Before I get to my issues: I love the P-51. I didn't think I would but it, as simulated by ED, is every bit the Cadillac it was advertised to be after the war. I am a sucker for sims. I buy them all and I love them all but this one is special sweet. That said, I will risk trolling a bit here with a few issues I have with the current beta. These things tend to get lost unanswered in the normal DCS forum Bug list, and more than anything, I am just curious if I am experiencing these things alone.

1- The ATI bug. I have not seen this in A-10 since one of the early releases. I have heard it described several ways but what I see are occasional black arc-shaped flashes at the top of the screen, they seem to occur must often when the sun is lower than its noon position. Only a few times have they been so bothersome that i felt the need to quit. As I have already said, I have not seen this in WH in quite some time, never in BS, and just once in DCS:World Su25.

2- Low frame rates. Some have found P-51 to be better. This would make sense as there is less to draw. For me, both the P-51 and Su25 are noticeably slower than WH or BS when flying the same mission. (I use my own benchmark mission for all three titles). Viewing another P-51 in formation really slows things down. I saw on the other forum that the skin files can run nearly 100 MB! I don't know much about this sort of thing but that just sounds like a big thing to draw 50 times a second.

3- G940 "Reversal Bug". If you are not familiar, it is like this: You desire 75% RPM. You push to 77. So you try to pull back a degree or two but no matter how gentle your input you get 72. So you push but you get 78. In other words, fine movements can only be achieved in on direction but the moment you stop or reverse, the next movement will result in a handful of input. This is Logitech's problem, not ED's. But I have never seen it so exaggerated before. The P-51 throttle is absolute craziness when controlled by my poor G940. I have a rotary mapped to the K-14 range and it is even crazier. Throttle/collective control in the other titles are very precise despit the known bug.

4- Rough engine control at altitude. This is likely explained by a combination of No. 3 with the fact that the engine behavior is still deep in beta. What I did was this: I made a mission where a flight of 4 P-51s takeoff and climb to 18000 feet. Because the current AI are impossibly muscular, I set them to climb and cruise at 200 mph true. This way I could easily keep up with them and stay in formation. But every time I throttled back a nudge to stay in position the engine would nearly stop. Of course I would quickly fall back and add power. The engine would then sputter for a few seconds then run clean again. This cycle continued indefinitely until I got tired and quit. Radiator and oil cooler were in auto, blower was running in high stage in Auto, both air levers were forward. I tried several RPM settings but all were in the green and none made any difference. I also tried blower in Low, no help.


So those are my issues that I haven't seen discussed much elsewhere. The one that is discussed often is the p-51 AI. it's known to be impossibly physics-defying currently and acknowledged to still be an early WIP. So no worries there.

But as you mentioned yourself...

Although engine cooling and Rads are still a WIP I have not encountered the above, ever. Try using the keyboard to make small adjustments to the throttle rather than you stick, just to see what happens.

Nate

Sounds like I'll be in for some fun next week when I get it on summer break. Looking forward to opening up the throttle on that Merlin

Right. But I understood that just the plane is beta. The Caucuses over which we fly it is unchanged. If this was Nevada Beta, well, I wouldn't bring it up. But a graphically simpler plane over the same world would, to my equally simple mind, run at least the same. Plus, being beta doesn't make a product immune from comment. If it it did then the paid beta concept is brilliant--by encouraging people to praise the product they just paid for while discouraging them from critiquing it. In any case, I am not so much critiquing is I am attempting to see if my experiences are unique.

It sounds flipping awesome! It raises the hairs on your neck exactly the same way that does the "buuurrrp" of the GAU-8.

Sorry mate, didn't mean to pish on yer muesli there Regardless -



Yes, but how about the underlying graphics engine? They may have changed many things there, we just don't know about it.



How do you know it's simpler? How many polygons does the model have compared to, say, the v1.1.1.1 Warthog?

