Initial impressions and a huge thanks

[PedroTheGoat]

Wow, so I feel as if I have a bit to say about this simulator...

 

 

First off, it is the most impressive sim I have had the chance to play ever. I just got a brand spanking new gaming rig almost solely so I could play Black Shark. My 1200 dollar investment was not too bad in my opinion. This is an awesome game.

 

I was really intimidated by these forums at first. So many people had HUGE issues flying this beast. I put in my study time though, studying these forums up and down and reading through that BEAST of a .pdf manual to become as knowledgeable as I could before I jumped into the cockpit. (Plus I had a week of anxious waiting for my computer to arrive.)

 

My study time paid off... I was able to fly Parabellum;s tutorial mission all by myself. Including a cold start that I did from memory. (I could NOT believe I could remember all of that procedure, and I wonder if I could do it again.) Flying the helicopter was not AS bad as I thought. I still have major issues with proficiency as far as handling her like a feather. I seem to feel like I'm fighting the Auto Pilot Channels a bit... I fly better in Flight Director Mode... But I do not think that real Black Shark pilots are allowed to fly in FD mode all the time... So I try to stay away. The tanks blew my poor butt away on my first flight. But after I figured out where they were, they met the business end of my Vikhers on my second flight. Then I made my way to make fodder of infantry with no issues. Then... To my EXTREME surprise, I made a successful hover landing when I made it back to base.

 

Simply awesome.

 

I do have a few disappointments though. Mainly with the graphics engine.

 

I have a Quad AMD running at 3.8ghz, an ATI Radeon 5830 with 1g, 4g DDR3 running at 1600, Win 7 64, and it seems to me that I still can't pull AMAZING frame rates from the game. When I shot those rockets at those infantry... I saw a nasty creep in frame rate. This was AFTER doing EVERY tweak to the LUA files and such.

 

It's also odd that I need to get D3DOveride for Vsync and Triple Buffering. This game almost desperately needs an overhaul for multiple cores and newer graphics cards I think. Maybe I am doing something a bit wrong. I'll turn down my AA and AF a notch or so and see if that helps tremendously. I guess I'll make sure I have up to date Directx drivers too.

 

Plus the sound... I'm not going to go on about the sound because it will be updated soon. So there's no point.

 

Also..... And this is going to sound COMPLETELY stupid... When I shot those infantry with my 30mm cannon... I REALLY wanted to see them fly... Or maybe just a pink spray... But they just fell over... I was such a sad goat.

 

 

And FINALLY... Thank ALL of you so much for your countless useful posts that I have been studying almost every free moment I have had for the past week. If it wasn't for you... This game would have been A LOT more of a frustrating experience. I simply CANNOT wait to fly with some of you guys online. I really feel as if I need to complete a few REAL missions before I jump into a game with some of you. I'm working on it though. I REALLY want to join a cool squad some day. I've been studying almost all of your squads... And they all seem COMPLETELY awesome. So it is going to be a tough decision. I'm leaning a tad towards the 104th Phoenix because it seems they have an awesome cadet program. We'll see though.

 

And that's all... Goat. :joystick:

[manne]

Sounds like you're enjoying yourself! Welcome to the club! :joystick:

 

As for performance issues, try lowering the water detail. Someone suggested that to me last year, because from what I understand water is rendered under the earth layer so even if there is no water it's always rendered everywhere (or something along those lines). It really helped boosting my performance.

 

As for quad core support, yes, it would be nice. But for now it's single core support. I think dual/quad core support needs a complete rewrite/overhaul of the engine (or something along those lines).

 

It's also important not to underestimate the calculations needed for playing a detailed sim like this. All those factors (the complete heli model, wind, turbulence, projectiles, bullet drop, gravity etc) need to be calculated by a single core, so you know where the bottleneck lies.

Edited April 9, 2010 by manne

[EvilBivol-1]

Thanks for the feedback, Pedro. There will always be moments where the sim suffers a hick-up. OFten this will be when something is being loaded for the first time, such as terrain objects and textures or sounds. Glad you are enjoying the depth of the sim and knowledge on the forum.

[mobias]

Yeah welcome Pedro, I myself am very new..(this my 4th post?) and echo some of your sentiments. Do play with the graphics settings, and make sure your mirrors are off, your 'cockpit' resolution @ 512 [really the shkval TV and ABRIS screens-not cockpit]...and you will see better FPS. Also-check your specific vid card settings to see if there is anything in there that is messing you up. Experiment with Vsync on and off, if I see any tearing at all i usually put it back on. See if there are any other recommended settings elsewhere on ATI's forums specific to this game for your card.

