Contact sight problem.. really something to patch!!
 

Until the contacts are only dots is not a real problem, we can talk alot about the distance of sight and that kind of things, the real problem, a big one, is that as soon as the dot disappears and the lods of the model substitue the pixel, simply you can't see anything.

Ok that simulation means approximation, ok that it is a well known problem of some airplanes in Il2, but that really ruins alot of the simulation, frustrating the best moment of the game, the one in wich you start to manouver the fight.

In Il2 that problem was bypassed enlarging the less polygon lods of a certain percentage, I really hope that there is a better way of solving it, if not at least that solution works.

The game is improved alot in the last patch, finally is something flyable, I really hope in the FM future modifications, but a perfect simulator that hide to you the targets at the worst moment is not something that works for me..

+1

Yep, it's really difficult to hunt in this way... Staying high is still a backfire and I hate joining fights at sea level. Many could like it, but still is not realistic.

IMO we still need a tool to help us since the hardware is limiting our sight.

I have complained about this several times only to be overrun by realism pilots. It's ridiculous playing online for 2 hours spotting maybe one enemy if i'm lucky. It simply kills the fun. I want to play on realism servers without icons and so on but i also want to have fun. I'm giving up and won't play online anymore due to this. I also see a lot of others complain about this when i'm on servers. Last night several players quit after flying around for an hour or two without spotting anything. Something has to be done and fast.

Staying high using B&Z tactics is the core play for a Bf109 pilot and with this problem it's impossible.

When Bliss changed the dot visibility distance from the default (?) 14 km to 20 km on the ATAG online server he got huge approval from the online players. It made a positive difference in gameplay.

Don't know if the 20 km value is still in place; I was having difficulty spotting distant aircraft last night including bomber formations.

+1
Tamat is spot on. LOD must be reworked to ensure some visibility at medium distance. I tried yesterday online, and even at short distance (400-500 m) the other plane literally disappears when it shows the minimum profile, seemingly it is a purely bidimensional object.

In RL having altitude advantage is the core tactic of every fighter pilot. BnZ is consequent upon this. ;-)

We were on flying on ATAG's server yesterday (Thks Bliss!) at 4-5km over the channel: there were ghost formations who seem to have only a long distance lod and then disappear on medium and short distance. Anyway in 40 minutes I've only seen 2 Ju88 at our altitude returning from England and I've seen a contact over our home base at 1km of altitude, but it was almost transparent and in fact I've lost him in a pair of seconds.

Here we have guys who want max difficulty, not max realism (don't care to explain to me how it's in real life: we have a military pilot in our squad and he claims that it's too difficult managing contacts).

The same thing is happening now with RO2: the game is a total failure but one of the few good things is the "zoom" improvement: now is not anymore as in RO where you were hunting pixels (at 150m), but you can shot at guys at 300m and more, and they still are not dots. Anyway it's an improvement on RO but there are guys against it (actually it's the lack of sway what is ruining part of the game, not the zoom).

We already have the zoom function in IL2 and Clod (FOV management), but it's easy to note that keeping SA as a pilot is a lot different as keeping it as a soldier (everything is slower, enemy is not passing over your head or underground as zombies). So FOV's increase in flight simulators is useful only on already acquired targets. The same thing happens in DCS A10 too: you zoom around you SOI, you don't scan the sky in that mode...

IMO we need something like an active "labels" function who has not to be invasive: you keep pressing a key (searching mode) and looking constantly in one direction and the labels appear after some seconds based on the distance and the weather condition (clouds, sun ect.) If you lose direct visual with the contact the label disappear and you have to research for it.

What I mean is that the application must simulate what the pilots see.

It's a lot different from the magic F6 on the old IL2 and labels are not ruining your flight experience... unpress the key and the labels turn off, press it again and you instantly see the contact that you have acquired (if you are looking at the right direction, of course)

Most agree this is a problem, I still don't get why ac suddenly disappear as you get closer? In the first beta version of this latest patch, the devs tried those small white discs (that ones that appeared through terrain). From above they gave the impression of cockpit or brightware reflections and I thought they worked quite well. Unfortunately, from below ac looked like flying saucers...:grin:

Also, the zoom function in Il2 and CloD makes you loose sight of the contact, because the zoom it is not centered. In other words you stare at a point, zoom, and you magnify another zone of the sky.

Ins

We need the same config we have in IL-2 1946: works like a charm!

1) Dots or some more refined "glare" or visual clue of distant aircraft or object;

2) Bigger LOD when planes change from "dot/clue" to 3D object.

