What is with the rendering distance?

[Ace_Pilto 393]

Just a reminder that Han has stated that they are aware of this and they are still considering what is the best way to deal with it, the main contender being upgrading the engine to 4-core/DX12 standards but this of course takes time. Other alternatives, he said, were making other aircraft fly with a simpler FM but the team didn't see this as a step forward and thus it was disfavoured.

 

In other words: they know; they're working on it.

 

Did he? I missed that. Good news.

[TP_Jacko 83]

Just a reminder that Han has stated

 

In other words: they know; they're working on it.

 

Can you help and point to where this is stated, I thought there was an issue with seeing the skins loading when a player spawns in due to 32bit, but not sure how this applies to rendering the aircraft as a limitation. It would at least help to understand why they disappear at 10 Km

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell 1738]

Decided to check through, seems I misquoted it slightly - he was referring to the problem some people were having with massive slowdowns when flying with multiple bombers. Nonetheless I think it can be assumed that if they manage to make the game less CPU-hungry they will use the gains on that front to improve the experience in situations like air and ground rendering distance.

 

Speaking of it since I have this exact problem at the moment: are you working on optimizing the game so that at least x1 can be maintained?

 

Two ways:

Variant A: Simple flight model for AI planes

Variant B: Physics thread separating

Both very hard. But we have it in mind.

[JG51_Scrambled 36]

yes, so far it's my biggest complaint of sim outside of lack of good AC 'flashing' due to light and hits (see CloD)

[FuriousMeow 1079]

Objects can't be drawn far out. They eventually just don't display, unless you zoom in the view.

 

Even ArmAIII, the terrain itself can go out to 25km. The view distance on BoS terrain is just as far, if not further. The objects, on the other hand, aren't - in either. 10km max for the planes in BoS. ArmAIII's objects, it applies to all, are less even with great systems.

 

Plus, there's a problem with LoDs. Eventually they just have to be rendered as dots and nothing more in order to be seen.

 

I can barely see planes at 10km when fully zoomed out, but they are present when fully zoomed in. Being able to see them better won't be solved by pushing view distance, they are already rendered out to 10km which is well beyond engagement range.

 

The visibility issue is not the rendering distance or range, far from it. At 10km, you can make several major decisions to as to how to encounter. The 10km distance is actually very far.

 

The problem is a technological limitation - your monitor and the scaling. Fully zoomed out is playing at a smaller visible scale. That means everything is visibly smaller, and the pixel size of the monitors also has a factor plus resolution. They all add up to make it so that you are playing on a miniature scale visibly. The solution is either a very large monitor with a very small pixel size, or even better with no pixels at all, that will allow the cockpit to be relatively the same size as the real world equivalent and then everything will scale accurately at a 10km visibility range will be no issue because you'll actually be able to see the models rendered beyond 3km easily without zooming in, or the alternative which is to use the "inflate plane size" gimmick that a couple of titles have used which if it made its way here I would hope would be a server side setting.

Edited December 28, 2015 by FuriousMeow

[1PL-Husar-1Esk 1260]

Objects can't be drawn far out. They eventually just don't display, unless you zoom in the view.

 

Even ArmAIII, the terrain itself can go out to 25km. The view distance on BoS terrain is just as far, if not further. The objects, on the other hand, aren't - in either. 10km max for the planes in BoS. ArmAIII's objects, it applies to all, are less even with great systems.

 

Plus, there's a problem with LoDs. Eventually they just have to be rendered as dots and nothing more in order to be seen.

 

I can barely see planes at 10km when fully zoomed out, but they are present when fully zoomed in. Being able to see them better won't be solved by pushing view distance, they are already rendered out to 10km which is well beyond engagement range.

 

The visibility issue is not the rendering distance or range, far from it. At 10km, you can make several major decisions to as to how to encounter. The 10km distance is actually very far.