 

-As an counter-question to manne above, I thought with the latest patch 1.0.1c? They did incorporate support for multi-CPU threading??

[From Patch notes:] "* Vista users using multi-core systems will now have affinity automatically set to use all cores."

-So Ed, is this only for Vista? What about XP/Win7 ?

 

When I look at my task manager after playing, out of 8 cores I see one wavering around 50%, another between 10%-20%, and the rest just making slight wiggles at the bottom. If memory serves, i'll check again tonight to confirm...

Edited April 9, 2010 by mobias

[sobek]

-As an counter-question to manne above, I thought with the latest patch 1.0.1c? They did incorporate support for multi-CPU threading??

[From Patch notes:] "* Vista users using multi-core systems will now have affinity automatically set to use all cores."

-So Ed, is this only for Vista? What about XP/Win7 ?

 

DCS is not a multithreaded application, yet (after the new patch, the sound engine will run in a separate thread though, AFAIK). The improvement by switching from XP to Vista/Win7 is solely based on the latter having the ability to distribute the OS and game load more efficiently, thus gaining performance. However, for this to work, affinity of the game has to be set to all cores, which it was not before the 1.0.1 patch. That's all there is to it.

[PedroTheGoat]

Thanks for the feedback, Pedro. There will always be moments where the sim suffers a hick-up. OFten this will be when something is being loaded for the first time, such as terrain objects and textures or sounds. Glad you are enjoying the depth of the sim and knowledge on the forum.

 

Thanks, my gripes are minor. It is actually a bit hard to get Black Shark to get a bad FPS on my system. Just noticed a bit when a lot of explosions are on screen.

 

I'll take the loading stuff into account too.

 

It's awesome to see people who actually created the game interacting with people in here. This is by far the coolest sim and the best community I have ever encountered. (And I tend to be a forum junkie) :thumbup:

[PedroTheGoat]

So... Am I being a really bad Black Shark pilot if I use Flight Director mode a lot? Fighting with the autopilot channels is becoming the bane of my existence.

[sobek]

So... Am I being a really bad Black Shark pilot if I use Flight Director mode a lot? Fighting with the autopilot channels is becoming the bane of my existence.

 

Well, not really, there is a bunch of pilots who don't want to use the AP. IMHO if you take the time and try to work with it, the effects (reduced workload) are quite beneficial. What i have found to work very well is to only release the trim button when your flight is stabilised (be it a turn or straight flight). Trimming during transient phases of flight tends to let the autopilot fight you. If you find yourself stabilised with the trim button held, release it and flight will be rock solid.

 

To make it clearer: Hold down trim->maneuver->wait till stable->release trim

[EtherealN]

A lot of people actually fly with FD on most of the time, and I've been informed that it is also closer to what it's like to fly a "normal" helicopter. Personally I love the AP channels and can't say I find myself fighting with them - but that's a question of training. If you don't get good trim technique the AP's can get in your way, but as long as you get your trimming right (and this takes time) it should solve itself.

 

Also, welcome, and don't hesitate to ask questions on the forums. The search engine can be wonky sometimes, and it is always better to ask a question and look stupid than not ask and be stupid. :)

 

EDIT: And yes, only release trim when stable. If you have very good turn coordination you can trim during the turn (very handy since it allows most of the turn to be done hands-off), but this will take a lot of practice.

 

My own trimming technique is typically that I trim every time I have finished a maneuver, pretty much like sobek described. The hold-trim technique is very stick-dependant though, since you will want a stick where you can comfortably hold a button down without strain.

Edited April 9, 2010 by EtherealN

[EvilBivol-1]

Opinions on this will vary, as well as on the instructions on exactly how to use the trimmer. My own opinion is that while the FD is not the primary mode of flight control for real pilots, we have to make certain compromises for the fact that we are flying behind a flat monitor and using plastic controls that do not mimic the actual feeling in the cockpit. As such, I recommend that you experiment enough until you find what you are comfortable with and fly that. After all, the real pilot is generally comfortable flying his machine and it would not be realistic to constantly battle with it.

 

Having said that, the ideal solution is to become comfortable using the AP to its full potential, including the trimmer mechanism and Route mode, while turning to FD only in certain situaitons when it is the better choice.

Edited April 9, 2010 by EvilBivol-1

[Vitesse2l]

If you're not enjoying the experience unless you're using FD then go with the FD...

 

How I do it is to switch the Route / Track switch (right hand side panel, next to the AP buttons) to it's middle position. Set like this, the heading caret in the HUD is reset to your current heading when you release the trim switch - and the KA-50 wants to head where you've just pointed it.