Not so hard to do. What we can't live with is this situation now:

- We can spot planes far away, but when in RL will de much more easy to see them, they became nearly invisible ingame!

Yes but he talks about visual identification.

I'll try to make him post there (he's soo lazy :-) )

I agree with you guys that we need a fix for the contacts disappearing at medium / short range but i'm really disappointed on reading about the "active label" stuff explained by Manu.
You can't simulate what the pilot see that way just because every pilot is different!
They were not able to see all the same thing at the same distance.
The best would be a progressive LOD that's trimmed with distance increasing/decreasing based on current distance from each object (ground, static, A/C etc.).
This would allow you to see what your eye can see (if your eye can see 1 pixel you will see it, if you cant see things smaller that 2 pixels you wont see it and so on).

S!

In IL2 I started to fly at different resolution (1280 instead of 1920) because I can't stand anymore to be a blind pilot... that or I had to uninstall the game.

LoBi, what about my idea? Have you an opinion about that?

+1

Well, I can fly OK in 1680X1050 in IL-2 1946 in a 22 inches monitor, so, I believe that IL-2 "pixel system" is OK.

Your solution is intersting, but I believe we can achieve a better solution with some more "real life" visual clue of distant aircraft and more smooth transition from this "clue" to the first VISIBLE LOD...

I really don't know what is the best solution.. Maybe some "glare", some "contrast" against ground/sky... :confused:

Just to point 6S.Manu suggestion. It's intersting.

What about using the sight skill of an average WW2 pilot?

Anyway, for example, the ac is a pixel at 20km, at 15km, at 10km, at 2km: after that distance you have the first LOD who's still so little that it's melted with the ground. You don't see the ac if his LOD is flying over the ground and the texture of this is not flat: it's still a moving pixel between thousand moving pixels. It happens a lot with detailed maps of IL2 (the new ones)... in the oldest map we had not this problem until if not over the forest. The hardware and our eyes are so different since the last have so many functions to keep definition and focus on a object.

The LOD method you are talking about is the one they use since IL2: use 3 level LODs or 10 level LODs you still have the plane melting with that ground if you're at more than 500m... damn, during the "Big Week" SEOW we fled together I had P47s diving from 6km and after 5 seconds (since they were faster than me) they were disappearing! The second time I landed in the middle of the mission since I wanted to launch the monitor our of the window. And what about the direction of the bombers? we had a only pair of seconds to align ourself because the transition between single pixel to first lod was so violent and you have not enough time to make a good headon.

And anyway if you have not a dedicated SDK for LOD management is really a lot of work for the 3d guys: in that way you can forget the number of ac we have in IL2. Of course I hope that they have an SDK for this purpose...

However it's not that my idea is easy to develop... I'm quite sure it's not, but at least it can reproduce a more realistic hunting experience. That's not "pixel" hunting...

On the plus side of the argument for the dots: I was delighted by the change in dotrange settings on ATAG. The other night I saw a formation of bombers at altitude, the dots seemed to almost merge in a similar way to RL when you can't quite resolve the dots.

It really felt like BOB at last.

Still some phantoms to get rid of though.

56RAF_phoenix

Quick fix?
 

A quick fix would be a MIN_DOTRANGE and MAXDOTRANGE with a smooth alpha transition between them.

56RAF_phoenix

+1

It happened to me on the ATAG server yesterday.
I was following a dot, I had an alt advantage.
Then, closing in, the dot disappeared. I made two rounds trying to find out whether it was my eyes that were playing jokes on me or whether it was a ghost dot.
Not seeing anything, I changed course going back home....only to find out 30sec later a bandit on my tail :(


It really needs some improvement!


~S~

+1

+1

I have had the same thing happen many times, and not just with this patch, from day one.

I am not sure that they disappear from the game or just from my view.. Because one time I did see them appear to disappear, only to look much harder and see that they were still there, just very Very VERY faint. If that is the case each time than the problem is in how the 'dot' transitions occur. As the distance changes, the game loads different LOD of the plane.. Clearly during one of these transitions color of the dot goes from a 'dark' dot to a different color.. And depending on that color the plane can seem to disappear!

As noted, sometimes I can see them after the transition and sometimes I don't so maybe sometimes they do actually disappear from the game?

In either case, they really need to work on those transition colors, it should go from dark to not so dark to light.. not dark to light.

