opinion Afghanistan user feedback

[Nightstalker]

2 hours ago, Ala12Rv-Tundra said:

Maybe "feature" complete is a matter of wording. For example, no cities or airports are missing. Re-working a texture, on the other hand, doesn´t sound like a feature to me, more like something able to be improved on further iterations.
Let´s see.

They were marketing their new technology so yes, it is definitely a feature.

[Dirty Mittens]

I'm sort of glad they didn't include carrier ops in this map. We traded in having a blank sea for carrier ops for high fidelity detailed scenery.  I'd like to thank all the guys that said this map just isn't for me... after seeing some of the screen shot you are correct. Enjoy 

[Iron Sights]

I think the map just needs more time, it’s confusing because there are unfinished areas and that makes it weird. I took the F-4 around the map and some areas were nice, really nice at 10k and above. Areas around the airports were good down lower, but not precise yet. Looks like they were trying something different for the terrain rendering. I can see some great scenarios playing out and the mountainous terrain does look foreboding. I like it and I hope they add a few more instant missions just for quick fun. I think it will get better, but I thought it was a good start.

[T.Power]

I just took another reccy with the airport free camera, there are a lot of fun and deep canyons that they've already started buffing up, there's some jaw dropping scenery, higher res and colour matched textures and higher polygon count in the relevant mountainous areas and we'll have a winner.  In the meantime we need to get started on some static templates to inject some life into the map.

[Ala12Rv-Tundra]

16 hours ago, Nightstalker said:

They were marketing their new technology so yes, it is definitely a feature.

But again, we could agree upgrading a texture sounds easier than upgrading map technology, right? 

[Nightstalker]

For anyone who has been experiencing frustrating stutter as of late, I seem to have found the culprit for me personally.  This issue started after the last patch not the recent one.  The recent patch caused things to get worse especially on the new Afghanistan map.  After removing shaders numerously, repairs, re-installs, changing settings etc. nothing was working.  Just before deciding to park DCS until the next patch, I opened my resource manager and noticed that most of my CPU cores were parked!  I know that many people know about this topic but it appears that a possible Windows 11 update messed with my power settings.  I followed the video in the forum thread to re-set my core parking and then went back into DCS.  I hope to not jinx myself but I have now been spending the morning absolutely stutter free.  When I open and run the fps monitor in DCS, my 2 lines are completely flat lined for my whole flight.  Smooth as butter.  I've tried this on Afghanistan, Sinai, Syria and S/A so far and I have no more stutter.

Maybe this will help someone who has noticed a change in performance over the past couple of patches.  I remember a Win11 update a while back and it seems to coincide with the time frame of the problems for me.  Never trust Microsoft to not mess with your settings..lol.

[markturner1960]

can you link the forum thread you refer to please?

 

[Nightstalker]

1 hour ago, markturner1960 said:

can you link the forum thread you refer to please?

 

Here's the actual video that is from the thread.  Worked like a charm.  I'm no tech guy.

 

Edited July 15, 2024 by Nightstalker
More info

[tripod3]

 

Strange line (at the plane's nose area across the map)

[Nightstalker]

This is the actual thread.  I read so many forum threads earlier I couldn't remember which one it was.

• Home 
• English 
• Digital Combat Simulator 
• DCS 2.9 
• Bugs and Problems 
• Installation and Operation 
• Multi-Threading Bug Reports (Temp)

Disabling Core Parking in windows fixed my stuttering in menu and game

[markturner1960]

Thanks, turns out mine were already set to zero.....still got a noticeable drop in performance, especially in this map, after the update......

Been doing some more flying and explored several areas. I think basically, it can be summed up as: The map looks good around the urban areas and airfields, but go anywhere else and you get a horrible mess of blurry textures, no blending with detail areas and very low res, polygonal hill rendering and lack of variety. It does however look very nice from altitude (10,000 ft +) Not sure really what yuou can do wit it currently, the "nice"areas are pretty small and it sucks flying over flat featureless areas......the hills and mountains were what I was most excited about. 

A final note...I also did some back to back exploring of Sinai and Syria and the single biggest thing that stands out is the prevalent desert and outside area textures in these maps are nicely detailed, even up close, they have texture, depth and shadows.......in Afghanistan, these are simply blurry smudges...example: 

 

These next two from Sinai and Syria

Edited July 16, 2024 by markturner1960

[BIGNEWY]

As you know, the southwest region is currently in the early access phase. We are committed to ongoing improvements and enhancements. While it can be tempting to focus on areas that still need work, please keep in mind the advancements we have already achieved. Your constructive feedback is invaluable as we continue to refine and enhance our product. 

thank you 

[Hotdognz]

On 7/15/2024 at 5:37 AM, Gunfreak said:

I would say ground textures on a map is just as much a feature as a weapons system is on an aircraft.

