Poll - COD Terrain: Your Opinion
 

There has been much debate and disagreement about the quality of COD's current terrain, which as usual quickly polarises into two opposing camps shouting at each other.

So, the purpose of this poll is to obtain a snapshot of the opinion within the community - to put some numbers onto the issue. Are the voices of complaint just a vociferous minority OR is the dissatisfaction more widespread?

Please - the arguing over this has been done to death in a multitude of different threads. There is no point whatsoever in recreating it in this one - just vote!

Thanks.

where ?'

First time with this poll malarkey - took a bit of time to get the options up ;)

I would agree only if this should be of some help to devs (and if devs would take in account our opinion and act accordingly) and not become or generate a sterile discussion.
I think CloD terrain should be retooled heavly. It disappoints the expectations.
I'm not opposed to threads again and again discussed before, even if those apparently lead to nowhere (RoF WoP & DCS vs Clod, landscape color palette, fast moving waves and so on). What I dont like is when these discussions go to the dogs and the worst the people emerges, and the mutual respect lacks.
Over and over debating on the same issue should be a persistent buzz for devs till they fit what doesn't works.
Cheers

That is my main reason for doing this, pupaxx, to get some idea of how important (or not) this should be for the devs to fix.

A "Very Happy" from my side as this sim needs work in other areas way more than in the looks of the terrain (mainly content needs to be added such that there is actually something to do than just fly instant missions...for instance a working dynamic campaign or at least maginally believable AI) .

Alexander

Generally happy.

That said, I'm not British so it doesn't really impact on me whether or not there are hedgerows present or if the landscape colour is a bit off, but I can understand why some of the Brits take umbrage to the scenery.

#3 Texture art has never been a strength at Maddox Games.

At the moment you can´t fly at the correct altitudes, so I would vote #2, but I hope the FM will be fixed, so that you can actually fly, where the planes were designed to fly and from the high alts the terrain doesn´t look really good, so I vote #3.

Like most here,I'm genarally happy,but I do think the colours need to be more subdued,at the moment they are far too vibrant.

The recent dark tree/colour mod of Alifish has made a tremendous improvement IMO so the fields just need to be addressed now.

As regards the water the colour and texture are fine,but where the water meets the shoreline this could be improved big time IMO,and the translucence of the water is ok,but,I believe this is being improved for a future patch.

I read that the translucence of the water will be made clearer,so you will be able to see keels/rudders through the water at close range.Sorry can't remember where I read this,but it was from a genuine source.

Generally Happy, but a little worried that 'improvements' will spoil that early morning/late evening atmosphere, which I still think is awesome.
Darker trees, ever so slightly toned down fields and the widely discussed and ever so English hedgerows would render me a happy bunny. But don't spoil anything whilst you're at it.
I'd also like to see the scattered individual trees disappear as you lower the settings rather than the blanket 'less everywhere' as it is now. As it is now, you lower the settings and have dark green patches on the ground with a few sparse trees. Don't know if this is possible, obviously, but it would be nice.:)

I always like the terrain visuals, only waiting for even more optimization regards performance, some tweak in colours and the final weather system, because these "placeholders" clounds are really bad optimized... And the final water too, of course!

If all this was will be Dx11 finally, my world will be perfect...

the terrain is good, meaning not very good and far from excellent

i applause this initiative; i also take notice the vast majority seems to agree it needs improvement; after all it's just what has been mentioned (and trolled) to death already. let's hope this result sheds some light to the illuminated so the silly trend of reclaiming all reason to one side may end... and mature productive discussion may finally happen instead of the forum police flamefest that has been going last few days. cheers to the community

p.s. - last day i went online testing the ground attack on repka 2, glad to find out the prop pitch working gradually instead of 2 fixed positions, on Spit mkII; for firts time i had a blast managing my revs, speed and temps, watching my alt etc.. too bad the sound went off after 10min and had to do without... well at least i had some taste of fun. haven't tried the Spit mk I yet, but its FM was broken at the time, let's see today.

