quote:

If I don't know they are there, how could I possibly get upset about not seeing them? Because as far as I know, they are not even there....

I use this approach too... and indeed, it works fine.
Though the good part of it ends when I have to type "S! <insert pilotname>, I never saw ya comin'!"

Ya beat me to it FT, aren't tracers purty up close?

quote:

Originally posted by TX-Gunslinger:

As you may be aware, an Il2 track file will always render relative the the graphic settings of the individual computer that the playback occurs on, not the recording platform.

emmm i had forgotten about that part

the video quality of the scenery of the tracks you posted looks very poor to me (not the inside of the cockpit), and this is much worse then what i can see on my own pc normally (for ex during the campaigns i am currently playing, or when playing online).

on your tracks i can spot the dots over ice/snow fairly well from the higher altitudes, but i think that is purely because the ice has a uniform white background. over forest/grassland they are almost impossible to see on your tracks from 5000 meters, even when you use the max-zoom view to take a closer look .

from what i see in your tracks i also seriously doubt that you could locate a dot and keep track of it over forest/grassland from 3000 meters, if you were not using the max zoomed view. that is a problem because in real life under normal conditions you should be able to see them.

quote:

Originally posted by TX-Gunslinger: And yes, your exactly correct, my setup is maximized for detection - not beauty. There are some compromises, because even I have a tolerence level Particularly, I can't tolerate 800 X 600 which makes dots stand out like boulders. Sometimes I'll use 1280 X 1024.

My settings at the time: Monitor: Dell 2407 or 2707 native 1920 X 1280
Scaling: Fixed aspect ratio (black side bands on montitor)
Resolution: 1152 X 864
AA: None
AF: None

why are you using those resolutions on a 24' or 27' widescreen monitor ? you are not using the full screen, and have black bars on the sides !

quote:

Originally posted by TX-Gunslinger:
Nvidea control panel Adjust Desktop Color Settings
Color channel Red:
Brightness = + 57%
Contrast = + 45%
Color channel Green:
Brightness = + 45%
Contrast = + 50%
Color channel Blue:
Brightness = + 55%
Contrast = + 60%

Sharpening (all channels) = 60%

i suspect you have made those adjustments to improve il2 gameplay, it doesnt sound like normal callibration settings

and *cough**cough*, where have the rear cockpit struts gone from your 190 cockpit ? looks like you have full 180 degree visibility

the way you use your pc is to maximize visibility in il2, and that is your choice.

my argument is that with a correctly calibrated monitor, and the right FoV setting for your monitor size, you should have the same "dot spotting" ability in il2 that you would have in real life when you look out of your cockpit from the same altitude/distance to the enemy aircraft. sadly, that is not the case.

to get back to the original point, all other variables being the same, i still believe that people using 6 bit TN based monitors can spot dots much better, because the grey/black dots stand out more.

we still need a test track where there is a string of il2 aircraft dots at various distances, so people can comment on how far they can exactly see those dots at with their current setup i think you'll find the spotting/tracking distance can vary as much as 50% depending on the hardware setup and gfx settings.

quote:

Originally posted by Jaws2002:

quote:

you cannot adjust mp_dotrange in QMB.

Yes you can but it resets to default every time you start a new sortie.

I added this line:
@a i mp_dotrange TYPE 5 ID 5 RANGE 5 COLOR 5 DOT 25
in the RCU file (you'll find it in the il2 folder) and I don't have to write the whole sentence the every time. All I have to do is click Shift+Tab, type i in the console and hit enter. With this you'll make the dot apear at 25 kilometers instead of the default 14km during the mission.

I never knew that. Thanks.

quote:

Originally posted by ElAurens:
Wow, sacrificing the beauty of this sim just to get kills online.

I had no idea so many of you guys gamed the game, as it were.

Honestly, I don't know what to think about this.
It just seems so wrong, like FPS kiddies jacking up the gamma for "night vision".

Oh well, carry on. I'll just crawl back under my rock here.

Sorry El but i gotta disagree with this(and yes iv read the rest of the thread).from what iv read and heard about pilots of any era is that excellent eye sight is a given,and the aces (ie.chuck yeager and the like)seemed to all have superb eye sight,easly further then the default 14km

I have my dots moved out to 22km as this is the rough distance that I read that pilots can see too.but i also have my icons in nice and close as i like to try and ID planes before i get ID and country through icons.

I have my settings at
dots=22km
range=2km
ID=.5km
colour(side)=1.5km

I'v thought about going no icons at all but i really dont think this is "realistic" at all as a monitor is no way as clear as the human eye in the real world so this is a perfect comprimise for me.

I find these to be very fun yet challanging for how i like to play,Am i "gaming" the game?hell no,Am i cheating?definatly not.


