[REPORTED] Whatever happened to the shallows?

[Lixma 06]

1.5.x

 

 

2.x

 

[Varis]

Sharp eyes, lad :thumbup: The 1.5 one looks much more like a real photo for colours as well :huh:

[imacken]

I think you don’t have Water set to high in 2.5.

Edited December 25, 2018 by imacken

[Worrazen]

Sharp eyes, lad :thumbup: The 1.5 one looks much more like a real photo for colours as well :huh:

 

 

The new engine, map tech, ground textures all affect the final look, but a new engine/maptech may give different results even if you would use same settings/materials, that's normal and it may just need some global color/light grading and finetuning.

 

 

 

Especially now when PBR is being expanded and as things move into that direction, things will keep chaning as thing evolve, and the whole lighting may already be adjusted from time to time but as new textures are introduced it so it can be seen as a back-and-forth on the outside.

 

 

 

There will be a lot more changes like this and things should eventually look more correct in all lighting/color aspects once the big HDR/WCG ITU Rec. 2100 tech rolls out, but again, expect a period of changing looks, period of when the tech is introduced, finetuned, etc etc.

 

 

 

You aslo need to count in that lighting(weather) plays an important role in real-life too and your idea of realism may be just one of those many cases, plus, these consumer cameras aren't anywhere near similar to how human eyes percieve reality, and there's no HDR/WCG Photos out there, it's all 8-bit still, even if HDR ones are, you can't view it with an just an 8-bit monitor. All the "HDR" stuff you see out there is still mostly fake HDR.

Edited December 25, 2018 by Worrazen

[Lixma 06]

I think you don’t have Water set to high in 2.5.

 

Nah, it's on 'High'.

 

Fly around Gelendzhik bay (or anywhere) there's little to no shallows any more.

 

Previous Batumi compared to current Batumi -

 

 

[Precog]

Well spotted....the shallows look great in 1.5.

[Goa]

for some reason 2.5 look more like "cartoon" style compared to 1.5 which despite was old tech in certain aspects looked more "realistic"

[Torso]

Normandy had similar issues and even Persian Gulf, at least in regards to lack of shallows approaching shore, no water color gradient change,etc. and ONLY after it was noted by folks and stated just how terrible it looked and in no way compared to the actual terrain they finally went in and made some changes to improve them(Not entirely sure why no one at ED could see the issues for themselves and we had to point them out to them). It looks like the same thing needs to be done for Caucasus. I mean 1.5 version simply blows the current out the water in those screenshot. That is really sad and should not be. It really seems like this current engine is just lacking in several key areas or they just do not have a complete handle on making it sing. It does have a more 'cartoony' look than 1.5 had. Maybe DCS 3.0 will deliver the goods.

[BitMaster]

In my very personal view, Flanker1 to DCS 2.5 looks like a cartoon. I never liked the colours, no matter what version. It's one of the things I would do if I had something to say. Make it look non-cartoon like. The models are so cool and the scenery lacks behind.

 

There are nice spots and scenes, but they could be so much better if the colour and appearence was "better"...whatever that means for anybody but me.

[fjacobsen]

From a distance I find 1.5 looked beter than 2.5.

It is only close on that the opposit is true. Textures are better and so are scenery mesh, but 1.5 looked more photo real from higher altitudes

 

 

Personally I find the performance impact 2.5 has made, compared to 1.5, was not worth it. Looking on these comparisation screenshots tells alot.

[SonofEil]

Personally I never liked the colors in 1.X. To me it was like playing with a mild case of cataracts. The whole Caucuses map was very much showing its age, from textures and lighting to terrain poly count and 3D ground detail. In fact, other than trees the 3D ground details in Caucuses are still glaringly bare when compared to the DLC maps. And yes, there are absolutely situations where 2.5 looks hyper saturated and cartoon-ish and coastline gradients are unfortunately non existent. But overall 2.5 has been a net gain, a long needed improvement that’s still a young WIP.

 

Regarding all of the other too-many-to-list improvements that ED has promised for years and years and failed to deliver: I don’t think it has anything to do with a lack of caring or lack of desire to see DCS be the best. I find that suggestion pretty insulting, especially when all evidence points to the contrary. Everyone involved with DCS, from the directors to the testers, are clearly passionate about flight simulation in general and DCS in particular. The problem I think is a serious lack of resource availability combined with a constant underestimation of the scale of the difficulties in retrofitting an old legacy program into a modern graphical environment.

