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I posted this on The DCS forums and thought Iâd share hereâŠ
" I have been a ED Community member since LOMACâŠI got used to all The right angled terrible terrain in Lock On and Black Shark I just enjoyed The Aircraft systems and Flight ModelâŠbut
never The terrainâŠUntil Now.
I just finished one of The most incredible flights Iâve ever had in any simulator âŠIn VRâŠThe Hind overflying CyprusâŠLow n Slow.
During this flight I needed to pause the sim several times and make sure my eyes werenât playing tricks on me.I wonât post any spoilers here as Iâd hate to ruin anyones first time experience with this map.
But The terrain detail/vegetation /and custom 3D objects are beyond stunning and really made me pause in Awe!!!
IMHO Cyprus alone is well worth the price of the Syria Map.
Thank You very much for your hard work and Meticulous Attention to detail.
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Funny but I just posted a reaction similar over on the screenshots thread with respect to @Derbysieger screens and told him I just had my first experience down low in a helicopter in DCS Syria. It is indeed amazing the attention to detail.
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Cyprus is nice part of map but colors are quite off. Too desert look and lots of buildings are off / not in real place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KxMEMW2WtI&ab_channel=BuddySpike
Really hope that they improve colors in future.
Maybe its engine limitation, single color for everywhere in map â makes that yellow hue 
Reshade for VR helps bit , still adjusting
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Interesting comparison, I think if the Bing maps images where taken at a different time then it may be the 2 are closer to each other. I like the Syria map as is TBH, for a âmadeâ terrain by artists it is way beyond anything I have seen in a flight sim. I do love the MSFS scenery too and who knows, one day we may fly DCS in a whole world map like that. Creating a damage model would take some doing though 
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MSFS can look incredible and the terrain and textures do look much more natural than DCS in the comparison video, however once you get up close it often falls apart, especially if the area isnât handcrafted it can be absolutely terrible at treetop level and you can kinda see it on some of the buildings in the video. There are areas that are absolutely stunning, even flying low and slow but more often than not MSFS is very inconsistent which is extremely jarring when you like to get a close look at things. Not an issue from 1000ft up but terrible when hovering a couple of meters off the ground.
If DCS was able to blend different vegetation and terrain like MSFS does it would improve a lot already and pretty much close the gap in visual fidelity. But as it stands I take DCSâs consistency over MSFSâs medium to high altitude fidelity any day of the week.
@RedBravo65 Thanks Syria is quite stunning and great for helicopter ops. You miss most of the amazing details when youâre flying fixed wings even if youâre in a Viggen or A-10C down low.
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Photo-grammetry in MSFS looks good until youâre up close, then the elevation data is often wonked, or detail itself, since itâs a top down elevation method, things like bridges, or shapes that increase in surface area as the elevation increases (ie Ships), are often bugged until MS or 3rd Party deletes said object and replaces with a rebuilt one.
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Well, Not only the tech is different in each game, the art direction is also clearly different. That means, since as realistic as they thrive to be, they tend to represent the world in diferent ways (letâs remember they are a representation of the world, not the world itself). Just like to ârealisticâ movies can look very different from one another (even the lighting and the color correction are quite different from those shots, DCS being a more yellowish, desert/war/action film kind of vibe, and MSFS being a cooler more collected peaceful look).
That said, I do believe DCS has some limitations about the color variation of the ground textures and I think that makes their scenery a little more boring that it could be. Iâm not sure why, but if they could make a more varied scenery in terms of ground texture it would definitely help make it look prettier (not that it isnât).
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Agree. At low level FS2020 can look, well, icky - many things look odd and are a distraction. DCS is more generic but it âworksâ - itâs just âstuffâ going by my viewpoint, without the distracting odd-looking bits. Highly dependent on where you fly Iâd imagine.
It strikes me that the biggest thing MSFS 2020 has going for it is a representation of the entire world and that itâs more convenient to acquire this data - the âoh neato, thereâs my houseâ effect (my house roof looked about right but that was it). How close it comes, and how pleasing it is, I guess depends on a personâs preferences and use-case.