"Full real" is anything but,i wish ppl would stop calling "full switch" real,and anythng that isn't default,"gaming" the game.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: skarden,

quote:

Originally posted by TX-Gunslinger:
This is very hard to test in QMB as Jaws described - you cannot adjust mp_dotrange (as far as I know, and I've tried about everything over the years) in QMB.

Shift-Tab to open console, then just type mp_dotrange (without the ">" that you'd use when using the command in the chat window).

The host be it server/coop can limit these dot settings to what ever they want? I presume,or so I've been told.

quote:

Originally posted by steiner562:
The host be it server/coop can limit these dot settings to what ever they want? I presume,or so I've been told.

That is correct. The host of an online server/coop can set all aspects of the mp_dotrange command for the server.

From my experience, technology is the main difference in full real servers. Graphics settings, monitor resolution, hardware, etc., make so much more difference in a full server than a sever with externals on.

There are so many ways to gain advantages with technology in a full switch server, that are absolutely moot on an externals enabled server.

That's probably my favorite type of server, all switches ON except for No Externals. I just wish we could turn-off the "padlock" aspect of externals.

so does anybody here know how to make a track that has a series of low flying aircraft at known distance intervals, so people here could easily compare how far they can see the dots at ?

it could be done with the dots over forest, or grasland etc. the distant aircraft need to all fly at the same altitude, and they need to all be the same size (like a me109 with a 10m wingspan), then the objects we look at are standardised. the aircraft should be at fixed intervals, like 500 or 1000 meters, up to a distance of about 10 or 15 km.

i think that even if we standardize the viewers settings, eg point of view from fixed altitude above the distant dots so we look down on them, FoV setting correctly set for monitor size etc.. we are likely to find there is a major difference in how far people can see these dots at. but rather then speculate, we can get some idea of what exact distance we can see them at.

why is this usefull ?

as a ww2 aircraft combat simulator, the ability to locate, track, and then identify aircraft correctly within our "combat envelope" is very important. if this visibility is significantly reduced, you cant simulate the experience of a real ww2 pilot. when you read about historical experiences of ww2 pilots locating and tracking enemy aircraft at various distances, this is something that is a MAJOR problem in il2, and probably one of its greatest weaknesses. yes, there are specific circumstances where aircraft can be hard to spot in real life to, but the inverse is the case in il2, they are nearly impossible to spot most of the time ! (note: using a zoomed view is a form of "gaming the game", no ww2 pilots flew around with binoculars strapped to their faces)

right now i suspect that for most people who have a roughly correctly setup pc, their dot spotting/tracking ability is reduced very significantly compared to real life, probably down to 30% of normal visibility, and they are flying in a mini bubble.

from what i can make out so far, the only people that find this less of an issue with this on modern flat panel displays, are either those using 6 bit lcd monitors, or those that have artificially distorted their video settings.

How do you change the FOV setting?

Seeing aircraft at range has always been a pet peave of mine. It is A LOT easier in this sim than in real life. I hate to compare, but if you'd like a more realistic example try LockOn. We are missing haze (and other factors) and more so than not, its around. I don't know why anyone complains about not seeing something at 15 or 20km, you shouldn't normally unless you already knew it was there and then you'd still have to look for it.

quote:

Originally posted by VBF-12_sluggo:
How do you change the FOV setting?

It has to be set/assigned in the control menu,I think "toggle FOV" is the command,probably other options/commands also but thats the one I assigned to a button on my throttle.

quote:

note: using a zoomed view is a form of "gaming the game", no ww2 pilots flew around with binoculars strapped to their faces

The zoomed view is the opposite of this. It makes objects subjectively appear as big as they would in real life. (You can do the trig to show this).

The wide angle views are more akin to a pilot using binoculars the wrong way round (but with a fish eye lens in there somewhere).

Aaron, how can you say the gunsight is more like real life.. Surely for someone on a 17" monitor ir is, but if I am using a 52" LCD real life is probably smaller than the default field of view and gunsight view would make things absolutely enormous.

Just a thought.

quote:

Originally posted by BSS_Sniper:
Seeing aircraft at range has always been a pet peave of mine. It is A LOT easier in this sim than in real life. I hate to compare, but if you'd like a more realistic example try LockOn. We are missing haze (and other factors) and more so than not, its around. I don't know why anyone complains about not seeing something at 15 or 20km, you shouldn't normally unless you already knew it was there and then you'd still have to look for it.

except of course that there is a significant difference in what all the different il2 users actually see on their monitors, even if the exact same scene is being depicted/played in the same il2 game engine. some of the main variables that cause this variation are, screen size, distance from screen, resolution setting, type of monitor/display, gfx card type and setup/calibration etc...

add to this that not many people here have real flying experience, so they dont always know what is "normal visibility", and can then compare it to what they see on their screens. in the same vein you get some well meaning people believing that a single engine fighter suddenly becoming nearly invisible in il2 at 400 or 500m (under certain conditions) is actually normal because that plane has camouflage painting, but it would in fact take a klingon cloaking device to make these planes disappear from sight in real life

first we need a standardized way to display a series of aircraft at various distances in an il2 track as suggested earlier, once we have some ball park idea about the variation in visibility that exists on various pc's, we can then discuss what normal visibility would/should be like in real life

quote:

Originally posted by Aaron_GT:

quote:

note: using a zoomed view is a form of "gaming the game", no ww2 pilots flew around with binoculars strapped to their faces

The zoomed view is the opposite of this. It makes objects subjectively appear as big as they would in real life. (You can do the trig to show this).

