You guys seems to not understand the dimension of the damage:

The UBI/western IL2 CoD will be forever crippled by the antiepilepsy modifications. Luthier stated that the current epilepsy filter will only be removed from the UBI version once all the individual potential epilepsy-triggering sources will be "dealth with" (this already included the individual dealth propellers arc from inside the cockpit (which were removed/set to transparency from both russian/UBI versions) and will include tons of others (needing months of work to be removed/dealt with) like removing part of the flying debris resulted as mopping up airplanes, part of bullet impact flashes and so on).

Actually, even the russian version will be partially crippled, as there are already a lot of individual irreversible modifications already made (before realizing that it's too long of a work, and they've added the quick "epilepsy filter" whole screen shader filter solution) which will most probably remain the same in the russian version even after the epilepsy filter will be removed.

I've already bought the russian version of the game, and I will cancel my IL2 CoD Collector's Edition pre-order from UBI.

So, basically, it's a filter that emulates a shitty LCD screen (pixel can't go black to white quickly, or vice versa), it's non-optional, deteriorates performance and makes SLI/CrossFire non-compatible.

Unless the "shitty LCD" effect is part of the game's visual design, it can **** right off. Now, I'm no historical expert, but I'm pretty sure WW2 didn't look like it was being viewed on a laptop from the 90s, thus, the filter can do the latter (**** right off).

Game is broken, won't be pre-ordering.

This topic is going to give me a seizure! lol.... Seriously though, bad move on all parties parts.

This isn't the first game to be affected by this form of filtering, Ubisoft are one of the early adopters of a system used throughout broadcasting and spreading through the gamig industry.

Ubisoft is Screening Video Games for Epilepsy

According to the above article Ubisoft is using the Harding flash and pattern analyser to conduct testing.

Harding Games Analysis

After tweaking we don't yet know to what degree video will be degraded we can only hope that the dev team look into options like turning filters off, though this seems unlikely for the international version, past experience shows that the devs do work hard to keep us satisfied we should be patient and see what happens in the weeks ahead. Tantrums and threats resolve nothing.

I have wasted too much time over the release of this game,I'm cancelling my pre order.

I wanted the game that had been shown to us in countless dev diary developments over the years,not a dumbed down version,thanks UBI for nothing.

What a great business decision to implement a filter to blank out all the great work that Oleg and his team have worked for.

Now I can see why Oleg wants out from the Sim world,if it's going in this direction one see why,it's perfectly clear.

For heavens sake, to everyone running around like their hair is on fire... Both Ubisoft and Sony and a number of other publishers has done this for all their titles for the last three years, without implementing a post process filter which Ilya has admitted was their emergency hot fix as they have had some communication problem between 1C and Ubisoft? If all other titles have done it without loosing fps by adding a post process filter I'm sure that MG can do it too. Assassins Creed : Brotherhood sure has passed the same tests, and does anyone think it looks "bleak" and not having those "bling" effects that everyone think has to go? Does it have bad FPS? Does any of the other Sony or Ubisoft titles look like they are "watered out" and stutter? Wipeout HD was postponed by Sony in 2008 to implement the stuff needed to pass the epilepsy tests WITHOUT adding a last resort filter on all the frames like MG has done now? Does anyone think that Assassins Creed : Brotherhood lost 10 by an implementation like this? Ilya has admitted that it was an ugly fix and they are working on doing it the proper way...

So can't everyone just calm down for one time and stop running around threatening to cancel your pre orders? They will fix this - be sure.

Do you understand that the problem it is NOT the current epilepsy filter, which will eventually be removed and (eventually) have some FPS restored?

The problem is what they will have to do in order to remove that filter, and meet the epilepsy-prevention requirements.

Do you want to play IL2 CoD sim without seeing your propeller's arc from inside the cockpit? Do you want to see from external view the propeller arcs as a translucid circle? Do you want to have (parts) of the flying debris left behind by the airplane you're mopping up removed?

I do not want that, sorry. If so, I can turn back and play 1942 Pacific Air War.

