"Spoting" plane dots at a distance

[Flyboy]

I found it extremly hard spotting dots without the plane icon.

I used to play aces high years ago and remember being able to spot the dots alot easier.
What video setting affect the visual of the "dots"? Can i do something about it?

[The Fugitive]

I believe dot distance is about 8k, icons at 6k. About the only thing I can think of is your video settings, anti-allison may have an effect on it.

What setting are you using?

[Wiley]

Resolution.  If you're running at 4k, knocking it back to 1920 x 1080 will help some.  That will work effectively because 4k is exactly 4 times the number of pixels as a 1920 x 1080 display, so it will do 4 pixels per dot instead of 1, making it bigger.

Well, to be precise, it's actually DPI.  I actually got a lower res 32" monitor for my computer intentionally to make dots easier to see in FSO.  My DPI is 49, and that seemed to be critical mass for my eyes to be able to spot dots easier.  Any higher and I can't see them as easily.  To get the same DPI with 1920 x 1080 resolution, it would need to be about 45".

Removing anti aliasing will help too, though it will make lines a bit jaggier.

Wiley.

[Flyboy]

i use 1920 x 1080 resolution, texture size of 4096 and a custom FOV of 100.

i now disabled anti alias and it seem to help but not much.

does the fov setting have an effect?

[Bizman]

Yes, lowering the FOV makes dots bigger. It does this by narrowing the area you're seeing without reducing the actual surface area. The default FOV is a compromise between AH2 and other flight sims so going below default is still a valid option.

[1stpar3]

One other thing you may want to try...mess around with your COLOR settings. Either in Windows Display Properties or in INVIDIA Control Panel or equiv.  I adjusted the "HUE" scale in my invidia to 248 instead of the Default 0(other end of spectrum). Also as mentioned Anti aliasing turned off helps.

[Bizman]

Another thing to try is to play with your monitor settings. At our Spring Meeting we wondered why the image on one player's screen looked like from another game, the colours were vivid and rich, the graphics looked tempting and inviting. After some comparative analysis we found out what the difference was and scrolled through the presets on several monitors. Lo and behold, moving from "standard" to "photo" or "movie" made a huge difference!

[Ramesis]

Of couse the obvious, like mine, your eyes are getting worse 

[Flyboy]

Thanks for the help. Lowering the FOV seem to do the trick

[1stpar3]

Thanks for the help. Lowering the FOV seem to do the trick

GREAT! Glad you figured it out! Some may argue that FOV doesnt affect visual acuity but IMO it most definitely does! You may find out that a lot of your shots will be off, well as compared to what you may be used to getting with higher FOV values. That was my experience at leastt, with VR. I shortened my gun convergence by A LOT! Vr is a 90 for FOV and shorter convergences seemed to get better results. Probably because of the better depth perception with VR? I find that I can get a lot closer with VR, so shorter convergences really make a difference. Even with the poorer clarity while using vr ...it is still pretty dang mind blowing. I cant wait for upgrades to the clarity issues!