DCS has a Visibilty Problem - 1080p V 1440p 

ah this is how those su-27's playing on toasters spot me first

Ok, I'm going to say this after a 20 year career as a professional pilot and a great dcs enthusiast : You - will - NEVER, ever ever ever see a contact, especially something the size of a Viggen at 30 miles unless it carries a con trail! Neither I, nor any of my (often ex military) collegues managed to see anything beyond 10-15miles. That's anything up to 747 sized aircraft. If the Aircraft's aspect is head on,... that distance comes down significantly.

Thanks for the test man! I too believe that something needs to be done to spotting at distance. I do think that it did improve with the jump to DCS 2.5 and 2.5.1 but that could be in my head or It could just be down to improvements in AA in game. Either way I hope it will improve soon.

Sorry to those who saw (and commented on) the upload of much of this content yesterday. I decided I had more to offer here and added extra content, then re-uploaded the whole thing. The bulk of the new content starts at 21:12.

Brilliant video that not only categorically identifies the issue, but suggests a very workable solution.

I feel your pain. I’ve been flying in 4K for a few years now and have been saying the same thing since 1.5. That was when it became impossible to see targets. Unfortunately ED don’t seem too interested in fixing or even addressing the issue. I recently decided to “downgrade” to 1440p so I have a chance.

This perfectly explain how hard is for me to spot something on my 4k 15 inches laptop monitor. Thanks for clarification.

Dcs is the reason why I keep my monitor spotless 😂

This now clears up why when we fly together you spot so much sooner than I do (I'm on 32" 1440p). I never picked them up until you're turning to engage.

Finally a good video as a proof that pixels on 1440p are not render as on 1080p resolution. Earlier in DCS 1.5 there was an option to enlarge the targets but that was removed and I dont know a real reason why?. I have this struggle for almost 2 years now playing at 1440p on multiplayer servers, when my buddies tally a target and I am yelling where, where I dont see it. Its a real pain. I was playing with some options and that was improved the situation, so for example if you set your AA to 0 and your Anisotropic filtering to 0 contacts appear to be visible much better but game looks like crap. So solution might also be to restore target enlargement but only if 1440p and resolution above is detected, and maybe try to play with ReShade plugin settings i certainly will. Keep up with good work!

I want to see model enlargement options brought back. They allowed a level playing field.

i have a 34" running on 3440x1440 and spotting was always a problem in DCS; especially groundtargets on Caucasus map. How to set FOV to 80 ?

Glad to see that it's not just my incompetence! They really need to fix this.

The stars are "artificial", they are so far away that the are always subpixel no matter what, so they are a fixed size. The "fix" is to also set objects to a fix size when they are subpixelsize upto some set fixed cutoff distance. But after that there will anyway be a visual difference on different screens until they object is rendered across sufficient number of pixels.

Okay, switching to 1080p from now on. I was always wondering how I could be so blind. Is this still the same or has it been improved? Is there a way to implement your solution into the label settings? I use the dot labels right now which work great, however depending on the lighting they are sometimes invisible. Makes sense at night, but not so much at other times. Also the labels show up over top of the cockpit textures so you never lose visibility.

great analysis Phil...hoping ED takes notice.

Has this been improved at all since this time? I was just about to buy a new 27in monitor, but maybe now I should really go for a 32in.

interesting video. i found it because i'm building a new computer and taking the plunge to 1440p and ultrawide monitor. I obviously play DCS and concerned about the horsepower needed and impact to play which is why i'm here. From this video i've learned that there is a problem but not the one you point out - the 1080p spotting distance is stupidly unrealistic. No way you could see a viggen at 55km / 34 miles. Not being able to spot at insane distances at higher resolutions is not the problem. The 1440p actually seems much more realistic but the problem is the lack of balance between the two and someone at 1080p getting the advantage on someone at a higher resolution. With BVR combat or warbird vs warbird it might not be that drastic but in f86/Mig 21 type fights or strictly visual dogfighting scenarios this is kind of a really big deal. ED needs to just flat out not render the pixel at such long distances at 1080p to solve this issue. Thanks for the video and infromation.

As this vid is 3yrs old I wanted to ask wether this problem still exists?

I take it this was addressed to some degree since you made this video? Folks on the SOW Discord suggest downscaling from 4k to 1440 if you have a 4k monitor, but I've not as yet seen anyone suggest going to 1080 from higher.