Not seeing much of the prop is fine as I don't see that IRL either. Debris is naturally an immersion booster, but are we really sure it has to go away to comply with the rules? There are so few hard facts and so much speculation here that it must be some kind of a record. Scientists trying to understand mass psychosis really should have a look here. Add a minor comment in the Russian forums or some late night youtube comments that get bablefish translated and boom. It's like nitroglycerine :)

sureley this should be an option for graphics cards to have, plenty of options for filters on them already, 1 more couldnt hurt, plus, if its handles by a sub OS process (driver based as graphics cards are) then it will be more efficient than software based solutions. Also this will be more financial viable because you dont pass the cost of developing this onto every single game developer, some of which are finding it hard enough to afford to produce games as it is.

i am cancelling my preorder NOW. Get this right UBIshit or get lost. Very sorry for MG.
If a non castrated version ever comes out i ll buy.

That sounds like a good idea. I guess that it would work for adding a "gradual change from dark to light", but for effects like the "repetetive" flicker effect caused by a prop "disc" I guess that it would be hard to have low level filtering?

Still, making it optional must be the way to solve it - even though I appreciate that the option will be there it should be possible to disable it for the ones that don't care (which for sure is a large majority). Outside the US I don't see how anyone could sue Ubisoft if the option is in the config file with a warning on startup that says the filter is off at your own risk...

A setting (or several settings) in the registry would make it even harder to set "by mistake" or in a moment of distraction. I'm sure a court would agree that such modifications should be classed as hacking and are a very deliberate action - i.e. the person is accepting the risks.

If an initial warning splash screen was added too then I think Ubi would be very safe....and we'd all be very happy.

Agreed.

IMO this is an extremely bad way to handle it, and most of us here realize it. In my view, GPU manufacturers should enable this safety on a drivers level - and make it an optional feature. If they can do stereoscopic 3D glasses which are way more dangerous than a ordinary game why cannot this be done? Instead we get castrated games for the sake of minority.

Just to be clear - I am in no way undermining the seriousness of an epileptic seizure. This is a very serious matter. But when it affects the majority, it becomes even more serious.

Why this lack of communication happened between UBI and MG we will probably never know. If those rules are in place, the game should have been designed from the start to deal with an epileptic seizure prevention. For this I blame MG equally as I do UbiSoft. The only bright side in all this is Ilya's confession and informing us all about it. We could have been left in the dark about it all and kept wondering why the game runs like crap. Though TBH, I still think there is more to it than just a Filter.

Only if this Filter is removed / made optional, I will purchase the game. Until then, there are plenty of other quality sims out there to keep me busy.

Yes totally agree with the above,I did'nt wait all these years after seeing all those superb developer vids and screenshots to then pay for something that is less than comparable to it.

I too will only purchase this if the filter is removed or made optional,Rise Of Flight is a truly superb combat flight sim and this will keep me occupied.

What makes me really angry about this is the way we have been totally mislead,there has been no mention of such a filter in all the hype that 1C and UBI have been advertising,only in the past 24 hours had I heard about this.

So I am glad I have heard the news now,despite it being bad,I have now just in time been able to cancel my preorder and wait over the oncoming months to see what will transpire from this.

I do hope they can fix this because it will for sure be a great sim once it is sorted out,but until such time my money will be staying put in my wallet.

Good luck guys

Realistic depiction of certain effects should contain fast high contrast changes.

Making the flicker go away will make the effect worse, if said flicker exists in reality.

This is my worry, not the temporary bad frame rates. Temporary frame rate issues is something that many games suffer from upon release and are often fixed in quick schedule, but ruining effects intentionally because of an artificial problem just makes me heartbroken and despondent.

Surely the development team wishes to deliver the best possible product to the customers, but this title is just encountering so much trouble, I just wish they would get a break already and be allowed to release what they wish.


If Luthier et al can confirm that the visual appearance and quality of all the effects in the game will not be damaged by the process of anti-epileptic measures, then I have no problem with it.

If, like I suspect, said measures irreparably damage the effects from what the team originally wanted them to look like, then there's a real problem with not allowing people to experience the effects in their original form.