I had the same experience several times. In Il2 it doesn't happen. Did you notice if it's related more with blue planes or red planes? imo it happens with spitfires and hurricanes, maybe it's the type of skin ...

one fast solution waiting for a better one should be to leave the dot closer crossing the lod


distance x = lod only
distance x+ = dot and lod
distance X++ = dot only


i know that there is a better solution, like refining the lods and the distancies, but that one seems to be simplier, cause you need to modify only few parameters for all the planes insthead to modify all the lods

+1

The problem is in fact contacts vanish completely all of a sudden from the sky and then show up again after a few seconds, once you get closer to them. :?

Definitely a bug and something that should be fixed asap.

I think you're talking about a completely different thing pal, we're not talking about spotting distance but about planes that disappear suddenly from the screen when you get closer to them, and they're actually in LOS at only 100-150 meters or so from you.

+1

Im talking about both. I understand your issues and agree they should be fixed first. However, sometimes spotting anything at all is impossible on the english channel map. Flew an hour yesterday at 4k over the english coast in a 109 and didnt see a thing. The server said there were 15 reds.... maybe they didnt get the memo and were busy defending iceland? I think the issue is that they blend in with the ground too much. They are almost impossible to see looking down. Sometimes ill be lucky enough to spot one and be looking right at it and watch it dissapear completely. If i can spot a house or a single tree from 4k, i should be able to spot a plane. For some reason i think the distance to size scale of the planes is too dramatic. Im not at home to test this but from memmory i think the plane at ground level when viewed from say 3k looks like a dot when a house which are not too much larger then the plane model when looked at from above still looks like a house... could this have something to do with aa being broken. Fir example the dot appears and dissapears sometimes (flashing rapidly) making spotting one even more difficult.

Verified.
 

A simple way to verify this issue (bug) is to play an offline 1 vs 1 quick mission where both planes start the mission one in front of each other.

As you start the mission, you will be able to detect the dot, if you maintain your vector towards the foe, you will see that a certain distance the contact will disappear and 2/3 seconds later will re-appear. So it seems that in the transition from one size (of the contact) to the next, as they are getting closer, there is some kind of interruption for the graphic representation of the contact.

I have tried this with 30º, 60º and 90º degrees of FOV, the distance at which this interruption happens is different depending the angle of FOV. So to follow a contact you are forced to constantly change your field of view in other to avoid "the contact interruption distance".

The "good" news is that this issue affects both sides. You will have the same problem tracking a 109 in a spit than vice versa. Is that balance or what...?

Salutes.

Both the time I've flown online these week there was almost 25 enemy planes... During the flight I've seen none (flying from Calais to Dover and back).

Don't know if it's the scale of the planes... it could be: I'll make some tests.

IMO the main problem is the textures of the background. The textures of the sea is moving nonstop, and they are really detalied: how could you see a AC, a LOD with camo texture (ergo not stable pixels), over that "sea" of moving pixel?

In the LOD you have to avoid the camo effect so that the planes are monochromatic. Or maybe we an use black squared dots bigger than a pair of pixel, like the ones we already have for ships (horrible to the sight... somebody complains about labels... THOSE DOTS ARE LABELS, and you can't even take them out).

It was so easy when, many years ago, the texture could not be so detailed and so the ground and sea were almost flat... you could "easily" spot a black dot over it, also because the resolutions were smaller than the ones used in these days.

I better call this "Terrain Masking" or "Camo".
An object moving fast at an altitude let's say 500+ meters lower than you is pretty hard to see.
That was at the base of all low altitude - low drag profiles for A/G missions.
the REAL problem (IMO) is the contact disappearing after being seen, not the 'problem' of being unable to spot it at a lower altitude.

S!

Have you ever been on a plane? You are able to see a car moving not hundred but thousand of meters below you, because it is moving. The human brain is the one that is able to see if something is an object, and the brain is made to control something moving; that is the reason that let you understand that something is moving also in your peripheal vision, that usually is something less more than an unfocused blurring colours mix.
Said that if you red as i think books and memoires of pilots you surely red also alot of time something like "i saw a group of planes x thousand meters below me and i did that or that..", i wonder how they did, if everything was camouflaged. And moreover reading the diaries of the people of London in the battle, you can easily understand that they were able to see the airplanes fighting over the city also when they where sure not at 500 meters, and the kids at the end of the battle were able to see who was enemy (the yellow nose) and who was not..
Two weeks later I was on a plane seeing around me, and if during the day i was able to see airplanes at very high distance, thinking that was because they were white and big and i was really high, when at the Gatwick airport i landed in the dusk and during the taxiing i was seeing a spot far far far away starting to land but still with hout the landing lights on; when eventually it landed (with the lights on that were not letting me able to see what kind of airplane was ) i was amused to see that was a light blue two propellor engine airplane ( of the dimension of a boston i suppose) used to link the channel islands.. and i was able to see it from really far away because it took minutes to land..
From the roof of my building i barely see hidden between the other building the Urbe airport in Rome, but i can see really clear and big the airplanes and see what kind of airplane is (high or low wing, one or two engines etc etc) the one landing or taking off and you know, are at 2 Km of distance, but at four, when they are on Villa Ada, the difference is not so big...

