I am fed up, always losing sight of bandits when they go below me. I am thinking now if part of the problem is my monitor, a 19" Acer 1916W:
contrast ratio: 500:1
brightness: 300 cd/m2
Does anyone know if these parameters do any difference for IL2?
Hi Nepe,
There is always tweaking to be done. Your difficulties spotting low contacts might be more to do with your scanning patterns and conf.ini settings than the quality of your monitor.
I find if i try to spot contacts whilst moving my head i near always fail. If i move my head, hold it still and spot the contact moving against the stationary background i am much more successfull in re-aquiring the target.
You might also want to experiment with Antiailiasing settings, I find it easier to maintain visual contact with 4x Antialiasing settings.
I also know some folks swear by increasing the contrast or sharpness settings in their graphics card control pannel.
FYI My monitor is an AG-Neovo F-419 and “claims” to have
contrast ratio: 800:1
brightness: 300 cd/m2
and a response time of 4ms.
I say claims to have as i have compared it to other lcd monitors of a similar size and they all look exactly the same to me, some of these show a contrast ratio of 500:1 in the salespeak.
What i did note was a huge increase in clarity when i changed my video conection from VGA to DVI.
Afraid i dont know the details of your system so cannot recomend anything more concrete to try.
Sporran
PS: are you running your monitor at its native resolution in game, ie 1440x900 ?.. .I find that if i run mine at anything less than native resolution the scaling near destroys my ability to spot contacts at dot range.
Thx Sporran
I dont think it has to do with the scanning pattern. What really enerves me is having visual contact with a bogey (and not just a dot, but an airplane less than 1000 m away) and suddenly lose it whan it goes below the horizon, without ever moving my eyes from him.
Will try the AA setting. The conf.ini I think I am still using the ones you gave to me some time ago.
Thank you.
Nepe,
I know there are some in game problems when some aircraft near the change from LOD models to contact dots. Some aircraft do indeed vanish. Its a similar problem to the one winged spitfire you can see at some ranges.
Is it a particular type of AC this is happening with ?
I have free time this afternoon if you want to do some testing.
Sporran
I too some times get this but not with all aircraft as some aircaft i can see half way across the map and others i have to be on top of them and i am using a Samsung 20" TFT with a 2 msec Response Rate, 300 cd/m2 Brightness and 3000:1 Contrast Ratio now i dont no if this is good or not as i dont no a lot about monitors. hope this can be of some help.
S! Zulu 
Thanks Zulu, 3000:1 ratio seems a lot to me.
I have made a track, if anyone can please watch it and tell me what you see?
For me, from seconds 37 to 47 the dots are really really difficult to see, and only if you do not lose visual contact at any time.
But from 43 to 46 the first of them is completely invisible to me, while the second one I can hardly see even pausing the game.
The track is on my EAF ftp folder, called LCD_Test.
Nepe,
Had a look at the track, both with HardwareShaders=0 and HardwareShaders=1
With HardwareShaders=0 both ac are easily trackable, with HardwareShaders=1 the aircraft are still visible but dot range visibility is reduced.
I remember tweaking this section to improve visibility but cant remember what exactly did the trick.
Shadows=2
Specular=2
SpecularLight=2
DiffuseLight=2
DynamicalLights=1
MeshDetail=2
VisibilityDistance=3
Hope this helps
Sporran
Nepe, on my settings this is the worst frame ( or as near as i can get it )
First aircraft is still visible as a line, second is at this point a dot.
Sporran
Further on in the track, fist ac showing in shadow, second showing in direct light
Both ac still trackable.
Sporran
Many thanks Sporran
I took a frame the closest possible to your last one:
The first plane does not appear at all.
I notice as well your water has reverted to non water=1
What card you using Nepe ?
Sporran
An Nvidia 6800 GT
Water = 1
HardwareShaders=0
Shadows=1
Specular=2
SpecularLight=2
DiffuseLight=2
DynamicalLights=1
MeshDetail=2
VisibilityDistance=1
Sky=2
Forest=1
LandShading=2
LandDetails=2
LandGeom=2
TexLarge=1
TexLandQual=3
TexLandLarge=0
VideoSetupId=3
Water=1
Effects=1
ForceShaders1x=0
Nepe, try this and let me know if it improves any.
HardwareShaders=1
Shadows=2
Specular=2
SpecularLight=2
DiffuseLight=2
DynamicalLights=1
MeshDetail=2
VisibilityDistance=2
Sky=2
Forest=2
LandShading=2
LandDetails=2
LandGeom=2
TexLarge=1
TexLandQual=3
TexLandLarge=1
VideoSetupId=17
Water=0
Effects=1
ForceShaders1x=0
Sporran
THe HW shaders = 1 seems to help a bit.
Incidentally, I tested Direct X instead of OpenGL, and used 640x480 resolution The dots are really big and easily trackable…but around second 44 they both dissapear completely, absolutely blended into the ground. I though this was curious.
I’m not a ComputerGraphics Guru, as you all know…:rolleyes:
…but, according to my personal experience, using 3 PCs of different technoligical level, I can state the following:[ul]
[li]Setting the monitor at a lower resolution, though maybe improving dot spotting at the beginning, reveals disastrous in keeping sight afterwards, as less pixels availability inevitably blends outlines and details;[/li][li]High contrast settings are good, only until there actually is colour/luminosity separation between objects and landscape: when you’ve got to track a green bandit over green landscape, a lower contrast setting, hence a higher range of reproducible colour shades, works much much better;[/li][li]Before twickling & fidgeting with IL2 settings, I would suggest a fine tuning of your monitor’s colour/contrast/brightness settings, otherwise you’ll never ascertain what is really the best to suit your hardware;[/li][li]An example…back to last years’ Tunisia 1943 SE Campaign, when spotting Nazi columns in the desert was a nightmare, the best way to mix up stones, palmtrees and Panzers from above, was low resolution and high contrast: on the contrary, once I enabled my brand-new LCD monitor to reproduce a greater variety of yellow/khaki/sand/drab shades, things improved dramatically; :D[/ul]In your LCDtest track, for example, I can track the 2 bandits with no problem, even when they start turning (second #37) and their wings turn to a paler shade of green, when struck by daylight; back to my 109 vs. 3 x I16 Training (remember 2006?), the situation was much worse, not only for me being a real Rookie, but also for the too high contrast/brightness settings.[/li]
By the way, my 19" Samsung SyncMaster 931C monitor is set to 70% Contrast, 70% brightness, 50% Colour saturation…
[/li]
So is it better to having a low contrast to better spot planes against the ground?
[ul]
Before twickling & fidgeting with IL2 settings, I would suggest a fine tuning of your monitor’s colour/contrast/brightness settings, otherwise you’ll never ascertain what is really the best to suit your hardware;
[/ul]how should I do that? Nvidia panel?
[ul]
An example…back to last years’ Tunisia 1943 SE Campaign, when spotting Nazi columns in the desert was a nightmare, the best way to mix up stones, palmtrees and Panzers from above, was low resolution and high contrast: on the contrary, once I enabled my brand-new LCD monitor to reproduce a greater variety of yellow/khaki/sand/drab shades, things improved dramatically;
[/ul]And how did you enable that? only lower contrast?
We’ve got the same GCard, Nvidia GeForce 8800GTS, so:[ul]
[li]Yes, once you set whites to be really white, and black really black, thus using your monitor maximum range, you don’t need to shift dark greys towards black, and light greys towards white;[/li][li]I use Nvidia Panel V.1.5.200, while with my old CRT a 3rd party monitor optimizer worked great;[/li][*]follow the full procedure, paying extra attention to colour shade range settings…[/ul]