So i currently run the game at 1440p on a 27" and have always struggled with distant contacts and even close ones, losing them in the background clutter/cockpit glare. I recently ran the game in 1080p on my 27" and the results were easier for me to spot at distance and able to maintain eye contact with an aircraft in a dogfight

I'm in the same boat and I'm having a much harder time spotting aircraft now with the latest updates on a 27 inch 1440p monitor.

Lol...spotting a viggen at 55km. DCS really needs to fix that.

I use an AOC 32” curved widescreen 1440p with 400hdr & freesync at 144hz. I also have an old Samsung syncmaster 25” 1080p that I used until a yr ago. I also use a Valve Index running at 120hz for VR. The Index slows me to pick up the Viggen ‘dot’ in your test example, at just over 40km. The 1440 32” allows me to pick it up at 50km. The old Samsung only 40km. I think the hdr & high refresh rate make a difference, at least to me, as my eye sight isn’t brilliant & I’m colour blind in the red, green, brown spectrum. The 32” 1440 was a revelation when I upgraded.

While 1080p might be an advantage sitting behind a PC, 1440p is more realistic. With 20/20 vision you can only make out an aircraft while flying at roughly 4-6 miles. I'm ATC and work in a control tower; optimal conditions (haze/cloudy/ceiling above 2000ft/sun) during day, you might pick up a 737 at about 6-8 miles and an F16 at roughly 4 miles.

I have 4k. The amount of times I have chased fluff on my screen is painful

Maybe this would help you guys out, I had the same problem with other simulators but since I only do acrobatics on DCS I can't really confirm it. I have fixed this issue by turning off every antialiasing option in every game (IL-2, WT etc.) I'm not sure if its suggested in the video, so I apologize if I'm repeating something. Antialiasing simply "smooths" pixels and if the aircraft is 1/5 pixels it will most likely remove/smooth it. I'm also on 4k and I no longer have spotting issues. This is also the same reason why VR users can see everything till the horizon, basically low graphics, little or no antialiasing adn low pixel density on the VR screens.

USAF (as well others too) tested what can be spotted at what distance in reality, to define the real BVR ranges. F-16 F-5 MiG-21 F-14 F-15 F-18 F-4 etc. The F-5 and MiG-21 were hardest to spot. And F-14/15 easiest. Average distances were: F-15/14 were spotted at about 6.5-6.8 NM away . F-5 and MiG-21 4-4.5 NM away. And F-5 and MiG-21 both have "cloaking device" capability by turning their nose at you, and they will vanish completely even under 300-500 meters. And then they can utilize that to vanish in dog fight as finding them again is very challenging if you lose sight. This is what made USAF define WVR/BVR border to be 5 NM is just 9.3 km. And almost all other fighters than those two are spotted between 9-13 km. So simply saying, spotting in DCS is ridiculously unrealistic by the long ranges. You wouldn't never spot a fighter from 30 km. You might spot a airliner size target in optimal scenarios, but not fighters. You would need to get shorter than 10-15 km to be able spot them, knowing where to look and accidentally look them directly in optimal scenario.

Is this still valid? I've always played dcs at 1440p and always struggled with spotting, a lot. Even downloaded an old soviet spotting guide for Su-25 pilots to gather my thoughts about it and everything, but it's for ground spotting...

I was looking at getting a new panel to replace my now aging one and based on this I think I'll stay at 1080p and invest more in a higher quality screen as opposed to looking for a higher resolution within my current budget.

two years later...still waiting for a fix? I just recently got a 32' Ultra wide 4k monitor...whats the point...I can actually see targets better in 1080p with the game in windowed...

So far I have used my Toshiba big screen LCD tv for a monitor. lol. Am tempted to get a state of the art TN panel like a Asus with 144Hz or something like that :)

Well, this makes me rethink my plans on getting a 27" 1440 monitor to replace my old 24" 1080 that is starting to feel a bit small and washed out...

Huh, this is interesting, I just started dcs and was considering investing in bigger resolution screen and GPU . Now that changes everything

I have a 4k 28' .... can confirm -.- I hope with Vulcan coming 2019/2020 or so, we will get better spotting. And Dedicated Server to push MP performance.

There was a similar issue with IL-2 and the devs improved on it in the latest update.

