Visibility has gone backwards in 4.007

[SCG_Wulfe]

Well I've now actually flown online since the update and I gotta say, I feel like visibility has gone backwards big time. I know after 4.006 I felt like I could spot planes very well against any backdrop, the ground, etc. This was a very welcome change. We just flew an SCG flight on combat box and all of us were commenting on how we couldn't spot anything, each-other, contacts, everything seemed to be just blurring into it's background. Even IDing when zoomed was harder as things just didn't seem to pop or have the contrast that I'd gotten used to with 4.006.

 

Is anyone else experiencing this?

 

[[DBS]Browning]

I'm experiencing it, but it's nothing new.

[RedKestrel]

8 hours ago, SCG_Wulfe said:

Well I've now actually flown online since the update and I gotta say, I feel like visibility has gone backwards big time. I know after 4.006 I felt like I could spot planes very well against any backdrop, the ground, etc. This was a very welcome change. We just flew an SCG flight on combat box and all of us were commenting on how we couldn't spot anything, each-other, contacts, everything seemed to be just blurring into it's background. Even IDing when zoomed was harder as things just didn't seem to pop or have the contrast that I'd gotten used to with 4.006.

 

Is anyone else experiencing this?

 

•  

Were you getting blurry textures in your cockpit too? Some other users have reported blurry textures on the landscape and in cockpit, I wonder if there is some kind of texture bug.

[itsbillyfrazier]

I had blurry textures in the cockpit ,and couldn't read any dials with the last update..

 

Funny thing is, when I first  played the updated version, I had no blur issues, but when i fired the game up later, I had terrible blur issues.

 

I thought it may have been something to do with removing a mod so I did a game verify in Steam and the problem was solved.

Edited June 11, 2020 by itsbillyfrazier

[LLv24_Zami]

Generally I didn`t notice spotting difference between 4.006 and 4.007 on my system during beta testing. But I`m going to fly more the public version and see how it goes.

Edited June 11, 2020 by LLv24_Zami

[SCG_Wulfe]

1 hour ago, RedKestrel said:

Were you getting blurry textures in your cockpit too? Some other users have reported blurry textures on the landscape and in cockpit, I wonder if there is some kind of texture bug.

 

Nope. It's nothing obvious like that. It's just that planes do not stand out anymore like they did after the 4.006 update. It was such a welcome change and now it seems to have gone back (and I think even worse than it was before) to where it's extraordinarily difficult to spot planes against all sorts of backgrounds, even if they are not that far from you. 

 

I'm very worried that it has something to do with the workarounds they had to implement to prevent outlines on plane edges for AMD users. I wonder if there was some edge definition that was implemented that helped planes stand out for the majority of users without looking strange.

Edited June 11, 2020 by SCG_Wulfe

[RedKestrel]

1 hour ago, SCG_Wulfe said:

 

Nope. It's nothing obvious like that. It's just that planes do not stand out anymore like they did after the 4.006 update. It was such a welcome change and now it seems to have gone back (and I think even worse than it was before) to where it's extraordinarily difficult to spot planes against all sorts of backgrounds, even if they are not that far from you. 

 

I'm very worried that it has something to do with the workarounds they had to implement to prevent outlines on plane edges for AMD users. I wonder if there was some edge definition that was implemented that helped planes stand out for the majority of users without looking strange.

I haven't had  any chance yet to play 4.007 so I'm just spitballing here from what I have read. Sorry it didn't help. Probably won't get a chance to play until the weekend. 4.006 was certainly much improved for me so if it has changed it should be immediately noticeable, though we have very different setups (I'm on 1080p monitor). 

There's also a new set of Nvidia drivers I haven't installed yet, I wonder if the testing was done on these new drivers and the old ones are causing the blur? Once again, just spitballing. I never update drivers until I have a problem becuase it seems to cause as many problems as it solves.

EDIT: I believe I do have some sortie recordings from 4.006 so when I test I will make recordings to compare side by side as much as possible. Sometimes when I don't play for a while between patches I'm not sure what has changed and what is in my mind.

Edited June 11, 2020 by RedKestrel

[Semor76]

1 hour ago, SCG_Wulfe said:

 

 

I'm very worried that it has something to do with the workarounds they had to implement to prevent outlines on plane edges for AMD users. I wonder if there was some edge definition that was implemented that helped planes stand out for the majority of users without looking strange.