 

The problem is a technological limitation - your monitor and the scaling. Fully zoomed out is playing at a smaller visible scale. That means everything is visibly smaller, and the pixel size of the monitors also has a factor plus resolution. They all add up to make it so that you are playing on a miniature scale visibly. The solution is either a very large monitor with a very small pixel size, or even better with no pixels at all, that will allow the cockpit to be relatively the same size as the real world equivalent and then everything will scale accurately at a 10km visibility range will be no issue because you'll actually be able to see the models rendered beyond 3km easily without zooming in, or the alternative which is to use the "inflate plane size" gimmick that a couple of titles have used which if it made its way here I would hope would be a server side setting.

 

What a nonsense!

[FuriousMeow 1079]

What a nonsense!

 

Of course. You are playing on a small monitor, the only way to get the same scale is to play on a much larger monitor with the appropriate resolution that has very small pixels per inch, OR to play zoomed almost all the way. If you play zoomed in the way to make the appropriate scale, everything is appropriately scaled and visible as it should be - and those planes you apparently can't see far out are actually quite visible. It is very difficult to play that way as it is being played in, essentially, tunnel vision.

 

BoS displays planes out to 10km. Terrain is displayed much further. ArmAIII has all objects locked down to the slider, and whatever it is set at in the graphics options, it is set at for all objects. Terrain can be set differently, and it can be displayed pretty far, but terrain range and object range are two different things. There is a use of LoDs, in ALL games, and at some point the LoDs can be nothing more than dots due to the fact they can't be displayed due to the aforementioned pixels all monitors use to display images.

 

It's not nonsense. I mean, that is a great response that makes many clear points as to why what I said is invalid, or "nonsense." There's a reason DCS implemented the enlarged aircraft option, and all air combat sims use icons. It isn't because what I said is nonsense, it is the very reason what I stated they exist.

Edited December 29, 2015 by FuriousMeow

[KoN_ 417]

Does ROF suffer with this . ??

[1PL-Husar-1Esk 1260]

Does ROF suffer with this . ??

RoF has same limitations but with ww1 era speeds it is less noticable.

[216th_LuseKofte 3706]

I think it's a little ballsy to say I'm wrong. I always will set a run up to the target, giving myself time to adjust my bombsite. I can't remember with the Pe-2, but I always use the view option to center on the target. I could see the treeline that the target was at, but since it's location was marked only with a icon on the map, I only knew the general vicinity. Is it my fault the buildings (hangars, factories, fuel dumps)  pop into view before I can adjust my plane for specifics? Maybe it was just my lack of detail, but I wasn't a mile off target; only enough to not attempt a drop. 

 

 

I am sorry, mate. I can read I might was a bit rude. English is not my native language and I have tendencies to come off as rude. It was not my attention at all. After this topic came I have been more aware of the rendering in this game, my way of thinking has always been it is what they made and it is what it is and I live with it, because that is what they offer. Being exclusively a bomber pilot , it has its upside with short rendering on planes. I lived with this issue for years in COD, witch got a problem with rendering of planes and targets. Ground targets was visible trough clouds in long distances  as black dots, then they disappeared and then reappeared right when you had to drop the bombs. So I had no anticipation in this matter what so ever in this game. So even some of the cod issues are fixed, the rendering in this game is better and smoother. But you clearly can see its limitation when you zoom in, and you should have the rendering at least as long you can see whiled zoomed in. So I am a little wrong and have changed my opinion in this matter. I just hope this can be done without me buying a Nvidia Titan GPU. Again I am sorry if I insulted you, it was not my intention

[216th_LuseKofte 3706]

What a nonsense!

 

 

As I said I am not native English, but even I can see this is not a way to debate a subject, you should tell us why it is nonsense. Because Furios seems to have a point. Rendering of targets in this case  planes are dots in all sims in the beginning. This is not real life, it is a software using pixels to simulate a reality. So why you  call nonsense, must be one of two reasons.