but if everything that is not rational i don't know what to say more

Then we have the cockpit blinking light, the painting that was glossy, the cloud effect of multiple contacts etc etc.. that we don't have on the simulator

I know.
I am not a real life pilot but i am parachutist so i know what you mean but you forgot one thing: Cars on a road are not provided with a camo.

Camos are not always perfect, they are (sometimes) useless at present day, they were surely worst in WWII. It always depends from thousands of factors like ambient light, clouds, angle of view etc. but yes, in some situations you can be able to see something that, let's say, the guy 50 meters western than you may not see.

Looking something skyward from the ground is not that difficult due to high contrast with the skylight

I can agree with you on this.
My house is at about 2.5km straight line from LIRE (Pratica di Mare Mil) and i am having the same feel as you stated in the quote above.

I am not complayning what you say (write) being irrational, if i let intend this i am sorry.
I am just trying to keep a discussion where ideas from different people are facing each other.
Nothing more, nothing less.

As stated above at previous quotes, i don't agree with you on some points, but i do on others.
The truth is in the middle (probably).

Who knows, maybe this thread will be such an inspiring place for devs to make a working solution for our ghost-contacts over the channel. :)

I totally agree with that conclusion.. for the other we can discuss :D

+1 Absolutely agree. I don't want this to become a fly-at-6k-meters and wait for contacts trying to sneak flying by at 300 meters from the ground as in 1946, which is ridiculous.

Here we have just one bug, that's all. Planes vanishing in the middle of the air is not acceptable.

Planes flying lower than you are difficult to spot, that's the way it is for real and the way it should remain in the sim.

No matter how good the camouflage used, 'movement' attracts the eye automaticaly..
Even if the plane/truck/soldier/ is perfectly matched to the terrain, as soon as they move they are liable to be seen.
Early aircraft camo was more intended for when the machine is parked up in field conditions with a camouflage net over it, so as to mask it from observation.. if its on the move the human eye is likely to see it..

That makes me want to create a blue camo plane like the navy wear now

The problem is when you' re on a plane EVERYTHING is in motion respect your position so I don't think you have a point to be honest. If you then add a background when you're looking from above it becomes even more difficult.

I think all ppl who think this way should make difference of what they would like to be and what really it is, sorry m8.

It's not impossible to spot dots down below, it's just more difficult than in il2fb, where it was very easy.

One thing you all need to keep in mind is the size of the map. The flyable area in CLOD is enormous, and even with 40 players in it you aren't guaranteed to run into somebody.

On ATAG it's rare to see Red pilots above 3000m; most of them twirl around on the deck, low over their ships. I've had sorties where I was thinking "Where are all the RAF?" at about 4k over england. I would then descend and zoom in at the ground and see large furballs down in the sub-2000m area where I don't want to go.

You CAN spot contacts on the deck from 5k. I've done it. But it's really really hard.

Reread what the bolded part... in a full switch server do you really spot enemies with 5km+ of altitude difference?

Damn it.. I've stopped to fly in the most popular full-switch servers because the 95% of the pilots were flying at 100m an I could not see them from 3km (until I changed my resolution but then it's like fishing for me -> boring)...

Anyway do you agree then that planes 1km over your head should disappear too? the got camo! But still they are black dots...

Super, you are reasoning in a too much simplistic way.

Camos are effective if 100% of the requested conditions are present. Its' not like a plane gets painted and it becomes almost invisible.

I'm posting a document about aircraft camouflage: it's dated 1969 and it's sure that the explained techniques are more advanced than the WW2's ones.

Aircrafts are in "low visibility" mode (that's not 500m... it's visible at 1-2 miles on daylight) if they fly at the right altitude, if the sunlight (or moonlight) is the expected one, if there are clouds or not... and for the ground camo the plane HAVE to fly in the correct paths (the pilots have to know where to fly over)

Talking about Spitfires we have a brown-green camo who fly over the channel (blue-green) at every altitude, also provided with high visibility parts like the windshield (30 to 40 miles)... sure it has to be invisible! It can't be moderately visible (10 to 15 miles).

