Resolution

[John Cartwright]

Being a bit of a noob having only this sim for 13 years; I am concerned that I am not operating at the best resolution for spotting. Frpm chat on TS it seems that everybody can see me well before I can spot them. Am I right in thinking that higher res is not always the best for spotting at distance? Any advice would be appreciated, and gratitude expressed through proxy by matron and her ample delights. Thank you

[=CfC= Ax]

Felt the same yesterday BD, so don't worry? 

As a rule of thumb, I always run any game at the native resolution of the monitor, else things become somewhat pixelated .

I know in other flight sims some folks reduce the the levels of Anisotropic Filtering (AF) and Anti-Aliasing (AA) to make the pixels (aircraft dots) more pronounced, thereby increasing their SA over the battlefield. Haven't tried this myself as I love my eye candy too much.

The other concerning factor is the AC models themselves and the level of detail (LOD) at which they are created. These shouldn't be tweakable by the end user, for obvious reasons.

In conclusion, experiment with varying levels of AA and AF and see what happens? 

Maybe Ted could chime in? He mentioned something along the lines of changing the native resolution to see the dots more clearly the other evening.


On a personal note, I would like to know how to increase the ground object draw distance to prevent buildings popping up as you fly.

[John Cartwright]

Thanks for that Axion. I think the pop-up thing is the game showing it's age. Not sure if there is any way one can improve that if running on perfect settings

[=CfC=Father Ted]

From what I understand BD, the LOWER the resolution the easier it is to see the dots.  I once got so frustrated with exactly the problem that you're describing that I set the res to 1024x768.  The game looked like crap, but I could see dots very easily.  The problem is that they stayed as blobs until very close - hard to identify or even just work out the attitude.  I went back to native res.

Reducing the AA will make things more "jaggy", so a moving dot should catch the eye more easily, but then everything else turns jaggy too.

A bigger monitor would help.  I'm tempted by this as RoF (hence also BoS) doesn't have this LOD problem.  If you see a dot in RoF in the widest FOV (ie zoomed out) and "zoom in", you'll see a little tiny aeroplane.  Thus a bigger monitor should allow you to see the same detail whilst not zoomed fully in.  If you zoom in with IL2 (and CloD incidentally, though MF are working on a "cure") you'll just see a bigger dot.  Or nothing at all if it's outside the draw distance.

In the end the best answer is just to fly upside down all the time.

[=CfC= Ax]

In the end the best answer is just to fly upside down all the time.

Concur, and more importantly - don't forget to 'pump' that throttle whilst doing so!

[=CfC=BlueDog]

Welcome to the club, BalDaddy.   Like you, I blunder around the virtual skies looking, but not seeing; prey to just about anyone with half decent eyeballs.   I wonder how they do it?

Some years ago I was flying with a local group; some ex-military, some current Qantas pilots.  I recall being in a formation 'push' when one of these guys called "Contact, 2 o'clock Yak 3".   My digital display clock was of little use here, but checking my Mickey Mouse watch I determined that '2 o'clock' was when the big hand was on 12 and the little hand on 2.   I looked in the '2' position; scanning conscientiously, but was unable to sight the Yak.   Finally, finally I saw this tiny, tiny dot as it climbed above the horizon.   I thought 'HTF did this guy see the target, let alone ID it?".   At that stage I acknowledged that my ability to see other aircraft in this game was pathetic.

Did a few tests and found that reducing the res helped; as did cutting down on landscape detail in the setup.   Did this by running the "Black Death" track over and over again and changing the view settings.

For me, though, the bottom line was that cutting down landscape detail gave some improvement but detracted from my enjoyment of the sim.   I'd rather miss stuff in what appeared to be a reasonable representation of the real world than become king of the eyeball castle in a blocky Atari world.   Think of the pleasure you get looking around at the scenery as you descend in your parachute or plummet to earth in your perspex shattered aircraft (sans wings).

Anyway, play around with the visual settings and see what you think.

For this sage advice I will take 4 Matron proxys and 2 ample delights. 

[=CfC=BlueDog]

...........................and if all else fails, try these:

[John Cartwright]

Thanks all for your assistance chaps. I think Ted's suggestion was a solution for Fitz sneaking up on my low six. I've tried that but it gives me a headache and everything goes red. Anyway he would then do something naughty like diving down on me instead.
As for the resolution advice, I think I would rather have things looking nice than having a higher score!
It's probably just me age and general incompetence anyway!

[CFC_Conky]

Hi BalDaddy,

I am running at the native resolution of my monitor, which is 1680X1050, I think. That said, I admit that dot viewing range was best on my old 19 inch CRT monitor at 1280X1024. As Axion says, game native res is the best of all, at the cost of overall eye candy.

As for you Bluey, when you're a hammer, eventually everything starts to look like a nail...

Pip, pip,
Conky

[John Cartwright]

Thanks for suggestions BD(Aus). I have some old beer goggles; will they work? If not I could lend them to you for your proxys and amples upcoming experience