I do hope it's just standard bad communication from ED's part. They are very good at not communicating good. And that they can fix it. 

The reason I'm so miffed as I am is I genuinely thought something wrong had happened to my download. It looks so bad I didn't think that it was supposed to look like that (and I wouldn't have thought so even if ED has clearly stated that also South West Afghanistan is far from finished and very early access.) 

It did ruin my day.

I refunded the full Afghanistan map and bought just the South West. I'm willing to risk 25 bucks to see if it does get better.

And tomorrow I'll try another flight in just the limited hand made parts around Lashkargah.

How did you refund the whole map, id like to do the same and just get the SW to see how it works out and if it actually does work out for the SW, it would be my testing ground for ED with this map

 

[Gunfreak]

37 minutes ago, Hotdognz said:

How did you refund the whole map, id like to do the same and just get the SW to see how it works out and if it actually does work out for the SW, it would be my testing ground for ED with this map

 

I use steam. I got the refund even though I had gone past the 2 hour limit 

[markturner1960]

3 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

As you know, the southwest region is currently in the early access phase. We are committed to ongoing improvements and enhancements. While it can be tempting to focus on areas that still need work, please keep in mind the advancements we have already achieved. Your constructive feedback is invaluable as we continue to refine and enhance our product. 

thank you 

Thanks BN, of course - but I think I have been pretty fair in also pointing the bits that are good? Towns & cities and high altitude appearance....( although majoring on the bad, as this a thread discussing these areas, there are others discussing the good points!) As you have chipped in, I would really appreciate some input from you regarding the EA status and the confusion around it and exactly what is scheduled for improvements and what is not? As you yourself clearly stated recently in another post and ED on the website, it would be released "feature complete".....most people , myself included would read that as saying that what was released was pretty much the finished article.......Now you are saying thats not the case. 

Has the situation changed? And please could you give us, your paying customers, some kind of clear idea what you are not happy with on the release, whats planned for improvement and what is not ?

That is not asking too much is it? I am sure you can understand the frustration when older maps by other devs are looking much better....I really WANT this map to be good, and hopefully the constructive critique will help ED focus on improvements. Thank you.

[BIGNEWY]

4 minutes ago, markturner1960 said:

Has the situation changed? And please could you give us, your paying customers, some kind of clear idea what you are not happy with on the release, whats planned for improvement and what is not ?

That is not asking too much is it? I am sure you can understand the frustration when older maps by other devs are looking much better....I really WANT this map to be good, and hopefully the constructive critique will help ED focus on improvements. Thank you.

Who said we are not happy? We have launched the early access southwest Afghanistan, it is work in progress and work continues, we have outlined our plans in the FAQ thread with the other regions to follow in due course. 

Early access is just that, its early access for the development of the product. Some people don't like the early access model we understand that, and I think that is part of the frustration for some, but early access enables us to bring these products to you all, and it is very popular. Sales have been good and that allows us to continue the production of the product. Good constructive feedback is essential for the betterment of the product.   

thank you

[Beirut]

Amen!

 

I had a flight last night from up high, the lighting was spot on, and I admit it looked pretty sweet. Still looking forward to updates of course, but it was the nicest flight I've had on that map so far.

[Hiob]

6 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

As you know, the southwest region is currently in the early access phase. We are committed to ongoing improvements and enhancements. While it can be tempting to focus on areas that still need work, please keep in mind the advancements we have already achieved. Your constructive feedback is invaluable as we continue to refine and enhance our product. 

thank you 

Ok, you probably know, that I'm rather forgiving towards ED, regarding bugs, missing features and so on - mainly because I'm aware the creating is much much harder than criticising.

But this time - boy am I disappointed. Especially from the perspective of a helicopter guy. Where the map looks good, it looks really good. But that is few and far between. The transitions from highly detailed airfield to blurry mess of random textures are brutal. And we're not talking unreleased areas or something. Fly more than three miles in any direction from high detailed airfield or try following a road or a river and you are kicked out of immersion mercilessly.

It is quite frustrating to me, that with every recent map release, Syria seem to be even further away as an unmatched benchmark. At least you have to go to the far fringes there to experience such low-res textures and they - at least - are homogeneous.

Nope sorry, lost me here for now.

To add some (hopefully) somewhat constructive criticism: My main gripe (apart from low res textures that really shouldn't appear anywhere in the "high detail" region) is the transition - or better lack thereof - from high detailed/handcrafted to procedural (seemingly) placed satellite textures. And sometimes some settlements are somewhat randomly sprinkled atop of those poor textures and look like an afterthought. (Well I don't kno if that was any constructive at all - but those are my feelings towards this map right now.)

