Should, or can, IL-2 be modernized? (Graphics, audio)

[Sybreed]

This is a pretty broad subject, but lately I've been trying to get a few friends to play IL-2 again but I've met with negative responses. Their reason? "The game looks old and I'd rather play DCS or MSFS at this point".

 

At first I was a bit annoyed by their answer, but having dropped IL-2 for a while and coming back after playing DCS and MSFS myself... I can kind of understand what they're saying. Graphics wise, the game looks 2014, 2016 at best. The devs tried to improve the game as much as possible, but the landscapes, a lot of the textures and the general "feel" of the sim are starting to look really dated. Keep in mind that IL-2 released in 2014 and other than 4k textures and better clouds, we haven't had that much improvements in the graphical department. Is it because there is so much we can do with the engine? That's something I'm not tech savvy enough to answer. In short, IL-2 is starting to get a bit boring to look at, a bit too "brownish". It's saving grace is its damage model that is still excellent to this day.

 

Audio-wise, I think this is another part where the game needs a big overhaul. Especially after playing MSFS where the planes sound so good. The BF-109 sounds good... but the other planes... they completely lack in terms of "raw power feel". Exterior cams are even worse, some planes almost sound like lawnmowers. But, it's not just the planes that need a revision: radio talk, guns all require some love. Guns are passable, radio talk is horrible after playing this game for so many years.

 

But this begs the question, can it be done? Can we get such an upgrade without launching an entirely new game? IL-2 is a "live" service game, so we can't just ask players to buy a completely new game and forget about all the campaigns, collector planes and expansions that they bought.

[DD_Arthur]

7 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

But this begs the question, can it be done? Can we get such an upgrade without launching an entirely new game? IL-2 is a "live" service game, so we can't just ask players to buy a completely new game and forget about all the campaigns, collector planes and expansions that they bought.

The short answer to the above is no - in my opinion.

However, if the question is will players buy a completely new game with state of the art graphics, PBR textures, up to date flight physics, VR from the ground up, etc. then the answer is an emphatic yes.

 

It happened with ‘46 and it would have happened with Cliffs if they’d got it right.

 

Everyone loves bling. Just don’t expect the old rags to still fit.

[Jade_Monkey]

Go to the DD section, you have quite a bit of catching up to do, especially DD332.

 

 

[Thorne]

I play both IL2 an DCS a fair amount in VR - DCS a lot less now because performance is so inconsistent. I've slowly come to find that IL2 looks better in a many circumstances, it's mostly how the engine handles light propagating through the atmosphere and interacting with clouds. On the other side the maps don't look great, but I don't think they could look much better without messing up performance/price.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Thorne

[Skycat1969]

As a VR flyer I think Great Battles found the right balance for a combat sim. MSFS and DCS are great for at what they do, but both are more taxing on CPU and GPU. Would I like to have DCS Channel Map quality airfields in Great Battles? Yes. However, I don't think the DCS Normandy or Crimea maps are so significantly better than their Great Battles counterparts that Great Battles should be regarded an outdated sim and ignored completely.

 

I would like a better ground environment for Tank Crew however.  Flying Circus could benefit from that as well.

[VuIture]

I have installed and deleted both DCS and MSFS close to 10 times in the last 2 years. Never once deleted IL2 since 2015, thats how much better those two other games are doing it. 

[Numl0k]

57 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

The short answer to the above is no - in my opinion.

However, if the question is will players buy a completely new game with state of the art graphics, PBR textures, up to date flight physics, VR from the ground up, etc. then the answer is an emphatic yes.

 

It happened with ‘46 and it would have happened with Cliffs if they’d got it right.

 

Everyone loves bling. Just don’t expect the old rags to still fit.

 

I'm in complete agreement. It's a hard truth, though. In my short time here, I've seen that so many people here have been so dedicated to this series for so long. It's really quite beautiful. People have spent many hours, and quite a bit of their hard earned money, on IL-2. The community is strong, and dedicated. The BoX series seems to be a great path, but at a certain point, they'll have to make a major overhaul. And with my baseline (But limited) understanding of game engines, that means that they may have to make a major step that will make a lot of people mad; Move away from BoX and start fresh. 