Here's the document:
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc...c=GetTRDoc.pdf

In north Africa maps of course, and in the rest you can spot them always when flying over the sea, you see these unrealistic white/grey dots at 6k lol.

No i don't but the further is the plane the more difficult is to spot it and at a certain distance human eye cannot spot anything sorry, if you want to consider this as a disappearing aircraft is up to you, unless off course you have better sight than a hawk which I don't think so.

Luckily our brain is smarter than us.., cause you can see stuff in movement also when you are in movement: we are not talking of seeing the poles from a train, but seeing a car moving from another car moving.. the brain can see easily that, as can see easily aicraft moving from another aircraft: it is common sense.

the point whatever is that in the article that 6S.Manu put is pretty clear:


pag 7

High or highly visible: DAY 30 to 40 miles - NIGHT 8 to 10 miles
Moderate or moderately visible: DAY 10 to 15 miles - NIGHT 2 to 3 miles
Low or barely visible: DAY 1 to 2 miles - NIGHT 200 to 1000 yards


moreover in the other parts of the interesting article it practically says that is difficult to obtain the real low or barely visible condition because there should be the perfect camo on the perfect terrain (so spitfire on a grain field= bad) and because surfaces like plexiglass and glass are considered high visible, like i suppose the yellow nose of the emil.

@KeBrAnTo; i'm i blind one, but i can see an airplane also far away... so if an airplane disappear also at 5000 meters, and it is not that case, it is closer that happens, (i'm not talking of camo now) in normal conditions of weather and light it is not a good simulation..

Of course we are speaking about RELATIVE movement of a plane against the terrain/sky. The human eye can catch easily a movement, as said by Tamat, even if it's relative to the rest.

Have a look at Manu's last post, the US Navy study defines "moderate visibility" of a plane as 10-15 miles, and "high visibility" as 30-40 miles ... Sorry m8, we are far from that in this game.

Well it seems that if US Navy says that must be true. :rolleyes:

I cannot really believe that you think you can spot a10 meter long plane at a distance of 30-40 miles which in my own lang is 65-80 Km, :-D

Listen, i live exactly at 25 miles of a 200 meters-high buildin,g and on the best westher conditions you can hardly spot it against the sky. Imagine trying to spot a 10 meter plane, lol


:rolleyes:

30-40 miles would be more in the range of 54 to 72 km ;) .

I don't think they are nautical miles (if they are then I missed it).. so in our countries it should be 50-65km.

Anyway how can be the windshield "high visible"? Try to guess...

If the plane is a moving bright spot, reflecting sunlight at crepuscule against a darker sky, and the visibility is excellent, you can spot it easily at very long distances. It's a common experience. Everyone can spot a 10 m wide satellite at night or dusk ... Let me see, how is a satellite distant in your lang ... :)

whatever,
didn' t grab the calc, it does the job for my purpose anyway

Don't be sorry, it must be the military and myself of course that are wrong.. and you are correct, after all, I only teach this stuff..

you're talkin about far too many coincidences to fit your point perfecr weather, perfect reflection angles, against a dark sky ..... mmmm it seems the Oz land to me to try to spot a ww2 plane and try to speak the truth about this subject but well, Im not trying to convince but to put some logic into the subject, not fantasy :-)

I assumed nautical miles, as these distances were given by the navy.

me too

Sorry I thought you were serious, I didn't understand that you were pulling our legs. Never mind, you are right and we are wrong, satellites are invisible, other planes can't be spotted from a plane, eheheheh wink wink ...

Cheerio!

I made other tests: even a close plane disappears at times. Probably it is a multi faceted bug, involving LOD, antialiaising, rendering calculations and God knows what. A big bug.

i have really healthy eyes, and never had a problem in to spot planes in IL2 1946.sure it was still hard, and maybe to identify the target was harder than it would in reality, but as soon i spottet a plane, i could without a problem, follow it and keep contact...

in CLOD its much worse!!!there always was the problem of big black dots in the distance, and as soon as you come closer, the dots became smaller and changed colour to a bright grey, which was very hard to see whether the background was sky,water or terrain...

i think the devs are aware of the problem and thats why it was changed several times now since the release....for example in the first beta before this official patch, we had those white dots which where clearly visible(and also through terrain).they were ugly and could be considered as cheat...

however since the latest patch, we have the worst situation...i play because of performance reasons with a very low resolution of 1024x768, and now, while i think that the dots far in distance are looking more real, as soon the aircraft comes closer, it begins to shimmer(meaning some pixels of the shape, just take the colour of the background)...so it becomes partly invisible.... but thats not the biggest problem....when you come really close....600m-300m, the aircraft will become totally invisible for several seconds.and i mean totally invisible.its like a stealth fighter of the next generation.

this problem has to be solved quickly now.since the latest official patch, i didnt fly online yet, but i even had problems to keep sight on the stupid AI, which is normally really easy to shoot.so i dont think that i will even try to go online until a acceptable solution is found.