I prefer the âfeelâ of DCS at tree-top level (the fact I can get it to run more smoothly helps) even though all the objects might not be 100% up-to-date/correct as they are in the real world.
Somewhat related: I still wonder if âgenericâ maps might not be more useful from a game-play angle, my earlier references to a generic âSaharan Desertâ or âJungle By the Seaâ, etc map. With the ability to change the place-names even? Maybe then I could have an Iraq and Vietnam-like scenario that it appears weâll never get (on the DCS platform anyway).
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Hear, hear! I love the real world locations but truly, while I get the whole ârealistic simâ high horse, I think itâs a crying shame we canât just have generic made-up maps of the different âbiomesâ - Vietnam-esque is the one that I want most but there are others.
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Many, many, moons ago Digital Integration used generic, region-themed, maps in Tornado. While there was a handful of complaints, I believe most of us did not care because the focus was on flying and the combat experience. Speaking for myself, I was totally engrossed in flying the jet, working the TIALD, and hitting my TOT to deliver my ordnance on target.
Generic maps honestly did not detract from the sim; however, those were simpler times.
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I wouldnât mind generic maps one bit. But that aint never happening I reckon.
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Like âCam Lao Namâ in the recent Prairie Fire ARMA add-on. Itâs incredible for what it is. Squad tactics would be LONG and dull if they had attempted to reproduce a truly representative portion of the region.
For DCS the only change I would make might be the addition of a grainy texture down low similar to the texture layer X-Plane adds near airports. But I fly low res VR. Others probably have no issues with fine detail at the surface. And thatâs the problem for devsâtheir users are all so different.
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âGenericâ maps is interesting, and something I hadnât really considered. I do love that the DCS maps can be correlated (âŠclosely-ish) to the real world.
DCS:Syria is hands down the bar for quality in DCS maps; Iâm curious though to see the Marianas map.
For the time being nearly all of my sim time is spent around Famagusta on the deck learning choppers.
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LOVE That sim! First one that made me feel like I was moving at some speed down low, anywayâŠ
I was likely one of those (been a long time) that would have preferred ârealâ maps. My opinion has changed though.
Off the cuffâŠ
I guess, in my mind, a problem concerning DCS is the platforms cover such a broad range of eraâs; the ability to create maps is behind a âwallâ, with all that that implies (a plus and a minus).
Thatâs why my dream is a âweaponizedâ version of X-Plane (or -gasp- MSFS2020) or ED modeling the entire world. Not holding my breath for any of that. Imagine how long that would take; revenue from selling many smaller maps would likely dry up?
Oh, and it bugs me that NTTR appears to be abandoned. Though, take with a grain of salt, Spudnockers recent YT video shows that the NTTR still has a significant support base. Be warned: that video is his typical 5 minutes if info crammed into 30.
If they donât want to open up the map building API for revenue reasons then give it some love and Iâd pay a reasonable âupgradeâ for it.
Gosh this leads my caffeine-starved brain along so many other pathsâŠ
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Did you ever play on the original Nevada , I still have it shipped with an A10-C patch. It was pretty awful. I believe when they decided to redo it they used it as a test bed that informed the work on the later maps. I watched lanky pilot flying a stunt session with that biplane this morning, he was on NTTR and it looked great.
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NTTR is a fine DCS map. Yes itâs old and not as cooland intricate as Syria. Itâs also hella fast. And functional. I like it fine the way it is, it is my second most used map tbh.
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With the promise of improving DCS Combined ArmsâŠAnd the recent release of the long awaited HindâŠand even longer awaited Apache coming later Detailed Maps are a must for enjoying DCS Low-n-SlowâŠ.Urga Media has proven they have the talent to create such maps.
Maybe in later builds they could implement a slider/option to help FPS when you donât need to load all those 3D objects?
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