How future DCS iterations should look like

[amalahama]

Has somebody seen "Molten Sky" sim/game for Linux?

 

It's featured a nice terrain, with high definition meshes and very far sight distance, mixed with a credible landscape in ground level and hi-tech techniques for aircraft rendering. Some screens:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think this kind of graphics are feasible in a next iteration of the DCS 3D engine, since the snapshots are not very far away from the current build, but there still are some drawbacks to be improved, like atmospheric scattering, hi-res terrain meshes, better cloud rendering, more procedural and less repetitive ground patch generation...and so on.

 

Regards!!

[Cedaway]

Sounds like a nice engine but, can you imagine placing the whole rich DCS 3D environnement (buildings, bridges, hangars,...) on this kind of 'map'? I don't think GPU/CPU of today are able to do this well enough to be playable.

Just my 2 cents.

 

EDIT: But thanks to you, I've just discover another way to 'shred' my spare time between two A-10c flights... ;-)

EDIT2: After viewed the vids on youtube, the game sounds like pure arcade. So well, yes but no.

Edited July 18, 2011 by Cedaway

[amalahama]

Sounds like a nice engine but, can you imagine placing the whole rich DCS 3D environnement (buildings, bridges, hangars,...) on this kind of 'map'? I don't think GPU/CPU of today are able to do this well enough to be playable.

Just my 2 cents.

 

EDIT: But thanks to you, I've just discover another way to 'shred' my spare time between two A-10c flights... ;-)

 

I'm sure that It can. Just have a look to the requirements:

 

http://www.lgdb.org/game/molten_sky

 

System requirements:

 

• 100% compatible with OpenGL 3.0 graphics card with 512 MB of video memory;
  
• Processor Core ® 2 Duo 1.8 GHz or Athlon ® 64 X2 4000 + and above;
  
• 1 GB of RAM;
  
• 1.5 GB hard disk space;
  
• Linux kernel 2.6.1928 and above
  

Oh yes, I forgot to say that it's a OpenGL game running in Linux :P

 

Regards!

[bogusheadbox]

does it have collideable trees~? that is something severely lacking in dcs.

 

nothing worse than watching a sam come flying at you through dense forest. not ver realistic

[sobek]

Here we go again...

 

Is it really that hard to accept that ED can not simply ditch their engine without compromising absolutely all plans they had for the next 10 years? Besides, if you look at what leap the TFCSE took graphically from BS to A-10, then they aren't that far away from that level of graphical detail.

 

Also, judging from the footage i have seen, the physics are rudimentary, so naturally they have more resources for graphics.

[Cedaway]

Here we go again...

 

Is it really that hard to accept that ED can not simply ditch their engine without compromising absolutely all plans they had for the next 10 years? Besides, if you look at what leap the TFCSE took graphically from BS to A-10, then they aren't that far away from that level of graphical detail.

 

Also, judging from the footage i have seen, the physics are rudimentary, so naturally they have more resources for graphics.

 

Correct. Yesterday, I flew a bit with the black shark (it was a while!) and I immediately noticed the leap between BS and A-10c graphics. Same engine but much improved in A-10c. (Pushing the limits of our config beyond...)

[winz]

The same here, I'm flying Su-25 in FC 2.0 atm and the difference is huge. Cannot wait to see what Nevada will show us.

[amalahama]

Here we go again...

 

Is it really that hard to accept that ED can not simply ditch their engine without compromising absolutely all plans they had for the next 10 years? Besides, if you look at what leap the TFCSE took graphically from BS to A-10, then they aren't that far away from that level of graphical detail.

 

Also, judging from the footage i have seen, the physics are rudimentary, so naturally they have more resources for graphics.

 

Of course! But what I mean is, the graphics of that game are great and no so far away from what we have now in DCS. I'm not talking about Outerra or whatever, simply giving some ideas that could be great to include and it shouldn't be a headache for the developers, for example bump maping for terrain textures, advance atmospheric scattering or a more "volumetric" trees. Come on, we are customers, we are free to demand, aren't we? :)

 

Regards!