 

In combat I am usually working the Shkval with the turn to match shkval view (Q by default) switched on.

 

Cyclic and rudder need to be near centred to allow the AP enough authority to work.

 

With the Ka-50 in a stable hover / slow flight it's possible to be head down for quite a while. Helps if you set the altitude warning, and keep a scan going.

 

Works for me, sorta. I still die a lot too!

 

I'm flying FC2 as well as BS, but I must say the added systems of the BS give me that little bit more connection with the DCS World.

 

Cheers!

[mobias]

So...Sobek I guess that response confused me, (It isn't, but now currently it is?) -when he asked the question, it was 4/9/2010, which is after the patch right? So if the patch sets the affinity to all cores [assuming 'Vista' means also Win7' in regards to patch notes] wouldnt and isnt that effectively turning it into a multi-threaded game? Aren't they one and the same?

 

In a nut shell: "Isn't that what I just said?" and therefore, why are you saying it's not multi-threaded?

-confused :lookaround:

[PedroTheGoat]

THAT'S IT!!! What an oversight I had!!! Now AP makes perfect sense!!!

 

Holding down the trimmer is all I have to do! You guys are so freaking awesome. I have no idea how I missed this. This sure will make landing easier now.

 

Just awesome.

[EtherealN]

No, affinity governs where the process thread wants to be. If the process is set to only use Core0, the it will only be in Core0 - even if Windows and three billion background processes are also on Core0 and Core1 is empty. Setting affinity to both cores (or more) allows the Operating System to move the process from Core0 to Core1, in those cases. This only works in w7 and Vista, not in XP. This is basically a question of load-balancing.

 

Similarly, Vista has Dx10, w7 has Dx11, and these give the OSes some further advantages that allow some micro-threading to happen even though the graphics engine is Dx9. (This is a driver thing.) Again, this only works if affinity allows the process to "like" more than one core, and only if the OS supports it (Vista and w7).

 

The new thing is that the new sound engine introduced with FC2 is threaded, meaning that FC2 can run the simulator and graphics as one thread in Core1, sound in Core2, and leave Core0 for the OS and background. The plan is to introduce this new sound engine with the DCS:BS patch that shall make BS online-compatible with FC2.

Edited April 9, 2010 by EtherealN

[EtherealN]

Holding down the trimmer is all I have to do! You guys are so freaking awesome. I have no idea how I missed this. This sure will make landing easier now.

 

Well, if you come from a fixed-wing world, helicopter trimming is completely backwards and weird. I had the same issue in the beginning - IRL I just tap a small lever to manipulate the stab trim and it stays there. Completely different thing in a helicopter. :P

 

What it physically does in the real thing is to reset a bunch of springs attached to your stick and pedal controls, making the physical stick stay in that position instead of centering - there's no actual "trim" happening at the control surface itself as in a fixed-wing.

[mobias]

No, affinity governs where the process thread wants to be. If the process is set to only use Core0, the it will only be in Core0 - even if Windows and three billion background processes are also on Core0 and Core1 is empty. Setting affinity to both cores (or more) allows the Operating System to move the process from Core0 to Core1, in those cases. This only works in w7 and Vista, not in XP. This is basically a question of load-balancing.

 

Similarly, Vista has Dx10, w7 has Dx11, and these give the OSes some further advantages that allow some micro-threading to happen even though the graphics engine is Dx9. Again, this only works if affinity allows the process to "like" more than one core, and only if the OS supports it (Vista and w7).

 

The new thing is that the new sound engine introduced with FC2 is threaded, meaning that FC2 can run the simulator and graphics as one thread in Core1, sound in Core2, and leave Core0 for the OS and background. The plan is to introduce this new sound engine with the DCS:BS patch that shall make BS online-compatible with FC2.

 

That sounds great EtherealN! i literally can't wait for that patch. And thanks for clearing that up a bit for me re: affinity. So I can assume, even though that last patch 'opened up' the other cores to 'help' with the load, it is at the sole descretion [mercy?] of the OS and not the game specifically routing it there...thus, not fully implemented multi-tasking the load. [but still helps right?] I think I get it now.:smilewink:

[EtherealN]

Exactly mobias. You can look at it like this:

 

A=4+5+8+10+20+40

A=87

 

That's a "single-thread" calculation with five operations. Let's say the next calculation needs A to operate. Singlethreading means the next calculation has to "wait" for that to be done. But I could look at the calculation, have a eureka moment, and do this instead:

 

A=4+5

A=9

B=8+10

B=18

etc

 

And then give calcualtion A to Core0, and calcualtion B to Core1 and so on - it's still technically just as big a calcualtion, but I'll have saved clock cycles on doing whatever I can at the same time but on separate cores and just combine things later. (Minor note - in some cases you can parellellise things even without having multiple cores and thereby not needing separate threads, for this specific example a CPU core with multiple add units could do several parts in the same cycle. This would happen natively in the processor though as the pipeline towards execution includes some prediction units that try to slot things in for maximum utilization.)

