Feb 7 Update - First Impressions

[smink1701]

Looking really good

 

Smoke from burning buildings over Stalingrad much improved.  WIP but on the right track.  I hope they can add some flames

 

Ground AA is really nice with good animation.  Adds a lot of immersion

 

The plane textures are loading well now when you jump from interior to exterior.  Also, the instrument panel isn't blurry anymore when you jump to inside view.

 

Really all very positive!  

 

Thank you Dev Team!!!

[ParaB]

Yup, love the improved smoke and textures. Very, very nice.

[ph1317]

Every time the game has been updated my first attempt to play crashes.

After that the game works.

[71st_AH_Mastiff]

^{the AAA 88's are firing from south Stalingrad all the way unto the airfield..}

[LLv44_Mprhead]

Spotting now seems to be spot on.

[=RvE=Windmills]

I'm getting significant slowdown from the stalingrad smoke on high settings though.

 

Dropping into the 20s down from 60/70fps when I look at them.

[dburne]

I'm getting significant slowdown from the stalingrad smoke on high settings though.

 

Dropping into the 20s down from 60/70fps when I look at them.

 

How was it for your prior to the update?

[No601_Prangster]

Trees look new, more detail and a better colour. The smoke over Stalingrad has a red glow at the base. Spotting distance is better and I'm finding it easier to pick the planes out from the background.

[=RvE=Windmills]

How was it for your prior to the update?

 

Don't recall any particularly noticable slowdown, I never dropped under 50 in general on ultra or on balanced.

 

I'll try balanced later with the new version. Anyone else experiencing this?

[FuriousMeow]

Don't recall any particularly noticable slowdown, I never dropped under 50 in general on ultra or on balanced.

 

I'll try balanced later with the new version. Anyone else experiencing this?

 

Are you just looking at it from a distance, or flying through it? I had slow downs flying through the upper section of the column prior to the update, but not looking at it.

 

I looked at the smoke when I had a few minutes to try the new update earlier and had no slow down but I was still far away from the city and only a small column of smoke was visible. I was shot out of the air by AA before I got close to the city.

 

How far from the smoke columns are you experiencing this? I'll have a chance to test more in about a half hour.

[SYN_Mike77]

I am noticing a larger than before hit from the smoke on my end too.

[Rivet]

Interestingly, my throttle input seems to have linked itself to my rudder input instead of my throttle quadrant. The throttle is at 50% when the rudder is centered and at either 0 or 100% when the rudders are deflected left and right. Makes for some er, interesting antics . Tried reassigning to no avail.

[kendo]

What an incredible and visceral experience now flying over Stalingrad. Seems like an infernal hell-hole down there with the new smoke, artillery explosions and flak. The new icons are a huge improvement too.

 

The downside for me is lowered frame rates. Not too surprising as I'm using a gtx260. Dropped down from High to Balanced and still experiencing big slowdowns from the smoke. Not a complaint by the way - was expecting this once more elements and effects were added. Still maybe useful info for the devs if they're still trying to hit their previously quoted minimum specs of gtx260 graphics.

 

Personally speaking, if the required specs have to be increased to maintain this level of incredible and visceral impact I say go for it. I expected to have to upgrade anyway.

Edited February 7, 2014 by kendo

[smink1701]

I'm getting significant slowdown from the stalingrad smoke on high settings though.

 

Dropping into the 20s down from 60/70fps when I look at them.

What are your system specs?  

[=RvE=Windmills]

GTX680

14GB ram

3930k stock

 

Gonna test some more now.

[Finkeren]

I've taken a slight hit to frame rate, but nothing serious.

 

Long range rendering of both aircraft and ground objects much improved. Now it's at least as good as RoF. Still room for improvement I think, but that can wait. Now it is good enough for the release.

 

Flak looks and sounds great. So far, I have been damaged once by it, so it's definately a real threat, though not seriuos enough to really stay away from Stalingrad airspace.

 

One thing I noticed is, that the annoying DM issue, where you'd constantly take hits to the cockpit which would always kill your gunsight seems to be fixed. Now for the first time I have suffered hits that broke the canopy glass but left the sight intact.

 

Stalingrad is shaping up to be something of an inferno rather than a wasteland, which is great. The new smoke looks great, but has serious rendering issues. It pops into view all too suddenly and flickers in and out of view with changing angles.

 

I also notice, that my own flying has improved quite a bit. Bagged 2 109s on my first try in the LaGG and right afterwards I did some ground atttack and obliterated the collumn in 2 passes without crashing into anything

 

A lot of small important things seem to have been fixed/added. We're in good shape for some big new content over the next few weeks.

[Rivet]

http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/4054-early-access-week-11/?p=85177

Thanks. I missed that notification.

[FuriousMeow]

Still maybe useful info for the devs if they're still trying to hit their previously quoted minimum specs of gtx260 graphics.

 

 

 

Just want to expand on this, the 260 is currently still the minimum spec aimed at. You dropped from high to balanced, but minimum spec means minimum graphics. So you'd have to drop to low to achieve higher framerates. That's the unfortunate side in every game - minimum is the minimum a game will run at the lowest graphics settings. So with a minimum requirements system, expect to run the lowest everything as that's what the minimum recommendation is intended for.