Looks pristine from cruising flight level though.

Edit:

I think I need to make something clear. I'm not criticising the EA-aspect of the map. I early accessed every single map and module since I joined DCS four years ago and I don't care (much) about bugs and late features. What I am pointing at (I think) are some design choices and their execution. 
Maybe I'm wrong and the texture issues will get improvements down the road, I for sure hope so.

Edited July 16, 2024 by Hiob

[Blackhawk163]

37 minutes ago, Hiob said:

Ok, you probably know, that I'm rather forgiving towards ED, regarding bugs, missing features and so on - mainly because I'm aware the creating is much much harder than criticising.

But this time - boy am I disappointed. Especially from the perspective of a helicopter guy. Where the map looks good, it looks really good. But that is few and far between. The transitions from highly detailed airfield to blurry mess of random textures are brutal. And we're not talking unreleased areas or something. Fly more than three miles in any direction from high detailed airfield or try following a road or a river and you are kicked out of immersion mercilessly.

It is quite frustrating to me, that with every recent map release, Syria seem to be even further away as an unmatched benchmark. At least you have to go to the far fringes there to experience such low-res textures and they - at least - are homogeneous.

Nope sorry, lost me here for now.

To add some (hopefully) somewhat constructive criticism: My main gripe (apart from low res textures that really shouldn't appear anywhere in the "high detail" region) is the transition - or better lack thereof - from high detailed/handcrafted to procedural (seemingly) placed satellite textures. And sometimes some settlements are somewhat randomly sprinkled atop of those poor textures and look like an afterthought. (Well I don't kno if that was any constructive at all - but those are my feelings towards this map right now.)

Looks pristine from cruising flight level though.

What’s annoying is that the standard response has been “we appreciate you looking over there (low quality areas) but look at the nice areas we did do.” Yeah I get it, but why don’t you (BN) address the contradictory nature of your post saying that it’s feature complete but yet it’s in early access and thus we’re working on it. The two statements just don’t jive man. 

And then labeling the thread as opinion. It got a little chuckle from me.  I mean any thread claiming how great, or bad, the graphics look is an opinion. Don’t think there was a need to draw attention to that, but hey, it’s not my message board.

I’ll just stick to the “nice” areas of the map, flying low and slow as the Apache’s rotors literally wash the low res textures off the buildings in front of me as I fly by. Or take a jet and stay above 10k and agree with the other “non-opinion” thread and remark, yeah, this does look nice (and it does!) I mean you got my money anyway

And off topic here 

but @markturner1960 how are you getting on with the other “visually helo friendly” maps?

[Nightstalker]

Lol, what the heck is with the big orange “OPINION” stuck next to the title of this thread now?  Did they stick “OPINION” next to a thread praising the map?  This is downright hilarious.  We keep getting “E/A comments from the same people that clearly posted “FEATURE COMPLETE”.  It’s like trying to ask a question to a politician.

[Nightstalker]

This thread should have a big orange “OPINION” stuck next to it like the one called “not gorgeous, just more of the same!

[Slippa]

^ Fair point.

[PinkCube]

Afghanistan is a country that doesn't have many famous landmarks but it does have a small handful in its major cities. Here are some I found in Herat. 

[=DROOPY=]

Not that my opinion even remotely matters, or will even be remembered by others after 4 more post's in this topic, but I don't recall encountering any of the issues everyone seems to take issue with. 

Am I ignorant about what quality I *should* be expecting with Afghanistan?  Highly likely.

Coming from 3yrs of using a 1040p monitor and a RTX970 w/ a keyboard for so long, and now finally getting to upgrade to an actual capable rig with a TM Warthog and Pimax Crystal, for me, is like going from black and white 1962 TV, to 8k with Dolby surround sound.

So... much to the dismay of others here (and the wife) I'll take DCS 'as is' all day long thank you very much. 

The only gripe I have, is that I can't commit consecutive hours and days into learning to operate a particular platform, and operate it well.

It's all about perspective.

 

Edited July 16, 2024 by =DROOPY=

[markturner1960]

This ^

I appreciate you work for the company BN and maybe limited to what you can say.......but I can read the papers and watch the news if I want to listen to politician speak.....

I got zero answers to any of the questions politely posed.......

I just dont understand why you cant do that......? People like me are your good clients...I have spent not far short of £2,000 on modules, campaigns and other DLC,  a lot of which I never use....simply to support YOUR business.....its not too much to ask for a straight answer to a straight question is it? 

Anyway, thanks for the input