4.703 way too much bloom

[some1]

The first issue is that the bloom at some angles becomes overpowering and spills over horizon. I hope the attached replay shows the issue. This is not the sun, the sun is way above the upper wing.

 

 

 

The second issue is that if the sun gets in the view, it washouts the whole picture. More sun in the view, more washout. In VR the FOV is bigger, so the washout is really distracting even if you don't look into the sun. It's like having cataract. 

 

In both screenshots below I just look straight ahead through the cowling. First is on the monitor, second is in VR. 

 

 

Track bloom.zip

[354thFG_Rails]

You can turn bloom off in the startup config file. 

[firdimigdi]

6 hours ago, QB.Rails said:

You can turn bloom off in the startup config file. 

 

Sadly even with bloom off the second issue he mentions persists.

[IckyATLAS]

When changing the bloom value to 0 in the startup.cfg file you must not play again with the graphic settings in the sim otherwise the system resets bloom to 1.

I am not doing VR but I wanted to test some bloom effect inside cockpit due to the windshield material, and there is no difference.

One way is also to check your Gamma Correction setting. Maybe it is too high. 

[firdimigdi]

28 minutes ago, IckyATLAS said:

When changing the bloom value to 0 in the startup.cfg file you must not play again with the graphic settings in the sim otherwise the system resets bloom to 1.

I am not doing VR but I wanted to test some bloom effect inside cockpit due to the windshield material, and there is no difference.

One way is also to check your Gamma Correction setting. Maybe it is too high. 

 

None of these apply - bloom is off, no changes to graphics settings in-game are made, all changes done by editing the .cfg file directly.

Gamma is set to 1 initially and lowered subsequently but it doesn't help. Naturally reducing it to very low levels makes the rest of the game super dark and texture details are lost.

HDR on or off makes no difference either.

[thrila]

For me at least, the game is unplayable in VR since the update due to the bloom effect. It covers just under half the sky and it really strains my eyes, it is very uncomfortable. The sun only needs to come into the edge of the VR display for this effect to occur. 

 

The effect is so powerful it is comparable to how bright I imagine witnessing a nuclear blast might look.

Edited March 16, 2022 by thrila

[Pastrana]

I had reported this problem a while ago, although I deleted the comparison videos. The problem in VR is evident and some tried to tell me that the sun shines like this in reality. But those of us who are in vr know that something is wrong with the sun.

 

 

Edited March 17, 2022 by Pastrana

[firdimigdi]

Adding this picture here of how it is at noon in a winter map with clear skies and no haze when flying southwards, the sun itself in this picture is  actually just on the upper limit of the screen in the headset yet it feels like you are staring directly in to the sun:

 

And it makes no difference if you are looking through a canopy or not (to account for glare off the perspex or something) - you get the same effect in external cameras as well.

Edited March 17, 2022 by Firdimigdi

[SeaW0lf]

Yes, it was the first thing I noticed. Then I found out that you can disable bloom in the Startup file, but why have bloom as standard? Bloom is overboard and it puts a heavy strain on the eyesight. Plus, I disabled bloom in the Startup file and it is still seems to be overdone. In one mission I had to logoff and check if bloom was still disabled, because I was swearing it was enabled. Gamma Correction is set to neutral (1).

 

Perhaps it was due to the missions, I think they were new, but I'll try playing with HDR and stuff, perhaps reset the graphics and start again, because even without bloom, the way it is now sems to make it harder to pixel hunt, which was already taxing.

 

We'll see.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

It was always hard to play in winter maps with gamma set to 1, 0.6 was what I used.  Anyway is this game gamma correct anyway...?

[firdimigdi]

16 minutes ago, 1PL-Husar-1Esk said:

It was always hard to play in winter maps with gamma set to 1, 0.6 was what I used.

 

Tbh, it didn't bother me as much previously - it would blind, yes, if you looked at the sun but not if it was just anywhere in your field of view. Right now all it takes is a tiny sliver of sun to come in to view (in VR at least) and the brightness goes up exponentially.