 

This will cause a lot of anger, and a lot of pain. People will feel like they've lost something, and it will be true, unless the devs come up with a way to port the maps and aircraft folks have bought to the hypothetical next generation of the game (Which would hurt profits for the next generation, because their pricing model may involve selling planes that already exist in BoX). Sure, people could continue playing BoX (Though maybe at a limited capacity, since I'd imagine they won't leave the servers running forever, and much of the game does seem to depend on the centralized servers...), but that would split the player base. If they don't shut the game down by force, some people will stay on BoX because of their collection of planes, or the communities they've built, or even just because their PC won't be powerful enough for the next generation (Shoot, my rig is halfway decent, and even I start to drop frames pretty bad when the skies start getting thick). 

 

It's a tough situation for the devs to be in. They could easily fall victim to the sunk cost fallacy, and continue BoX indefinitely, until some other company decides to compete with them with better graphics and a better engine and make it hard to keep up with the already dated looking BoX series. Or, they could start fresh, and risk alienating a huge chunk of their player base, and bank on the possibility of drawing in new players to replace them.  

 

Even if they decided to keep the BoX series going, and just make some major overhauls, that could be a tough choice too. I'll give the example of World of Warcraft. It originally launched in 2004, and it is still going strong today. Obviously there have been numerous expansions, which is to be expected. But if you look at the graphics, interface, and various user experience systems, it looks like a completely different game. They've overhauled the graphics, audio, just about everything. It's a great example of the Ship of Theseus thought experiment; If every piece has been replaced over time, is it still the same? But that thought experiment aside, a little insight from someone who was deep into the community for many years is that every step of the way we've had people complain. When there were graphical overhauls and updates to the engine, we had people who could no longer play because their PC wasn't powerful enough. And even today, we have people say that they haven't done enough, and that it still looks like a game from 2004. And when we look at WoW Classic, we see what might happen with BoX; Some people being so emotionally invested in the old game that they'd rather play that than the "latest and greatest". 

 

Personally, I'd love to see them take the hard path and start from scratch. Even though I just bought myself into the series, and literally just purchased all of the DLC packs aside from Normandy, I wouldn't mind taking a loss on that and seeing what these guys can do with a more modern system. Shoot, maybe they'll even throw a massive curveball at us and keep the BoX series going and continually maintained as it has been, while simultaneously starting up a new series that's based around more modern warplanes from the jet era to compete with DCS World. That would require a huge expansion of their studio though, but it could be cool.

[GasTeddy]

What ever will be done, do not make it more demanding for pc, as my prehistoric mill runs it now with low settings relatively well. More demanding graphics and I'm out until stronger pc.

[Sybreed]

1 minute ago, GasTeddy said:

What ever will be done, do not make it more demanding for pc, as my prehistoric mill runs it now with low settings relatively well. More demanding graphics and I'm out until stronger pc.

 

Hate to be that guy, but at this point you should be looking to upgrade. Even a 5 years old PC should run IL-2 without any issue at max settings.

[Noisemaker]

9 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

 

Hate to be that guy, but at this point you should be looking to upgrade. Even a 5 years old PC should run IL-2 without any issue at max settings.

I run IL-2 on a 10 year old PC on max settings.  Stop being ageist. 

[Irishratticus72]

I get 165fps in VR at 4k with this bad boy. Prove me wrong!

[WheelwrightPL]

I would gladly pay for the "remastered" versions of Stalingrad and Kuban maps redone in Unreal Engine 5.1, with all assets replaced by higher fidelity ones. Let's keep the physics and airplane geometry unchanged for now, but only upgrade some of the more glaring low-res textures (like seats, and some other cockpit details). The way Unreal 5.1 renders realistic trees without losing performance is a major breakthrough. And that extends to large forests (100000 individual trees) viewed from above, which is obviously a perfect fit for flight sims. Also, compared to Unreal 4, with Unreal 5.1 the supported world area got expanded from 22 square km to 88 million square km (!!), because the built-in coordinate system is orders of magnitude more precise. That's again a huge deal for flight sims. For more info see here:

 

[FuriousMeow]

There's more to a flight sim engine than pretty graphics with lots of trees and 64bit coords/larger maps. That's why every one is custom built.

[=621=Samikatz]

Re: The audio stuff, they advertised on their Telegram channel a couple weeks ago that they were hiring a new audio-person specifically for Il-2, though the posting has since been closed. I imagine that is going to see some improvements at some point

[Lusekofte]

1 hour ago, VuIture said:

I have installed and deleted both DCS and MSFS close to 10 times in the last 2 years. Never once deleted IL2 since 2015, thats how much better those two other games are doing it. 