Well, some have real "orgasms" with RoF terrain, some dislike SpeedTrees, but I laught when look at the "spinning trees" of RoF graphic engine.. ^^

All graphics engines have some flaws. The big ones in CloD today are all "placeholders", minor tweaks in visual and optimization problems. All the basics are there to a lot of evolution.

The terrain looks nothing like England. Colours are totally wrong and tree's are just weird in colour and placement.I thought I was buying a Battle of Britain sim, not Battle of Fantasy Land...
I picked option 3 though, because the terrain doesn't stop me playing,all the other problems have.
And its no good installing mods to make it look better,because online that will probably result in a VAC ban.

Thank for the pool, good idea.

i don't share same amount of optimism due to several reasons but we'll see

Quote:
Originally Posted by LoBiSoMeM View Post
Well, some have real "orgasms" with RoF terrain, some dislike SpeedTrees, but I laught when look at the "spinning trees" of RoF graphic engine.. ^^

All graphics engines have some flaws. The big ones in CloD today are all "placeholders", minor tweaks in visual and optimization problems. All the basics are there to a lot of evolution.

Placeholders? To be fair, you just made that up.

Water and clounds are stated as "placeholders" by dev team a lot of times.

I was hoping to have an option 5 in the list as I voted for Option 4 due to the fact there is such a short draw/texture fill distance that everything can be seen being drawn or appearing like popcorn as you fly over the ground.

I could probably live with the non-UK landscape if this was fixed or could be worked on.

Surely in this day and age some use of AF could be used, or even the dreaded (but useful) smog/haze/UV effect to hide the pop-ups?

I don't understand why AF can't be used to blend the object together and then 'bleed' them into view rather than popping them up?

Anyway, Voted 4, but would go 2 if the pop-up could be fixed.

MP

Clouds, yes.

But ive not seen the devs say anything about any other stuff.

Oh you could mean this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G836q...el_video_title

where Oleg said the sound was a "placeholder"...when it wasn't, it was the sound we got.

Well we all know now that Oleg was lying his pants off about pretty much everything during development, no wonder he did a runner, imagine him trying to get out of all the bollocks he told us here and in the interviews he did. I hope it all comes back to haunt him oneday.

We got a lot of placeholders, unfortunately:

Only up to DX10 suport, all weather system, sound system, even menu parts... Well, I'm happy that they aren't suposed to be the final ones. You and all naysayers can be unhappy, not me. I can wait step by step the evolution of this sim engine.

Like you have a choice??

Yes. But not terrain. One would hope it is a placeholder, but considering how much work the terrain needs, the team can't help but agree that it is a placeholder (i.e. they might have thought it was OK before release, but now they must realise that it could do with a lot of work, once all the other major issues have been ironed out).

I don't think they will fix it. IMO CoD is/was just a test bed for their Moscow sim, once they release that their huge Russian fanbase will be happy, the rest of us don't really count for much.

I thought this thread was only for voting and especially NOT for voicing opinions!!!

ILLITERATES, all together!!!

"How much work" the terrain need, Philip, besides some tweak in general colour and tree placement?

You talk like the terrain engine is a lot of crap and is totally wrong... The elevation data is great, 1:1, town and landmarks placement... The only MINOOOOOOOOOORRRRR flaws that I see in visuals are tweaks needed in colour and vegetation placement. The big part of problem still perfromace and optimization. And the water... I really will like the promised for future new water!

Voted 'generally happy' - the tiles themselves are ok, just needs some slight colour tweaking to darken the trees and some of the fields. Massive optimisation is still needed though, both to improve performance of the higher res textures for those that use them, and a huge visual improvement for Medium/Low textures, which currently look beyond awful.

when you see Hosni Mubarak send him regards from your behalf. ppl could vote in Egypt also, they just couldn't voice their opinions...