[354thFG_Rails]

After flying in VR for a bit now after the patch, I’m in agreement. The bloom is to high or something with the lighting is causing this issue. It’s pretty strenuous on the eyes and makes spotting more difficult than 2d folks. Not looking for an advantage but it was more pleasant before. I will say that if the canopy glass is tinted it’s actually better to look through. Maybe the devs can create a lense filter as if you were wearing shaded goggles or something? I don’t know but I’m hoping it gets adjusted. 

Edited March 19, 2022 by QB.Rails

[newbravado]

I thought I was the only one that notice this. Makes spotting much more difficult due to unnatural glare.

I have HDR off, makes no difference. It's just the way the Sun glare is handled in VR. I hope it can be fixed.

 

Also, turning HDR off gave me a performance boost. I then had to adjust the gamma upwards a bit.

I switched back to MSAA because it just looks better, yeah! But it's a frame hog, so I lowered it from 4x

to 2x, and finally found Nirvana. In VR I was having trouble with aircraft identity at medium range, and this helped.

[SeaW0lf]

20 hours ago, 1PL-Husar-1Esk said:

It was always hard to play in winter maps with gamma set to 1, 0.6 was what I used.  Anyway is this game gamma correct anyway...?

 

Gamma at 1 is the neutral, natural colors. If you set at 0.6 the colors are basically cracking. Even 0.9 is not natural to me.

With HDR off I can't read my gauges, too dark. But I can't say how it was before because I have always flown with HDR on.

 

Something seems to have gone off tracks with this update. Crippling to the eyesight. I'm flying with an IPS monitor (2560X1080), bloom disabled on the Startup file.

Edited March 19, 2022 by SeaW0lf

[newbravado]

FYI. Usually when we get a patch, the bloom in the setup file gets set back to "on" or =1

I don't like it cause it make certain colors glow. So I set mine back to =0

With this patch bloom in in the setup file did not change.

[=LD=Nephrill]

Yesterday we had our squad night. We had 4 VR players flying. All 4 with an HP reverb G2 and 3 3080ti players with all settings to ultra and high. We all had the issue described in this topic. The banding we dont see but the lighting is way too much. The track IR players also see it but a lot less. They were always flying with gamma set around 0.8. The vr flyers in our squad set the gamma around 1.1. In vr the cockpit gets too dark below 0.9.

 

We had bloom disabled and lowering the gamma helps a bit but not much. Hdr we dont use. When lowering the gamma too much we are looking at a very dark cockpit and reading instruments becomes a pain. We all fly without techno chat.

 

On the other hand we could see improvements when looking down through the clouds. And away from the sun. So the technology is good imo but a bit overdone at the moment regarding lighting and brightness.

 

I will try to make some screenshots today and post them.

Edited March 19, 2022 by =LD=Nephrill

[FTC_horsky]

4 minutes ago, =LD=Nephrill said:

Yesterday we had our squad night. We had 4 VR players flying. All 4 with an HP reverb G2 and 3 3080ti players with all settings to ultra and high. We all had the issue described in this topic. The banding we dont see but the lighting is way too much. The track IR players also see it but a lot less. They were always flying with gamma set around 0.8. The vr flyers in our squad set the gamma around 1.1. In vr the cockpit gets too dark below 0.9.

 

We had bloom disabled and lowering the gamma helps a bit but not much. Hdr we dont use. When lowering the gamma too much we are looking at a very dark cockpit and reading instruments becomes a pain. We all fly without techno chat.

 

On the other hand we could see improvements when looking down through the clouds. And away from the sun. So the technology is good imo but a bit overdone at the moment regarding lighting and brightness.

 

I will try to make some screenshots today and post them.

This is really interesting, different squads, same hardware, same settings, you guys experience overbloom issues and my squad experience banding issues but not so much the bloom issue ?

