option for removing dots and it has to be reimplemented from scratch - do it on a scale please so at least it gives users more control until this is properly fixed. 

Each release that ED gets (hopefully) closer to being better, means that people may be able to move their slider closer to 1 if it's too big at the moment. This of course still runs the risk of the dots being too small - but I think it's the best we can do now. (Unless - and my personal preference would be that people can increase the setting beyond 1 if the dot is too small - but I know how that would upset someone). 

[draconus]

On 9/29/2024 at 1:25 PM, Creampie said:

Scaling is incredibly important for anyone wanting to play above 1080p only because there doesn't seem to be any other viable solution.

Smart scaling implemented in 2.9.8, happy competitive flying

Edited October 1, 2024 by draconus

[Zakson85]

They must have big balls. They test their work in production...

Recently they removed the open beta and we only have the stable version. The question whether they accidentally removed the stable version is just a formality

why can't we go back to the implementation of this crap from version 2.9.5 where this option below worked. Anyone who wanted to take part in the experiment turned on this option

How much longer can we go on with this thread?

Currently this feature doesn't work and everyone is participating in this ridiculous experiment. Cool

 

 

ps. So that no one complains about not giving feedback.

Quest 3 settings:
quest link: x1.5 (5408x2869px)
DCS: pixel density 1.0

test mission: quick action
Map: Normandy
airplane: spitfire
mision: dogfight

the dot covers the plane which is 1500m away from me, then suddenly disappears when the shape of the plane is perfectly visible.
In my opinion, it should be at least 50% smaller, semi-transparent and disappear smoothly when we get closer to the opponent. Additionally, it cannot be a square!

Edited October 1, 2024 by Zakson85

[AutumnFox]

An' to think we had a laddy that made a dot mod an' nailed it

[Zakson85]

Here is the code that was a step in the right direction. Later it was blocked by ed and we got what we have now.

Spoiler

#include "common/states11.hlsl"
#include "common/samplers11.hlsl"
#include "common/context.hlsl"
#include "common/random.hlsl"
#include "deferred/GBuffer.hlsl"
#include "deferred/atmosphere.hlsl"
#include "deferred/shading.hlsl"

#define USE_GS 1

uint2 targetDims;

struct VS_INPUT {
    float3 pos        : POSITION0;
    float4 color    : COLOR0;
};

struct VS_OUTPUT {
    float4 sv_pos        : SV_POSITION0;
    float3 wpos            : TEXTURE0;
    float4 projPos    : TEXTURE1;
    float4 color        : COLOR0;
};

VS_OUTPUT VS(VS_INPUT i) {
    VS_OUTPUT o;
    o.sv_pos = o.projPos = mul(float4(i.pos,1), gViewProj);
    o.wpos = i.pos;
    o.color = i.color;
    return o;
}

float4 PS(VS_OUTPUT i): SV_TARGET0 {
//    return float4(applyAtmosphereLinear(gCameraPos.xyz, i.wpos, i.projPos, i.color.rgb*gSunDiffuse.rgb), i.color.a);

    float3 v = normalize(i.wpos - gCameraPos);
#ifdef VERSION_NEWER_2_5_6
    float2 cloudsShadowAO = SampleShadowClouds(i.wpos);
    float3 c = ShadeSolid(i.wpos, gSunDiffuse, i.color.rgb, 0, float3(0,-1,0), 1, 0, cloudsShadowAO.x, 1, cloudsShadowAO, v, 1, FAR_ENV_MAP);
#else
    float3 c = ShadeSolid(gSunDiffuse, i.color.rgb, 0, float3(0, -1, 0), 1, 0, 1, 1, v, 1, FAR_ENV_MAP);
#endif
    return float4(applyAtmosphereLinear(gCameraPos.xyz, i.wpos, i.projPos, c), i.color.a);
}

float inverse_lerp(float min, float max, float val) {
    return saturate((val - min) / (max - min));
}

[maxvertexcount(6)]
void GS(point VS_OUTPUT points[1], inout TriangleStream<VS_OUTPUT> output) {
    float4 p = points[0].sv_pos;
    p /= p.w;

    // Scale the opacity of the dot exponentially with a max visible range of ~18 miles
    // and full opaque at ~6 miles. Since this scales exponentially, by ~10 miles, the
    // opacity has already dropped to 50%, making it very difficult to see.
    float3 vecFromCamera = points[0].wpos - gCameraPos;
    float distance = length(vecFromCamera);
    float distanceFactor = saturate(1.0 - inverse_lerp(45000, 70000, distance));
    points[0].color.rgb = lerp(1, 0, pow(1 - distanceFactor, 4));
    points[0].color.a = pow(distanceFactor, 2);

    // Scale dot size with resolution. A baseline of 1 pixel at 1600x1080 is used, and scales
    // up linearly. 1 pixel width works out to 2.5 with the given targetDims. This means
    // resolutions below 1080 will still see larger dots, but resolutions above 1080 should
    // be roughly normalized to how big a 1080 dot will be, a size that feels easy to enough
    // to track, but not so small that it's easily lost.
    const float onePixelSize = 3.5;
    float sizeMultiplier = gScreenHeight / 1080;

    // Perfect pixel alignment requires a whole number plus 0.5.
    float scaledDotSize = floor(onePixelSize * sizeMultiplier) + 0.5;

    // Don't allow for anything less than one pixel in size, or else you get nasty flickering
    // from it trying to render the model underneath.
    float dotSize = max(3.5, scaledDotSize);

    VS_OUTPUT v[4];
    v[0] = v[1] = v[2] = v[3] = points[0];

    float4 dotPosition = float4((floor(p.xy * targetDims * 0.5) + 1) * 2 / targetDims, p.z, 1);;
    dotPosition.x += dotSize / 2.0 / targetDims.x / gScreenAspect;
    dotPosition.y += dotSize / 2.0 / targetDims.y ;

    v[0].sv_pos = v[1].sv_pos = v[2].sv_pos = v[3].sv_pos = dotPosition;
    v[1].sv_pos.x -= dotSize / targetDims.x;
    v[2].sv_pos.y -= dotSize / targetDims.y;
    v[3].sv_pos.x -= dotSize / targetDims.x;
    v[3].sv_pos.y -= dotSize / targetDims.y;

    output.Append(v[0]);
    output.Append(v[1]);
    output.Append(v[2]);
    output.RestartStrip();

    output.Append(v[2]);
    output.Append(v[1]);
    output.Append(v[3]);
    output.RestartStrip();
}

technique10 dots
{
    pass P0
    {
        SetVertexShader(CompileShader(vs_5_0, VS()));
        SetPixelShader(CompileShader(ps_5_0, PS()));
#if USE_GS
        SetGeometryShader(CompileShader(gs_5_0, GS()));
#else
        SetGeometryShader(NULL);
#endif
        SetHullShader(NULL);
        SetDomainShader(NULL);
        SetComputeShader(NULL);
        SetDepthStencilState(enableDepthBuffer, 0);
        SetBlendState(enableAlphaBlend, float4(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f), 0xFFFFFFFF);
        SetRasterizerState(cullNone);
    }
}

 

 

[SharpeXB]

It’s amazing that when 3-4 people complain about something it drives ED to ruin the game for everyone else. Clearly the majority does not like the giant dots, I can’t imagine who does. Not only that but they’re forced on. How do such decisions get made?