It sounds minor on paper, but it could be a huge undertaking. Let's put it this way (sorry if I sound like I am reciting the landscape-critics official hymn):

-the trees themselves need work. Obviously this is probably down to speed tree, but they need to be re-worked to the extent that the trunks are not visible from altitude. When driving in the country here in Kent, I can barely see the trunks of trees in the distance, so from altitude it just looks as though they are a great mass of foliage attached to the landscape. Am I knit-picking too much? Maybe, but it does make a massive difference to the landscape representation. The foliage should also be darker in colour. This is probably down to the lighting system, but it really needs looking into. Why should people revert to mods?
-Secondly, the tree-placing needs to be completely reworked. Forests should show a dense mass of foliage, and the majority of fields and roads should be relatively tree-free. Instead, the fields should be bounded by neat hedgerows which may grow steadily and smoothly into trees in a number of areas. Drive down a country lane in kent which may have a neat hedgerow, and you will observe that as the field boundary is passed, that neat hedgerow will probably become a chaotic mass of foliage, and trees will sprout within it; eventually creating one dense mass of greenery.
-Thirdly, the types of fields represented in the landscape needs looking into. Currently, the landscape looks like a patchwork quilt, when in actual fact, the landscape in England usually has large areas of grass-lands/fields which are pretty much the same colour. It is rare to look in all directions and see about 10 fields growing crops of different colours. It may sound a bit finicky, but if the landscape was seperated in a more ordered way, the surrounding would look a lot more natural (this may be difficult to implement due to the tiling system in place). At the end of the day, when flying over the countryside you will probably only see a few colour variations in the landscape here, as opposed to about a dozen or so in CloD.

Sorry if I sound like an anorak (really I'm not) but this is something which to me is quite obvious from living in Kent all my life. These things are just natural to me! I understand that most of the team have never seen the English landscape before, but IMHO that just shows that the team should listen to those of us who are quite clued-up on the matter. It's not a question of knowledge; more of common sense (which has been built up through years of living in this area). Drive around any part of England, and the majority of what I say is true. Obviously some areas of the country have their own quirky features (e.g the stone walls of some areas around the lake-district and, indeed, in the Cotswolds) but these are just extra parts of the landscape.

The landscape isn't complete and utter garbage; but it isn't Oleg's photorealism, and it really isn't the best the team could do.

I`m fairly satisfied. I see a lot of other, more important problems. When Brits say Britain don`t look like that, I believe`em. Someone said it looks more like Russian grounds. I agree with that as the CloD terrain colors remind me EXACTLY of Russia.

OH THE HUMANITY!!!

Oleg? He isn`t here. But it is obvious you have a need to blame SOMEONE so be it. It`s not like you`d ever stop. That said, I hope all the bs worthless bickering you said will come back to haunt you one day.

Same bs. The whole IL2 game history shows that western market is of the same importance to 1C. You wouldn`t get any Spits or tens of other LL planes otherwise. From 2005 IL2 was all about western additions.

And yet so far we have a BoB sim and we`re getting BoB freebies. The Moscow thing is as of today just an annoucement, UNOFFICIAL to say the least. But that doesn`t hold you from spilling bull, right?

You really shouldn't swear Carguy, not on this forum. I won't quote you because thats bannable as well.

DID you read the OP????
Did anybody, voicing opinions here, read the OP??
When the respect is lost, everything else will follow soon.

So do I, because then i will be able to play the game I PAID FOR!!

How can we be expected to respect a company that decieved us all through the development process? Then to cap it all you cannot even get a refund through Steam. Respect for these guys is long long gone.

Generally Happy
but the colors is a little cartoon style:grin:

I won´t fly trough trees

it was a joke... sorry if i offended! no need to be thin skinned especially after yelling 'illiterate' to everyone adding an opinion here.

i completely agree with your respect statement, although it doesn't seem to represent much lately; i keep seeing same few guys who are allowed to have atrocious behavior towards anyone targeted by their spam rage.

anyway ppl are voting and results are showing, what's not to like? perhaps that those same results backup the views these pretentious 'firewallers' tried to block or disrupt (but to no avail beyond their own sad amusement:rolleyes:).

