BoBP: Knife fight in dark phone booth while driving Ferrari's.

[Cpt_Siddy]

Ok, lets get this "view distance" whine #1231243 out of the way.

 

Lets start with the elephant in the room, the 262. This thing turns like a tick in a tar, while going at ludicrous speeds of 700kmh +. 

The p-51 and P-47? Full manifold pressure at ~8km+ and can do respectable 600kmh+- at that.

190 D-9 is in same boat as the above.

 

Kmh to m/s of top speeds:

600kmh = 166m/s  

700kmh = 194m/s

800kmh = 222m/s

 

See the trend?

 

Imagine your average situation in current meta, 109 G2 at 7km Vs ...something from VVS that can fly high up (?).  Average speeds under 600kmh for both, going head on, you got roughly 30s to 35s from entering in to view range to passing. In that time you need to spot, identify and engage or run. 

 

In BoBP, this time shrinks to 25 seconds, or under, with above scenario. (25s is the average time you will travel 5000m) 

 

Arguably, while the low altitude combat and the dynamics involved in that don't suffer from 10km range, the high altitude combat will be a mess. Altitude combat will be more of a peek a boo, i am above you, better dive away or i will skewer your hide... More of a lotto than careful positioning, and the default winners will be Allies this time, because you know how the average "climb like mad, dive on someone, run" meta works.

 

We are entering in to trans-sonic speed regimes, where turn radius of 4000m ++ is more of a norm than exception. A world that is closer to Mig 15 vs Sabre than Yak vs 109 of the time of old. 

With this view distance, the 262 will be kneecapped the most, but others will also suffer.

 

 The BoBP, as an online experience, will be incomplete as long this limitation stays. You need to add at least 5km to that limitation to enable high altitude combat... outside of crystal ball combat, ofc.

 

Edited October 19, 2018 by Cpt_Siddy

[Gambit21]

Yeah I still think this whole thing is a manufactured crisis.

I see contacts on my 4K monitor WAY before they can be engaged, even if I was flying an F-15.

[Cpt_Siddy]

14 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

Yeah I still think this whole thing is a manufactured crisis.

I see contacts on my 4K monitor WAY before they can be engaged, even if I was flying an F-15.

 

You have the classic "this is how we always have done things here" syndrome 

 

Any monkey can spot a plane in the blue sky at 10km, doubly so with contrails. If that was such a non issue, why on earth Air forces screen for above average eye sight for its pilots? Maybe, just MAYBE, having an inkling of enemy presence beyond 10km, when your relative closing time is measured in how long it takes to unzip your pants might be important? Dunno, beats me...

Edited October 15, 2018 by Cpt_Siddy

[Gambit21]

1 minute ago, Cpt_Siddy said:

 

You have the classic "this is how we always have done things here" syndrome 

 

Any monkey can spot a plane in the blue sky at 10km doubly do with contrails. If that was such a non issue, why on earth Air forces screen for above average eye sight for its pilots? Maybe, just MAYBE, having an inkling of enemy presence beyond 10km, when your relative closing distances are measured in times it takes unzip your pants might be important? Dunno, beats me...

 

A monitor cannot display an aircraft that is smaller than a pixel.

I've done testing on this, and the problem isn't draw distance at these higher resolutions, but rather when the render engine chooses to render the contact in the "in" condition, vs the contact already being rendered, then moving away. ("out condition") So the "out" render distance is much longer according to my tests, and this distance is plenty far enough, further than 10K on my end.

 

So the problem is making the "in" render distance match the "out" render distance from where I sit.

[Cpt_Siddy]

9 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

 

A monitor cannot display an aircraft that is smaller than a pixel.

 

 

 

Holy moly, i have not seen this argument since... 1999.

 

This issue has been solved, in any sim worth it salt, since like, forever (A-10 Cuba and so on, we are talking vintage here). 

 

It is done with either LoD scaling in such a way that the object LoD size is increased to combat this, or, how it is done in WT, just displaying a sprite after certain distance is reached. 

 

This is not even the issue with IL2, the server does not send you the data about the plane at all before you are withing the view distance that server deems acceptable. 

This creates the lovely popping in and out of the high contrails everyone so loves and adores 

Edited October 15, 2018 by Cpt_Siddy

[Gambit21]

yawn

[Ehret]

20 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

A monitor cannot display an aircraft that is smaller than a pixel.

 

Sure it can as a blended sub-pixel. Ideally, the distant plane would be rendered at kind of super-sampled resolution then scaled-down to that sub-pixel. It'd allow for dynamic/alive dot blinking as it changes angles and reflections. Not like a static black dot how it's done in some other "sim"...

