nothing to fix The sensation of speed

[mobile83]

Hello,

I've been playing DCS for 4 years now and I think it's a real shame that the speed feel has never been updated. I'm flying at 750 knts at 1000ft and I feel like I'm at 50 knts.

I think it's a texture problem, not enough objects on the ground or the size of the trees which are far too big and uniform. On all the maps it's the same, the blur effect isn't present enough or I don't know, but frankly it's a real shame.

If this simulation could reproduce high speed, that would be great, but we could do much better in trying to give a sensation of speed at low altitude. I want to have a sensation of speed without having a fov of 240.

[Gunfreak]

I get lots of speed sensation.

Some planes are more noticeable that others.

400mph feels a lot faster in a ww2 plane than mach 1 does in the F16.

Flying tree top at 500knots in an F86 feels faster than flying tree top at 500knots in the F16.

Flying 15 feet above the water in the mossie feels super fast even at 280mph

[Hiob]

Te perception of speed is mainly a function peripheral sight. Or in other words - FOV.

Closer to the ground and more distinct objects do help, but fundamentally it's field of view.

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

There's been a few threads about this already. Feel free to look them up and have a look there to see what people had to say about it  

[SharpeXB]

I don’t understand what this means or why it matters. What’s “sense of speed” on a computer screen? Why is this important at all? Clearly the “speed” you see in the game is affected by your FOV. But you can be assured your speed in the game is correct. Why this needs to be “realistic” on a computer screen escapes me nor is it possible. In VR it would be but you’re still dealing with the FOV mask of the headset. Like driving your car with a scuba mask on and seeing a blurry screen door all over everything. That’s not to realistic either. But this is a game and I doubt anyone is using this to train for flying a real aircraft. So it doesn’t matter. 

[sirrah]

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

... and seeing a blurry screen door all over everything...

Seems you have an old fashioned idea of VR in its current state.

But to stay on topic:

ED (and their third parties) are capable of recreating the most extended and comprehensive (publically available) aircraft simulation ever. I'm sure they know how to calculate and implement the correct distance over time values, and general dimensions of objects. So, all these threads about perception of speed (there are lots; just use the forum search) are related only to... well.. personal perception.

 

The sim has it right, it's our hardware (proper fov, as mentioned before) that is preventing us from really experiencing the sense of speed. There's nothing "wrong" with DCS on this part.

 

 

off topic: Personally, I don't understand why the VR market isn't focusing more on fov (apart from maybe Pimax). To me, that part of VR is by far screaming the most for improvement.

[SharpeXB]

20 minutes ago, sirrah said:

Seems you have an old fashioned idea of VR in its current state.

I hadn’t used VR since the original Rift and tried on a Quest 3 the other day. I was really surprised how little improved the resolution was. Even with 2K x 4K pixels it was still horribly pixelated with a noticeable screen door effect. If “sense of speed” depends on seeing fine textures VR can’t really deliver on that. The resolution still seems way too low to use for a sim like this. I’m surprised 7 years of headset progress hasn’t improved on this much at all. 
 

Edited December 28, 2023 by SharpeXB

[Schmidtfire]

Answer is Normandy 2

It's mostly in the map. Textures, objects and terrain mesh. If you use maps with lower fidelity such as Syria or Sinai,
the sensation of speed won't be as good. But flying low level with a jet on Normandy 2 can be downright frightening.
 

[draconus]

9 hours ago, mobile83 said:

I want to have a sensation of speed without having a fov of 240.

Use Lctrl+Z.

[Gunfreak]

1 hour ago, Schmidtfire said:

Answer is Normandy 2

It's mostly in the map. Textures, objects and terrain mesh. If you use maps with lower fidelity such as Syria or Sinai,
the sensation of speed won't be as good. But flying low level with a jet on Normandy 2 can be downright frightening.
 

This is on the channel map(I think)

But at the end of this video I go past 400mph in the Spit down low, together with the rain. Created an immense feeling of speed(naturally not translated well to a youtube video)

 

[Crouz]

For everyone else it's slow at m2 30000f without clouds and fast on the ground

It's due to the lack of overall volume in the scene due to basic lightning, giving a poor impression of terran relief ans objects if you don't look precisely at a point and let your imagination convince itself of the relief using the colors.

Better managing lightning, which means shadows too, oc...will have better overall sensations, heigh and speed.

I'm not a specialist but i'm sure  that's the problem, since the proportions and distances seem correct.

And of course, the impression is present at ground level and with omnipresent particles

 

[Hiob]

Just search for „fov speed“ on youtube. There are tons of comparison videos.

[Schmidtfire]

33 minutes ago, Gunfreak said:

This is on the channel map(I think)

But at the end of this video I go past 400mph in the Spit down low, together with the rain. Created an immense feeling of speed(naturally not translated well to a youtube video)

 

Channel Map has the same type of fidelity as Syria or Sinai maps so It should not be that different.  
Normandy 2 is in a different league. Not even sure that upcoming maps (such as Kola) will beat it in terms
of detailing and varied mesh. I have not flown it in VR, but on a screen there is a big difference in sensation
of speed between Normandy 2 and other maps (at low levels). 

[SharpeXB]

It doesn’t make sense to worry about this so much and there’s little about the game that needs to change or can be. Sure higher textures and lighting etc. have an effect but those improvements have benefits outside this aspect. Perception of speed is mostly dependent on FOV, those other factors are minor by comparison. Racing sim players try to set a realistic FOV due to this but that is really impractical in a flight sim since it means having a very narrow setting. So speed perception is entirely artificial on a monitor especially since flight sim players need to use the variable zoom view so much. It doesn’t matter so much for flying in the way it does for racing. 