+1 to that. But these are minor tweaks. The foliage in SpeedTree is easy task to do, no much worries. I'll like a lot to see bigger areas of the same texture in CloD as suggested, because will ease the texture lstreaming, ans if we have grass on, no need to so much texture work, just attention to textures junctions.

+1.000 to trees along roads... It's unreal, and its anoying when bombing/straffing units on roads... We really need more hedgerow...

But these points, I insist, are an "easy" task to do, and dev team CAN DO it easily... But now maybe the team focusi s in other issues more urgent. One point regards the graphic engine: we need simplified - but good looking - buildings textures, ASAP, to ease the streaming.

;)

to Kendo's respect, i'm gonna make some at-the-moment analysis of the poll results:

Very Unhappy - 12 votes - 8.96%
this shows very few ppl are taking the terrain for garbage; furthermore, it shows that the assumption of everyone showing criticism towards the subject are saying that the terrain is trash, is just wrong. following that almost no one is saying that the terrain is trash, there's just some obsessed with the idea that that's the case. as if this analysis was needed to show such, simple logic and honest reading would do.

Generally Unhappy - 29 votes - 21.64%
again it shows there's no majority of ppl overly critic much less ready to throw the towel on the subject

Generally Happy - 86 votes - 64.18%
this result shows that users expecting improvements over the present state cover the majority of situations, as expressed and justified in a respectful tone on vast majority of terrain-criticizing posts (who btw took the time to point out specific issues and corresponding solutions, instead of vague and generalist swearing or bashing at the subject).

Very Happy - 7 votes - 5.22%
i could almost tell who they are

I hope it's minor! But then again, it depends on how the team can get the lighting system to work, and how hard it is to improve their LOD models of mostly all the objects within the game (no more autopop!)
I'd like to see proper hedges implemented, but I think this effort should be community based, and by that i mean updates posted for constructive criticism. To me, RoF looks nice, but I could pick it apart quite easily. CloD's terrain shows an enthusiastic step towards creating a complex environment, but there are lots of issues with it that need addressing (as outlined). As you say, they may be minor to address, but they really do impact a lot on the general look of the environment.

hahaah one of those threads again. do u guys not have anything else to do? it's beyond me how u guys can afford to spend so much time reading each other's posts and writing lengthy reviews to defend your position. and glossing through the last page alone i see things that's been said in previous threads about 10 times already.

obviously you havent or you wouldnt be here:) (just Kidding):grin:

Put me in the "Generally Happy" category. I never notice it I am not sightseeing I am hunting. I only notice it while I am getting good guncam footage of my kill. Other than this I don't care. As long as my bird goes where I point it I am all good.

He's asking you to respect the wishes of the person starting the thread, but you're e-raging so hard that you completely missed that and went off on your own tangent regardless, which is validating his point to the t :-P


As for the original topic, put me in the generally happy category.

Knowing that half the people who post on this forum are miserable and generally failures in life, the relatively low proportion of "unhappy" votes shows how good the terrain is.

No it's a placeholder, that is why they are re-doing it, acording to Luthier it's a month or so away, you do understand the term placeholder furbs? its the sound we got until they finish the sounds we will get :cool:

Dont you have anything else to do :-P

You really shouldn't put yourself down like that baron.....I hear people say you still have so much to give! *sorry but you did walk into that one* :grin:

Actually, I think the results show that 1/3 of people are unhappy with the terrain, as opposed to a very small minority of 'see no evil, hear no evil' sycophants with their heads buried firmly in the sand being quite ecstatic (currently around a paltry 5%).

It also shows that the vast majority feel there is at least some definite room for improvement. I know you were in the 'woopy doo' very happy brown noser brigade minority, but wake up and smell the coffee Man....you are very much outvoted. :grin:

You might want to think about a career as a party political 'spin doctor' though, I think you'd do fine. :grin:

Do you like RoF spinning trees and cartoon buildings too? :cool:

67.5% is generally happy or more.

