Jester captures wrong ground location when using multi-monitor

[Kronstadt]

I couldn't hit the target even once with DT mode with Jester on multi-monitor (Sometimes I couldn't t even drop the bomb).
When I changed to a single monitor setting and it seems to work fine.
I was playing on a triple monitor configuration, total resolution 7680x2160, Jester UI at 3840x2160.

It seems Jester captures the center point of the total resolution.

[Zabuzard]

That sounds odd, as Jester (in contrast to the UI) doesnt deal with resolutions or anything at all. He simply moves the cursor on the screen and hits the trigger. Everything else is the radar doing its job.

Could you provide a track? Then it should be easy for us to see whata going on, thanks :)

[RealDCSpilot]

Maybe unrelated, but i have also never any successful DT drop in VR. (It's kinda multi-monitor, a screen for each eye...) Double checked each step of the procedure, does never end up like seen in certain youtube tutorials. Sometimes Jester also reacts very late to the context action command, or screams "not able" or the reticle is strangely wandering off the target i point it at. I do all my weapon tests in multiplayer.

[FusRoPotato]

Me neither. Thanks for letting us know it works better with a single monitor. That's something I'll have to try tomorrow, but so far, the F-86 and A-4 are vastly more accurate for me.

I've been doing most all my testing in multiplayer too and started to assume that multiplayer was the problem. DT and bogey locking seemed to generally work better in single player test missions with very little stuff happening in the world, though I am a bit surprised that VS and scan mode can't pick up anything smaller than an F-14. Sometimes I can pick up Mig-19's but that's about it. It can't see 21's, 29's, 16's, or anything about that size or smaller. Can't get it on scan nor CAA on HEAT.

It almost feels like something involved in the radar logic is getting hitched up. Jester sometimes takes ages to grab the point and that delay also exists when bypassing his command and using his keybinds. On DT, it sometimes drops instantly on pickle or extremely late. There's no way this system was this inaccurate, otherwise there'd have never been a point entering the drag coefficients.

[RealDCSpilot]

Tested a little further. On the bombing range in singleplayer. If i keep the pipper steady on the target until the bombs release i can actually hit something. What never works is pulling up until automatic release (the "toss"), here the bombs always go way to long or elsewhere... as if they are released to late.

[Kronstadt]

I have recorded Track but somehow the bomb was successfully dropped and hit in the replay.

So attaching a screen capture as well.

DT demo2.trk

[RealDCSpilot]

@Kronstadt Well, in your video you forgot to at least give Target Altitude and Dive Angle some numbers. So that the Drag Coefficient could be calculated and gets a value ~1.01. This is crucial as far as i've been told, but altitude and angle don't need to be achieved with the actual DT drop.

[Zabuzard]

@Kronstadt Well, in your video you forgot to at least give Target Altitude and Dive Angle some numbers. So that the Drag Coefficient could be calculated and gets a value ~1.01. This is crucial as far as i've been told, but altitude and angle don't need to be achieved with the actual DT drop.

If you want to be accurate, you need to enter the drag coefficent dependend on the release altitude, speed and angle. And theb also fly that profile properly.

If you release 100ft higher or with 10° different angle, the resulting drag coeff would have been slightly different.

In practice, at least for reasonable values, the drag coeff is normally similar enough that it would not matter if you drop multiple bombs or attack a large target.

But if you want a single dumb bomb to hit a single vehicle, you need to enter and fly the profile properly.

Also, don't forget about wind influences. Cheers :)

[Kronstadt]

I want to add that my explanation seems to have been insufficient. (I am not a native speaker, sorry)

If you play the track file, you will see the AI replicating my movements successfully dropping and almost hitting the bombs.

This is obviously different from my real-time situation in the video.

I actually skipped a step, but I don't think it is a problem with the bombing table input.

[FusRoPotato]

I've been getting similar results with all the parameters entered correctly. That's way too big of a discrepancy in results for those parameters being slightly off. I would expect a few meters of inaccuracy, not more than a mile. I assume there has to be something wrong happening in the radar or alignment.

Edited May 26, 2024 by FusRoPotato

[JNelson]

12 hours ago, Kronstadt said:

I have recorded Track but somehow the bomb was successfully dropped and hit in the replay.

So attaching a screen capture as well.

DT demo2.trk 2.38 MB · 0 downloads

Hi this is clearly a bug do you mind recording another video but with the radar screen visible please?

Thanks.

[RealDCSpilot]

On my end, testing GBU with the Pave Spike seems to have the same problem. The calculated automatic release is always a bit to late. The bomb overshoots and can't catch the laser. My workaround is to aim with the Pave Spike something like hundred meters in front of the target, let the WRCS do the drop and manually move the Pave Spike slowly onto the actual target after that. Then the bomb catches the laser guidance and hits.

Edited May 27, 2024 by RealDCSpilot

[Kronstadt]

Strangely enough, the symptoms no longer occur today.
I did not change any of my steps other than zooming out to get the radar screen into the field of view, and it is working fine, no matter how many times I try.  It works even when zoomed in...

[FusRoPotato]

I want to chime in and say I've been experimenting with detection of a long line of Mig-21's and have been noticing a lot of strange artifact in the returns of the Mig-21's and what appears to be a lot of clutter and noise existing where it isn't expected.

I switched to full-screen mode and this noise went away. Targets were generally much cleaner and easier to spot.

Windowed Mode

Fullscreen Mode

DT bombing mode also has been significantly more accurate in fullscreen. Otherwise they behave like in the video, nowhere near close.