Edited October 15, 2018 by Ehret

[Gambit21]

4 minutes ago, Ehret said:

 

Sure it can as a blended sub-pixel. Ideally, the distant plane would be rendered at kind of super-sampled resolution then scaled-down to that sub-pixel. It'd allow for dynamic/alive dot blinking as it changes angles and reflections. Not like a static black dot how it's done in some other "sim"...

 

I see what you're saying...so a single pixel, with part of it rendered in Alpha to make it transparent. Or is that even possible?

Maybe I misunderstand you.

 

In any case...

I'd challenge you to try and spot a single rendered pixel on a 4K monitor with the naked eye however - no easy.

Edited October 15, 2018 by Gambit21

[Cpt_Siddy]

21 minutes ago, Ehret said:

reflections

 

 

Ah, reflections, how long have i awaited for some Sim to come up with even relatively half-assed implementation of this, but alas, the wait continues. 

 

Imagine, seeing a glitter in corner of your view, and then spotting an enemy formation 25km from you at 3km lower altitude going opposite direction, sneaking on them and then....

17 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

 

I see what you're saying...so a single pixel, with part of it rendered in Alpha to make it transparent.

I'd challenge you to try and spot a single rendered pixel on a 4K monitor with the naked eye however - no easy.

 

 

We are not talking about ease of spotting here, the current environment prevents any spotting at all beyond set range.

 

And i get you, you have spanking 4k monitor, i have spanking VR headset. Against ground, in dense fog on low altitude, i feel you. 

 

At 11km altitude against blue sky? 

Edited October 15, 2018 by Cpt_Siddy

[[CPT]Crunch]

Take away the enemy numbers and location spawn intel, and AWAC's warnings over all your sides grids with active bases.  Stop the ludicrous flak shooting at single fighters in a plane saturated high altitude sky, even through overcast and you'll see some change when their crutches and aids are removed.  The Ace's would have to actually go hunt and find their enemy instead of setting up to lay in ambush.  Until that's fixed there's no reason for them to give up these advantages and be seen to easily or early themselves.

 

Can the enemy base spawn numbers intel

Stop Flak from firing at high altitude non threatening single fighters, especially firing through the cloud base

Only warn when the players own home plate is under attack, you want intel, talk to other flyers and get it legit.

 

 

[Cpt_Siddy]

There is not enough likes in the universe to this post, Crunch.

 

The spawn intel, AWAC's and the lemming like AI of AA is a huge detractor from the "sim".

 

The AWACS has its place, with some delays, in some settings because there has been theaters where defenders have done exactly that. But few servers bother to do it correctly. 

[Ehret]

50 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

I see what you're saying...so a single pixel, with part of it rendered in Alpha to make it transparent. Or is that even possible?

 

Should be. The whole RGBA scales down from the bitmap of model or at worst just count coverage of not drawn pixels in the bitmap. It would need some tweaking to make it scale correctly, thought. However, once done it'd be much more immersive to have smooth transition to a (sub)pixel instead of abrupt changes to a dot. So, it wouldn't be just for the better visibility at range.

Edited October 15, 2018 by Ehret

[LeLv76_Erkki]

9,5 km view bubble is not an issue when it comes to realism of spotting small fighters, but having to use zoom to achieve even that IMHO is(as there are no dots or larger lods at distance) as is 9,5 km bubble also being applied to large planes, smoke, tracers and most important of them all, contrails.

[69th_Panp]

There was a server in hyper lobby that was set with a 11k range for il 2 1946, it's plane set was the 262, 190 D9 and all the jets american andd russian.
Flying in that server with those settings was like being in a foggy room with bullets wizzing by you.
You saw them a few seconds before they killed you or you killed them and you spent most of your time trying to figure out and guess where they were going to appear from.
The base vulching that insued was just plain maddening
It was like blind air quake, just crazy 
The server was full of people for the first couple of weeks,then it started to thin down. people were bitching to the moderators to increase the draw distance, but they were hard set on the realism and refused to change the settings. About 5 weeks after being on it was empty except for a few folks and the server moderators.
Server disappeared after that.
 Seems like a lesson domed to repeat itself in BoS!
For myself I rarely see aircraft until around 5 K, I have tons of tracks where I passed over 3 times as many people as I have seen that were above the 5 K distance from me.
In 2001 IL2 would render at 24 K with no problems and distance was able to be set by the server side , seems weird to me that in 2018 we can only see to 10 k bubble and no server adjustible settings on distance.

[7.GShAP/Silas]

It'll be increased before full release, surely.  It has to.

