DCS SITREP #24 2024: Afghanistan Drops with Massive Patch

[@Pricklyhedgehog72]

Addressing VR concerns: several viewers have raised the issue of VR, especially around quadview and foveated viewing no longer functioning. While flying on the map, I was using the new Crystal Light, which in terms of performance was fine. I have other issues with the Crystal Light I'm trouble-shooting, but they weren't DCS related per se. I have tried to plug in the regular Crystal again to test the map, but my rig isn't recognizing the hardware. That's what I'm trouble shooting right now, once I have it up and running, I'll be able to do a more comprehensive review of the map. Please don't take my lack of VR commentary as shying away from the topic, as I said, it was working fine with the Light across three different maps I recorded for.

[@richskinns]

A workaround from Sandboxcode for the Quadviews issues- life saver kzbin.info/www/bejne/fpbHhHZorKqsY6Msi=3TsjZQhKjYoZGgsi

[@mikeck4609]

Good on Heatblur for continuing to upgrade the older modules to the extent they do!

[@OnlyNapalm]

Heatblur keeps on working hard and they do great job.

[@CakePrincessCelestia]

If you look up Absolute Gigachads in a dictionary, it has a straight link to their site right there.

[@ghostskills_dcs]

Finally, a reviewer whose videos don't look and sound like a comedy TV show for kids. More of this, please.

[@mako6084]

Thank you Sir ! I just purchased the full map. Best Regards

[@CaptJack747]

I really appreciate your work here, thanks

[@Dg-zj6jo]

most people just want to fly about brilliant video sir

[@otanguma]

Afghanistan map is amazing. Our group loaded it to our server and in open play, so far has been smooth from my perspective in the F16 and A10C II, but in private missions it has crashed every time, sometimes an hour in. I'm confident all issues will be resolved in time and can't wait to get more updates to the full map.

[@Musix4me-Clarinet]

*Addressing Full Map Purchases* From the perspective of a full map owner, I think I would caveat this as, "Going to be..." the best map available. There is a *_lot_* of potential in this map, and it is huge.

[@ashlittle4545]

30 minute Sunday morning hedgehog video. Absolute legend 💪 ☕️

[@171-OC]

As always a fantastic Video M8... Look forward to the next one.

[@thunderace4588]

Thank you Prickly.

[@DoradoFever]

The map still seems a bit early, the assets have issues like the wheels not turning on the MRAP, the gunner hovering over the base, the M1A2 having very rough polys, the SC airboss graphics issues, FC3 issues, Viper throttle bugs, along with graphics issues with the Litening pod on both the Hog and Viper having assets appearing as blocks similar to Minecraft. Hopefully a hotfix is out soon, seems like it should have been tested more before being rushed out. With that said there is still some great new features added, but seems the overall "showstopper" issues weren't really hashed out.

[@imjashingyou3461]

I can say none of those bugs are present for me. So it may be a your settings or system issue.

[@DoradoFever]

@imjashingyou3461 plenty of bug reports on the discord of similar issues. Asides from the bugs the assets are definitely not what was teased in the trailers, and another bait and switch like the B-1B and S-3

[@imjashingyou3461]

@@DoradoFever you had me until bait and switch. That gets an eye roll. You didnt pay for any of this.

[@DoradoFever]

@imjashingyou3461 showing assets used extensively in a map they are selling then not matching up to what was in the teasers is definitely misleading.

[@imjashingyou3461]

@@DoradoFever Yeah what exactly doesnt match up. Because it looks identical to me. It more seems you want to whine and be hyperbolic. The B-1B and S-3 look great btw. And pretty accurate to both in real life having been around them.

[@falmatrix2r]

wow this outro song is so great that I can't find it anywhere, doesn't exist

[@Pricklyhedgehog72]

Vaporware...audiojungle.net/item/maghreb-nights/52786847

[@falmatrix2r]

@@Pricklyhedgehog72 oh thanks! I was looking for Mystic Nights Audacious Audio, no wonder I couldn't find it lol

[@steviebeats]

Thanks P

[@FNR]

If you land at the helipad at (31.631002550445302, 65.73761780128754), you can swim at the CNS swimming pool at (31.630696969180985, 65.73651955467129)!

[@Pricklyhedgehog72]

Thanks for the tip

[@pabloottawa]

As nice as this is, it would be great to see ED, revamp the Caucasus map to reflect today’s military borders and populate the Ukrainian side thus enabling more possibilities for mission content. Obviously, I don’t want to see the Crimean peninsula marked as Russian territory since the world does not recognize it as such but this would bring a lot of attention and interest back to that map, and the game.