Edited December 29, 2018 by SonofEil

[Wolf8312]

I prefer 2.5 and think it looks beautiful, though it does have problems with lighting. Normandy cartoon trees are atrocious when flying with ones back to the sun and night lighting was better in 1.5. But in VR the new colors help a lot, as it all used to look so washed out before!

[NineLine]

This was reported internally some time ago, I don't think the fix is as easy as the other maps as the Black Sea map are more of a hybrid of old and new tech, unlike other maps that are all new tech. But at any rate, its known and been reported.

[Lixma 06]

There is a hint of them but it's faint. Perhaps the new water isn't as transparent as the old?

 

[imacken]

This was reported internally some time ago, I don't think the fix is as easy as the other maps as the Black Sea map are more of a hybrid of old and new tech, unlike other maps that are all new tech. But at any rate, its known and been reported.

Thanks NineLine, however, I can't really see any difference between Caucasus and any of the other maps in terms of the 'shallows'. I can't see any - shallows, that is!

Normandy just goes from beach to very dark sea (with terrible lapping 'waves' to shore animations) and PG is no different.

(I have Water set to high, in case anyone asks.)

[DflippinK]

Thanks NineLine, however, I can't really see any difference between Caucasus and any of the other maps in terms of the 'shallows'. I can't see any - shallows, that is!

Normandy just goes from beach to very dark sea (with terrible lapping 'waves' to shore animations) and PG is no different.

(I have Water set to high, in case anyone asks.)

 

 

+1... same here.

[NineLine]

I can see shoreline in the PG map, yes it goes deep fairly quickly, but its similar to what can be seen there. I don't think it was ever meant to be an exact representation of the shore, but again, I think it does fine. Man-made ports would not show much either for obvious reasons.

[NineLine]

Normandy looks fine as well.

[imacken]

OK, so I think I know what's going on here. I think it's Kegetys mod that's causing this effect of 'no shallows' that some of us are seeing in Normandy and PG. See attached. first is 2.5.4 with Kegetys and other is 2.5.3 stable without.

Both stable and OB have exact same settings.

This is a shame, as this mod does help in VR, but there are visual downsides of using it in VR and 2D, e.g. sun, grass and now water.

It could also be 2.5.4 vs 2.5.3 as I can't be bothered uninstalling the mod to try, but I suspect it is the mod that's causing this.

[imacken]

OK, so I can confirm it's the Kegetys mod. I uninstalled it in 2.5.4, and, sure enough, all the shallows are there in PG and Normandy. In fact, so many things look so much better without it. I'm going to try VR without it and see what settings I will need to reduce to get an acceptable performance.

[Sandman1330]

OK, so I can confirm it's the Kegetys mod. I uninstalled it in 2.5.4, and, sure enough, all the shallows are there in PG and Normandy. In fact, so many things look so much better without it. I'm going to try VR without it and see what settings I will need to reduce to get an acceptable performance.

 

My understanding of Kegety’s mod is that it helps alleviate GPU usage, allowing midrange GPUs to run slightly higher MSAA or other settings without impacting FPS.

 

I’ve never run it, as my bottleneck is CPU and I struggle to get full GPU usage as it is. I suspect with the beast of a system that you have, you’ll be in the same boat. Your 8700 has better single core than my Ryzen, but I’d bet it still struggles to feed your monster 2080ti. I think you’ll likely see very little gain from Kegety’s mod. Crank up those visual settings!

[imacken]

My understanding of Kegety’s mod is that it helps alleviate GPU usage, allowing midrange GPUs to run slightly higher MSAA or other settings without impacting FPS.

 

I’ve never run it, as my bottleneck is CPU and I struggle to get full GPU usage as it is. I suspect with the beast of a system that you have, you’ll be in the same boat. Your 8700 has better single core than my Ryzen, but I’d bet it still struggles to feed your monster 2080ti. I think you’ll likely see very little gain from Kegety’s mod. Crank up those visual settings!

We probably shouldn't turn this into a discussion about Kegetys mod, but....

In 2D, I have all visual settings cranked up and running in 4K. The issue here is that the mod is useful in VR, but not in 2D. However, in the same DCS install, it is not possible to have it enabled in VR and disabled in 2D.

Now that I have discovered that the mod is causing the lack of 'shallows' that has been described here, I will keep the mod disabled, and accept a slightly lower performance in VR.