 

The ground spotting is acceptable now because even beyond the "bubble" you can still see shapes, etc.  I would hope that a low-fi version of aircraft dots, contrails, smoke, etc. could be implemented in a similar fashion.

[SharpeXB]

18 minutes ago, Panp said:

In 2001 IL2 would render at 24 K with no problems and distance was able to be set by the server side , seems weird to me that in 2018 we can only see to 10 k bubble and no server adjustible settings on distance.

This sim does a LOT more than a 2001 game did. Detailed maps, advanced flight models for every aircraft including the AI etc. 

There’s a reason for the bubble. Increasing its diameter exponentially adds demand on your system. 

[Cpt_Siddy]

44 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

 Increasing its diameter exponentially adds demand on your system. 

 

 

You mean on the ancient, stone age, game engine that was re purposed from RoF to save on time and development budget.

Understandable goal in modern economic system but...

 

Nothing in this game is "demanding" on modern 2018 PC by any imaginable stretch of the word. And neither should it be demanding on the server side (considering that all the computational heavy lifting is done by client, not server), when we got games with much much more complex environment, being run in massive multiplayer scale. 

 

Letting this old, worn out, excuse to fly in current year +3 (tm) is just disingenuous. 

[SharpeXB]

5 minutes ago, Cpt_Siddy said:

 

You mean on the ancient, stone age, game engine that was re purposed from RoF to save on time and development budget.

Understandable goal in modern economic system but...

 

Nothing in this game is "demanding" on modern 2018 PC by any imaginable stretch of the word. And neither should it be demanding on the server side (considering that all the computational heavy lifting is done by client, not server), when we got games with much much more complex environment, being run in massive multiplayer scale. 

 

Letting this old, worn out, excuse to fly in current year +3 (tm) is just disingenuous. 

This game engine has been updated quite substantially from the RoF era. If there was a way to increase the distance I’m sure 1CGS would do it. 

Not every player has a modern 2018 PC though. They have to keep those limitations in mind. This sim taxes systems that quite strong. 

[Cpt_Siddy]

Just now, SharpeXB said:

This game engine has been updated quite substantially from the RoF era. If there was a way to increase the distance I’m sure 1CGS would do it. 

Not every player has a modern 2018 PC though. They have to keep those limitations in mind. This sim taxes systems that quite strong. 

 

I am playing this game in high end 2012 rig in VR, no, this game taxes nothing. 

 

I also strongly doubt that there is some fundamental law of nature that forbids the increase in distance... even if it means redesign of some code from ground up.

 

If it comes to that, i am all for going Kick starter to fund some code monkeys to do it from scratch, hell, ill drop 100 bucks to that cause in a hearth beat. 

[Diggun]

@Cpt_Siddy You got a better engine? I don't know of one. The only (sort of) competitor is totally soulless & unsuitable for ww2 flying.

 

1 minute ago, Cpt_Siddy said:

fundamental law of nature

Might not be a fundamental law of nature, but when they say 'exponentially increases demand', I think they mean that literally. 

 

2 minutes ago, Cpt_Siddy said:

fund some code monkeys

Why, you're a respectful chap ain't you? Why don't you toddle along and do that, and let us know when you've got your competitor sim all sorted?

[CountZero]

not so long ago in mod section there was mod that alowed last lod of airlane that is visable on 9,5 to be visable unlimited distance, so you could see all airplanes and test what impact it can have on your pc, i tested this in qm with max number of airplanes in air and i lost only 5-10fps compared to when i run same mission without mod, so that for me confirmed that impact is not as big as i tought it would be as i tought thats the main reason why devs dont try to make this bubble bigger.

 

i would like it to be around 15-20km as in MP it helps a lot to be able to spot dots from far and react acording to them, you dont have to recognise what it is to be able to react to it, with expiriance you know who it could be.

 

the way its now at 9km, from my expiriance in MP its perfect for veteran players as rookies and people with bad eys can easyer be shot down (they have shorter time to react and have to scan skys faster) and suprised then when i played in clod where distance was 25km, there its was not easy to sneak on some one like its in this game.

 

i dont expect they will change a thing, as this is only probably problem for MP part of comunity ad few high alt bombers that are still in game by now

[Cpt_Siddy]

@Diggun Jokes on you, i still have Cliffs of Dover. 

 

Also, this engine being ancient don't mean it is bad. But like you said, "suitable for ww2 flying": well, i am predicting that THIS game engine will not be suitable for late war western front flying either... at least in MP. 