Edited May 28, 2024 by FusRoPotato

[RealDCSpilot]

@FusRoPotato @JNelson

FusRo... you need to get nominated for the Nobel Price for finding that DCS bug deep in it's bowels with out-of-the-box thinking!

 

You actually only need to set this. In VR my desktop mirror is still a small window, but all of a sudden my bombs hit exactly where i want them and i can also pull the stick before the drop to make a toss release!

Edited May 28, 2024 by RealDCSpilot

[RealDCSpilot]

This also greatly improves the handling and tracking of the Pave Spike and dropping GBU with laser targeting. The bombs are released at the right moment now. Just had a 100% hit rate with dropping all sorts of GBU.

[JNelson]

20 hours ago, FusRoPotato said:

I want to chime in and say I've been experimenting with detection of a long line of Mig-21's and have been noticing a lot of strange artifact in the returns of the Mig-21's and what appears to be a lot of clutter and noise existing where it isn't expected.

I switched to full-screen mode and this noise went away. Targets were generally much cleaner and easier to spot.

Windowed Mode

Fullscreen Mode

DT bombing mode also has been significantly more accurate in fullscreen. Otherwise they behave like in the video, nowhere near close.

 

Are you sure both these are exactly the same radar settings because the clutter you indicate is just the normal altitude line presentation.

[FusRoPotato]

No, I suppose it's possible within the few seconds of starting that mission that Jester cranked the gain. It's also very possible that improved accuracy with fullscreen may be entirely placebo. Without any debug tools, it's going to be challenging narrowing down the cause to what was shown in the video.

Whatever occurs, it happens in video but not on track. That might be the best clue we can get and I assume points to occasional hickups in the background radar sim that are not consistently strained when repeating the playback. I know from experience that by having multiple monitors, I sometimes get background processes that lag out or get forced to lower frame rates because that's just how my video card manages prioritizing the game's rendering. (7900XTX)

Is there any way to view a debug of the radar's frame rate performance, or frametime of the background simulation that's dedicated to the plane's systems? There may simply be a core or affinity conflict that loosens up with fullscreen mode? I am often getting locks on aircraft that appear to freeze in place as if the aircraft hasn't moved from its position when clearly it has.

I noticed a process called HeatBlurUI.exe that has a component with a lot of CPU time and an idle priority. Maybe I will experiment with elevating that and see what happens.

Edited May 29, 2024 by FusRoPotato

[RealDCSpilot]

@JNelson
I tried to replicate the problem with unticking the full screen setting, without success. The erratic behaviour seems to be gone for good on my end. That's not really good news i guess. All i can tell is the conditions before and after i ticked the full screen option. I've been playing VR since more than 6 years now. Never used full screen mode, so this option was unused since years or at least since my latest re-install of DCS on this machine 1.5 years ago. I was testing the DT mode and Pave Spike since release of the F-4 and actually gave up on it until i found this thread. And i really tried hundreds of variations delivering bombs in those modes in the past days seeing all kinds of strange reactions of the radar ground lock, jester callouts and failed automatic release timings. I even tried to manipulate the pattern table to force a huge release advance to prevent the overshoot of the bombs. With the Pave Spike it only worked with a good amount of lead in front of the target and manually moving the crosshair back on the target once the bombs are in the air. I can only conclude that something deep in the bowels of DCS got triggered by switching to full screen in the system options. I hope you can find cause.

[FusRoPotato]

Yeah? It came back for me in multiplayer PVE and now I can't get it to go away, even in fullscreen. The priority fix isn't helping either.

I thought jester was fiddling with gains to cause the background static to go away but I don't think that's it. I've come across a few instances now where all the background noise vanishes but I can still see clear contacts when I'm close to the ground. It's as if terrain rendering just stops working. Lifting the gain eventually turns the whole screen green, but no sign of terrain. When I can see contacts, jester often can't and ignores commands to change modes. He will confirm a request go to narrow for example, you got it boss, but never change. I'm constantly having to get in his seat and fix settings and grab targets.

I am also having extraordinarily poor luck grabbing air targets in any mode other than scan. CAA and bore-sight just don't seem to connect with anything unless I'm in a singleplayer mission. It's as if some background process is just constantly getting stuck.

[RealDCSpilot]

Oh, i'm only talking about DT delivering mode and Pave Spike operation. Air to Air radar is another problem... Getting locks is like playing a lottery. There is still a lot of work to do for HB.

[JNelson]

On 5/29/2024 at 10:48 AM, FusRoPotato said:

Yeah? It came back for me in multiplayer PVE and now I can't get it to go away, even in fullscreen. The priority fix isn't helping either.

I thought jester was fiddling with gains to cause the background static to go away but I don't think that's it. I've come across a few instances now where all the background noise vanishes but I can still see clear contacts when I'm close to the ground. It's as if terrain rendering just stops working. Lifting the gain eventually turns the whole screen green, but no sign of terrain. When I can see contacts, jester often can't and ignores commands to change modes. He will confirm a request go to narrow for example, you got it boss, but never change. I'm constantly having to get in his seat and fix settings and grab targets.

I am also having extraordinarily poor luck grabbing air targets in any mode other than scan. CAA and bore-sight just don't seem to connect with anything unless I'm in a singleplayer mission. It's as if some background process is just constantly getting stuck.

Are you still seeing this post patch on the 4th?

[FusRoPotato]

Yes, the tone continues for far longer than expected and drops the bombs miles long.