Opposite for me GB has a very dead environment. Sometimes I struggle to find any use for it. It is uninstalled now. To make room for more content on DCS and MSFS. If this get to be modernised, for god sake Make a more complex engine dm. General dm and make it take more planes into a mission. Make it so 4 engined ai at least can be part of it. Befor any graphics get improved

[BlitzPig_EL]

The Unreal engine is wholly unsuited to combat flight simulation.

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, GasTeddy said:

What ever will be done, do not make it more demanding for pc, as my prehistoric mill runs it now with low settings relatively well. More demanding graphics and I'm out until stronger pc.

 

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but at some point those with decrepit computers are going to have to make a hard decision about upgrading. They can't support those with the lowest of low-end hardware forever. 

[Jade_Monkey]

2 hours ago, Skycat1969 said:

As a VR flyer I think Great Battles found the right balance for a combat sim. MSFS and DCS are great for at what they do, but both are more taxing on CPU and GPU. Would I like to have DCS Channel Map quality airfields in Great Battles? Yes. However, I don't think the DCS Normandy or Crimea maps are so significantly better than their Great Battles counterparts that Great Battles should be regarded an outdated sim and ignored completely.

 

I would like a better ground environment for Tank Crew however.  Flying Circus could benefit from that as well.

 

I agree for the most part. I think DCS and MSFS do lighting a bit better. I also like how the channel map in DCS has smaller villages and factories scattered organically instead of having a very clear demarcation of town vs countryside.

 

I fully agree with TC, the tanks are awesome, especially in VR, but the view from the ground is lacking a lot of detail.

 

Regardless, IL2 is my go-to sim, it has the best balance of all the features that I like. If o kynit could handle more objects without time dilation and it would let you take over other AI planes like in DCS, I'd be fully satisfied.

[danielprates]

3 hours ago, Skycat1969 said:

would like a better ground environment for Tank Crew however. 

 

I would much prefer even a simple combined arms experience with the dummiest of soldiers fighting alongside the tanks, like in Steel Fury Kharkov, before a mere eyecandy improvement. Not everyone will trade a complex, enjoyable game for a plainer but better looking one.

[CAG_Krakenskulls]

I think IL2 still looks great for a flight sim. Agreed ground textures should get updated for tank crew but lets be honest, ground vehicles is not the main draw of this game, they can sacrifice a bit there.

 

IL2 needs 4 engine bombers and AI upgrades before any visual upgrades. WHERES MY B17 TO BERLIN ESCORT MISSIONS AT!?

Edited December 24, 2022 by II./JG52_Krakenskulls

[dburne]

23 minutes ago, II./JG52_Krakenskulls said:

I think IL2 still looks great for a flight sim. Agreed ground textures should get updated for tank crew but lets be honest, ground vehicles is not the main draw of this game, they can sacrifice a bit there.

 

IL2 needs 4 engine bombers and AI upgrades before any visual upgrades. WHERES MY B17 TO BERLIN ESCORT MISSIONS AT!?

 

Also needs a complete revamp of comms for single player.

[Dragon1-1]

Yup, improved comms would be great. Right now, the system is basically nonexistent. There's a few canned commands you can give AI wingmen, and there's way too much happening automatically. It would also be nice if the wingmen didn't fly like dolts and need constant babysitting (OK, that one might be historically accurate...).

[Skycat1969]

1 hour ago, II./JG52_Krakenskulls said:

WHERES MY B17 TO BERLIN ESCORT MISSIONS AT!?

Microprose owns all B-17 missions to Berlin. 

[Mtnbiker1998]

For vr at least, I find IL-2 looks way better than DCS or MSFS for one simple reason; I can run IL-2 at much higher settings. Sure they look great at ultra settings but I could care less if its a slideshow in my headset.

 

Msfs at least has the excuse of being very clearly built for future hardware, but dcs is just a dumpsterfire of more eye candy being strapped onto an ancient engine. Its consistently run like trash on all my different hardware since 2014, and thats why I stopped giving them money or a spot on my ssd.

 

So yeah, as a VR user Great Battles is right where it should be.