Edited December 29, 2023 by SharpeXB

[Czar66]

Here: 110 Fov at 1080p and speed sensation is adequate.

Flying low following the terrain at 450+ kts en route to take down a heavily defended target feels super. Just widen your fov and you'll get it.
Planes: F-18C, F-14A/B, F-15E....any plane really... Heck, even the A-10C at tree level or between trees over a field or even open desert at less than 100ft agl is terrific.

[SharpeXB]

This is what my FOV should be (46) according to the racing sim calculator. Not very useful unless you have triple screens. So there's not much point in trying to achieve this in a flight sim.

[draconus]

8 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

This is what my FOV should be (46) according to the racing sim calculator. Not very useful unless you have triple screens. So there's not much point in trying to achieve this in a flight sim.

RL object size is as much needed for flight sim as for any other vehicle sim. Not a game's fault that you have small display. Set it as you see fit but I prefer the real fov.

[Hiob]

IIRC he uses a 48“ display. Which is either very far away, or the calculation for FOV is off.

[SharpeXB]

6 hours ago, draconus said:

RL object size is as much needed for flight sim as for any other vehicle sim. Not a game's fault that you have small display. Set it as you see fit but I prefer the real fov.

I’m actually using a 48” screen

Heres the calculator. The typical user will end up 40-50d FOV. Now I don’t know if that equates to the value in DCS but the bottom line is you end up with a value that’s far too low to be practical if it was just set there. That’s why nearly everyone uses the variable zoom view. You need both detail and peripheral vision in a flight sim.

https://dinex86.github.io/FOV-Calculator/

Racing sim players can do this because, first they’re just looking forward although IMO you can’t easily see the corner apex with a view that narrow. And secondly they are almost certainly using triple screens. Personally I find that narrow view to be really awkward so I don’t do this for racing.

PS if I wanted a decent 95d FOV along with a life sized view on a 48” screen. The distance would end up at 18” which is right where my joystick is sitting ie impossibly close. Maybe that calculator is bonkers but you get the point. 

Edited December 29, 2023 by SharpeXB

[Tippis]

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

I’m actually using a 48” screen

You should probably try to figure out your setup, then, so you don't have to sit a meter and a half away from your screen.  

 

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

Maybe that calculator is bonkers

Among other things, it seems to be assuming you have a curved screen.

[Hiob]

For the most part the calculator seem to be close (it doesn’t account for the inter-pupil distance). Curved or flat doesn’t make a difference for the correct* (from a purely mathematical standpoint), only the effective width.

You don’t need a fancy calculator for that, just the simple math for a right angled triangle. Like here https://www.calculator.net/right-triangle-calculator.html

For me that would be ~65 degrees. But even though I like it „realistic“, I give myself a bit of slack. After all I can move my head around and am nit bound to a single point. 80-85 is my goto fov in most modules.

[Gary]

The link between the sensation of speed and FOV is obviously linked.

I find the whole FOV topic very interesting. I've been down the FOV rabbit hole several times before in the hope of trying to get a somewhat "realistic" cockpit perspective. It seems important to me to establish the base FOV. I've researched the calculators but as noted these refer to racing sims in the main.

With my set up (Curved screen size and distance from my eyes in the main) I've concluded a FOV of around 90 degrees seems as accurate as I can calculate but definately interested in others pancake calulations and settings? (mainly because I've never established anything definative accepting everyones individual set up makes a differenace too of course)

As also noted - in sim I often use the zoom in function but at I do obviously return to my base value once I've completed what I'm doing.

Kind Regards,

Gary

 

[SharpeXB]

Imagine a cardboard cut-out of your monitor in front of you when sitting in your car. Chances are it would have to be very large and/or very close in order for you to see adequately. That’s what this “realistic” FOV is trying to accomplish. Personally I find this to be way too narrow for either flying or racing but especially a CFS game where you need more peripheral awareness. 
The point is your sense of speed is heavily dependent on this. Just zoom in and out while taxiing and see the effect. But I don’t see why having this set so exactly means much for flying. The variable zoom view is far more useful. 
This guy tries to set an FOV like that and even with a huge screen ends up with a view where he can’t even see the instrument panel. This just isn’t really practical IMO

 

[Tippis]

1 hour ago, Hiob said:

For the most part the calculator seem to be close (it doesn’t account for the inter-pupil distance). Curved or flat doesn’t make a difference for the correct* (from a purely mathematical standpoint), only the effective width.

Yeah, it's not a huge error — ± a percent, or three which is why it seems to fit a curved monitor's “real” width. And I suppose it makes sense since the main point of the tool is to get that three-screen, slightly wrap-around effect right, so maybe it just uses the same assumption of an implied curvature for the single-screen calculation as well. That or some rounding error when converting to or from radians.

…of course, there's also the issue with getting the accurate FoV in DCS and having it accurately scale with the real aircraft. That last part in particular has already shown to be an issue, and the first bit has an annoying tendency to break when you try to get fine control over it

[mobile83]

it's a shame to think that it's not possible to increase the sensation of speed on a computer. I've played games where the sensation of speed was incredible, even on a computer screen.

We could have a more intense blur effect to simulate a higher scrolling speed, ground particles on textures that would increase the sensation of speed, shaking effects, air effects, there are a thousand ways to increase the sensation of speed.

I'm at 700 knots in F16 on all the maps, and I feel like I can drink a coffee at the same time as I'm going 70km/h on the freeway.

Car games offer a very good sensation of speed/scrolling, so when you say it's not possible, you're being defeatist. Anything's possible: we can simulate airplanes flying through the air on a computer screen, and we can manage to simulate a more impressive speed.