Dot Visibility in COD and Other Flight ims.

[Wolf_Rider]

my only real experience with "dot problems" is that which has been existent since CRT days, the era the sim was designed in. Current LCD technology may exasperbate the situation... and at the end of the day, no current technology will recreate what the eye sees.

The misnomer with adjusting FoV is the "field" is being adjusted with reference to a "window" (window, is screen size/ resolution and FoV being the angle of view) So it doesn't really mater what the selected FoV is, the same window is still being worked with... so what happens is, when a FoV is used it gets that wider view and presents the image on the screen - pushing everything back into the distance without magnification being effected change. Alternativley, when a narrower FoV is selected the image is presented on that same size window but seenimgly bringing everything closer, but without magnification increase. Everything stays relative unlike with zoom (using binoculars for instance).


let's see how 1C have addressed the concerns with CoD.

[ElAurens]

I too run a Samsung PX 2370, It is my first LCD monitor. I was running a 19" Sony Trinitron or ViewSonic G90f before that.

After my first offline test of the Samsung I lowered the resolution from the monitor's native 1920 X 1080 to 1600 X 900 in an effort to see anything further away than my wingman. It only helped a tiny bit. When I fly online with friends on comms that still run CRTs, they are calling out targets long before I can see them. It's very frustrating, because otherwise the game looks beautiful on this monitor.

I'm seriously considering going back to 1024 X 768 and living with the black side bars. If it wasn't for the imminent arrival of Cliffs of Dover, and other games I play, I would shelve this LCD in favor of a CRT.

I wish there were an affordable 16 X 9 format CRT monitor, I would have one in a heartbeat.

[Wolf_Rider]

a 16x9 Trintron CRT.... my dream...

too bad the (years ago now) nVidia GeForce 85.95 (Sony killer driver) struck, else I'd still have my 19"



@ Zaptista...

deafeatist? no, realist... there is no way current technology can reproduce what the eye sees as far as monitors go. Problem being a monitor won't allow going smaller than a pixel where in realife it does.

I don't disagree at all with more LoD layers and 3d enhancements... that's a good suggestion

Nah... what the end dot result was, was realistic enough (real pilots have hard enough time finding white planes, even when advised which vector to look in)

[TheGrunch]

Originally Posted by Wolf_Rider

a 16x9 Trintron CRT.... my dream...

too bad the (years ago now) nVidia GeForce 85.95 (Sony killer driver) struck, else I'd still have my 19")

I still use a 22" Iiyama Vision Master CRT at home, it's wonderful. Have to put up with a really crappy quality 17" 1280x1024 LCD when I'm away, though.

I think one of the major problems with Il-2's dot system is that the dots are often the wrong colour depending upon which direction you're looking at the enemy from. Makes it far too easy to spot them on low resolutions at times.

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by Wolf_Rider

my only real experience with "dot problems" is that which has been existent since CRT days, the era the sim was designed in.

i'll have to disagree with you, and this is why:

screenshot from inside the original il2 shortly after 1e release:



the "dots' are clearly visible, and for this group of 4 fighters their visibility extended to over 10 km originally.

yes they were ugly, but they were effective (and no, i am not arguing for the return of massive dots like this). the point however is that these types of dots seen against a terrain scenery background (rather then open sky where they stand out like dog's balls) at say roughly 1 to 2 km would stand out much better, and they more closely would represent real life visibility ranges

Originally Posted by Wolf_Rider

Current LCD technology may exasperbate the situation...

the dots were very large at original release, and soon after in patches were being made significantly smaller (and correctly so, the initial ones were to large). around the time PF was released the first people started to transition to lcd's but this coincided with the smaller dots (which had been made to small). in the 3.01 or 3.02 patch oleg increased them again (but not as bad as the original ones), but the fake-real whiners who had never been in a small aircraft in the whole of their life whined so loud oleg threw his hands in the air and reduced the size again (making them the near-invisible dots we have now). he has refused to address the issue ever since. worse, in the step from 4.08 to 4.09 they were made even smaller again, going from a 4 pixel dot to a 2 pixel dot.

my fear is that when oleg and his team briefly look at this issue when they hear some of the complains, they either use a CRT or a cheap TN based 6 bit lcd, and then say "what is their problem, i can vaguely see a dot there if i look in zoomed view", so their problem is
1) using a 6 bit monitor which artificially enhances the dot visibility SIGNIFICANTLY
2) rely on a zoomed view to sector search for bogeys (yet we should measure visibility in the normal correct FoV for the monitor size used, and not use an artificial zoom)
end result: for many players il2 became nearly unplayable if they had normal display hardware (8 bit lcd monitors), and were interested in SIMULATING a real ww2 fighter pilot experience. the air quake fake-real crowd however doesnt know any better, and believe having these near invisible enemy planes right near you is normal, yet it clearly isnt. yes occsionally a fighter from a particular direction or in a particular light will be hard to see, but not 99% of the time in perfect visibility conditions like we usually have in il2 daytime flights.

Originally Posted by Wolf_Rider

and at the end of the day, no current technology will recreate what the eye sees.

that is a bit defeatist there is absolutely no reason why in 2011 a modern flight simulator can accurately represent correct visibility distances on screen for different aircraft between 100 and 5000 meters (which is the SA bubble you normally operate in for these ww2 fighter aircraft)

even i as a non technical person can point to one of the simple potential solutions: for ex if we now have 10 LoD models instead of the 3 we had before in il2, then as the LoD models get smaller in BoB oleg should add some type of visible enhancement. this could be by darkening the object colors, or adding a 3D enhancement that makes the object stand out more (as oleg already seems to have done for some of the LoD models in BoB). for these distant objects the focus should not be on "pretty", or right historical colors or shapes (if the end result means they become virtualy invisible at 25% of the distance you can see them at in real life), once the highly detailed aircraft gets to a certain distance from the viewer, some of these deliberate "visual enhancements" should be used rather then only using a smaller object with loss polygons that tries to keep the shape and color of the original.