[GGTharos]

And you're also entitled to 'it'd be nice, but not now' answers as well ;)

 

In any case, the devs are continuing to work on improving graphics. 'It's not a headache' is quite incorect. Every little detail - well, what to you is a detail - is a huge deal programatically.

[Bucic]

I'm sure that It can. Just have a look to the requirements:

 

http://www.lgdb.org/game/molten_sky

 

System requirements:

 

• 100% compatible with OpenGL 3.0 graphics card with 512 MB of video memory;
  
• Processor Core ® 2 Duo 1.8 GHz or Athlon ® 64 X2 4000 + and above;
  
• 1 GB of RAM;
  
• 1.5 GB hard disk space;
  
• Linux kernel 2.6.1928 and above
  

Oh yes, I forgot to say that it's a OpenGL game running in Linux :P

 

Regards!

I don't know what you were trying to say but you failed :P

http://www.biglittleteam.com/#desc.html

Operating System Windows XP SP2 and above, Linux (kernel 2.6.1928 and above);

Which means that it requires that kernel version IF it's being ran on Linux.

 

OpenGL is multiplatform (that includes smartphones BTW!) and if a game runs on OpeGL engine in 99 cases out of 100 it is multiplatform too. A fact worth remembering.

[Speed]

What's impressive about the improvement in graphics between Black Shark and A-10 is not how much better it is, but how much better it is and yet I get better frame rates in A-10!!!

[amalahama]

I don't know what you were trying to say but you failed :P

http://www.biglittleteam.com/#desc.html

 

Which means that it requires that kernel version IF it's being ran on Linux.

 

OpenGL is multiplatform (that includes smartphones BTW!) and if a game runs on OpeGL engine in 99 cases out of 100 it is multiplatform too. A fact worth remembering.

 

I don't failed, I wanted to highlight that it's not neccesary to use directX to have superb graphics, opengl can do pretty much the same and still be portable.

 

Regards!

[Bucic]

I don't failed, I wanted to highlight that it's not neccesary to use directX to have superb graphics, opengl can do pretty much the same and still be portable.

 

Regards!

Hah, sorry then! I thought you wanted to show that it was "linux only" :)

[EtherealN]

I want to see that thing do country-sized maps with major cities before I pass judgement on whether it's "better". ;)

[SmokeyTheLung]

I guess I'm the only one, but I think the terrain in A10 looks better than the shots you posted. With the exception of the ground clutter/grass effect.

[VincentLaw]

For some reason a lot of people think the more post processing the better. It makes things look less realistic when overdone though. Maybe more artistic, more pretty even, but not realistic. This probably explains well enough... http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=222

[213]

the visual details that impress me have nothing to do with post processing.

 

the terrain looks very smooth and detailed. lighting and shader effects are impressive as well.

[Cedaway]

For some reason a lot of people think the more post processing the better. It makes things look less realistic when overdone though. Maybe more artistic, more pretty even, but not realistic. This probably explains well enough... http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=222

 

:megalol: So actual...

[Bucic]

I want to see that thing do country-sized maps with major cities before I pass judgement on whether it's "better". ;)

I've seen that argument many times already and I can't shake off the feeling that it's a fallacy. I don't mean to be grumpy here - just getting the facts straight. I'm not a pro graphics guy but AFAIK the size of everything in 3D world is relative and the only thing that counts are: polycount, objectcount etc. You can render the whole DCS world inside a single room and then all it will be is an extremely high-polycount room-sized map.

 

For some reason a lot of people think the more post processing the better. It makes things look less realistic when overdone though. Maybe more artistic, more pretty even, but not realistic. This probably explains well enough... http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=222

You don't say! :D

 

As long as there's an option to turn that silly thing off there's no reason to talk out of it guys who want their simulator to look like this (the show, overall)

 

 

 

the visual details that impress me have nothing to do with post processing.