[@Pricklyhedgehog72]

True, but ED has said it won't update or do a Ukraine region while the conflict is up and running. We had enough fake videos as is from ppl cashing in on the initial conflict using DCS.

[@mikeck4609]

Any word on the AI versions of the A-6 and A-7? The former was promised some time ago?

[@Pricklyhedgehog72]

True. HBS said they were still working on it, but not much from FlyingIron since their big newsletter late last year.

[@aztec0112]

They broke the legacy FC3.

[@CakePrincessCelestia]

Did ED by any chance fix the FC3 authing issues yet? I don't like having to wait for half an hour to get the thing booted because of that issue...

[@Pricklyhedgehog72]

Not that I'm aware of, I wouldn't be surprised to see a follow up quick patch this week.

[@johnselden9257]

28:00 Did you make this song? If not, what’s it called? I like it

[@StandingCow2]

My group decided to get back into doing missions after months away from DCS (with the exception of carrier traps to keep proficient). Our sortie out all 3 of us crashed due to either arming or dropping LGBs..... even after multiple delays the patch is pretty bad. I think maybe they tried pushing too much out at once.

[@Scoobydcs]

This has been the worst patch for breaking things iv seen lol alotnof us can't even play lol. Multiple different random problems

[@camamations1573]

oh word?

[@infantryski11b64]

Haven't noticed anything.

[@Crazy-Bear-Gamer-Channel]

@@infantryski11b64 the update messed with a crucial feature for most VR users, but there's an overall big frames drop for most users

[@MedusaSquadron]

Actually VR with high end headset is unplayable, is not possible to even look at the start screen.

[@thomas_ger4098]

From my experience it are mainly VR users affected. 2D players do not have any issues at all (so do I).

[@ivaniuk123]

I've had crashes of my DCS system since the new update. I wonder if that could be connected to the fact that I only have 32 gigs of ram 🤔

[@karlhungus545]

Runs fine on my system with 32GB (at 1440p).

[@stevebarnett-f5o]

Got FC update, all OK, but just HOW did ED release this patch and not see that FC3 was broken?, is TEST too big a word for them now?. Great review.

[@nexus888]

So AFTER the release Wags is now telling us we can expect a detailed map like the other ones we got?! Lots of low level textures and uncorrected textures with buildings, jagged mountains, etc. Very early EA even for just the first part

[@NoRegret08]

You said ED will use Phantom's AI instead of ED's in house AI. Does this mean that the Hind and Apache will get the Phantom's AI instead of the AI they currently have? thanks

[@Pricklyhedgehog72]

@NoRegret08 no. That's a separate portion of the module and specific to the Phantom II. To clarify, the HBS 3D model is being used, which replaces EDs.

[@JingxuanZhou]

Hi, it seems like the graphics in your game are being oversharpened, which doesn't look very good especially on KZbin. Good content.

[@Pricklyhedgehog72]

@@JingxuanZhou thanks, the visuals are always in a state of tweaking between VR and 2D.

[@3rflyingcom]

Afghan is one of the best maps we've got in a long time. Its not a 30,000 foot map like Kola or SA. I found Sinai to be a quality map but is boring (no fault of the devs). However Afghan has tons of variety every 2 minutes its like flying over a different map almost. the terrain and color variety is really nice. There are plenty of issues with textures not being placed right. If ED can get these solved and get them to blend right this map has the potential to take the crown from Syria. If you were new to DCS and could only buy 1 map it was Syria everything else was a far distant 2nd place. This is still true but Afghan is not a far distant 2nd... it is right on the heels of Syria if it gets some love and dedication I could see it taking the crown in a year.

[@pietroparravicini2995]

Downloaded the patch...got the Afghanistan map.....flew 30 min of Kandahar.....all stable so far but i too notice a slight stottering...flying in VR

[@Fox1-1]

What headset

[@pietroparravicini2995]

@@Fox1-1 HP Reverbe G2

[@ghostskills]

I'm using a Reverb G2, an RTX 4070 Ti, 64GB of DDR4 RAM, and an 8-core 5800X CPU. Both Afghanistan and Kola run buttery smooth on high settings (DLAA, not even DLSS). - Your stutters are probably more related to your system or settings rather than the map itself.

[@pietroparravicini2995]

@@ghostskills Yes...I am still running a 3060 card...I think this map will be awesome for missions and campaigns.

[@Fox1-1]

@@pietroparravicini2995 ok, im having issues with my quest controllers not showing up

[@CAL1MBO]

This patch gave me ED

[@CakePrincessCelestia]

Badum Tss!

[@johanverhoeven3661]

Struggling a lot with the new slotting system on PVE servers.😤

[@firstright-n4w]

Yeah, what a sh*tshow. When you think it was bad before, well, now you know it wasn't (even though it was).