You know something I do not know after 25 year in this hobby, or you simply being childish

[TP_Jacko 83]

I think the developers rendering of aircraft is an issue for distances out to say 15 km, in CloD they changed the colour of a dot ( not that I could see them . While in BoS we see a He-111 simply vanish at 10 Km. I am sure this is not right. I might fire up RoF and see what happens to the bigger bombers.

[216th_LuseKofte 3706]

I find the rendering of planes smooth, but as you say they appear to vanish . I think this has to do with the color . They seems to get more and more white the further away they are. It is quite difficult tracking a plane in dogfight from distance, it reappear and vanish over and over again.

[Winger 435]

Is it just me, or is the horizontal rendering terribly short?

 

Even with the gamma in the config file set, there's been multiple instances when a friend and I would meet at a certain location at 3-4000m for a dogfight and end up spending the first minutes at the AO just looking for each other. One example, he was directly over Spartanovka and I was about 6.7-7km North of Spartanovka, that's only two of those little boxes away, I could clearly see Spartanovka, but we couldn't see each other until we all of a sudden "appeared" out of nowhere when we got closer. It's been my experience for a couple months now, despite a full server, flying around for 20 minutes not seeing a thing, until someone magically appears on my screen. Same thing goes for contrails, someone would say contrails at 2 o'clock, I won't see anything until I get closer. At that altitude especially contrails are hard to see for me due to the 1 inch thick streak across my screen that's brighter than the gates of heaven.

Agreed. IMHO its much too small. I think the engine is just too old and cannot handle rendering many objects at higher distances. Technological limtation of the ancient tech used (DX9).

Maybe this will improve when they one day convert the engine to a DX standard of current time.

Edited December 29, 2015 by StG2_Winger

[VR-DriftaholiC 315]

Spot the dot would be fine with me, a 1 pixel black dot for things over the 7km we have now would be good enough.

[Urra 189]

Back when BOS was in beta was when I actually loved flying around without any of the white paste in the background distance. You had a crisp view of the landscape with what seemed like 100km out. This now after it has been optimized feels like I am in floating in middle of a glass of milk regardless of the season. I just try not to think about it.

[KoN_ 417]

Aircraft do appear to vanish , 

EA i could see aircraft at a good distance and plan my attacks .

Even looking over my shoulder today I can not see aircraft following me against the back ground . There is like a bad rendering effect .

[GOZR 71]

My goodness rendering is real short and the dots are horrible to see..   no need to study silhouette on this one..  you dead before you even see the enemy   Cannot fly like this.. 

After so many years of experience the dots should be independent of any other rendering  Black dots and light reflections is a major problem..

Edited January 1, 2016 by GOZR

[=69.GIAP=RADKO 76]

IMHO The best possible solution to resolving the spotting issue is have the game engine switch to rendering a dark spot/dot for aircraft that go beyond a certain distance (if it's already implemented then it's terrible to see). I know 1946 use to do this in one way or another, it worked perfectly.

 

I've only recently come back to flying BoS and it was the first thing I frustratingly noticed was the spotting distance. It would be interesting to see what the davs have to say about it as this has been going on for a long time now.

 

This and the horrible white haze keeps putting me off flying.

Edited January 3, 2016 by =69.GIAP=RADKO

[ACG_KaiLae 272]

There are 2 other issues making this more of a problem than what I have seen in other sims. First, in MP, there seems to be less high alt flak than in other sims. I don't know what the cause of this is, but in other sims you can look for flak at long range to help point out targets. Second is is the lack of reflections. These are in CLoD and do help. People complain that they aren't done well there but they make a difference. A way that they could be done well is shown in the idea video below (don't freak out that it's from war thunder):

 

[steppenwolf 81]

Man, War Thunder looks nice. Nice representation of reflections in that video!

 

On a side note, I can't wait until some dev adds physics to the leather strap in the Spit.

Edited January 3, 2016 by steppenwolf

[Willy__ 525]

There are 2 other issues making this more of a problem than what I have seen in other sims. First, in MP, there seems to be less high alt flak than in other sims. I don't know what the cause of this is, but in other sims you can look for flak at long range to help point out targets. Second is is the lack of reflections. These are in CLoD and do help. People complain that they aren't done well there but they make a difference. A way that they could be done well is shown in the idea video below (don't freak out that it's from war thunder):

 

 

IMHO, way overdone on that video.