[firdimigdi]

It's not exactly bloom, it's the increased brightness/sunblinding effect that kicks in when it's not necessary in VR. It's way easier to trigger it than when playing on monitor. In VR you get basically the same effect you get when staring straight at the sun when playing on a monitor even if is barely in your field of view.

 

Edited March 19, 2022 by Firdimigdi

[thrila]

I also have a reverb g2. I flew online last night but I had to stop after about an hour because of eye strain. They remained sore for the rest of the evening.

[SeaW0lf]

44 minutes ago, thrila said:

I flew online last night but I had to stop after about an hour because of eye strain. They remained sore for the rest of the evening.

 

For who works with computers, this is a serious problem. I might stop flying if the problem persists.

 

This is a comparison of how things look on my computer before and after the update. The last half of the video is with the new update, and you can see how things get overblown. A big portion of the sky gets blanketed by the sun glare. Maybe this is a cache thing? Is there a way to clear my cache? I'm not sure if I missed something, but bloom is disabled on the Startup file, and we can see that there is no bloom, is the colors that are cracking. HDR on both, 0.9 Gamma Correction, since this is the setup of the old track.

 

I'll see what can I change, but I think there is no doubt something changed for worse and it is pretty damn hard to fly the way things are now.

 

 

Edited March 19, 2022 by SeaW0lf

[Props]

I have to admit that I too have noticed that the sun in particular is now having an undesirable effect in the sim. I am using a 32" monitor @ 1440 (I cannot use VR due to VR dizziness, headaches, nausea, etc.) and the bloom is quite "loud" now. Before I could just make out the sphere of the sun like in real life when looking close to it, but now it is just a larger than life blob of intense light and hard to avoid when it is in my field of view and spotting anywhere within that region of the sky, which means a significant portion of my screen, is tough. I tried changing the bloom setting in the startup.cfg but this has had no effect in sim on my monitor. Before the update I thought it was pretty realistic, even mild compared to real life but after the update it is definitely a bit off even on a monitor. I would rather not change my gamma or other settings as it took me awhile to find the sweet spot through experimenting and I like the look I have now in sim. Just my 2 cents worth. 

[IckyATLAS]

Do not do it but I can tell you that if you try to stare at the sun when it is high in the sky you will be completely sunblinded and you cannot stand it. This is why you need good sunglasses to diminish the sunglare but again they are not made to stare in the sunlight. This is why fighters use to come out of the sun to attack you if possible as you could not see them coming. 

I play 2D and have no VR so I cannot tell in the VR case, but for me in the 2D case I find the way that the sunglare, bloom is rendered is very realistic. I see no problem.

My 4K Screen is a calibrated screen. I use a Datacolor SpyderX system to calibrate my screen and the result is excellent. So may be you have some screen calibration issues.

I use an ingame Gamma setting of 1.

[US103_Baer]

I'm also getting the uber-bloom or white-out condition since 4.703 update. Haven't changed any settings.

Noticeable just above the horizon. Looks pretty ridiculous.

1440p VA monitor running game in 1080p

Gamma 1.0

Edited March 19, 2022 by US103_Baer

[GOA_Karaya_VR]

We need the devs attention on this, cause almost on VR our eyes burn while seen the horizon.. That is very unrealistic and unhealty for our eyes, even with low gamma.

[SeaW0lf]

I've done it before (look at the sun). You naturally close your eyes (lol). The sun has a blinding effect in a narrow portion of the sky. And no one is saying that there should be no sun glare, but not a sun glare that blocks a huge part of the sky or that spreads the bloom around the horizon.

 

3 minutes ago, US103_Baer said:

Looks pretty ridiculous.

 

Yup, I'm not sure if this is a cache thing or that some people see things differently. Anyways, I felt it pretty distressing while I was flying. 

 

[firdimigdi]

3 hours ago, SeaW0lf said:

 

For who works with computers, this is a serious problem. I might stop flying if the problem persists.