I agree with previous posters that cars are vissible on roads from commercial aircraft flying higher than the altitudes we fly at so aircraft that are larger (even though camo) should be visible, atleast in the size of the object or plane 3d model. To say that tshey are only visible because they are on roads is not true. It all depends on what color the road is and what color the car is. An extremely small dot thhat doesnt even have a rendered camo skin is not realistic and nobody can argue with that since the camo skin is not even being rendered and is not the real reason the plane is hard to spot. I truley believe the distance to scale of the planes ratio is off at large distances. If camo paint is the reason for it being dificult to spot then why do raf pilots have the same issue spoting yellow and silver 109s.. i think the true fix should be to model the scales properly at large distances. After doing so the camo would only come in to play when the colors it was above were the same as the planes. This would make planes over similar colors more difficult to spot but nowhere as dificult as they are now. Currently the scaling rendered is like trying to spot a black painted fire hydrant from your cockpit at 3k.

To further my point. Next time observing a plane at the deck from over a ship from above, tell me it doesnt look like they could do a barnstorming run through a porthole, drop a bomb, and fly out the other porthole..... exadurated a bit but its close..

You do realise that you lost all credibilty with that statement.. right?

As many have tried to point out to you.. The human eye is very good at detecting movment.. Just because your life experances have not provided you with the situtaions to realise that does not make it false.

noooo why?
Only because the navy paid some professional officer to study an argument important as contact seeing and camouflaging and he produced a classified file on that?

Surely he studied more that argument with a plethora of complex instruments and interviews:roll:

I just started flying IL2-COD (been on IL2-46) online at 1440 resolution. Being
I fly a lot of 46, the spotting of a/c in COD was immediately noticeable. First
I measured the range to target with the gunsight to make sure the a/c were
properly scaled, and they were fine. Next I started to look for threads such as
this one and the other called "Target Visibility". Both threads are excellent.

Im one of those that refuse to back down my desktop or in game resolution to
get a bigger and sooner first pixel sighting. I can't stand sims on lower res.
So I was wondering, if anyone has done any in depth investigation on the
effects of the anti-aliasing and filtering settings as a function of visibility and
range?

Here we want to get rid of the jaggies and have smoothed and dithered a/c
graphics to make it look real, but are these same features also reducing our
long distance a/c profile visibility? Does it have an effect on the switching
between pixel and LOD switching? Just some thoughts.

I'm sure that if the study was done by the Royal Navy, or the Kreigsmarine, or the Regia Marina then you wouldn't be rolling your eyes, would you?

:rolleyes:

Tamat was rolling eyes on the guy (troll) who ridiculized the US Navy research found by Tamat himself, you should read the whole thread.

If that's the case then I offer apologies. It just did not read that way to me, and the thread has dragged on for 2 months, so it's hard to keep it all in perspective.

Scusa mi Tamat.

I found on my set up to place the as setting and such
to 4x and now I see very wellOh and application controlled.

I just checked my conf.ini and the "MeshShowLod=1" parameter is in the [core] section. Someone mentioned earlier that it is in the [Net] section. I believe [core] is the correct section.

S!

Mastiff, did you mean Anisotropic Filtering to 4x and FSAA to Application controlled?

Anyone got a link to the face-plant picture?

Tamat.. that was my point! KeBrAnTo was poo pooing the NAVY's study when he said.. 'Well if the NAVY said it must be true than'

OK great, so there are AA, Filtering and LOD switching workarounds...

So in summary, there are these two:

• Anisotropic Filtering to 4x and FSAA to Application controlled
• conf.ini and the "MeshShowLod=1" parameter is in the [core] section.

I wonder if these both to be used together, or only one at a time, and on older systems if its better to use only the AA and Filtering strategy. Being that the
MeshShowLod method is frame rate costly.

Has anyone make any frame rate and screen shot comparisons for these?

S!