[=RvE=Windmills]

On LaGG free flight, Stalingrad 50km, looking at the smoke from the airfield drops me 30 to 40 fps on balanced/high/ultra compared to looking in any other direction. As soon as the smoke shows in my fov it plummets my fps.

 

I'll try and update drivers later on, maybe that's the issue.

Edited February 7, 2014 by iLOVEwindmills

[Freycinet]

Smoke over Stalingrad is huge and very impressive now. The battle is cataclysmic, FlaK everywhere. I even saw the famous FlaK that looks like white strings flying sideways through the air, I think.

 

I have a small issue with the throttle graphics not showing the correct position. It works functionally, but the visual position is off.

[AbortedMan]

Smoke over Stalingrad is huge and very impressive now. The battle is cataclysmic, FlaK everywhere. I even saw the famous FlaK that looks like white strings flying sideways through the air, I think.

 

I have a small issue with the throttle graphics not showing the correct position. It works functionally, but the visual position is off.

The throttle issue has been noted on the forum prior to this update.

[Finkeren]

Another thing I noticed: AI has improved at flying the LaGG! The weird pitch oscillation is all but gone, and the AI actively uses flaps while dogfighting!

[Freycinet]

Gotta say, that smoke is really fantastic. It literally covers a third of the sky! - I have never seen anything like that in a flight sim.

[Jade_Monkey]

Are AA guns indestructible? After hitting them a bunch of times with boms they  keep fining at me.

[kendo]

Just want to expand on this, the 260 is currently still the minimum spec aimed at. You dropped from high to balanced, but minimum spec means minimum graphics. So you'd have to drop to low to achieve higher framerates. That's the unfortunate side in every game - minimum is the minimum a game will run at the lowest graphics settings. So with a minimum requirements system, expect to run the lowest everything as that's what the minimum recommendation is intended for.

 

Quite right I know. Resisting that for now - will trade fps for eye candy for a little longer.

 

Time to upgrade.

[71st_AH_Cujo]

I'm getting significant slowdown from the stalingrad smoke on high settings though.

 

Dropping into the 20s down from 60/70fps when I look at them.

+1. For the first I'm getting stutters around Stalingrad.

My specs.

I7920@4.2GHz

Evga Titan Hydro-copper

12Gig DDR3 @1600

[Nage]

I was forced to lower graphic settings from high to balanced because I got huge FPS drop after this update. However I must admit balanced look like high but without that controversal SSAO which it seams, is "choking" our hardware.....hmm, I do hope we could get the high and ultra settings with optional SSAO.

Edited February 7, 2014 by tikvic

[dburne]

You guys that are seeing stutters, if you are running unlimited on framerates try locking them to 60 fps.

I have not been able to try this new update yet, but was getting severe stuttering during strafing runs in Stalingrad previously, when it was set to unlimited. Once I locked them to 60 fps that issue went away.

 

Will be interesting to see what I get with this new build.

[BeastyBaiter]

Looks good but I too am getting major slow down from the smoke over Stalingrad. drops me from 30-40 fps to about 8-9, no change between low and ultra settings in regards to that.

 

Edit: This is flying through the smoke. Previously it might shave a few fps off but nothing crazy like now.

Edited February 7, 2014 by =LD=King_Hrothgar

[Trooper117]

I'll have a look at this shortly... see what kind of response I get

[falstaff]

Time to send up the 'new screenshots please' flare....

[rolikiraly]

Time to send up the 'new screenshots please' flare....

 +1 (and videos  )

[Rjel]

I'm taking some big frame rate hits on the Stalingrad map too. The smaller maps are still very smooth. I know my Nvidia550 is falling short but I can't see upgrading until BoS gets closer to release. Still some very impressive visuals in this update.

[stiboo]

Has anyone managed to destroy an AAA yet?!

 

Smoke hits FPS but not too bad....

 

 

.

[maddysad]

A. Somebody please tell me how to edit track recordings

B. Visuals on ground attack massive improvement ( Bomber Jockey), I can see my potential target at 2km (100M altitude) especially if he fires off a round..... but he is indestructible...refer to "A" for video proof (dodgy flight but 2x  50kg on target ) and still firing

C. Yes , of course I know it's Beta so the developers are working on it

 

Main point = A+B

 

Keep up the good work

Edited February 7, 2014 by maddysad

[Tektolnes]

Only had a couple of short rides but the 109 seems a bit less docile than before. Pulling hard turns isn't just a case of flip it on it's side and pull the stick all the way back. Also seems to be easier to get G-loc than previously. Looks like an improvement has been made with the throttle range as well between 1.2 - 1.4 ata - easier to fine tune the desired setting.

[IIN8II]

looking great. noticing some major fps hits in stalingrad now though

[Trooper117]

New smoke is pretty good...  flak was seeking me out.

 

 

New smoke

 

Closer...

[skline00]

I'll measure my frame rates later tonight. I'm running it in my rig below and my 3770k at 4.5 Ghz with 16 G ddr3 and a EVGA GTX780 classified.

[Voidhunger]

The new improved smoke looks good, but my fps is now too low . Anyway I´m waiting for my new cpu