 

This is a comparison of how things look on my computer before and after the update. The last half of the video is with the new update, and you can see how things get overblown. A big portion of the sky gets blanketed by the sun glare. Maybe this is a cache thing? Is there a way to clear my cache? I'm not sure if I missed something, but bloom is disabled on the Startup file, and we can see that there is no bloom, is the colors that are cracking. HDR on both, 0.9 Gamma Correction, since this is the setup of the old track.

 

I'll see what can I change, but I think there is no doubt something changed for worse and it is pretty damn hard to fly the way things are now.

 

That last half when you look straight at the sun is what it looks like in VR when you have the sun barely in view. And it's on a screen a few mm from your eyes, fun!

[IckyATLAS]

1 hour ago, US103_Baer said:

I'm also getting the uber-bloom or white-out condition since 4.703 update. Haven't changed any settings.

Noticeable just above the horizon. Looks pretty ridiculous.

1440p VA monitor running game in 1080p

Gamma 1.0

 

Here under three images I have taken with Gamma 1.1

Rheinland Summer Midday 13:00 hr. Flying the Rata I16 open cockpit

Clouds

 

Same as above but fully zoomed to the max

 

Same time same place clear sky

 

 

 

[RedeyeStorm]

I am on Index and I concur that the sun effect is to much in VR. I have always found it a bit much but now it is really and physicly unpleasant. Gives me a headache.

[Pastrana]

4 hours ago, RedeyeStorm said:

I am on Index and I concur that the sun effect is to much in VR. I have always found it a bit much but now it is really and physicly unpleasant. Gives me a headache.

Exactly what you said. The problem was always there but now it has returned very intense to the point of not being able to play.

[US103_Baer]

12 hours ago, IckyATLAS said:

 

Here under three images I have taken with Gamma 1.1

Rheinland Summer Midday 13:00 hr. Flying the Rata I16 open cockpit

Clouds

 

 

Ok. That looks fine to me. 

Nothing like I get. 

I wonder if its the Arras map

Edited March 20, 2022 by US103_Baer

[firdimigdi]

To settle this - we appear to be talking about two separate issues:

1. Players on screens with bloom enabled are rightly saying that it is overdone - to set the record straight this is what they are seeing:
   https://imgur.com/a/Gq6rm2N - you can clearly see the effect the sun has on the cloud cover at mid-day when bloom is enabled (note the two overexposed/white-out areas on the clouds), on all maps; this is also seen when under the cloud base or on the horizon if the sun is low enough, doesn't matter if in the cockpit or out of the cockpit or with open canopy or closed canopy or no canopy, so this clearly accounts for what people are seeing on monitors. Both short videos were recorded with gamma set to 1.0.
   
   For now the workaround for this this is obviously to disable bloom until the devs adjust it for the current lighting model.
    
2. Players in VR with bloom disabled, are seeing the sunglare effect (brightness increase/white-out) activate whenever the sun is in their field of view even without looking straight at it. Clearly the mistake here was that it was reported as "bloom" while it is not the bloom post-processing effect, it is the sunglare effect.      

 

Edited March 20, 2022 by Firdimigdi
clarification

[IckyATLAS]

9 hours ago, Firdimigdi said:

To settle this - we appear to be talking about two separate issues:

1. Players on screens with bloom enabled are rightly saying that it is overdone - to set the record straight this is what they are seeing:
   https://imgur.com/a/Gq6rm2N - you can clearly see the effect the sun has on the cloud cover at mid-day when bloom is enabled (note the two overexposed/white-out areas on the clouds), on all maps; this is also seen when under the cloud base or on the horizon if the sun is low enough, doesn't matter if in the cockpit or out of the cockpit or with open canopy or closed canopy or no canopy, so this clearly accounts for what people are seeing on monitors. Both short videos were recorded with gamma set to 1.0.
   
   For now the workaround for this this is obviously to disable bloom until the devs adjust it for the current lighting model.
    