I use only the AF at 4x and AA at Application Controlled, the LOD setting in conf.ini has too big hit on FPS and causes stuttering.

They are two different fixes for two different problems.

If you have problems sighting contacts, but the contacts are there and it's just that they are very difficult to see, may be changing your graphic conf can improve that.

But there are a LOD problem that some people have and some doesn't. Approx between 800 and 2000m the contacts are simply invisible. If you have this problem then MeshShowLod=1 fix that. If you are lucky and don't have this problem then there's no need of changing anything in the conf.ini.

I don't know the exact cost in FPS, I play in a very old PC and already have very low FPS (and by low I mean 10-15fps) without MeshShowLod=1. But I use it anyway because without it I don't see anything between 800m and 2000m near me.

Thanks for the expansion on the application of these workarounds.
Does the development/beta teams know about this trouble that we don't seem
to suffer as much with on IL-46 as we do in COD? (I assume yes, but had to
ask to be complete). If not where do we put in a bug/enhancement request?

Now at the expense of asking a dumb question...
How do you know that the a/c blanks out between 800 and 2000m, like how do
you know something is missing if you can't see it? Was it flying straight at
you the whole time?

I was thinking about a mechanism that might help us with these kinds of a/c
spotting issues. WHy not make a hybrid between padlock and lock on?
So if you look at a position in space, you can hit a spot&lock key function so
that if there was an a/c (within an acceptable visual range of a pilot with 20/20
vision, say at 3km head on per that Navy chart for a fighter sized object)
that it will lock on and zoom in at the bogey for say 3 seconds. This would
emulate squinting and seeing the plane (no matter the pixel and resolution)
setting for a short time. Thus its not a fully automagic padlock, and its not a
box or icon text either. But just allows a short time to see the object better.

Another way to visualize this would be like how we can put our fingers on the
text on an iPhone or iPad and a small zoom in magnifying glass comes up.
The pilot really has to be looking in the right spot in the first place to evoke the
use of the squint2magnify/spot&lock feature. So its not some magical radar padlock.

THis could be an optional feature for the hardest of core players, or have a time
and range selection variable (within an acceptable range). The size of the
space to be magnified could be limited to a few rads, again selectable and
enabled by the host and INI file or GUI. Even the time between being able
to use it can have a timeout so its not overly abused. Kind of like a setup
and hold spec for a edge sensitive flip flop spec. (but I digress, sorry).

Just some out of the box thinking here.

@CheeseHawk

That sounds like a boundary condition that is flip flopping/oscillating in the code
which causes the delay between the alogrithm selection and drawing, plus the
added horse power (frame rate robbing) that is done all the time that really is
needed only under certain conditions when employing the mesh switch.
The frame rate hit sounds like overkill, especially for those of us with older systems.

Again, how this kind of boundary condition is solved in electronics is setup and
hold time specs at edge sensitive devices. The old school way was LUT
instead of computational analysis physics on the fly, this made for quick
response times, but at the cost of more switch like boundary conditions.

Sounds like a coding problem that can be solved tho. Just a guess.

It's something like my idea.

I have to find the time to build a video about it.

I really like this idea, a button incorporated in to the sim that would allow you to tag a contact with a label which would remain on the tagged aircraft until you lost sight of it via a cloud or terrain. That way pilots could keep track of their target without having to enable all icons.

To be fair, I've always thought the best solution we had in Il-2 was simply custom icon settings which gave approximately realistic levels of information based on the distance from target (ie, at 2.0km a black box, at 800m a colored box, and at 100m an ID simulating the spotting of a target, the identifying of that target as a bandit or friendly, and if you were really close, the ability to know who you were fighting as though you were able to read the call-letters on his aircraft, regardless of whether or not you had a hot system).

Unfortunately, some Blue pilots (in IL-2 as well) felt that these settings gave them an unrealistic disadvantage because it was then too easy to spot them as they were coming in to ambush you. At 600kph closure rate, it would take approximately 10 seconds for the aircraft to come within gun range. If those ranges were shortened to 1km, 5 seconds of warning, in the event that the defending pilot spots you at the maximum possible range, seems like a reasonable compromise. One of the problems with this compromise in Il-2 was that it was very easy to engage a target at nearly 1km with super-zoom vision and overly stable gun platforms that most aircraft were.

If you're making your attacks from a good position (high and behind and ideally, out of the sun) the defender is going to have much, much less than those 5-10 seconds (if any at all) to maneuver out of the way. However, under neutral conditions, it would at least level the playing field some based on hardware.