No wonder i have trouble spotting. Sometimes i look in a straight direction where i know the enemy is and i cant see them.

phil - Does native 1080p on 27inch monitor look any better than scaled down 1080p?

Your graphics card plays a big role in this. The real question you should be asking is how close do you need to be in order to tell if it's a friend or foe.

Forgive me if I'm missing the point however if you're using a 1440p monitor, can't you change the resolution to 1080p to improve the detection distance?

I use a 50-inch panel on my desk, largely for this reason. On a 27-inch panel, spotting targets was almost impossible, even at dogfight ranges. But my eyes are crap, too. It's extraordinarily rare that I ever see any airplane outside of 5 miles.

The forum thread about visibility on the Russian subsection has been deliberately closed by Chizh after a brief "discussion". :(

Is spotting a plane at 55km even possible? Maybe the 1080p visual should be changed! And as far as zooming in the view thats not realistic either, just saying.......good video though.

I know this is very late but I didn’t see any other comments regarding this. Your monitor has a ‘native’ resolution, where each pixel on the monitor maps to the pixels displayed by the computer. This is why the 1080p dot was a lighter/blurrier grey than on the native 1080p monitor than your 1440p one. I don’t have any comments about the difference you found between 1080p and 1440p but I hope they have fixed it by now. I’m just starting out in DCS on a 4K monitor (I’m a 3D/motion graphics designer in my work so need the hi-res to be sure my renders work in 4K) and I’m having enough trouble just flying co-ordinated at the moment in my spit and FW190. The thought that I’m handicapped (beyond my lack of ability) is depressing. I love these warbirds, and also fly them in IL2 - all single player ATM, I’m really not good enough to defeat all the AI in easy mode yet so multiplayer would be an exercise in frustration without a chance to learn as I’m so much worse than most people. When I’m a bit better I will jump in, of course. Apropos of nothing, someone criticised ED for allowing this unequal dot spotting situation and said that ED is the worst company. Well, I take your worst company ED and raise a Gaijin (War Thunder). I enjoy the tank sim mode in WT but boy, Gaijin are greedy and awful to their player base. I’m sure ED isn’t as bad as them!

Has that been fixed to day or not ?

I can't see anything even on 1080p. I don't get how you guys spot those single pixels. Then again, my vision is not great and I use glasses.

Wow, I thought it would make a difference of a couple kilometers not tens of kilometers. Now I understand why people want tot do something about it.

Phil, your solution (using PNGs) is something I've already done in DCS using labels. Set label to dot with shadow and use custom shadow colour with very high opacity. You may want to try that yourself. I do that for VR. I can send the label settings to you if you want. I'm not bothered too much by this (VR spotting is something I knew would suck), Il2 BoX is far, **FAR** worse. EDIT: This would be a SP only fix, but if you're running your own server it would work there as well. As for MP that's up to ED :(

Wait... you're spotting an aircraft at 50km with the Mk1? Wth I can barely spot them within 5km! What sorcery is this?

I am also using 4K monitor and I can confirm this! ED FIX IT PLS!

Resolution is really not about the number of pixels, it is about the angle of the object versus the angle of a pixel at that distance. If you have a coarser display you will have to make a rounding or truncating error to determine when to make a pixel darker due to the object being subpixel size. If you do round up an object 0.6 pixels to a 1 pixel and show a dot, then it will be magnified and shows earlier on a coarse display. If you increase the resolution on a monitor the pixels are smaller (if as you say you keep the physical size of the monitor constant), and for the double resolution you will have 1 pixel size (round 1.2 down) which is physically half the size... The ”fix” would be to allow a ”label” mark of one pixel at fixed full contrast (four lighter pixels and one black as per your suggestion) even in multiplayer from a preset distance (calculated for a lowest resolution monitor). Then only the users physical pixel size would vary. This should NOT be magnified to more pixels for a 4K screen! Remember that the computer doesn’t know the actual physical dimensions, just the number of pixels on screen. If ED would increase the number of pixels for different display resolutions we would just be in a NEW multiplayer mess!!!