[EAF_51_FOX 42]

no, this flack fire is not overdone at all IMHO.. and I add my opinion about lack of adeguate dot planes size for good spotting even with reflection of planes surfaces like in CLOD, this is a must for a 2015 good engine game, with respect for the developers, that however make this sim already quite good.

Edited January 3, 2016 by EAF_51_FOX

[Willy__ 525]

DId you actually see the video ? The flak in game is fine. What I said was about how REFLECTIONS are done on that video. And that, IMHO, was way overdone.

Edited January 3, 2016 by istruba

[Sokol1 2084]

Compared with CloD "Firefly's" this WT reflections looks good in normal motion. 

[7.GShAP/Silas 490]

Those hypothetical reflections in the video are a game mechanic and are disconnected from reality.  As for flak in BOS, I assume it's appropriate to the theatre of operations and type of targets that are generally simulated.  We aren't flying over the Rhineland or Britain/Normandy.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Silas

[SharpeXB 1067]

I always though the detail rendering and the ability to see and ID other aircraft was the best in this game and Rise of Flight. These are the best sims in this regard compared to any other I've tried. In RoF you can literally count the wing struts and in BoS make out features like the radiator placement even at far ranges. Both these games are just excellent at this. I'm not even really sure how it could be better. RoF does model reflections off the planes really nicely. Since it's the same game engine I'm sure BoS does too, over the snow though this effect is lost a bit.

With the 10km draw range I'm sure it's possible to see planes pop in if you're really looking for it but in five years of playing both games I've never seen it happen. Sure it would be great to increase this but since players with Skylake CPUs can still suffer low fps I'm sure the balance we have now works ok.

[Sokol1 2084]

 

 

In RoF you can literally count the wing struts and in BoS make out features like the radiator placement even at far ranges

 

But all this don't help when planes reach the 10 KM visible bubble borders, they simple vanished... Puft! 

[6./ZG26_5tuka 1863]

Things you need to know about this video:

 

- it is after edited and was intendet as a proposal for devs to implement a similar feauture

- it's dated back to 2013

- WT's graphical engine has involved over time, but visibility in mid range combat still suffers as much as seen in the video

 

Mid range visibility in BoS is rather well implemented in my opinion. Aircraft details become visible beyond dogfighting range and it's possible to distinguish certain aircrafts soon enought. What I find lacking is the max visible range with aircraft "dots" simply popping in when within range (I'm sure there used to be a smooth transition from black to transparent dots when exeeding max spotting range before).

 

Terrain visibility range is also an issue to me, namely the white glowing horizon. That becomes a serious issue when going for altitude as terrain view range seems box shaped and thus the horizontal view range decreases with increasing altitude. At 5km and higher you're constanly staring at a glowing white line.

[SharpeXB 1067]

But all this don't help when planes reach the 10 KM visible bubble borders, they simple vanished... Puft!

I've never seen an aircraft vanish in one of these games. I suppose it should be possible but I've never seen it.

[Willy__ 525]

I've never seen an aircraft vanish in one of these games. I suppose it should be possible but I've never seen it.

 

Sometimes I do. You can clearly see the aircraft "popping" on the 10km bubble. I do admit its not that often, its usually when you are engaged with the enemy and then you two decide to disengage but you keep an eye on him to make sure he doesnt come back. You'll see his aircraft just vanishing into the air when he reaches the 10km view distance.

 

-edit- This was on BoS/BoM.

Edited January 3, 2016 by istruba

[SharpeXB 1067]

In DCS I can see another A-10 at 6 miles (10km) even zoomed out (v 1.2) So yeah in DCS if a plane popped in at 6 miles it would be really easy to notice. Plus that range is point blank in modern combat. But it's a different game.