32.5% is generally unhappy or less.

so where your assumption/spin comes from is beyond me.

YOU are the one in minority and as usual the minority is the one screaming the loudest and resort to name calling to compensate for exactly that, being a minority. I do like how YOU choose to read the poll though.


P.s. I voted for generally happy but there is room for improvement. That however doesn't mean most people generally think the terrain is crap because there is room for improvement, like u seem to imply. There is room for improvement in a lot of things, like there always is in a flight sim. (IL2 Sturmovik ring a bell?). And so u get what im saying, no its not the end of all things for me if they dont do anything else to the terrain.

'where your assumption/spin comes from is beyond me.'

Maybe this will help.

Generally Happy - the terrain is good, but there is room for improvement 61.8%

I wrote 'the vast majority feel there is at least some definite room for improvement'.....true, with varying degrees of happiness. All agree that improvement is needed.

No assumption. No spin. You really need to read peoples posts more carefully. I think you'll find everything I wrote is true.

I wrote a 1/3 of people are unhappy. Again true. PS Baron edit your post quickly or you will get banned (the S word), friendly advice as they are getting Medieval on some words.

As for being 'personal'. Please listen to yourself and your previous belligerent and insulting tone. Read what I was replying to. 'half the people who post on this forum are miserable and generally failures in life'. Nice! Real gent on our hands here chaps. :grin:

'YOU are the one in minority'

Actually, I'm not. I voted for the same option as you. Wrong again. :grin:

Check the attitude, man. You habitually insult posters on more than this forum (the Zoo too) but this is obviously normal to you. You seem to think anyone who voices criticism hates 1c and CoD and everything has to be polarised. Ridiculous. This is a public forum, the express purpose of which is an exchange of opinions and ideas. Not everyone will agree with your world view or position. It's called life. Deal with it baron. ;)

Again baron, scrub that 'S' word sharpish or they will ban you, no need to thank me. :)

*EDIT: Ah I see you now have.....nice one. Err, my bad actually you haven't. Oh well I tried.

Anyway, just read the OP and he's right so that's all from me.

Vote :Change the terrain

Seriously, nock it of. ( i better put some of thees in here :):););) so i dont "insult" anyone)

I said "That however doesn't mean most people generally think the terrain is sh*t", i dint call anyone anything anywhere.

U however said: "as opposed to a very small minority of 'see no evil, hear no evil' sycophants"

and

"I know you were in the 'woopy doo' very happy brown noser brigade minority, but wake up and smell the coffee Man"


And u say i use a belligerent and insulting tone and i need to check my attitude?

Whats wrong with u?

And where the ¤%&&%¤ did i say people cant have an opinion and where the &&¤%&&// did i polarize?

BTW, what has this: "Read what I was replying to. 'half the people who post on this forum are miserable and generally failures in life'. Nice! Real gent on our hands here chaps. :grin:" has go to do with me and your post that I replied to??? I didnt write it and i dont care and it has NOTHING to do with what i replied to. So why even bring it up? Unless u are trying to make it look like im the one who wrote it? Why would i think that? Well, because u mix it in in your reply to me in a very od way indeed.

Edit:

And as far as the "minority" thing goes, people who are GENERALLY unhappy with the terrain is STILL a minority and people who are GENERALLY happy with the terrain is a majority witch was what i said in reply to your first post in the first place. And to make it even clearer for u: Just because i voted "generally happy with room for improvement" i sure as he** don't count my self into the "generally unhappy side"

No, Orville, you did definitely lie!
You said "No spin" but you tried to include the "generally happy crowd" to the unhappy side.
The name "Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf" comes to mind. ;D ;D :D

you tried to include the "generally happy crowd" to the unhappy side.