Now again I DON'T mean to downplay your opinions, but please do remember that it is an early beta still and thus has got to be largely unoptimized at this point, and at least some of the issues you raise may well be rectified as a matter of course. And that's all I've got to say about it really

Further, don't make the mistake of thinking that "FPS = graphics". It's just not. This is not Quake Live or Battlefield 3. The simulation runs in frames too, and if that gets bogged down then for quite obvious reasons the graphics engine won't have anything to paint to the screen buffer since the simulation engine is getting slowed down in telling the graphics engine where things are - and your "FPS" goes down.

G940 reversal "bug" sounds very weird to me - I don't see this behaviour on my TM HOTAS, but haven't tested on a G940. However, I feel it is unlikely that DCS is able to "bug out" in this regard since it doesn't load any specific extra code for specific joysticks. That's all DirectInput and driver territory. (The only specialization that has ever been implemented - as far as I know, I can be wrong here - is that A-10C was made to use a specific control map if and when the DirectInput-reported device was a TM HOTAS Warthog.)

G940 is a fault of crabby design by logitech. DCS can't do anything to fix that.

This is the frustration of communicating via forum. And I admit that perhaps I am grammatically challenged and maybe don't express myself at all clearly.

I am not listing gripes that I expect ED to "fix". I am listing gripes which I'd like to learn are either unique to me or are shared by other players. What I was hoping for from the responses is, "yep, that's my experience too" or "sorry man, runs better than WH on my system".

Regarding the "reversal bug": I clearly stated that it is a known Logitech issue. I don't expect ED to fix a poorly designed piece of third party hardware. Having said that, the problem for me is multiplied by a factor of 10 in the P-51D. So there is something unique in how inputs are implemented in this new product. In IL2, LOMAC, FC1, FC2, DCS: BS, DCS:BS2, DCS: WH, and Rise of Flight; the reversal bug exists. But in those products we are talking a 1 or 2 percent skip. It is minor to the point of being easily ignored unless you happen to fly for a virtual aerobatic team. In the P-51D, the skips are 5-10 percent and impossible to ignore. I don't expect ED to do a thing. It's not their problem. But what I hoped to see was, again, something like, "dude, I have a g940 and I don't observe any of the behavior you describe". Then I know that I must change something on my end.

Look, I know all about the desire to defend a product one cares about. I was once a core beta tester for Rise of Flight and made literally thousands of posts explaining and defending that product. Try to read what I am writing and not pre-judge my motivations doing so.

I'll chime in.

I have an ATI Radeon HD6970 and have never noticed any black arc shaped flashes at the top of the screen in DCS A-10C or DCS P-51D.

DCS P-51D runs a lot better then A-10C does on my machine. Probably 20 FPS better. Have not flown the SU-25T yet.

I can't comment on the G940 bug since I don't have one.

Yep, my experience too, re:black arcs but my frames are good - ATI6970. No troubles with my old skool MS SW II though lol

Defensiveness doesn't do any community any favors - where people don't even feel comfortable even asking if others see the same bugs is more of a cult than a club

It's ok to be a fan or support where you work but if the communication is 'good news only' then it'll turn people off.

Lucky and Fearless,

Thanks! That's exactly what I was looking for. I run an iMac with a mobile 6970m card which struggles at the high native resolution of the screen. The is something about the P-51 that really seems to piss that computer off.

Cool, maybe the iMac struggles cpu-wise? It might not be something they test with.

On the bright side ED already had an updated build, and from previous experience are responsive to bugs/performance so I'm sure during beta things will get better as we go along.

The DCS World concept is really exciting and hopefully we'll see some really nice new modules. A great time for PC sims really..

The current beta is running fine. I can't say its an improvement but I am flying happily enough within the confines of my performance. This basically means using the smaller airfields so that hanger textures don't bog dowm my system.

A thought just struck me - the "arcs" you mention, are they present specifically in the top right of the screen?

Because if so, it's a known bug that is being investigated, but it's not actually AMD-specific. It happens on nVidia GPU's too. From what I understand it's linked to the re-make of the radio communication dialog system.

I'll need to be more observant. I haven't seen them yet with the new beta. I still see plenty of black flickers when looking near the sun but that is less persistent and bothersome than the arcs.

