DCS world terrain graphics / general thoughts

[Apex]

I've been an avid flight-simmer for as long as I can remember. DCS world is an absolutely amazing platform, no doubt about it. It's strength is in the modules that they, and 3rd party developers continue to create.. and for the most part, do a stellar job on.. to say the least.

Something I find utterly disappointing, is the graphics of the actual terrain. It's the HUGE elephant in the room no one seems to openly discuss, and the devs themselves absolutely do not want to discuss. (This has been apparent for years..YEARS. I have a huge amount of respect and admiration for them, and the work they do with this platform, however feedback is not something they take very well to.. at all. I remember this vividly from many years ago. )

Bottom line... I downloaded this once again after not having played in more than 2 years. I lasted about 5 mins, and promptly deleted the whole simulation.

I'm writing this because it's tiring to watch people continue to ignore this. The textures, terrain, graphics, etc, (other than the actual modules - which are mostly gorgeous), are absolutely third-rate in this day and age of sattelite-image quality terrain and landscapes provided by games in almost every genre.

Will this comment make a difference? Probably not. However it needs to be said.. It's got to the point where I find it mildly hilarious, the ultra low quality of the terrain, and how regardless of how many updates they do, it still remains one of the poorest-quality landscapes on a sim that I see in 2023. (It should be noted, I run this with quality levels on maximum)

So, bottom line... would I recommend this game ? Yes, however I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on what they think of the terrain quality. It leads to an absolute lack of immersion in the sim. Both flight simmers, and non flight simmers alike that I talk to, seem to all share the same sentiment. Some of them finding the sim's lack of graphic development quite hilarious. As one simmer and real-world pilot I know stated, in as many words "The stunning quality of the aircraft, on a backdrop that looks like a 90's atari game, is bizarre"

Any folks, just wanted to put it out there. :)

All the best, and happy simming!

[ZeroReady]

We don't pay for terrain quality in DCS so much as aircraft fidelity, systems modeling, and advanced features like air combat radar, targeting pods, HARM targeting systems etc. MSFS is there if people want to look at ortho scenery.

DCS has too much other stuff going on under the hood, running on 20 year old legacy code, and dealing with multiplayer, to model terrain. We're flying at like angels 20, we can't see ♥♥♥♥ down there anyway.

[em]

I assume you're talking about the Caucasus map, which i believe they updated some textures with modders help around last year(unsure?) this is the version we have now

this being said i think the newer maps ED and third parties and have made like Syria and Normandy 2 look great

you could try this mod for the Caucasus, judging by the images it looks a lot higher res
https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3321589/


but i do agree it does look outdated,
maybe they will update it to the new map technology in the future?

[Troll Norris]

Originally posted by ZeroReady:

DCS has too much other stuff going on under the hood, running on 20 year old legacy code

Uneral engine is 27 years old. Age means nothing.

[Undead Rufus]

Originally posted by Apex:

Bottom line... I downloaded this once again after not having played in more than 2 years. I lasted about 5 mins, and promptly deleted the whole simulation.

Newer DCS maps look much better than old ones. You can also give the game a nice visual boost by using Reshade. Uninstalling it because the terrain isn't photoreal seems like overkill to me, as there aren't really any other options in the same ballpark. But to each his own.

Originally posted by Troll Norris:

Originally posted by ZeroReady:

DCS has too much other stuff going on under the hood, running on 20 year old legacy code

Uneral engine is 27 years old. Age means nothing.

UE has received multiple major revisions across nearly three decades, by hundreds to thousands of people working for a multi-billion-dollar corporation.

ED has been in business over roughly the same time frame, but has a few dozen employees at any given time.

Age means a lot, unless you have the manpower and financials to offset it. Given how old the tech underlying DCS is, it's a minor miracle it looks and works as well as it does.

[Troll Norris]

You've written it yourself.
Unreal Engine have around 300 dedicated developers only to develop the engine. Eagle dynamics have less than 200 employees in total. What you compare is not age, but the workforce.

[Gunfreak]

Sinai, Normandy 2 and Syria looks fantastic, not everything looks perfect on the maps, but in general they look great.

[Undead Rufus]

Originally posted by Troll Norris:

You've written it yourself.
Unreal Engine have around 300 dedicated developers only to develop the engine. Eagle dynamics have less than 200 employees in total. What you compare is not age, but the workforce.

If tech didn't get old, companies wouldn't need to expend resources to keep updating it. Money and manpower matter too, but the problem is code becoming obsolete.

I don't even know what you're trying to argue at this point.

[FirstDawn]

The system requirements are already high enough.
I think there is indeed room for better looking terrains and things, but not if that means that you always have to keep up with better hardware.
Sometimes good is good enough.

[Abel1956]

Agree!
Also waiting for satellite and photographic scenery (such as fs2020)

[Gunfreak]

MSFS2020 looks terrible most of the time, various graphical glitches. Wrong architecture. So much bad stuff. One of the main reasons I stopped playing it. DCS looks better in all cases except where MSFS has used aerial photos to make cities.

[Maki Nishikino]

Caucasus could use an overhaul in my opinion.

[Troll Norris]

MSFS in therosy has over 2PB (petabytes) size of terrain - bing maps. For that reason the terrain data are streamed only.

[Cream Corn Lover]

idk but the maps I fly are awesome looking but I also have my graphics at the max

[EagleLeader]

I heard they are planning a world map, but it's in very early development, perhaps that version will be prettier. Honestly I care more about the fighter jet fidelity & realism, most of us rarely fly low and at fighter jet speed everything is going by so fast it doesn't matter until you crash or eject.

However I can't tell you how many times I go to MSFS page thinking I'll buy & see the tons of complaints about ridiculous download sizes for those beautiful ground maps & just come back to DCS. I rather the less than stellar ground maps if I get to play now rather than wait for big downloads every day.

[moyer4487]

Originally posted by ZeroReady:

We don't pay for terrain quality in DCS so much as aircraft fidelity, systems modeling, and advanced features like air combat radar, targeting pods, HARM targeting systems etc. MSFS is there if people want to look at ortho scenery.

DCS has too much other stuff going on under the hood, running on 20 year old legacy code, and dealing with multiplayer, to model terrain. We're flying at like angels 20, we can't see ♥♥♥♥ down there anyway.

some of us fly the A10 right down on the deck. and OP is right, the terrain graphics are not the best. and being ground attck it makes a difference. often i can't see the target i am making a gun run on or trying to drop unguided bombs. often i am as low as 400' and it took me many hours getting used to the poor terrain graphics