..in which they failed more or less

 

[SCG_Wulfe]

36 minutes ago, RedKestrel said:

I haven't had  any chance yet to play 4.007 so I'm just spitballing here from what I have read. Sorry it didn't help. Probably won't get a chance to play until the weekend. 4.006 was certainly much improved for me so if it has changed it should be immediately noticeable, though we have very different setups (I'm on 1080p monitor). 

There's also a new set of Nvidia drivers I haven't installed yet, I wonder if the testing was done on these new drivers and the old ones are causing the blur? Once again, just spitballing. I never update drivers until I have a problem becuase it seems to cause as many problems as it solves.

EDIT: I believe I do have some sortie recordings from 4.006 so when I test I will make recordings to compare side by side as much as possible. Sometimes when I don't play for a while between patches I'm not sure what has changed and what is in my mind.

It seemed to also be affecting SCG members who are on monitor as there were 6 of us on last night (4 in VR and 2 on monitor) and everyone thought the spotting was markedly worse. 

 

Awesome about the fact that you have some tracks/recordings from 4.006, I really wish I had the same. I'd really like to A-B. 

 

I will check on drivers. Like you, I tend to avoid updates unless necessary. Why mess with a perfectly good working system?

 

As evidenced by Semor76's picture, I think some of the edge stuff people were seeing in clouds was serving to make planes much more visible on most backgrounds.I think they were working to remove these effects in 4.007, they were especially bad for AMD users. Though I am also just guessing at this point. 

 

 

 

Edited June 11, 2020 by SCG_Wulfe

[RedKestrel]

1 hour ago, SCG_Wulfe said:

It seemed to also be affecting SCG members who are on monitor as there were 6 of us on last night (4 in VR and 2 on monitor) and everyone thought the spotting was markedly worse. 

 

Awesome about the fact that you have some tracks/recordings from 4.006, I really wish I had the same. I'd really like to A-B. 

 

I will check on drivers. Like you, I tend to avoid updates unless necessary. Why mess with a perfectly good working system?

 

As evidenced by Semor76's picture, I think some of the edge stuff people were seeing in clouds was serving to make planes much more visible on most backgrounds.I think they were working to remove these effects in 4.007, they were especially bad for AMD users. Though I am also just guessing at this point. 

 

 

 

What AA setting are you using btw? initially I know Han said that FXAA + Sharpen would be best for spotting, but lots of people especially in VR seemed to have better spotting with MSAA, maybe due to edge features? And maybe this has been 'fixed'.

I have used FXAA + Sharpen since 4.006 and strangely enough I don't notice that blue outline around contacts against clouds for whatever reason. Just the normal jagginess you see with contacts as before the patch.

[WWDriftwood]

Same for me, first update I could see better, after the following patches and updates it's worse for me. It almost seems like it depends on the lighting/sun, etc. When the light is better, it's easier to see than pre update, but when the lighting is not so good, it's much harder to see. Which would make sense, but in the end, it's just harder to spot no matter how you adjust things to make it better. And after the initial patch it was much better and now post hot fixes and patches it's just not. 

 

Plus I now get micro pauses that I never had before, bummer. But as is with all progress, there are the bumps in the road. Hope to see this improved in the future. 

[SCG_Wulfe]

46 minutes ago, RedKestrel said:

What AA setting are you using btw? initially I know Han said that FXAA + Sharpen would be best for spotting, but lots of people especially in VR seemed to have better spotting with MSAA, maybe due to edge features? And maybe this has been 'fixed'.

I have used FXAA + Sharpen since 4.006 and strangely enough I don't notice that blue outline around contacts against clouds for whatever reason. Just the normal jagginess you see with contacts as before the patch.

 

MSAA definitely looks the best. Unfortunately I get tons of microstutters with any amount of AA, FXAA or MSAA. So, I've been running with no AA like I generally always have in VR.

 

That said, the comparison for me is a fair one. I was running no AA before the update to 4.007 and am running no AA after. Just seems contact visiblity/contrast has decreased. 

[JG1_Lipfert]

Kameraden,

 

Testing last evening, starting point. Running i7 with 32GB's of DDR3 and EVGA GTX 1080 ti FTW3. Bloom is disabled in the "startup.cfg" and I would say I was 90% better than squad last night at spotting. I'm not saying this is where I'll end up, just a starting point after the patch, because I was really having trouble spotting. I picked these settings out of a SuperSampling discussion on the VR side.