LOL....No I didn't. At all. :)

Read what I wrote again please. I said 'the vast majority feel there is at least some definite room for improvement', which when all groups are considered (generally happy of course included) is indisputably true. And leave Joseph alone, you fiend. Stop winding me up as well, LOL. :grin:

@baron, theres nothing wrong with me mate. :) I'm not the one who called someone a 'pig' the other day on this forum for having a contrary view, then deleted it so you might want to ask yourself that question. You do it all the time. What I wrote was to illustrate a point, call it 'a dose of your own medicine' or responding in kind. Yes it was rude. Deliberately so and for a reason. Not nice is it, very annoying. :grin:

Getting boring now anyway, no more tit for tat. Waste of time.

PS I've got nothing against you baron (sincerely).....so lets just leave it at that. Aye?

Cheers.

Peace be with you all. :grin:

"just leave it at that"? Seriously?

Where the #¤#% did i call anyone a pig? I called someone a pig and then deleted it? U know, i saw u admit to being an avid fan of Sim City last week, but then u deleted it. What should i do? And good luck disproving me btw. The least u can do is to point me towards the post in witch i called someone a pig (and then deleted it)

But go right ahead and accuse me of things that never happened if you want to go down that route.

And dont tell me, im still the one who has to watch his manners?

This forum is getting freakier and freakier by the minute.

And just so u know, i have no opinion of u what so ever either, but where u get your "personal" stuff from is beyond me.

Either u are confusing me with someone else or u out right make stuff up. Witch is it?


What is it with the personal stuff anyway, is it that much of an ordeal being quoted and disagreed on?

Given the constraints imposed by computer resource limitations I don't think the landscape is too bad. Field textures and colour are not that far out apart from modern crop spraying tracks in some of the fields which, given the amount of work needed to remove, are no doubt there to stay. English hedges, or at least the impression of them, could do with improvement. Again trees are always going to be limited by computer resources and as they stand they lack much variation. Back in the 40s the predominant tree was the English Elm, very dark and imposing, which made the landscape look like a typical Constable painting.They were pretty well wiped out in the 70s by Dutch Elm Beetle. I think the biggest improvement that can and probably will be made is the water and particularly the shore line. The mud flats of the Thames Estuary and The Wash are almost as iconic as the White Cliffs. I think it was said in a post by Luthier that water will be transparent so maybe they will come to life a bit. Have a look at Google Maps and Google Earth to get an idea of how they should look. So all in all I am one of the majority and checked button 2.

Actually you are right baron and I apologise, I'm typing this on a tiny screen, and doing 3 things at once.... I just mixed you up with baronwastelan....so my mistake and sorry. It was not you at all but him. I write baron short for baronwastelan too to save time, its my bad mate and not directed at you at all. :)

Okey dokey. :)

NP, i thought as much and for everyone's sake lets get back on topic.

I chose very unhappy cause whenever i come close to a larger area of terrain the game will crash always

We need another Chuck Norris thread. Lighten the mood a bit.

would you all vote in my texture sizes poll please. http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=24486

Said, based on a misunderstanding. ;)

Therefore invalidating the whole process, only joking, but I think the poll was more about whether you liked the look of it or not, jsut a question have you deleted your cache?

The other thing may be if you are running winXP, CoD and Win XP are not on friendly terms.

IMHO terrain texture resolutions are way too low, it looks like a smudgy mess. Colors as other have pointed out are to some degree off, but I can live with that.

Worst thing so far is the building popup/grey texture at a distance. Its embarrasingly ugly.

Im trying to spread the word that the best trade off I have found is turning landscape to medium as it appears to reduce draw distance by maybe 20-30% for some land based objects. This smooths out all texture hiccups even when running everything else maxed on my system.

I would rather have a little less draw distance for land objects and higher quality textures than the insane draw distance you get with Landscape on High.

Can other people try Landscape on Medium and report their findings, both visual and performance wise?

I insist on having the insane draw distance -- to suggest otherwise is just crazy.

Looks like trees along the roads had much less density back then than today because the trees were much younger (on the left hand).