[@Crazy-Bear-Gamer-Channel]

Living in Italy when the update camed out I was sleeping! so I had the chance to see first comments when I actually was at work..seeing that the quadviews was broken (being a Pimax Crystal owner since a couple of weeks) I definitely skipped the update, even if I know that there's a workaround for that (there's an unofficial DLL that fix the problem) I won't update until ED fix this thing... I know U're a Crystal user too and I'm curios to know your opinion bout that!

[@Pricklyhedgehog72]

Sadly I haven't been able to run my Crystal set after unplugging the Crystal Light yesterday which I was having issues with. Windows is not recognizing the hardware...

[@generalgrevous2458]

Flew Afghanistan in a Ka-50 and pretty underwhelming. Smooth and stable though but no way I'm buying an Iraq map if this is the direction ED is going. Yes, more data is required with more textures but there will be too many maps and too much data to install all future maps anyway. Eventually people will have to pick or choose: they can either pick a crap load of low quality maps or a few amazing maps. Personally I prefer the latter. Perhaps ED should look at smaller high quality maps for helicopter pilots.

[@johnwicks4936]

I'm getting awful stutter or micro-stutter frame drops on this map. I've done everything to try and fix it. Even the South Atlantic map doesn't do this.

[@ambientlightofdarknesss4245]

The update broke the damned game for me. and im not even kidding. intense stutters when moving the mouse and looking around, seems they've introduced a old bug where stutters happen because of mouse polling rate somehow...and it isn't easily changable, at least without buying an expensive branded mice. and im not gonna blow 60$ to test if it'll work... A shame as well, just bought FC3 earlier in the summer sale. sadly had to refund it because the game is litreally unplayable for me since the update.

[@Crazy-Bear-Gamer-Channel]

I saw on youtube a tutorial to set the mouse sensitivity in the windows register editor, anyway I won't update until ED pushes an hotfix out, I'm a Pimax Crystal user and the quadview it's another thing that this update messed with

[@OisinClissmann]

Reducing the polling rate to under 1000Hz was the fix for me. Hopefully you can find a way to do it for yours. If not, they did say they are working on a patch with fixes at the moment.

[@ambientlightofdarknesss4245]

@@Crazy-Bear-Gamer-Channel I tried it. it didn't work. as fair as I know you can't easily change a mice's polling rate as windows does not have any tools for it. The only other option was a sketchy program on github that killed a driver on one of my USB ports so that was fun.

[@ambientlightofdarknesss4245]

@@OisinClissmann where did you see them say they were making a patch for it?

[@OisinClissmann]

@@ambientlightofdarknesss4245 Sorry, I need to clear up what I said. They said they are working on fixes for bugs and issues related to the patch but they didn't specifically mention this bug, I would assume they are working on it though as there have been many reports on the forums.

[@Dg-zj6jo]

thought it was a bond film

[@louhodo5761]

This patch is good but it broke a lot of online play. Greyflag and others are just impossible to get in due to the new systems.

[@Pricklyhedgehog72]

I'm hearing some complaints now about this...

[@Youda00008]

RIght after i said i wished for a shorter videos ... 31 minutes 😭😭

[@Dg-zj6jo]

only saw 1 car driving no people all in the UK HA CRAZY

[@WanderfalkeAT]

Who cares about Data Storage Space today? In a time when a 4TB M.2 costs around 150$! Flying with coppers there needs a high res texture.

[@EpicNinjaRides]

Where you getting an 4TB M.2 with decent transfer rates for $150?

[@GhG76562]

Hell no, it's a mess even with DCS fully maxed out

[@joseblanco3873]

The map is great but there’s not even a handful of MP servers utilizing it, so it’s just sitting there for me. Kinda disappointing but I hope it will change.

[@konk8429]

lets go

[@rwhunt99]

Well, I am disappointed with the map, this looks like something from Falcon BMS. and the reason why I don't fly Falcon BMS.I should have bought the Kola map instead. Even after all the delays, they released the update with a real wonkiness, large bugs that make it unstable, I have gotten some blinking screens that just doesn't cut it. I have patience but I do think Big updates don't seem to work for ED. They had the perfect storm of updates converging all at once and it's a bit rough. That would be okay - BUT, the update affected everything which is not good.

[@killer115ish]

This patch completely broke Combined Arms, and the spawn system on servers is clunky and unnecessary.

[@falcon88h]

Imho... u have your contrast way to high.

[@Pricklyhedgehog72]

Thanks, I'll look into that...