 

the terrain looks very smooth and detailed. lighting and shader effects are impressive as well.

I get you. The whole postprocessing thing is kind of off topic here. Just realize what GG is trying to get through with. It's not like you hook up your game to a new engine just like that. That said a NOT-colorblind graphic designer can make a lot of difference (read: a lot can be done with an older game engines) but looking at the gaming industry they are near impossible to find, so it would appear.

Edited July 19, 2011 by Bucic

[Frostiken]

I want to see that thing do country-sized maps with major cities before I pass judgement on whether it's "better". ;)

 

It's all about scalability. I don't think anyone should doubt that it would be possible, it's just having the right people, time and money to make an engine capable of doing it.

 

DCS: A-10 looks nicer than BS, but given the high system requirements I honestly don't think it visually completely justifies the GPU overhead. We're still dealing with a fairly undetailed world - buildings are little more than textured boxes, trees have no collision meshes, roads are just a line drawn on the terrain...

 

While the issue of scaling to the size of an entire country is applicable, ArmA2 I think did a fantastic job of creating a beautiful, expansive and completely believable terrain. Very detailed buildings (of course, it's an infantry game first and foremost), smooth terrain rather than the 'big grids', and lots of variety.

[winz]

Try to set 140km draw distance in Arma2 ;) And then try to render it 3x, because that's what the engine has to do when you have TGP + Mav camera... not to mention the cases when you export MFDS to another monitor.

 

Have you ever tried to fly in a fast mover in Arma 2? You cannot fly high, because you won't be able to see the ground.

[Bucic]

Try to set 140km draw distance in Arma2 ;) And then try to render it 3x, because that's what the engine has to do when you have TGP + Mav camera... not to mention the cases when you export MFDS to another monitor.

 

Have you ever tried to fly in a fast mover in Arma 2? You cannot fly high, because you won't be able to see the ground.

Please read the post #19 again :)

[winz]

Yes, it mostly comes down to poly count. The problem with draw distance is that the poly count does not rise lineary. What's worse, you cannot use tricks appliciable in most other genres, to get the poly count down (Arma has this problem too).

 

You cannot have a rich detailed world with high visibility range and low poly count...

[Bucic]

Of course but it still comes down to the fact (I think) that it has nothing to do with kilometers. And the second fact that we here have practically no influence on the ED's choice of graph engine :) Knowing that I encourage loud and clear critics of the DCS series graphics if it goes the wrong way so we avoid situations resembling that of the pre-DCSWH ridiculous sky colors.

[winz]

It has almost everything to do km, because that's the area you want to display. If you have average terrain complexity x polys per square km, then trying to display 2 square km will give you double the polies.

 

The average terrain complexity is limiting how big area you can display with still reasonable poly count. If you want larger are you have to reduce the terrain complexity somehow => reduce the terrain detail.

That's why Arma 2 looks so great from infantry perspective, but is absolutely unusable for flying. The poly count with increased visibility would be insane. And there is no way (except for LODs) to reduce the poly count.

 

Most games in other genres artifically obscur player visible area with buildings/high mountains. Then they use precompiled visibility maps (created during map compilation) to only draw what the player can really see from the place he is standing. If you use a no-clip cheat in any FPS since Quake 1 to fly a little up, you'll see that only a very limited portion of the map is rendered.

This trick is unusable in open world games, because you have no way to limit players visibility. That's why CoD will allways look better then Arma.

 

The other trick used mostly on consoles, is to reduce the FOV, so only a narrower portion of the map has to be rendered. But once again, having narrower FOV in a flight sim is a no go.

 

One thing that might help is DX11 tesselation, because it can be reduced lineary with distance (unlike LODs, which will be allways jumpy)

 

edit: and we haven't touched other subjects that are affected by terrain complexity.. i.e. ground forces AI

Edited July 19, 2011 by winz