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/in...2_00819030.jpg

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2...ritain/100102/

For me this pic looks just like CoD slightly postprocessed!

Except the haze in the distance in WW2 stopped the pilots seeing the building pop-up ;)

I'm mid way between 'generally happy' and ' generally unhappy'. The terrain doesn't blow me away- but it doesn't make me 'unhappy'. However I put 'generally unhappy' because I feel there's quite a way to go before things look realistic there- which I take was Oleg's initial goal. For those following Ali's thread in the mod section on this subject, I've given my opinion on the weaknesses and strengths of the terrain system there.

PS- I just looked at ROF again after a long break (since about release time). I was expecting the landscape to look much better than CloD after all of the comparison talk here in the forum. But I would hesitate to say it's 'better'.

When we will have realistic weather with its atmospheric effects, like i.e. haze, it will be a big step towards a less lamentable impression of the terrain, especially the colors.

It should be further researched if the 'draw distance' option affects also the aircraft. It did in IL2. If so, if you were to turn it on medium, you would be at a significant disadvantage.
Plenty people have need to reduce their video setting for obvious reasons, so for others setting textures to high can cause much more stutter than to have medium textures and high draw distance. I have worked up a nice compromise wich consists of "BUILDINGS AMOUNT = high", "DRAW DISTANCE = high" and medium textures. Even though the buildings take a considerable amount of video memory, the smaller textures smooth out the experience. What I notice is the buildings don`t pop up no more, the ground quality is still acceptable (sorry- I have to have those trees, the terrain looks just so bald without them). In a set of LW escort missions to Dover and London dogfighting over the coast and over terrain proved fairly smooth (27-32 fps) and spotting objects like airfields poses no problems. Remember that those escort missions didn`t have the amount of 4 planes, but over 20 everytime.
Still, one needs to get used to an ocasional 0,2sec stutter every now and then.

Just like old IL-2 1946 and ArmA2. We will always have occasional microstutters.

Well, that ofcourse varied to a number of situations. As viewing the cities in zoom mode in IL2 lowered fps to lower twenties even few years after the release, the online stutters stayed the same. Whenever one of the players in online session spawned or hit the ground, others would experience a short hicup. Fact.

I just did some a-b screen shot comparisons and there is no difference in aircraft draw distance between medium and high land detail but there does appear to be less detail on land for trees and other things in the very far distance. You have to flick between 2 screen shots to see it because the difference is so minimal, but performance is way better!

I just redid the screen shots with everything max and land detail low so it was easier to see what is going on as it was really hard to see the difference between medium and high land details.

Max
https://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1...gh1.jpg?psid=1

Low land detail everything else max
https://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1...joqP0/low1.jpg

Max
https://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1..._dc0/high2.jpg

Low land detail everything else max
https://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1...2bXiA/low2.jpg

Max
https://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1...8qVE/high3.jpg

Low land detail everything else max
https://blufiles.storage.live.com/y1...bGI-8/low3.jpg

the difference between the way real fields are divided and Cod's is striking. the concept of 'straight line' helps noticing it...

Thats france jatta

and everytime i see shots like that from FS- phat, my eyes bleed and i want to cry its so far from what England looks like.

roftl your right...

anyway the patchwork of CoD's fields is somewhat exaggerated, but i went ahead of myself over this one:mrgreen:

I see a big differance.

Go ahead anc dlimb to higher altitutude. the fiffernece up there is where it gets noticed.

Nice comparison shots FS~Phat. It just reinforces my belief that i don't really miss much by dropping a few settings to medium in exchange for a smooth 25-60 FPS (capped at 60 due to Vsync) under any kind of scenario on my two year old PC.

I'm not saying it's the same and sure, people with an eye for detail will spot differences but to be perfectly honest with you all, i just don't see it. Maybe if i start looking really carefully i'll see it, but then it defeats the purpose as i won't be scrutinizing the landscape that hard when i'm actually flying.