BoS seems to camouflage the effect ok. Sure it would be great to increase the distance but it would mean a big hit to many low end systems.

Edited January 3, 2016 by SharpeXB

[1PL-Husar-1Esk 1260]

 

 

Sure it would be great to increase the distance but it would mean a big hit to many low end systems.

 

How do you known that? we are talking about planes not ground objects...

[Dakpilot 2185]

I have no idea what increasing the view distance could do to performance

 

But I am pretty sure that if it was an easy thing to implement with little performance hit, it would have already been done already

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[Picchio 326]

Sure it would be great to increase the distance but it would mean a big hit to many low end systems.

 

 

But I am pretty sure that if it was an easy thing to implement with little performance hit, it would have already been done already

 

Option.

Or has everyone forgot what that means?

[SharpeXB 1067]

How do you known that? we are talking about planes not ground objects...

Obviously the draw distance is related to performance otherwise why would it be limited?

And the trade-off for rendering objects out to a range where you can barely see them would be to limit the number that are closer. Clearly it's all a compromise

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell 1738]

I can only speculate, but I would need to know if either of the following prerogatives are true:

 

a) in a multiplayer environment, proper flight model calculations are made only for aircraft within visual range, whereas beyond that only certain position/attitude information is relayed from the server

b) AI (pilot and gunner) interactions with enemy aircraft/ground targets are only made within visual range, whereas outside visual range AI only deals with simple navigation calculations (plus related functions such as running engines within certain limits)

 

That rendering the associated 3D models and textures has a performance is certainly true, and we assume that too.

 

If either a) or b) (or both) are true, that would mean increasing the aircraft rendering distance would make the game extremely demanding for MP/SP/all players in terms of CPU and/or graphics. Considering the developer team already gets enough heat for stuttering/different performance issues even from high-end users and that this simulator is already considered very CPU and GPU intensive, it would be counter-intuitive for the developers to expand the rendering distance without some serious work on the side of optimisation.

 

Making it an option is not an option because it would heavily affect multiplayer fairness and on the long run drive out newer crowds or those who just aren't financially able to dish out on a high-end rig. Put yourself in their shoes - you already aren't an ace by any means, and on top of that Joe who has 12.000h in this sim not only flies much better but can also see you from 10km further, meaning when you see him he is already on top of you with 1k and 200km/h to his advantage. Making it an SP option or a MP server-side option is not viable either since servers would have to choose between pushing it to the max and pleasing the high-end users or letting mid- and low-end players join but deal with the constant whining from high-end users complaining daily that it's unfair and it sucks and it's arcade and this isn't war thunder and this and that...

 

In other words, considering the current state of affairs expanding the rendering distance would mean a very bad atmosphere riddled with technical problems, unhappy customers and thus a PR fiasco prompted by a string of badmouthing - bad idea without some optimisation work, which is being done.

[6./ZG26_5tuka 1863]

Obviously the draw distance is related to performance otherwise why would it be limited?

And the trade-off for rendering objects out to a range where you can barely see them would be to limit the number that are closer. Clearly it's all a compromise

So you resort to using unfoundated counterarguments based on your believs to argue against a moderate suggestion for an option. Great, sound very credible.

 

If you are interested in getting to know how much increased dot range effects performence you can run tests in DCS 1.5 and report your results.

 

As far as I'm concerned dot range itself isn't even the issue but the way dots pop in and out without transition. Let's say dots are fully visible till 10km they shouldn't vanish completely at 10.1km but fade out slowly, like 20% / km. That way dots would be partly visible until 15km, where they are totally transparent, but partly visible between 10-14.9 km (the closer the better).

 

Edit: Maybe 5km is too much but it's better suited for demonstration purposes.

[Dakpilot 2185]

As said above it cannot be an 'option' for only those with the latest equipment

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[BraveSirRobin 2423]

So you resort to using unfoundated counterarguments based on your believs to argue against a moderate suggestion for an option. Great, sound very credible.

 

Are you also a programming expert?