In that case, I would want an optional original effect pack that returns the effects to full glory. No one would be able to claim I did this unknowingly, even if I suddenly started suffering from PSE.


I can see one obvious solution to the problem - an original effect patch released in Russia that just so happens to work on the International version as well. How that could be executed is a different matter altogether.

Assuming that the game retains one of its key elements (the ability for users to modify it*), then it's only a matter of time before the effects are fixed by the community itself**. I would, however, prefer a solution from the developer team directly.


*I've been somewhat worried about this. The trend is for games to not allow extensive modifications, but I wish CoD does because that's essentially what has kept IL-2 alive for such a long time. But that is a concern for a different discussion...

** ...and assuming that the effects are adjustable by media changes such as textures or ini files rather than locked in code; code changes of the executable and dynamic link library extensions would be impossible unless the dev team releases the source code, which I seriously can't see happening.

in addition to the last comment/suggestion i made, i'll add, that i do from my limited knowledge of Hardware programming beleive its possible for the GPU manufacturers to add this. It would be cheaper in every aspect for everyone to implement rather than to pass the buck onto software development houses.

V-Sync is already in all games, as we know to reduce visual artifact, (they will also flicker), and as we all know being gamers, we know that this slows the frames produced to match the GPU cycle for displaying frames. its very likeley in order to make the said epilespy filter that V-Sync is either forced on, or that the epilepsy filter will be comparing possible more Frames than it needs to. This is also another reason why Epi filter should be on the GPU because it would run faster there than in software.
(unwittingly i thought of a test for people who have the game already with Epi filter, to lower CPU usage by enabling V-Sync to see if it makes a difference.)

UBI are just barking up the wrong tree here. I can guess why they are enforcing this on software rather than hardware manufacturers tho. And thats because UBI sell primarily CONSOLE games. Harware cannot change on those except for a total recall, which would cost billions for all the consoles from every manufacturer ever created. As we have heard, PS3, XBOX it has been said before are likely to be the last consoles ever produced as they cost too much to produce in R&D etc...

This is a prime reason why UBI should be adressing hardware manufacturers rather than game developers on this filterring? Would you agree Luthier? Bear in mind, game engine FPS may be sending (i dont know but guessing) 250+ FPS to the graphics cars, for each frame to be processed takes up a lot of CPU power, however, for the GPU to do the same would be less due to there being less frames to process. Granted the CPU on a GPU has a lower clock speed than a General CPU, but the graphics GPU is doing considerably less, depending of course on the nature of the game.

I would like to see this as an option on Graphics cards to switch this filter on for people with epilepsy and let them play, but, an option only so it doesnt interfere with people with no epilepsy. Bear in mind also, as its a graphics card option, it will then work across the board for all applications :) so even the windows in OS and web browsing would be Epilepsy safe ;)

Crysis 2 will have "FPS drop" due to "epilepsy filter"?

Gimme a break...

Please 1C: get a shotgun and fire in your own foot!

Vertical synchronization prevents frame tearing. That means, it synchronizes the frame rate of the game to the frame rates that the display is compatible with.

If the game FPS is out of synch with the display, it is possible for the frame to change while it is drawing onto the screen, causing horizontal tearing to appear as the frame switches on the next, but previous frame is still displayed on the top of the screen while next frame is already rendered and sent to the display to render for the bottom half of the image.

For example, a display with vertical frequency of 60 Hz will be able to smoothly show image stream at 60, 30, 20, 15, 12, 10, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 frames per second without tearing up the frames, because the changes of the frames are in synch with the speed at which the display itself can switch between frames (or, in mathematical terms, these frame rates are factors of 60)


As a result, if your computer cannot achieve static frame rates of 60 - VSync will reduce frame rates to 30 to prevent tearing up the frames, technically anyway.

If your computer can't run at 30 FPS, VSync drops frame rate to next even number that fits into the VFreq of the monitor, in this case 20 FPS, etc.

Incidentally, this is why I would want monitors to support frame rates up to 120 FPS. Even if you wouldn't necessarily notice difference during smooth gameplay, you could have a wider range of applicable frame rates without frame tearing because the factors for 120 are {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 20, 24, 30, 40, 60, 120}.