[S10JlAbraxis]

I still prefer Great Battles over DCS due to the overall experience being far more coherent (MSFS does not count since there is no combat).  I like the idea of the pilot careers vs the single missions in DCS which seem so disconnected and quickly get boring.  However, I do agree that it is time for an update and if that means starting a new product so be it.  Areas I would like to see improvements in Great Battles include (in no particular order):

• Better map detail.  Even the Normandy map has huge areas with nothing but ground texture and trees and feels very empty in places.  It needs more farms, small villages, industry, barges/ships, roads and points of interest.  Also, the ground texture needs to be higher res and more varied.
• Improved communication with, and control of, AI aircraft in single player.  
• Wingman that attempt to stay with you and call out threats. 
• More interaction with ground control calling out intercepts, getting course to home base etc.
• More dynamic and unpredictable missions and more mission types. 
• All active airports should be populated with aircraft that may intercept if you stray too close.
• Ability to have more aircraft in the air at one time.  Doesn’t need to be hundreds - even doubling current numbers would add a lot.
• More active missions ongoing at once (same as current feature but more covering a wider area).
• Ground fires from crashed aircraft and destroyed buildings/vehicles should burn much longer.
• 4 engine bombers - AI controlled only is fine.
• Lighting (nav lights/exaust flames/interior indicator lights) on aircraft should be real sources of light not just brighter textures. 
• Cocpit and instrument lights should allow adjustment to brightness if available in the real aircraft.
• 8K PBR textures for aircraft.
• More detailed damage modeling including hydraulic and electrical failures. Panels can rip off exposing underlying structure/engine.
• More dynamic and distinct aircraft engine sounds.
• Fuel management/drop tanks as was previously planned.
• Build on the great improvements to clouds with truly dynamic weather that can change from clear at mission start to stormy as conditions change.
• Your alter ego pilot has a specific aircraft assigned that can degrade over time from wear and battle damage and eventually need replacement.
• Occasional mechanical failure causing the need to RTB or bail out/crash land.

This is my wish list. I am not holding my breath. I don’t think clickable cockpits are needed as they are a pain to deal with and I would much rather use my HOTAS.  

 

 

 

[BlitzPig_EL]

And a Cray to run it on?

[354thFG_Drewm3i-VR]

14 hours ago, GasTeddy said:

What ever will be done, do not make it more demanding for pc, as my prehistoric mill runs it now with low settings relatively well. More demanding graphics and I'm out until stronger pc.

No offense, but you have to pay to play. If you don't want to, keep playing GB or go play CLoD (2d) or IL-2 1946.

 

Why should people who invest thousands into cpus, gpus, vr, and peripherals have to be stuck with a sim with so many limitations when it's obvious that the team could do much more on a better engine?

 

Also, a better engine may even result in better performance on even older pcs if more cpu cores are leveraged properly.

13 hours ago, WheelwrightPL said:

I would gladly pay for the "remastered" versions of Stalingrad and Kuban maps redone in Unreal Engine 5.1, with all assets replaced by higher fidelity ones. Let's keep the physics and airplane geometry unchanged for now, but only upgrade some of the more glaring low-res textures (like seats, and some other cockpit details). The way Unreal 5.1 renders realistic trees without losing performance is a major breakthrough. And that extends to large forests (100000 individual trees) viewed from above, which is obviously a perfect fit for flight sims. Also, compared to Unreal 4, with Unreal 5.1 the supported world area got expanded from 22 square km to 88 million square km (!!), because the built-in coordinate system is orders of magnitude more precise. That's again a huge deal for flight sims. For more info see here:

 

I agree a new graphics engine is needed, but we also need major improvements related to physics, ballistics, and flight models.

Edited December 25, 2022 by drewm3i-VR

[simfan2015]

Every possible scenario has been discussed. It is quite obvious though that they will take a different route. 

One that maybe nobody even predicted!? 

But whatever they decided, I, personally, hope the business model of it is sound. 

If, like I did, people bought everything GB has to offer then, by now, they already have a rather complete european battlefield experience. 

DCS is competing with the European theatre as well as in short time PTO. 

I therefore do wonder what they will come up with that will bring in the money they need to go on with that new or revised title!? 

[LLv24_SukkaVR]

13 hours ago, GasTeddy said:

What ever will be done, do not make it more demanding for pc, as my prehistoric mill runs it now with low settings relatively well. More demanding graphics and I'm out until stronger pc.

 

But why should others suffer because someone doesn't have powerful enough PC? Why drag down the progress because some guy is too cheap/poor/lazy to buy a new pc? This game doesn't revolve around you my friend.

Edited December 25, 2022 by LLv24_SukkaVR

[simfan2015]

If 1C ever decides to start a new sim from scratch I do hope they target RTX 5090+ graphics and DM. 

It takes an awfull long time to develop any new flightsim anyway. 

If not... I might just as well stick with il-2 GB with Mods!? 

GasTeddy might not be pleased... that's for sure ?

. 