The only settings i'd want to be able to run higher are forests and building detail and that's just for the eye-candy factor, i run them on low and houses/buildings are a bit sparse on detail but then again, i don't really notice unless i'm skimming rooftops or crash landing next to a farm.

It's the distant horizon where the differences are, if you're not seeing it then you're in a win win situation in regards to turning it down and gaining fps :D

The main difference seems to be with the definition of the rivers in the distance, rather than the land.

Just ran a few tests and FPS is definately improved by a good deal, without any visual sacrifice that you'd notice.

Well spotted Phat. :)

Nice work. At low alts there is in my eyes not a huge difference.
Now those screenshots at 7000m would be interesting for comparison.

It seems that with the exception of a few stragglers (...Tree? Wonder which option he'll vote for ;) ) the results are in.

Thought I'd give my take on the outcome, with the proviso that it is just my opinion. I can foresee disagreement in the interpretation of all this - maybe we just moved the problem one step back, from disagreeing about the terrain to disagreeing about the meaning of the vote about the terrain :) Really, the only interpretation that is important is what the devs make of it.

I'll be upfront and state that I voted "Very Unhappy", but I'll try to give a balanced reading of how I see the result. Some of you may disagree on whether I succeed or not. ;)

It's a mix of good and bad. Roughly two thirds of people are happy against one third unhappy. The devs should take some comfort from that. It means that maybe it isn't so critical to get this fixed asap - the majority of people can continue to enjoy the game while waiting for terrain improvements. (This wasn't clear before the poll. From the noise generated it was easy to believe the split was closer to 50:50.)

Having said that, the vast majority (94%) believe that further improvement is necessary.

On the bad side, to have over a third (38%) of your customers dissatisfied with something as important as the terrain IS serious, and to have 1 in 8 (13%) of the people responding say that the terrain actually puts them off playing the game is disastrous (despite being one of the afflicted I was really surprised the number was as high as that).

So, not sure overall exactly what this proves - maybe that we are severely split - though we didn't need a poll to realise that. A majority are happy with things as they stand. A small, but significant, number are so unhappy they don't want to play the game.

Over to the devs......

low.jpg vs high.jpg

I voted generally happy. The one terrain thing I notice every time I fly that could do with work is the way that the shoreline render essentially draws over the top of the water render. The effect this has is to slightly shrink the area the water covers (specifically inland rivers & lakes) as the edges are drawn over by the shoreline render. As this is a distance affected render, as the river or lake becomes more distant the shoreline render dissapears. The overall and undesirable affect is that rivers and lakes appear to get wider and wider the further into the distance they get, resulting in a kind of patchwork land archipelago effect. It would almost be better if the shoreline was only rendered at distance, and dissapeared close up but that would kind of defeat the point of it.

The very existence of this poll carries more significance than the actual results.

Of course...everybody knows that 1 poll starter is worth 1000 regular people, therefore everytime somebody wants to gripe.....start a poll.

And if most people vote a certain way bongo, doesn't it make the poll and vote valid?

Yes it does but the poster I quoted seems dissatisfied that the poll doesn't agree with his view and is suggesting the existence of the poll is more a validation of the negative aspect despite the majority positive result.

i would say if 1 in 3 people who paid money for your product were unhappy then i would say its a fail.

especially if you wanted to sell them your next product.

i think one needs to pay closer attention to the option description rather then the headline i.e. there is a clear majority who's not really generally happy but rather thinking it needs some improvement (my case). sorry but that's because of the way the options were stated; it's hard to say i'm unhappy, the terrain cannot be described as 'poor' but it does need some improvement. and i am not generally happy, nor do i think anyone mentioning its shortcomings.
so as i see it the results are not that mixed, rather there is one main clear conclusion: terrain is not so bad but it does need some improvement

Very unhappy, No bank on rivers at Oleg stated long ago that it will... Old technology for terrain design .. The whole Sim is a disappointment to me at the moment..