[@falcon88h]

@@Pricklyhedgehog72 I used reshade back in the day. I figured out, that only small tweaks where enough. Altough, since numerous updates i don't know what the core game has done.

[@JonahTsai]

What about the elephant in the room? This update broke quad view VR and VR controllers that made it unplayable for so many users? Omitting such a large elephant makes you appear biased. Noted.

[@Pricklyhedgehog72]

At the time of recording I had no reference to VR issues, and it's only since I posted the video that VR users let me know about the foveated problems. Unfortunately I can't get my Pimax headsets to register with Windows right now after unplugging the Crystal Light. I'm dying to test the map in VR, once I can do that I'll update in a future video. Please don't jump to conclusions about bias. This was not a comprehensive map review for VR, this is my news wrap up for the week.

[@CakePrincessCelestia]

The actual elephant in the room is that they broke FC3 for anyone who didn't dump 10 bucks for 2024 (probably everyone who got the 3 full modules and FC3 already) and DCS taking literal ages to load up because the auth keeps failing.

[@joelmulder]

It’s amazing to me how much people who have no idea what they/re talking about are complaining. “Just optimize it so you can use higher res textures”. What an idiotic take.

[@anakletor]

My copy of SW Afghanistan looks terrible. Much lower res than Caucasus or any other terrain. What a disappointment! It is actually unplayable!!

[@ghostskills]

It must be related to your system or settings because, as you can see in the videos, Afghanistan is the most impressive map yet. It looks incredible in VR for me as well. So, if you're saying it looks terrible for you, you're either trolling or doing something wrong. :/

[@anakletor]

That was my first thought but which settings would apply to this terrain and only this terrain?

[@OrlandoDibiskitt]

I've seen a few people say this but I think it looks great, (particularly in VR). Runs really well for me too.

[@CAL1MBO]

Have you tried going above low settings?

[@anakletor]

@@CAL1MBO I run DCS at 4K with max settings. Pretty new system. It runs well around 80-110 fps. I have no problems with any other terrains. Syria looks gorgeous. So the low res problem is limited to this terain. I might simply reinstall it.

[@voodoo22]

Its all very low res. no tech to support high fidelity

[@ivaniuk123]

I wonder if DCS would ever consider going to the MSFS model and stream the imagery. You can get terabytes of imagery.

[@Pricklyhedgehog72]

Even that was a disappointment when it first came out, areas were very low res. And then to get more detail it was a matter of purchasing upgrades for areas you had a particular interest in. It was an ambitious attempt at recreating the world.

[@CakePrincessCelestia]

Would be a bad move. Like 6.9 out of 10 times I fly MSFS, that streaming doesn't even work at all and it looks like complete and utter trash. On a 100MBit line that works absaolutely fine otherwise - except for Android and Windows updates, both literally take aeons everytime, so I guess that might actually be an ISP issue, but I don't wanna switch since the "alternatives" available are all known to be much worse. Sucks to live in the 3rd world in terms of internet (Germany that is).

[@TazziedoesWT]

Afghanistan looks so strange, they havent even made an attempt to match the colours of the landscape, furthermore, In Xplane, we have had autho scenery for years where you can choose the detail level of ground textures, ED saying they couldnt do that is just lazy. Overall a piss poor effort.

[@0Ignition0]

It seems like DCS Afghanistan is the worst map ATM, I hope it changes in the future. The textures are horrible when looking close to the ground, very low resolution. Also all the textures on the map placed this way are converted to dirt, even concrete. Also the grass takes the color of the terrain and the mountains have very low polygons.

[@TazziedoesWT]

@@0Ignition0 theyve gone for Atacama desert ffs. Afghanistan is Orange/Brown not pale. Plus, do not get me started on the detail of lack there of in the mountain ranges.

[@OrlandoDibiskitt]

I've seen a few people say this but I think it looks great, (particularly in VR). Runs really well for me too.

[@TazziedoesWT]

@@OrlandoDibiskitt the thing is, its not even the correct colour palette, they just imported the colours from their nevada map.

[@CAL1MBO]

Yeah that's such a lazy excuse. They need to reuse high-resolution textures (called optimisation), not come up with the BS that it's 2 terrabytes.

[@assafgol]

Freeze and stutter like hell. Terrible patch.

[@Bigalldone]

Sorry mang but it is not absolutely amazing. It will be, but it's not that yet. Tame it brother. Call it when it is. Fan boy. I say this as a friend and someone that enjoys your content. But please. Be real.

[@Pricklyhedgehog72]

Remember these are my impressions, and others may differ.

[@Bigalldone]

Valid point you make. Guess you are easy pleased. Keep up the good work.

[@Dg-zj6jo]

adverts ruin the channel