 

 

 

S!

 

Edited June 12, 2020 by II./JG1_Lipfert

[69th_Panp]

On 6/11/2020 at 6:38 AM, RedKestrel said:

Were you getting blurry textures in your cockpit too? Some other users have reported blurry textures on the landscape and in cockpit, I wonder if there is some kind of texture bug.

I was getting blurry textures in cockpit along with strips in the clouds like these 

[RedKestrel]

Well, I finally had an opportunity to play for a long enough period of time on Sunday to test things out.

I had a couple videos I had recorded from 4.006 and watched them but they were mostly times when I was already in a fight so they were not as helpful as i was hoping they would be at spotting difference.

That said, after a few hours of flying on Combat Box, I don't feel like anything significant in terms of spotting has changed for me. The contacts don't look much different when I spot them, when the lighting is just right I can spot fighters by reflection at more than 10km. I'm spotting aircraft at roughly the same rate as before, as far as I can tell. Tracking aircraft in a dogfight against forest backgrounds may be slightly worse now but keeping track of contacts is nowhere near as bad as it was in 4.005. I can still look away, then look back and reaquire - before 4.005 this was often impossible for me. This may be slightly more difficult now than in 4.006, but it's subtle and could easily be the lighting or my own eyes failing me.

 

I think maybe things have gotten slightly worse since 4.005 or 4.006 but I am not experiencing the massive shifts others are talking about.

I've seen some tips people have about adjusting AA and was tempted to try them but I am going to keep my standard settings for a while before I tweak anything else.

I have Ultra pre-set, blur landscape filter, sharpen filter applied, 4X FXAA, distant landscape detail of Normal, view distance 150 km, SSAO and HDR off. At update 4.005 I turned my gamma up to 0.9 from 0.8 and I think it actually improved my spotting against the prevailing wisdom, as the forests stopped seeming so black, and the game just looks a lot nicer.

I haven't tried MSAA or No AA and the only 'filters' I have in Nvidia control panel is a very slight sharpen setting and 'remove film grain', which I was using pre-4.005 too and seemed to make a small difference.

I will add, in the interests of full disclosure, that I don't play as often or as frequently as others so I often go a week or more between sessions. So part of the struggle is understanding if something changed in the game or if I'm just having to get back into it. So all I can say is that I haven't noticed an order of magnitude change one way or another, and IMO spotting is still better now than pre 4.006, with the same settings persisting across the hotfixes and major patches. 

[SCG_Wulfe]

On 6/15/2020 at 8:37 AM, RedKestrel said:

Well, I finally had an opportunity to play for a long enough period of time on Sunday to test things out.

I had a couple videos I had recorded from 4.006 and watched them but they were mostly times when I was already in a fight so they were not as helpful as i was hoping they would be at spotting difference.

That said, after a few hours of flying on Combat Box, I don't feel like anything significant in terms of spotting has changed for me. The contacts don't look much different when I spot them, when the lighting is just right I can spot fighters by reflection at more than 10km. I'm spotting aircraft at roughly the same rate as before, as far as I can tell. Tracking aircraft in a dogfight against forest backgrounds may be slightly worse now but keeping track of contacts is nowhere near as bad as it was in 4.005. I can still look away, then look back and reaquire - before 4.005 this was often impossible for me. This may be slightly more difficult now than in 4.006, but it's subtle and could easily be the lighting or my own eyes failing me.

 

I think maybe things have gotten slightly worse since 4.005 or 4.006 but I am not experiencing the massive shifts others are talking about.

I've seen some tips people have about adjusting AA and was tempted to try them but I am going to keep my standard settings for a while before I tweak anything else.

I have Ultra pre-set, blur landscape filter, sharpen filter applied, 4X FXAA, distant landscape detail of Normal, view distance 150 km, SSAO and HDR off. At update 4.005 I turned my gamma up to 0.9 from 0.8 and I think it actually improved my spotting against the prevailing wisdom, as the forests stopped seeming so black, and the game just looks a lot nicer.

I haven't tried MSAA or No AA and the only 'filters' I have in Nvidia control panel is a very slight sharpen setting and 'remove film grain', which I was using pre-4.005 too and seemed to make a small difference.