Certainly I'd find it preferable to the old standby of running at extremely low resolution on the biggest monitor possible, which unfortunately continues to offer advantages. Dropping my resolution from my monitors recommended 1920x1200 down to 1366x768 made an enormous difference in "spotting the dot" but the game still dearly suffers from the disappearing plane nonsense.

Yes, it would do something similar, but many of us have TrackIR and find it very useful to be able to move our own heads around the cockpit. The function Manu was suggesting would work like padlock only instead of locking your head to the target, would tag that specific target with an icon. This, as an alternative to having an icon show up for every plane whether you'd physically spotted it or not.

That's actually ingenious Manu - tagging dots instead of icons being automatically enabled for an enemy. Only problem is that you'd still face the issue when you didn't have time to do anything about it, i.e. if you were already in combat and you spotted a dot arriving with no time/ability to tag it due to manoeuvering, you'd still lose them in the invisible ring area around your aircraft. Easy to solve issues of unfairness just by making sure that if the dot leaves the pilot's view for more than 3-5 secs it is untagged so no tagging people and turning away to check another area of sky for several seconds and then turning back and spotting them again easily. Basically, Manu's idea is great but the LOD issue still needs to be solved. ;)

@Manu,

Glad to hear someone like you is thinking along a similar way...

The concept Im thinking of doesn't put labels or boxes around any contact, rather it would make a small area zoom in for better identification.
You would have to move your view to the point you want to squint at before you activate the feature. No automated snap to target like a
conventional padlock does, this takes away from the pilot having to do their own searching. My idea does a localized magnification on demand.

In IL2-46 people can already do this in a way, by using the HOME key zoom in function, so its not like this wasn't a community acceptable thing or cheat.
Im just suggesting we refine it into a limited cone versus the whole screen zooming in. Another possible way to implement it would be similar
to LoMacs SHELM head tracking circular lockon tool. You have to put the circle over the target then hit TAB to make it lock on for the weapon systems.
BUt in IL2 COD, you wouldn't want it to stay locked on and track, that would be too much like a padlock feature. Just have the area zoomable.

Even guys like Adolf Galland had a telescope affixed to the front windshield so he could see the enemy better. Some pilots took binoculars. THis would
help level the playing field for those with different computer systems, monitors, etc. I for one, would not want a conventional padlock or graphic drawn around the bogey.

S!


@CHeeseHawk,
Personally speaking, Id rather have icons than padlock. Icons that come and go with range as currently implement isn't so bad for folks to come up to full realism.
Padlocking I think was a good idea until the TrackIR came along and freed our thumbs from having to search the skies. Now its just too automatic for serious gameplay.

Wish the servers would setup the icons on all the realism servers because of this.. Like replica's Dogfight server.. If you set the icons to appear at a really close distance.. at least you will be able to see what would be obviosly visable during real flight.

Also if you dont have a Head tracking system setup (i dont) its even more impossible to keep the planes visable. As soon as you use the hi-hat pan views to turn your head.. it moves so fast and to much.. you lose your target everytime you move your head in a direction

i dont like the idea of labels or some zoom function to make contacts easier.in my view, it should be hard to spot and track enemies in certain situations.i think it was that way in real life, and its half of the challenge in a combat flight sim.
the only problem we have now, is the code which needs to be changed.
one can see planes easily in a distance of ~50miles as black dots, but when you get closer to a distance where the first manouvers of combat start, the enemy begins to flicker and totally disappears for some seconds.
i think contacts in far distance, should be even harder to spot, than what we have now in game, and the closer contacts should not disappear.thats the only problem we have and that has to be solved.
for the labels or zoom function...im fine with it, as long as it is optional in the realism settings.i dont want to fly on servers where everybody can use this function, while i would refuse to use this kind of cheat, and therefore putting myself in disadvantage.

Hahah .................patch. Funny.

+1

Here's my idea.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...0&postcount=97

I tried using the Meshlod=1 solution, didn't notice any big improvement but noticed a considerable hit to my framerate. I went back to Meshlod=0.

The best solution for me is to reduce Antialias to '0'- that seems to have fixed it for me. No longer do i see planes disapearing as i close on them, when they hit that sweetspot of changing from a dot to a plane profile. One of the guys on comms on the ATAG server suggested it and a number of us tried it. We all agreed it made a huge improvement.

.... true !!! 100% agree !!!
:!:

What do you mean? AA off in the game menu, or is it on the nVidia control panel?

Regards.

+1 (absurd these things are still a problem!).