DCS World 2.0 and New Maps Discussion Thread

[LexiconG2]

Hello,

 

Just one little question, with Edge we must change of PC or not ?

With Edge we loose our FPS than our DCS today ?

 

Good question...

 

Skull.

 

 

 

If you are using a low end system edge won't be much of a benefit. EDGE is going to vastly improve on the mistakes that were made with the current engine. If anything the engine will be better then the current version. However to more directly answer your question the requirements will change so a Windows 7 or Windows 8 system will be needed. Your also going to want to have a DX 11 video card. Not sure if DX 11 will be a system requirement but if it's DX11 then the engine DCS/ED are proposing will only be DX9/11. Upgrades might be required for move up. To get the most out of it upgrading would be a good idea. Can't really say for sure until we have it on your systems.

Edited October 10, 2013 by LexiconG2

[LexiconG2]

And you know all this how?!?! You are reaching, nothing that has been said by official ED channels points to anything you posted above.

 

Soon is relative, for me soon could be a month, for someone else days or weeks.

 

HEHE don't assume I am reaching but you are right "soon" for a release has been years and years in the making... Key word from DCS sources is "integrate into DCS" by the way.

Edited October 10, 2013 by LexiconG2

[Erforce]

now i know why i've bought 2 GTX670. one of my rig will suddently miss its gpu ;)

 

Soon, is a word i learnt from CCP and ED.

Now it could be in 2014 or 2015. I don't really mind.

[Snoopy]

HEHE don't assume I am reaching but you are right "soon" for a release has been years and years in the making... Key word from DCS sources is "integrate into DCS" by the way.

 

Well unless you're a secret paid ED employee, until we hear from Wags or any other known ED employee yes you are just assuming.

[Blaze]

So as far as I know and this is not confirmed but version 2.7 can be the stage before edge or will be the EDGE version or we won't see a major update until EDGE is built into a patch. However it's very close and we have a really good chance of getting our hands on it before the end of next month.

 

FYI EDGE is going to be sort of unusual in that with will integrate into DCS: world. Install/Clean.... etc this means that it will fixes and patches and all work and progress can be kept and maintained as far as fixes for mods. I am excited too very excited.

 

And your sources are what again? I missed that part. :glare:

Edited October 10, 2013 by Blaze

[VincentLaw]

I like the part where he says:

7- Option to project map on globe surface.

That is a big step in bringing members of the civil sim community to DCS.

 

So many possible implications!

[Raven68]

Well unless you're a secret paid ED employee, until we hear from Wags or any other known ED employee yes you are just assuming.

 

Well for me, and this is not intended to trump your statement Paulrkii, I am clinging to this post...

 

19 July 2013 - DCS News Update

...

 

5- New images of the Nevada map. This past week we started rebuilding the Nevada map with the new map tools, but it is still early and very rough... a lot of tuning and tweaking to still be done. Thankfully, we are nearing the end of this long journey and it is on track to be released later this year (seriously). I'm sure many of you have lots of questions about the map and the technology behind it, but I'm afraid I have no answers for you at this time. I have no direct contact with the map team and no access to the map build. However, as the map nears release, I'm sure I will have more information to pass along.

 

But as always... :)

EVERYTHING IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE

[Witchking]

Now that is more like it. Wonderful clouds. Finally...sky looks awesome. Can't wait to see it in engine with lighting. Imagine god rays, proper HDR support and bloom and I think that can usher in DCS WORLD 2.0.

 

:D

[_Dredd]

Wow, this is very exciting. Still grinning with excitement.

 

Is there any further information on multi-monitor support. I assume the process might be the same.

At the moment stuck with SoftTH for landscape, portrait, landscape monitor orientation with bezel compensation.

wonder if ED could implement something similar for multi-monitor use?

[SkateZilla]

EDGE is going to vastly improve on the mistakes that were made with the current engine.

 

What Mistakes?, the Engine has Aged, From LockOn 1.0 -> DCSW 1.2.6+, and is Now Approaching 10 Years old. (assuming it didn't originally Pre-Date DirectX 9.0)

 

Like everything else in the PC Industry, eventually the content Matures to a point where the engine is no longer able to efficiently do it's job.

 

During this evolution:

Many ground layers alone were added to the terrain,

3D External Models had significant increases in Level of Detail and Triangle Counts,

Then Ground Objects Started getting Overhauled for Combined Arms.

More Shaders were integrated / More effects,

6 DoF 3D Cockpits all started getting upgraded with increases in Level Of Detail and triangles,

 

Maturing Content is not a Mistake.

Edited October 10, 2013 by SkateZilla

[BHawthorne]

I'm just excited both DCS and P3D will have modern rendering engines soon. That should have me covered for the next 5+ years. FSX alone has been a source of years of nerd rage for me constantly tweaking and cursing at fsx.cfg.

[Mike Busutil]

I want to bump my question again...

 

1- DirectX 11 / DirectX 11 Windows 8 based.

 

Does that mean there are features that can only be taken advantage of while running Windows 8 vs. Windows 7?

[Cedaway]

Dx 11.1 (Windows 8 ) supports WDDM 1.2 for increased performance, features improved integration of Direct2D, Direct3D, and DirectCompute, and includes DirectXMath, XAudio2, and XInput libraries from the XNA framework. It also features stereoscopic 3D support for gaming and video.

(Source Wikipedia)

 

So, It increases the FPS (if the game take advantage of this feature in the code) and add native stereoscopic support.