 

The problem is that in a big software product this is not an easy thing, since you need to predict what you can split off and when. The easiest way to do it is to split off insular parts of the application - like one thread for simulation, one for graphics, one for sound etc, but even then it is very complex because all those are interdependent, the graphics need to know where your plane is which is governed by simulation, and sound needs to know what happens etcetera. I have seen research that has drawn the conclusion that for major products multi-threading can increase development cost several times. (Though there are of course types of jobs that are easy to "thread" - the molecular physics done by Folding@Home is an example of what is actually called "embarrasingly parallell", since you need only very small resources for each node - which is why that application can run so nicely on graphics cards with their several hundred shader cores.)

 

Anyways, I feel like I'm derailing, which I shouldn't. Apologies Pedro.

Edited April 9, 2010 by EtherealN

[mobias]

Exactly mobias. You can look at it like this:

 

A=4+5+8+10+20+40

A=87

 

That's a "single-thread" calculation with five operations. Let's say the next calculation needs A to operate. Singlethreading means the next calculation has to "wait" for that to be done. But I could look at the calculation, have a eureka moment, and do this instead:

 

A=4+5

A=9

B=8+10

B=18

etc

 

And then give calcualtion A to Core0, and calcualtion B to Core1 and so on - it's still technically just as big a calcualtion, but I'll have saved clock cycles on doing whatever I can at the same time but on separate cores and just combine things later.

 

The problem is that in a big software product this is not an easy thing, since you need to predict what you can split off and when. The easiest way to do it is to split off insular parts of the application - like one thread for simulation, one for graphics, one for sound etc, but even then it is very complex because all those are interdependent, the graphics need to know where your plane is which is governed by simulation, and sound needs to know what happens etcetera. I have seen research that has drawn the conclusion that for major products multi-threading can increase development cost several times. (Though there are of course types of jobs that are easy to "thread" - the molecular physics done by Folding@Home is an example of what is actually called "embarrasingly parallell", since you need only very small resources for each node - which is why that application can run so nicely on graphics cards with their several hundred shader cores.)

 

Anyways, I feel like I'm derailing, which I shouldn't. Apologies Pedro.

 

heh, no derailing. Just...micro-discussing! Interesting stuff, the expense part of development costs expains exactly why, YEARS after the first duel cores have now been out, precious few games released even today even bother with mult-cpu support!! A shame for sure! All my 8 cores just sitting here,twiddling their thumbs, waiting to play a game that isn't even being made...perhaps when those costs come down, the games will match these overkill processors of yesteryear! The future is definately the sweet GPU's Nvidia is devoloping right now. Intel and AMD definately have a lot self-preservation tactics it needs to employ to ensure their market share!

[connos]

What I found very good with AP channels on is that in combat you can consecrate in other things, blowing you enemy instead of worrying to fly the BS. I get overload with the things I need to do when in combat.

 

I can only fly 2 missions every time maximum. The thinks you have to to incockpit and how realistic the sim is is unbelievable. If I fly more I get so tired that I switch my PC off. I wonder what training the pilots are going through to make it possible to fly BS and how many mission they can fly a day???

Edited April 9, 2010 by connos

[Downey Jr.]

yeah as far as the new sound engine in FC 2...it seems to run so much smoother than BS...unless its just BS' complexity that inherently makes it consume more resources...

 

looking forward to the patch for FC and BS!!! not sure if I'll fly the ka-50 or switch over to something like the frogfoot or warthog

[Sulman]

I find you connect with the map a lot more in BS. It's stunning in parts, and you get used to all the little details and locations.

 

As for the AP, it took me a long time to adjust, but sure as night follows day, if you put the time in you get a lot better at it. I feel the difference to fix wing is that you don't really 'point' the KA50; you finesse it into going where you want. This actually isn't all that different to my fixed wing experience in a Cessna. The instructor always told me to feel the airflow and pressures through the controls and watch how the aircraft and instruments hint at what will follow. BS does a good job considering you have no feel at all, and limited references.

Edited April 9, 2010 by Sulman