[dburne]

1 hour ago, simfan2015 said:

If 1C ever decides to start a new sim from scratch I do hope they target RTX 5090+ graphics and DM. 

It takes an awfull long time to develop any new flightsim anyway. 

If not... I might just as well stick with il-2 GB with Mods!? 

GasTeddy might not be pleased... that's for sure ?

. 

 

The higher specs targeted the smaller the audience.  One selling point of IL-2 GB is it runs great on a wide variety of systems. Even in VR.

[simfan2015]

2 hours ago, dburne said:

The higher specs targeted the smaller the audience.

Indeed dburne.

But in 2014 IL-2 GB (and CloD before it) were more demanding at that time.

Developing a new sim from scratch in 2023 (???) and releasing it in, say, 2027 should better target average systems as they will exist by then.

Of course *IF* it would ever become a reality.

As we still, AFAIK, have no idea about anything regarding further development everything is speculation and -in my case- wishfull thinking.     

Edited December 25, 2022 by simfan2015

[Picchio]

Ahem, before we talk any more nonsense about hardware performance targets, perhaps we should remind ourselves that high-end GPUs have become impossibly expensive? Or have you not noticed how the market changed?

[dburne]

48 minutes ago, Picchio said:

Ahem, before we talk any more nonsense about hardware performance targets, perhaps we should remind ourselves that high-end GPUs have become impossibly expensive? Or have you not noticed how the market changed?

 

Yep impossibly expensive and very hard to get (at retail).

[simfan2015]

Ok, but then people better stop complaining about il-2 graphics. I bought a new system, a.o. because I wanted to enjoy il-2 GB the way it could be (VR, highest settings). I am willing to do it again and again if it improves the experience. 

YMMV.

[sevenless]

15 hours ago, dburne said:

 

Also needs a complete revamp of comms for single player.

 

Oh yes. That what is present in GB is not even up to par with Il-1946. Never understood that game design limitation.

[BraveSirRobin]

24 minutes ago, sevenless said:

 

Oh yes. That what is present in GB is not even up to par with Il-1946. Never understood that game design limitation.

Probably because GB was just a modified version of RoF.  Radio comms isn’t really a thing in WW1 aircraft.

[Jaws2002]

23 minutes ago, sevenless said:

 

Oh yes. That what is present in GB is not even up to par with Il-1946. Never understood that game design limitation.

All this is a financial decision, done by 1C, immediately after CLOD was released. They chose to abandon that advanced engine, that could do everything we miss in this game, for the cute, but utterly limited ROF engine.  I knew back then that we are going to lose ten years of progress with that move, but that was their decision.

  Heavy bombers, large formations, better texture and materials handling, vastly superior lighting, at least back in the day, working comms, they had it all, but threw it in the garbage. 

 Now we are back to square one, over ten years later, and we still don't have those basic features.

[RyanR]

If you crank up the graphics settings and use good audio hardware, IL-2 still makes the grade. Very impressive. Flight models are quite excellent. Ultimately, I see AI improvements being where development needs to be. The AI is still pretty good when you consider how difficult it is to put the "I" in AI. Radio comms are a close second.

 

MSFS isn't a yardstick for our genre. MSFS simply has to look good and have the avionics work. Flight models don't need to be spot on. It still hit the market with unthinkable bugs. A good friend told me the wheel brakes were buggered.

 

DCS is combat, but.... again.... not our jam. The emphasis is on much more modern combat, where avionics is more important than all else. A lot of the WWII-era aircraft modules in DCS are pretty old now. The kid in me grew up with Falcon on an Atari ST, so I would like to mess around with the F-16 in DCS.

 

-Ryan

[S10JlAbraxis]

13 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

And a Cray to run it on?

Time moves on as does hardware and therefor so must software to remain relevant and competitive in the market.

 

"A Cray-1's raw computational power of 80 million floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) is laughable by today's standards; the graphics unit inside the iPhone 5s produces about 76.8 GFLOPS – nearly a thousand times more. And surely, the iPhone can render 3D graphics looking better than Tron's Lightcycle scene. On a related note, the Cray-2 supercomputer was released 10 years after the Cray-1 and was the world's fastest supercomputer until 1990. But even with a performance of up to 1.9 GFLOPS, the liquid-cooled, 200-kilowatt machine still ranks behind the Apple iPhone, at least when it comes to GFLOPS ratings."

 

Also todays flight sims bearly scratch the surface of efficiently using the increadable power of modern CPUs and GPUs.