Edited October 15, 2018 by Cpt_Siddy

[Guest deleted@83466]

I think it would be nice if the range you could see contrails was increased substantially.  In RL, you can spot those at close to 100 miles away on a clear day.  The planes themselves though, I don't really see that much of a problem with 10k range.  You look at something the size of an F-16 fly directly overhead at 35,000 ft, it would be pretty hard to spot that if it wasn't contrailing, or if you didn't catch a glint of light off of it from the setting sun.

[SharpeXB]

51 minutes ago, Cpt_Siddy said:

 

I am playing this game in high end 2012 rig in VR, no, this game taxes nothing.

Really? Because my high end PC in 2012 was an overclocked i7-3770K

and a GTX 670. Without its oc that CPU was incapable of handling large missions in BoS and the GTX 670 would be really taxed by this sim today. Most of the load we are dealing with in this regard falls on the CPU and those aren’t getting much faster. 

[Cpt_Siddy]

4 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Really? Because my high end PC in 2012 was an overclocked i7-3770K

and a GTX 670. Without its oc that CPU was incapable of handling large missions in BoS and the GTX 670 would be really taxed by this sim today. Most of the load we are dealing with in this regard falls on the CPU and those aren’t getting much faster. 

 

 

Got same CPU but 780gtx.

 

The 3770K is more than adequate for anything gaming throws at you even today... And even 980ti is cheap now. But i am waiting for AMD 7nm cards, because i had about enough with NVIDIA BS now.

[SharpeXB]

7 minutes ago, Cpt_Siddy said:

 

The 3770K is more than adequate for anything gaming throws at you even today... 

If it’s overclocked, sure. My oc became unstable and I had to switch it off. Then BoS would run in slow motion. That was before certain improvements to the engine. 

The point is many players do not run something even as good as the 3770

and comparing 4th to 8th gen CPUs you’re looking at a performance gain of maybe 8%

So there are limits to this stuff. 

Edited October 15, 2018 by SharpeXB

[Cpt_Siddy]

9 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

If it’s overclocked, sure. My oc became unstable and I had to switch it off. Then BoS would run in slow motion. That was before certain improvements to the engine. 

The point is many players do not run something even as good as the 3770

 

670 is more likely bottle necked by the GPU VRAM, 1-2 GB is not enough to run it at high texture settings. 

 

4GB VRAM gets you all the visual goodies you want to, so grab a used  RX480 from discount bin or something, cost about 120 bucks will be 3 times better  than 670. 780 serves me just fine at the moment, and i really want to see what AMD brings out on 7nm before i upgrade my PC and VR again. 

 

This game is not demanding for today's low end hardware, not to mention a beast like 1080TI or something...

 

Edited October 15, 2018 by Cpt_Siddy

[SharpeXB]

6 minutes ago, Cpt_Siddy said:

 

You are more likely bottle necked by the GPU VRAM, 1-2 GB is not enough to run it at high texture settings. 

 

4GB VRAM gets you all the visual goodies you want to, so grab a used  RX480 from discount bin or something, cost about 120 bucks will be 3 times better than your current GPU. 

 

I’m running a 1080Ti now.  No trouble using that. 

Edited October 15, 2018 by SharpeXB

[Cpt_Siddy]

Just now, SharpeXB said:

I’m running a 1080Ti now.  

 

Yeah, i figured from your specks, but i was talking hypothetically if someone WAS still playing on 670...

 

[Eclipse4349]

So what about someone like me who is running an i7-2700k overclocked to 4.5ghz, 16GB of 1600mhz DDR3, and a GTX970? Using one 1080p monitor (I usually run 3 in surround) I can get 80-100+ fps in a simple quick mission or light multiplayer mission. But on, say, Wings of Liberty full with 84 players in a more complex mission, my system is on its knees, and I have a stuttering 25-35fps mess. It sure seems taxing then... 

[SharpeXB]

The point being that I’ve been able to substantially upgrade my PC over the last six years to keep up with this and other sims. But it has required upgrading. 

The limits we’re discussing here are clearly hardware related, what other reason would there be?

This game engine does things that are unique, especially that it uses the same advanced flight model for the player and AI aircraft. There has been some optimization in that regard but it still begs the question whether you want all the aircraft that can be handled within a certain range or so far away that they wouldn’t be visible?

[Sunde]

17 hours ago, Gambit21 said:

yawn

10/10 

The view bubble is hillarious and anyone with the right settings and decent eyesight should notice this. Nothing is more amusing than approaching an action area, where your buddies are calling out contacts on coms but you are still 11kms out so you cant see jack shit. The second you then enter that "bubble", the area suddenly filles with smoketrails, tracers and aircraft.

Its stunning how many of you dont see this as an issue. 
   But then again, a huge portion of the people i see online cant even spot a contact that is within 1km of themselves. 