I saw some sploches in the upper right corner of the screen. I don't know if this is what you are describing, but, to me, it looked like there was an attempt to write some text or something up there. It's in the same place where text messages in WH are displayed.

As far as performance goes, I'd say it is not as smooth as the WH, but the set up panel was NOT exactly the same as what I am used to seeing in WH. But I have everything pulled all the way to the right (except for birds, which I have at 100%) and it runs pretty smooth.


Edit: This is my experience with the old Beta. I have not loaded the new one yet.
Edit 2: Added NOT above.

Yes, Nvidia, and I see them. Different configurations each flight, but what looks like a messed up message.

No it is something different, the black sun arcs are a specific driver issue with ATI 6970s IIRC. It was introduced after Catalyst 11.6 I believe.

Nate

I see them too on my 6870.

I thought it was specific to that card - is it on mantis?

Nate

I meant to say 7870.

No, i haven't been able to determine the exact circumstances under which this happens. Also, i'm using catalyst 12.3, maybe i should update and try again.

To be honest Sobek just put it up anyway - eventually you'll get it in a track when you aren't even trying, then add the track to the report

That's what I did when it affected me.

EDIT:- IIRC it had something to do with either Catalyst AI or AA/AF

Nate

I think it's HDR related. Due to the 'white blocks on bushes' bug I've had to turn off HDR for Catalyst 11 or 12 and I've not seen the black arcs either since in DCS World.

Yes that sounds about right.

Nate

So I had a Mission Generator mission that I liked in Warthog. I brought it over to P-51 and add smoke that would trigger with the proximity of the P-51. After awhile I got bored so I added 3 flights of 2 Mi-8s. They just fly around a 7 km radius at 500 and wait for me to throw .50 cal their way.

Here's the issue: The Hips are 20 miles from Lochini (the P-51 takeoff point). But even from that distance the frames cut by half whenever I look in the general location of the Hips 20 miles away. I've moved all about the map and the frames slow only when looking at the quadrant occupied by the Mi-8s, even at long distances and even when a ridgeline separates me from any posibility of seeing the helicopters.

Interesting I'll take a look - were the Hips over the battlefield at the time?

Nate

I just downloaded World, and I already have A10 and BS 1, at the bottom of the menu screen it has icons for A10 and Blackshark for purchase, How do I integrate the A10 and Blackshark I already bought? DO I justplay those sims as normal, start them form there own icons outside of World, or is there a way to launch everything from the World menu?? Seems a bit confusing

upcoming beta patches for A-10C and Black Shark 2 will integrate them into DCS World.

Black Shark 1 won't be integrated into DCS World.

Upcoming A-10C Patch Change Log: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=87872

Upcoming Black Shark 2 Patch Change Log: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=87873

There are no "issues" with the P-51D. It's the most complete BETA I have ever seen! It totally smokes any of the other WWII aircrafts out ther, even the A2A Accusim! And that is in BETA! Just open your wallets folks

(R)

The beta versions of the World-integrated Ka-50/A-10C modules are not released yet.

I'll send the mission to you later tonight on the DCS forum. You will only need to delete the Hips and save as a different mission. When you play each, you only need to takeoff and continue to fly/look towards the W. The Hips are circling behind any action. Thanks for looking into it.

Nate,

I started a buglist thread at DCS with the missions. After a bunch of replays I now have to admit that there is very little perceptable performance difference between the two variations of the mission. For both, there is a significant hit when looking west towards the battle area which is many miles beyond visual range. I guess my question would be (and this may well apply to Ka50 and WH as well) why would looking in the general direction of something you can't see cause a performance hit? If its just general CPU drag because of units interacting than that would occur wherever one looks.

Could be a LOD switching issue, perhaps?

Does that happen over fixed geographical points? That's the only way it would make sense for the drop in frames to be so predictable.

Looking in the direction a large amount of active/moving units has always been an FPS drain since LOMAC and earlier. That is the reason I asked about the position of the Hips.

Nate

But why is that? I thought all sims placed the player in a bubble to avoid crunching objects beyond his ability to see them.