 

EDIT: I ticked on that one: "7- Option to project map on globe surface."

Does that mean our map will be curved instead of the actual planar map?

Edited October 10, 2013 by Cedaway

[Suchacz]

I want to bump my question again...

 

1- DirectX 11 / DirectX 11 Windows 8 based.

 

Does that mean there are features that can only be taken advantage of while running Windows 8 vs. Windows 7?

Imho that slash "/" stands for "or"...

[Cedaway]

I would say "/" stands for "and".

It would be compatible with Dx 11.0, 11.1 and with Dx 11_1 features, retro compatible with previous states of features.

So, if you have a AMD Radeon HD 5000/6000/7000 series; Nvidia GeForce GTX 400/500/600/700 series; Intel HD Graphics 4000/2500 (Ivy Bridge) GPU, AND Windows 7 or 8, you'll benefit Dx 11_0 feature level.

But if you have AMD HD 7000/8000 series, Intel HD Graphics 5000 (Haswell) GPU, AND Windows 8, you'll benefit Dx 11_1 features.

 

Basically, the sim will run on any rig with at least Windows 7, AMD Radeon HD 5000 / Nvidia GeForce GTX 400 / Intel HD Graphics 4000/2500 (Ivy Bridge) GPU.

(Source)

[Darkwolf]

No tree collision. I'm totally desperated.

[Weta43]

Detecting collisions (tree or otherwise) is (to the best of my knowledge) not a function of the graphic engine.

 

Personally - purely rom the logic of the language - I would take from the fact that the quote is "7- Option to project map on globe surface" not "Map projected on global surface" that the option is there, but not currently implemented in whatever map(s) E.D. might chose to release first.

[Aginor]

IIRC luthier said that tree collisions are dependent from the map.

Houses do have collision, so imagine I build a house model that looks like a tree and I fill the whole frikkin' map with it.

Tree collision: done.

That's also possible with the current engine btw.

The problem with that: FPS. That will be a stutterfest.

 

But maybe I can imagine another way to create tree collision, at least for whole forests, not for single trees: Imagine a polygon model that just spans over the whole forest, at the height of the tree tops. It is invisible but you can collide with it. (basically collision models of aircraft work the same way in most engines. You don't collide with the plane geometry but with a separate, invisible and much less detailed model around it)

The only problem would be to make sure that debris falls through it. So maybe we can make it so thin that a plane gets destroyed but the debris clip through...

I wonder whether that was tried already....

Edited October 10, 2013 by Aginor

[JackDant]

But maybe I can imagine another way to create tree collision, at least for whole forests, not for single trees: Imagine a polygon model that just spans over the whole forest, at the height of the tree tops. It is invisible but you can collide with it. (basically collision models of aircraft work the same way in most engines. You don't collide with the plane geometry but with a separate, invisible and much less detailed model around it)

The only problem would be to make sure that debris falls through it. So maybe we can make it so thin that a plane gets destroyed but the debris clip through...

I wonder whether that was tried already....

Someone mentioned another variation of this that has been used in flightsims before. Once you "collide" with the "forest" the game checks if you collided with an actual tree.

 

You could make it a 3 step procedure: 1) Is the plane flying below treetop level? If no, don't bother checking for trees, if yes: 2) Has the plane collided with any of the large "tree group" objects? If no, you are fine, if yes: 3) Has the plane collided with any of the individual tree objects? If yes, crash.

 

That shouldn't hurt performance at all unless you are flying close to the ground, since the altitude test or something similar has to be done already for ground collisions. But it could get bad quite quickly if you have 10 players flying at tree top height in MP. And a lot would depend on getting the "tree group" object size right.

[Nirvi]

Luthiers answer in the RPS Interview keeps up my hope for collidable trees.

 

 

RPS: Will hedge-hopping DCS WWII pilots need to worry about vegetation collisions?

 

Ilya: My long and painful experience with past projects forces me to add a warning here that all features are subject to change and so on and so forth. And, the answer is yes.

[NRG-Vampire]

No tree collision. I'm totally desperated.

 

patient

making trees collidable not hard but time consuming

have you ever counted how many trees and forest placed on map ? :D

so just give them some time

[Aginor]

@JackDant:

While I agree with that method in general I disagree in one point you mentioned: performance hit. Even if the engine doesn't check them all the time the collision models for trees are there. So each tree (or tree group) is an entity with a collision model that has at least a cube geometry. 20,000 cubes that you have to load into your RAM when loading the map.

In comparison: Trees in most games are not even 3D models, they are basically this:

https://www.henandhammock.co.uk/ecomm/files/cardboard_tree_unique_christmas_gift.jpg

which is pretty easy to do. Even a simple 3D model has much more of an impact.

 

So basically what I would try is to only use forest geometries, except for single trees.

 

@Nirvi:

Right, but he also mentioned the potentially huge fps impact. I predict lots of people whining because of bad performance because they have a 2 years old computer, and the RRG guys saying: Deal with it, or buy a new computer, because you just can't explain to many people how complicated that topic can be.

So I'm really curious what compromise they will find.

Edited October 10, 2013 by Aginor

[EagleEye]

No tree collision. I'm totally desperated.

Is that official now, or who have said that?

[Bucic]

lets drop the subject of trees already.

Detecting collisions (tree or otherwise) is (to the best of my knowledge) not a function of the graphic engine.

.[/QUOte]

[RagnarDa]

Is tree collision models not one of the new features of EDGE? Could have sworn I read it was...