Edited October 15, 2018 by Miller1

[Willy__]

1 minute ago, Miller1 said:

 But then again, a huge portion of the people i see online cant even spot a contact that is within 1km of themselves. 

 

Funny thing, most of naysayers never come online, just do a quick search on the most played servers statistics (there arent that much!) and you can easily see it. 

[Bremspropeller]

High altitude-fighting.

Sitting in a freezing-cold cockpit, mushing around in the thin air up there, uncontrollably farting all over the cockpit.

 

Nah, gimme low-altitude, hedge-hopping, flak-dodging strafing action.

[Gambit21]

18 minutes ago, Miller1 said:

10/10 

The view bubble is hillarious and anyone with the right settings and decent eyesight should notice this. Nothing is more amusing than approaching an action area, where your buddies are calling out contacts on coms but you are still 11kms out so you cant see jack shit. The second you then enter that "bubble", the area suddenly filles with smoketrails, tracers and aircraft.

Its stunning how many of you dont see this as an issue. 
   But then again, a huge portion of the people i see online cant even spot a contact that is within 1km of themselves. 

 

I'll do a bit more testing.

For the most part (again at 4K) I'm picking aircraft up about where I'd expect to IRL.

Lower alt though - no higher up as Sid pointed out.

 

Again - there's a discrepancy between "in" draw distance and "out" draw distance.

I'm surprised that I'm the only one who's noticed this/pointed it out.

 

If we could get them both to match the "out" distance, I think you guys would be happy.

Some of you just need more pixels.

[Cpt_Siddy]

Just now, Gambit21 said:

 

Again - there's a discrepancy between "in" draw distance and "out" draw distance.

I'm surprised that I'm the only one who's noticed this/pointed it out.

 

 

 

This can be a server side issue, where server preforms the "visibility" check in a manner that allows the contact to go beyond the bubble before the check is preformed again.

 

This means that you can have a limited window of visibility even after you leave the bubble, while the inbound will not show you until the value returns  true for visibility.

 

The server knows where all planes are, its just not showing the clients that info until it deems them to be worthy of such lofty information. 

[Sunde]

21 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

 

I'll do a bit more testing.

For the most part (again at 4K) I'm picking aircraft up about where I'd expect to IRL.

Lower alt though - no higher up as Sid pointed out.

 

Again - there's a discrepancy between "in" draw distance and "out" draw distance.

I'm surprised that I'm the only one who's noticed this/pointed it out.

 

If we could get them both to match the "out" distance, I think you guys would be happy.

Some of you just need more pixels.

I'd be happy if planes+effects weren't teleporting in and out of existense, however alot of people seem to deem this "realism". 
I have an excellent monitor so not really, hence why im able to see (and be dissapointed) by these things.

 

Had to do it. 

Edited October 15, 2018 by Miller1

[7.GShAP/Silas]

15 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

Again - there's a discrepancy between "in" draw distance and "out" draw distance.

I'm surprised that I'm the only one who's noticed this/pointed it out.

 

If we could get them both to match the "out" distance, I think you guys would be happy.

Some of you just need more pixels.

 

 

Flying on TAW I've watched larger aircraft like Ju-52s vanish into thin air when they go 'out' of my bubble, even though they still appear quite large.  Like somebody cast a magic spell on it.  It's really silly, the aircraft could just fade into an ever-smaller lower fidelity version of itself, no need to vanish.

 

I also have a very nice monitor.

Edited October 15, 2018 by 7.GShAP/Silas

[Gambit21]

17 minutes ago, Cpt_Siddy said:

 

 

This can be a server side issue, where server preforms the "visibility" check in a manner that allows the contact to go beyond the bubble before the check is preformed again.

 

 

OK

FWIW this is just testing single player missions on my end, no MP.

Watching A-20's pop in/out and different distances.

I'm seeing A-20 outward, go down to a single 4K pixel...which is quite small...and quite far.

[E_Davjack]

Gambit21, I don't get it.  Are you saying that the differential between Inward and Outward planes that you are seeing is reasonable?  It's good enough?  No it isn't.

 

Have you ever flown?  You say you expect to see something IRL, what do you expect to see IRL?  Why do you expect to see it?  Staring up from the ground?  Do you have good eyesight?

 

In my experience, 25km / 15 miles is completely reasonable for the average pilot to spot a moving single-engine aircraft against the sky in clear weather, even without taking glint/reflection into account.  Animal brains (given good eyesight) are MADE to spot moving objects on static backgrounds.

Edited October 16, 2018 by II./JG1_EmerlistDavjack