I will add, in the interests of full disclosure, that I don't play as often or as frequently as others so I often go a week or more between sessions. So part of the struggle is understanding if something changed in the game or if I'm just having to get back into it. So all I can say is that I haven't noticed an order of magnitude change one way or another, and IMO spotting is still better now than pre 4.006, with the same settings persisting across the hotfixes and major patches. 

 

Well, I am still tinkering but I think the big thing that changed for me between 4.006 and 4.007 is that spotting and identification with no AA was markedly decreased. It really affected me because I was running with higher graphical settings but no AA. I was unable to turn on AA without getting micro-stutters. 

 

I have since played around and decreased enough graphical settings that I am able to run 4X FXAA without stutters and spotting and identification feels about as good as it had before with no AA... unfortunately the game doesn't quite look as a good... but at least I don't feel handicapped. 

 

 

 

[JG1_Lipfert]

On 6/16/2020 at 12:03 PM, SCG_Wulfe said:

 

Well, I am still tinkering but I think the big thing that changed for me between 4.006 and 4.007 is that spotting and identification with no AA was markedly decreased. It really affected me because I was running with higher graphical settings but no AA. I was unable to turn on AA without getting micro-stutters. 

 

I have since played around and decreased enough graphical settings that I am able to run 4X FXAA without stutters and spotting and identification feels about as good as it had before with no AA... unfortunately the game doesn't quite look as a good... but at least I don't feel handicapped. 

 

 

 

 

What is your video card? With thanks to Sheriff, here is what I was testing last evening with pretty good results (bloom=0 in startup.cfg) on a EVGA GTX 1080ti FTW3. I'm not in VR right now, until I get 2D sorted out.

 

 

Give that a try and let me know.

 

S!

Edited June 18, 2020 by II./JG1_Lipfert
More detail.

[SCG_Wulfe]

18 hours ago, II./JG1_Lipfert said:

 

What is your video card? With thanks to Sheriff, here is what I was testing last evening with pretty good results (bloom=0 in startup.cfg) on a EVGA GTX 1080ti FTW3. I'm not in VR right now, until I get 2D sorted out.

 

 

Give that a try and let me know.

 

S!

 

 

Thanks Lipfert. There is no way I would avoid massive frame drops and micro-stutters with those settings. I have a gtx 1080 (not ti) and I'm in VR. I had to overclock it just to run the settings I am now. 

 

I'm actually quite happy with what I have now with 4X FXAA. It is frustrating that I can't run 0X AA with higher graphics settings and the same ability to spot and ID that I had in 4.006, but with the FXAA on, I'm pretty much just as competitive now.

[JG1_Lipfert]

5 hours ago, SCG_Wulfe said:

 

 

Thanks Lipfert. There is no way I would avoid massive frame drops and micro-stutters with those settings. I have a gtx 1080 (not ti) and I'm in VR. I had to overclock it just to run the settings I am now. 

 

I'm actually quite happy with what I have now with 4X FXAA. It is frustrating that I can't run 0X AA with higher graphics settings and the same ability to spot and ID that I had in 4.006, but with the FXAA on, I'm pretty much just as competitive now.

 

Wulfe,

 

The game was not playable in VR for me until 3DMigoto arrived, now that's it's gone I may never get it tuned in properly. For now, I'm playing in 2D but I will try your settings with Oculus and see what it's like.

 

S! from K-W.

Edited June 19, 2020 by II./JG1_Lipfert

[Charlo-VR]

Based on the Lipfert's settings above, setting "Texture Filtering - Negative LOD bias" to Clamp last night made the biggest single difference for me on my Oculus Quest

Edited June 19, 2020 by Charlo-VR
punctuation

[SCG_Wulfe]

22 minutes ago, II./JG1_Lipfert said:

 

Wulfe,

 

The game was not playable in VR for me until 3DMigoto arrived, now that's it's gone I may never get it tuned in properly. For now, I'm playing in 2D but I will try your settings with Oculus and see what it's like.

 

S! from K-W.

 

Hey Lipfert. 

 

Sorry to hear that, I hope these help. (With the Oculus you may need to mess with super-sampling settings and the Gamma. The key for spotting with these settings is to reduce super-sampling as low as you can without being bothered by a more fuzzy image)

 

S! from Norfolk County - south of Brantford. 