For example, if your computer couldn't quite render up to 60 FPS, it wouldn't drop all the way to 30, but to 40 FPS instead. Similarly if frame rates were just below 30, they would drop to 24 FPS instead of 20.



Now, this issue is somewhat similar in the sense that, ironically, low frame rate will cause more radical changes between frames, which will...

...wait for it...


...cause more flickering.

Which is what is supposed to be prevented by the anti-epilepsy measures.


So, yeah, way to go. I bet the low frame rates and especially the stuttering is much more aggravating to even the most photosensitive epileptics than a smooth frame rate with the original effects.

'Cause, you know, low stuttering frame rates essentially turn the whole GAME into flickering mess instead of individual effects.

Well, there is already a lot of speculation about the release date for the PS4 (but before 2014 seems unlikely), and Sony has the same anti-epilepsy screening policy for the PS3 so it's a safe bet that they will have that for the PS4 too. I have heard very few complaint about PS3 games being dull and nerfed due to this - mainly because we never hear about it as all the developers knows about it and design their games according to Sony's anti epilepsy guidelines which as I understand it are the same as the ones Ubisoft use? On the PS3 there is no option to turn off anti epilepsy features as all games are built from scratch with those requirements.

Totally agree, the human eye can register what? 22 milliseconds? which is
a LOT of frames. I dont think an Anti-epilepsy filter will work until we have computers powerful enough to process imagery frame by frame faster than the naked eye can read it.

Its daft of UBI Soft to demand this on a game developer. They are just going to blame the Epi filter not working as a result of the game developers incompetance when they next go to court over anything similar. I think they could do with not being so stupid and investing in better (rather than cheaper) lawyers.

So to sum it all up...

On/off switch check...
then disclaimer check...

Wow that was easy, now MAKE IT HAPPEN!

Another thing that comes to mind...

In December they changed the software used for train scheduling in southern Sweden. The same day there was extreme cold and a lot of snow that continued for two weeks... At the same time they had serious optimisation problems with the software (which I know from an inside source). Guess what they blamed? And then the snow disappeared while they had not fixed the software issues. Guess if there where any change to the scheduling problems? They have still not fixed them...

I have a solution. How about a big warning on the package about epilepsy inducing graphics?

I guess I'll put off my purchase until this has been sorted out. WOP is getting a mission editor soon, so that will have to do for now.

+1

There are places where the food is so hot and spicy that they require you to actually sign a release and indemnify them from any damages caused from you eating it*:
*indemnify transitive verb
1: to secure against hurt, loss, or damage
2: to make compensation to for incurred hurt, loss, or damage


And also have a "hold harmless**" clause.
**Provision in an agreement under which one or both parties agree not to hold the other party responsible for any loss, damage, or legal liability. In effect, this clause indemnifies the parties on a unilateral or reciprocal basis (as the case may be). See also indemnity clause.

Also you could "Require binding arbitration" in the event of any legal matters resulting from use of your product. You could do many things to cover your butt so we can purchase the fully functional version. Set minimum age requirements for a full unlocked versions and jack up the price to say $150 per copy for the trouble.

You can still buy a Toyota even after all the accelerator pedal problems and yet not one shred of evidence was found that supported the theory that Toyota had anything to do with it. Turns out after all this time they find that it is most likely the root cause is the floor mats the OWNERS installed caused it.

Just because someone may try to hold someone legally accountable for their own actions doesn't necessarily mean that all of these products will disappear from the public. Good homework and solid legal agreements as a condition of purchase goes a long way to protect you from others that have harm come to them from using your product.

Its the world we live in. We need to cull some lawyers. But anyone can cut themselves on one of your CD's/DVD's or a paper cut your instruction book or a cut from a box. I can see it now. Someone using scissors to open IL2 CoD and they cut their finger off. They will come after you.

The truth is no one needs any valid reason to take anyone to court. You can have a bad hair day and someone take offense to it and start legal action. There is no filter to filter out what can and what cannot go to court. You can find yourself in there for anything.

Just throwing it out there.