2. Players in VR with bloom disabled, are seeing the sunglare effect (brightness increase/white-out) activate whenever the sun is in their field of view even without looking straight at it. Clearly the mistake here was that it was reported as "bloom" while it is not the bloom post-processing effect, it is the sunglare effect.      

 

I looked at the video under point 1)  and indeed there is an issue it is not what I have . One can also see a lot of banding in the video, so something is wrong but in my opinion (and I can be wrong) it seems to be a matter of graphic driver parameter settings and screen settings/calibration or in short it is a user hardware/software problem and not a game software problem.

 

[firdimigdi]

The

33 minutes ago, IckyATLAS said:

I looked at the video under point 1)  and indeed there is an issue it is not what I have . One can also see a lot of banding in the video, so something is wrong but in my opinion (and I can be wrong) it seems to be a matter of graphic driver parameter settings and screen settings/calibration or in short it is a user hardware/software problem and not a game software problem.

 

 

The banding is due to high video compression. The bloom issue is due to the bloom post processing effect needing adjusting after the lighting model changes. If it was any "hardware/software problem" it would not go away when disabling the bloom effect.

 

Are you actually testing it with bloom enabled by the way? It doesn't look enabled in those screenshots.

Edited March 20, 2022 by Firdimigdi

[IckyATLAS]

14 hours ago, US103_Baer said:

 

Ok. That looks fine to me. 

Nothing like I get. 

I wonder if its the Arras map

I tested the Arras Map, flying also on top of the clouds, under, with without clouds it is all excellent no issue at all. It is not map related.

[SvAF/F16_Goblin]

40 minutes ago, IckyATLAS said:

I looked at the video under point 1)  and indeed there is an issue it is not what I have . One can also see a lot of banding in the video, so something is wrong but in my opinion (and I can be wrong) it seems to be a matter of graphic driver parameter settings and screen settings/calibration or in short it is a user hardware/software problem and not a game software problem.

 

As far as I'm aware (and after watching numerous posts and videos on the matter) no settings in the Nvidia cpl besides power and prerendered frames have any imapct on VR at all.

[newbravado]

HDR, bloom, or gamma settings have nothing to do with the current glare problem in VR. Adjust away if you must.

I'm sure the developers are already aware of this problem though not officially stated. 

We have a great development Team.

 

[335th_GRbas_754]

On 3/17/2022 at 9:29 AM, Firdimigdi said:

Adding this picture here of how it is at noon in a winter map with clear skies and no haze when flying southwards, the sun itself in this picture is  actually just on the upper limit of the screen in the headset yet it feels like you are staring directly in to the sun:

 

And it makes no difference if you are looking through a canopy or not (to account for glare off the perspex or something) - you get the same effect in external cameras as well.

Kανε και στο site μας μια παρουσιαση του θεματος...ενδιαφερει πολλους !!!!?

[SeaW0lf]

It looks like it was fixed in the last hotfix. At least for me, the cracked colors are gone in my IPS monitor. I flew a couple missions this weekend and the lighting was pretty good, with a nice partially overcastted morning mission this Sunday (the sky is getting nicer with these updates). The impression was that bloom was not being disabled in the startup file either, partially or on occasion. Whatever it was, it's good now.

 

Thanks for the fix.

[Gora_]

There is still something wrong with the lighting (I play VR). Sometimes everything looks good (now a few thing were corrected - sun especially) but during bright day the horizon is too bright and bloomy. Like exposition is over brighten. I can see this and many of my friends too, so it is not only my problem.  

[IckyATLAS]

On 4/2/2022 at 11:55 AM, =LG/F=Gora_ said:

There is still something wrong with the lighting (I play VR). Sometimes everything looks good (now a few thing were corrected - sun especially) but during bright day the horizon is too bright and bloomy. Like exposition is over brighten. I can see this and many of my friends too, so it is not only my problem.  

Can you post a screenshot?