 

 [KEY = graphics]
      3dhud = 0
      adapter = 0
      bloom_enable = 0
      canopy_ref = 0
      desktop_center = 1
      detail_rt_res = 1024
      draw_distance = 0.81800
      far_blocks = 0
      fps_counter = 1
      fps_limit = 60
      full_height = 768
      full_width = 1280
      fullscreen = 0
      gamma = 0.80000
      grass_distance = 0.00000
      hdr_enable = 1
      land_anisotropy = 2
      land_tex_lods = 2
      max_cache_res = 1
      max_clouds_quality = 2
      mgpu_compatible = 0
      mirrors = 1
      msaa = 0
      multisampling = 2
      or_ca = 0.00185
      or_dummy = 0
      or_enable = 1
      or_height = 2020
      or_hud_rad = 1.50000
      or_hud_size = 0.75000
      or_ipd = 0.06334
      or_sipdc = 0.00000
      or_width = 1608
      post_sharpen = 1
      preset = 2
      prop_blur_max_rpm_for_vr = 155
      rescale_target = 1.00000
      shadows_quality = 1
      ssao_enable = 0
      stereo_dof = 5.00000
      vsync = 0
      win_height = 768
      win_width = 1024
[END]

Edited June 19, 2020 by SCG_Wulfe

[JG1_Lipfert]

18 hours ago, SCG_Wulfe said:

 

Hey Lipfert. 

 

Sorry to hear that, I hope these help. (With the Oculus you may need to mess with super-sampling settings and the Gamma. The key for spotting with these settings is to reduce super-sampling as low as you can without being bothered by a more fuzzy image)

 

S! from Norfolk County - south of Brantford. 

 

 [KEY = graphics]
      3dhud = 0
      adapter = 0
      bloom_enable = 0
      canopy_ref = 0
      desktop_center = 1
      detail_rt_res = 1024
      draw_distance = 0.81800
      far_blocks = 0
      fps_counter = 1
      fps_limit = 60
      full_height = 768
      full_width = 1280
      fullscreen = 0
      gamma = 0.80000
      grass_distance = 0.00000
      hdr_enable = 1
      land_anisotropy = 2
      land_tex_lods = 2
      max_cache_res = 1
      max_clouds_quality = 2
      mgpu_compatible = 0
      mirrors = 1
      msaa = 0
      multisampling = 2
      or_ca = 0.00185
      or_dummy = 0
      or_enable = 1
      or_height = 2020
      or_hud_rad = 1.50000
      or_hud_size = 0.75000
      or_ipd = 0.06334
      or_sipdc = 0.00000
      or_width = 1608
      post_sharpen = 1
      preset = 2
      prop_blur_max_rpm_for_vr = 155
      rescale_target = 1.00000
      shadows_quality = 1
      ssao_enable = 0
      stereo_dof = 5.00000
      vsync = 0
      win_height = 768
      win_width = 1024
[END]

 

Wulfe,

 

Thanks, North Dumfries (North of Brantford).

 

S!

18 hours ago, Charlo-VR said:

Based on the Lipfert's settings above, setting "Texture Filtering - Negative LOD bias" to Clamp last night made the biggest single difference for me on my Oculus Quest

 

Carlo,

 

These are my 2D test settings, once I sort this out then I'll start back on VR. Loosing 3DMigoto was a killer for me on aircraft ident.

 

S!

[JG1_Schulte]

~S~ Gents

 Im on ATI....I  had great visibility, for the 1st time after the 4007 release...I think we all did.

We had noticed a 15Km  contact circle, and for myself (amd) smooth rendering, as an aircraft approached.

In essence I only had to use Zoom, for ID and attitude.

 After the last Hotfixes, a 10Km render circle, tested with TacView...which I only get 8 with zoom.

And a 1.3 render pop in with out zoom

 Colors are also very washed out.

 I don't know what happened, It seem's the rendering circle was increased, then reduced in the hotfixes

Backwards, ??? Im where I started full circle lol

Moxy

 

[SJ_Butcher]

Any word about visibility issues? I understand that improved a little, but is still annoying to me and prevents me to play the sim...

[SCG_Wulfe]

 

2 hours ago, SJ_Butcher said:

Any word about visibility issues? I understand that improved a little, but is still annoying to me and prevents me to play the sim...

 

I'm hoping whatever it is gets quietly addressed in the next patch. Don't hold your breath though.