Nice test! It's even funnier if switching to Mig21. It's hard to tell the exact patch that messed things up (introduction to 2.5 series most likely), but for me, planes literally pop up when they're right in front of my nose, like 6-8 km away or less. Not to mention ground units that simply disappear completely from view, if I'm not zooming in on them. At least disturbing to have a visual on static scenery objects (buildings trees, bridges, some civ. traffic, and maybe some static vehicles located way further, but not see a damn patriot site located 3-4 km away). It just magically pops up if zoomed on it. Contrary - is when I sit in F15C (the basic one) things are pretty much normal (I easily see a plane coming at me, from ~25 miles or so). Lately missiles calculations got messed up as well (can be due to online lag). I get killed by S300 missiles exploding like few miles away or aim-120s that aren't capable of going pitbull on me (when in mig21). They're like flying in a direction, but without exact "knowledge" what to lock on, or simply heading for Mars.

Hi there. This problem is solved? Thanks!

Soon 2022 and from what I hear and see in my 4k vr still the same issue. With the blur from the lenses too I'm essentially blind until things are on top of me. Same with ground targets. It's ridiculous

Is this thing still a thing in 2.7.x?

the day when Flightsims dont have to use the cheating zoom to spot a plane in the air up to 3km is the day they got it right :-)

I like your solution but there is some issues, what if the aircraft have a white or yellow livery, or what if the aircraft is bellow you and over a dark ground but is still on perfect lighting conditions ? In those cases, fixed colour and transparency would totally render non realistic the spotting of the aircraft. A better solution would be to use a really really simplistic ray tracer algorithm, first you make a really simple object map (which have for basic function to just "say" which side have which colour and at which angles it can shine), then, for each livery, you put the proper colour into this map, so if the aircraft is black on the bottom but white on the top and yellow on the side (and other livery madness like Tiger Meet would have for example), it won't cause issues, then you run the simple ray tracing algo from the sun, or the moon at night (since the mood reflection on daylight is useless to model here) to the model relative to you based on his attitude, then you get from very little computing power (even the CPU can do it for many aircraft at once without issues if you optimise the code, with the GPU it would be a no brainer how easy it will be) something which is accurate, not only, if this is sunset and the sky is dark but the aircraft is high enough that the sun make it shine it would be properly done, but also, depending of the colour of the livery, lighting and background it would be realistic and offer proper visibility authenticity. Even it's light can be easily done using those ray tracer method, because using a ray tracer on few pixels can easily allow for light emitting and blocking with little computing power, I mean even the pitot tube on the aircraft you fly will probably use 10 time more GPU power or more to be rendered than that since it have way more polygons (even if here this is a so simple model we can't even talk about polygons but more of pixels) and have shaders ! And of course as you said, scaling those pixels with screen resolution is the obvious thing to do !

So, I've not fully understood what's happening here, to my mind a higher model equates to more detail in a given image, which as I see it should make an aircraft more visible, not less visible.... but this may explain why upgrading from my 720p monitor to a 4K (admittedly not running in full 4K as my PC would never keep up) hasn't had the desired effect...….

theres a label mod that does exactly that..... puts a dot on it.... and dot disappears when hes very close... and you can edit when you start seeing that dot, what color, etc etc etc...

2023 and ED still hasn't fixed this problem, which is even worse now with VR than it is with flat panels.

@4:16 I can't see any dot? Why? Is my screen that bad?

RU-vid compression makes it impossible for us to see what you see, sadly.

What is real world sighting range ? Does anybody have a reference?

Great problem in DCS....A lot simulator and a lot of key but they don't take into account something that is basic and more considering that we are talking about a "simulator" oriented to military airplanes.... ;)) Dont see any contact in monitor with 3k or 4k....

ED PLS FIX THIS FUCKING PROBLEM, YOU EARNED MILIONS WITH THE F18...COMON!!!

True

It’s pretty bad, got a nice ultra wide 1440 monitor, can barely spot within 10 miles if I’m lucky. WWII seems more like 5 miles. Have had to resort to using dot labels....:(

Its a simple fix, Eagle Dynamics needs to nerf the draw distace of 1080p to a more realistic distance that of the 1440p of 14km(and this is even pushing it, it should be closer). You picked up that viggen at 50km at 1080p which is absolutely bullshit unless wearing a set of binocular magnification prescription glasses which any case you would of failed the airforce medical. 50km would be classed as BVR Beyond Visual Range. Thats why we have BVR missiles and radar for those type of distances, This is why those missiles have those ranges, and when you get to visual range you switch to aspect missiles and guns. 1080p visual target spotting at present is simply like flying with labels on. Stick a bus which is roughly the size of a fighter jet in the middle of a flat dessert, move 50km away spin around 6 times with a blindfold on, remove the blindfold and tell me whether you can see the bus.

