Uriah
12-25-2009, 02:37 PM
In the old game European Air War planes will show up as far as 42,000 feet away. It makes for more enjoyment for me when I can see planes at such distances - even if just a dot or pixel.
As Sydbod said
"As an example, EAW has as its longest distance model for aircraft, a pixel dot. This pixel dot is the size of the aircraft. Once the size of the aircraft is smaller than the represented size of a pixel on the screen, then the aircraft representation can no longer be drawn on the screen.
Another flight sim may have much higher detail models for their aircraft. This other flight sim may actually use a simplified model as its longest distance model. It may keep wings and body shape of some form. By doing this, once the wing becomes more narrow in thickness than the represented size of a pixel, then the wing will disappear. The same applies with the cross sectional size of the body of the aircraft. Because of this, that particular aircraft representation can not be seen from a far a distance away.
From this we can see that long distance visibility is better in the old game because the programmer of the newer game has not thought out properly what has to be done to maintain proper long distance visibility. I know you already appreciate this point, but I am laboring it for the following particular reason.
Now if a modern flight sim was programmed properly and the programmer gave a dot the size of the aircraft as the longest distance model. AND..... The new computer equipment had the extra processing power to handle much larger screen resolutions, then a pixel representation at the higher resolution will represent an aircraft dot at a much longer distance away again. This means that the newer equipment allows one to see aircraft at an even longer distance away. "
Regardless, I would like Oleg and the community to give their thoughts.
As Sydbod said
"As an example, EAW has as its longest distance model for aircraft, a pixel dot. This pixel dot is the size of the aircraft. Once the size of the aircraft is smaller than the represented size of a pixel on the screen, then the aircraft representation can no longer be drawn on the screen.
Another flight sim may have much higher detail models for their aircraft. This other flight sim may actually use a simplified model as its longest distance model. It may keep wings and body shape of some form. By doing this, once the wing becomes more narrow in thickness than the represented size of a pixel, then the wing will disappear. The same applies with the cross sectional size of the body of the aircraft. Because of this, that particular aircraft representation can not be seen from a far a distance away.
From this we can see that long distance visibility is better in the old game because the programmer of the newer game has not thought out properly what has to be done to maintain proper long distance visibility. I know you already appreciate this point, but I am laboring it for the following particular reason.
Now if a modern flight sim was programmed properly and the programmer gave a dot the size of the aircraft as the longest distance model. AND..... The new computer equipment had the extra processing power to handle much larger screen resolutions, then a pixel representation at the higher resolution will represent an aircraft dot at a much longer distance away again. This means that the newer equipment allows one to see aircraft at an even longer distance away. "
Regardless, I would like Oleg and the community to give their thoughts.