The wide angle views are more akin to a pilot using binoculars the wrong way round (but with a fish eye lens in there somewhere).

nope

the degree of magnification or "shrinkage" is completely dependent on the distance the viewer is from his monitor, and the monitor size. for whatever monitor size the person has, and the distance they sit from the monitor, they will only have ONE correct FoV setting. so it varries from person to person depending on their setup

from memory, for my 27' lcd the "normal" FoV setting in il2 is 50 (viewing distance +/- 60 cm), if i use the fully zoomed gunsight view (equal to 30 degree FoV) i see in game objects artificially enlarged, if i use the 90 foV setting i have better peripheral vision but all in game objects artificially shrink down in size.

so if you can only see il2 in-game objects in their correct sizes with a fully zoomed 30 FoV setting, you are either using a 15' monitor, or il2 is modeling its in game objects incorrectly and they are dinky toy sized

quote:

Aaron, how can you say the gunsight is more like real life.. Surely for someone on a 17" monitor ir is, but if I am using a 52" LCD real life is probably smaller than the default field of view and gunsight view would make things absolutely enormous.

Most people are using monitors of a modest size at a reasonable distance. Obviously the game can't adjust itself automatically as it doesn't know the distance you are from the monitor (it would be nice if it could) but what I said will be true for the majority of people out there, even now, and would have been virtually universally true when the game was first introduced in 2001 so it made sense at the time. If typical monitor sizes get bigger then perhaps the smallest FOV available needs to get changed.

It's always going to be an issue and there's no real solution - to get sufficient detail on a modestly sized monitor you need to zoom to allow objects to subtend the right angle at the eye, but at the expense of having a very narrow field, but it does mean that those sitting close to large monitors they might have an advantage. I would imagine that someone playing on a 54" TV won't be sitting 3 feet away.

In your investigations it might be worth surveying the sizes of monitors people have to see what sizes are most common.

Just tagging onto this post without reading all the others.

After a time one gets to know the shape of the enemy (dots if you like) from a distance and can usually make an accurate call for engagement.

There are times however where one's identification of enemy aircraft fails and an engagement of friendly aircraft occurs resulting in great shame and humiliation (particularly when you execute a perfect burn job). I do this with about 10% of engagements and it ****s me every time particularly when they scream "number one... that's a friendly your shooting at" after they're already dancing with gravity.

Bottom line is this, no matter what your system is, try using familiarity as your key identifier without the red and blue ID tags, it will be the most accurate to what really happened and presents some interesting challenges as well.

Cheers, CrazySchmidt.

Here it is again:

tully,

your illustration is usefull to demonstrate the principles involved (screen size representing a degree of your field of view, which is represented by the FoV setting in il2), but it would be more accurate to keep the viewer distance from the screen the same, and alter the FoV number represented by the various screen sizes.

i find the following concepts usefull to keep in mind:
- different monitor/display technologies will have a different ideal (or "correct") viewing distance. this will be different for crt, lcd, plasma, rear projection screens, projector screens etc... those ballpark numbers are very straight forward to determine, and videophiles have discussed this for many yrs.
- for lcd pc monitors the viewing distance will be roughly the same with monitors between 19' and 28', because the technology of the display is similar and pixel size at native resolution is fairly similar (yes dot pitch varies up to 15%, but its a similar ballpark). so the wider the monitor, the larger of a field of view it represents (once monitors get larger then 28' different principles apply, and similarly some very small laptop screens might have relatively high resolutions and small pixels).
- having a higher resolution image on screen will let you sit closer to the monitor because the image is less subject to pixillation, the lower the resolution the more ugly it will look close up so people sit back a little more to let the pixels blend in better and have a smooth image..

since dots representing distant aircraft are made up of a small fixed numbers of pixels in the il2 gfx engine, the bigger the pixels the easier they would be to see (hence some people game-the-game by lowering the resolution, and sitting closer to their screens), but .....

what hasnt been quantified and objectively confirmed, all other things being equal, is that there is a BIG variation in how well different people can see these "same sized" il2 dots on screen. some people can barely spot them at 1500m or 2km, others can see them up to 5km etc... (looking at them against a terrain texture background, not open sky). what has been fairly consistent, is that people with 6 bit monitors (which are generally inferior at representing accurate colors) will see these grey/black dots MUCH better.

the question is, is somebody here good at using the mission builder and make us a test track so we can objectively compare it ?