To me this is flight combat sims biggest issue to solve. As far as this "Earlier in DCS 1.5 there was an option to enlarge the targets but that was removed and I dont know a real reason why?." and this "I believe it was removed because some folks at their official forums were complaining" - This is the problem, the complaints of the few somehow override the common sense and facts - as this video demonstrates. What I want to know is how do you make this absolutely stunning game, that looks amazing, and then say 'oh but if you want to have a nice monitor and good graphics, and high resolution, we will penalize you. Curious... so why not do something like "detect monitor res, the higher it is, adjust the target size" - or is that just make too much sense....

Any news on that?

Of course I buy a 1440p ultra wide 2 days before I watch this video

Is this still a problem? Haven't played DCS in awhile, thinking about getting a VR set finally (though, New Oculus aka Facebook can go fuck themselves, Probably going to Pimax 5k plus); I used to play on a 4k monitor and noticed the same things you did, tried playing on 1080p but my god the quality difference on a large screen is quite noticeable...

Same problem in War Thunder. ALl the poor russian players on 720p can ez see people.

Anyone know if this has been fixed yet?

I have a 22` 1080p monitor and I cant see shit lol

1440p is meant to be on a 27 inch plus monitor

Didn't some pilots like Chuck Yeager have the ability to see a enemy plane when it was 50 miles away ?

It's not a problem with the resolution, it's a problem with pixel density. Moving from a 24' 1080p monitor to a 27' 1440p monitor saw no loss in my spotting ability. In fact, it got even easier due to the ability to differentiate ground clutter from aircraft. For example, 2560x1440p on a 27' monitor is going to be nearly as easy as something more like 480p or 720p on your phone or tablet. 1440p @ 27in, I would say spotting at range is actually too easy, as you're able to spot targets from extreme ranges nearing 40nm under good conditions. I made a post on reddit on a thread discussing this a few weeks ago.

I cant see a damn thing your point out... im on 1080p on a powerful laptop :/

Darn. I'm running an Alienware 38" curved monitor at 3840x1600 resolution. Wonder if I need to turn down the res. 1000hdr as well.

Wow! WTF?!

DCS Eagle Dynamics has been and will always be: WYSIWYG what you see is what you get-suck it up!

So potato PC Pilots continue to be catered for & those of us who invest heavily in our hobby get to hold the stinky end of the stick, again. Unfortunately ED have no real competition any more (in jet combat sims) so we just have to chow down on it the way it gets served to us.

I can't see shit :'D

cant see shit haha

Sorry., but i dont see the relevance of this video, we all know that changing the resolution change the pixel size, and when pixel size change, so does the clarity and "first contact" with the object, for me thats common sense. I must say though, the amount of difference is quite surprising. I dont agree that higher resolution decreeses the playability or renders part of the game unplayable; on the contrary; it forces you to be better at predicting when and where, using your radar, using your RWR, using AWACS, COMMs throughout the squad and actually triangulation would be a good thing to know too. So for me higher resolution forces you to be better at the game, at understanding the game and your modules sensors and capability. Increase/decrease in screen size should in no way affect FPS, if thats what you meant with "input rates", increase/decrease in resolution does, but as long as the resolution stays the same, whether on a 15" or 65", it does not change the FPS, since the amount of pixels is the same. A monitors refresh rates depends on the quality and purpose of the product, not the physical size. About your comment to Frederic Borloo: Whether its imperial or metric makes no difference, the distance is the same.

Simply put - it’s ableism . Restricting multiplayer cameras is discriminatory to the disabled , the color blind , and those who’ve invested time into home sim pits. Glasses are worn by a large swath of the population. Every flight sim in the modern era has offered user adjusted smart scaling in both single and multiplayer , as well as color blind text and monitor support. This software is absolutely garbage for those with sight problems , eye disability, and color blindness . I can play bms, war thunder , ace combat, msfs, and every other flight sim this side of the Sagittarius arm- and I’ve been flying my entire life. This is a bad take on 2022- I think it’s a clear ableism issue as well as literally destroying their credibility . Why invest in such a rig when you can’t see shit?