I know, I know, it’s been a while since a new stable build of Tacview has been released! This is because I am working a lot on Tacview 2, plus I wanted to implement as many of your requests as possible in this 1.8.7 release. It is hard to know when to stop.
At last, everybody can now enjoy more than six months of updates for all simulators as well as real-life flights including new 3D models, new maps, new weapons, improved exporters, improved importers, more accurate telemetry numbers in all phases of flight, new visual options, and more options for dedicated servers.
This year, Tacview was notably used for Volfa 21 debriefings (a French / NATO military exercise spanning several weeks). Following the exercise, we have implemented a multitude of little fixes and improvements which will benefit everybody concerning stability and ergonomics for tactical debriefings. Other improvements, which require more (re)work of the code, will be integrated later in Tacview 2.
This new version also brings native ADS-B radio signal recording via a USB dongle and an antenna! Which means that you can now see flights taking place over your head, without any Internet connection or ADS-B server account. This first implementation will be improved depending on how popular this tool will be.
The terrain engine has also been pushed to its limits to display even more detailed textures and elevation data. Four times more accurate than before, to be specific. Pushing the engine so much revealed several display bugs (high frequency noise, holes, junction errors…) which have been fixed in this version. The framerate should remain similar to previous versions of Tacview. It is only when you are providing high-resolution textures for specific places, that (a lot) more memory and CPU will be required.
All the best from Vyrtuoz & BuzyBee
FEATURES & CHANGES
- ADDED support for real-time ADS-B radio telemetry
- ADDED anticipatory trails
- ADDED option to choose between IAS, CAS, TAS in cockpit view (when possible)
- ADDED option to display or not objects names and labels in the 3D view
- ADDED support for more KML files
- ADDED support for FlySight GPS files
- ADDED support for DCS: Marianas map
- ADDED support for DCS: Mi-24P Hind
- ADDED new DCS World Syria Map and Channel Map runways
- ADDED textures for DCS: Persian Gulf Map
- ADDED Aegean theater of operations v3.0 for BMS 4.35.2
- ADDED Kuwait theater of operations for BMS 4.35.1
- ADDED MidEast theater of operations for BMS 4.35.2
- ADDED Nevada theater of operations 4.35.1 for BMS 4.35.2
- ADDED Taiwan theater of operations 4.35.3 for BMS 4.35.1
- ADDED support for new classes of objects in BMS theaters
- ADDED 4 additional audio/video media windows
- ADDED command line option /MaxFrameRate:xx to reduce CPU usage and power consumption
- ADDED more choices of auto-scale and labels size
- ADDED "tacviewExportPath" in options.lua so each instance of DCS World can record data in different directories
- IMPROVED renderer to use by default discrete GPU for 3D rendering instead of APU
- IMPROVED textures filtering thanks to anisotropic filtering x4
- IMPROVED maximum terrain resolution by a factor of 4
- IMPROVED terrain accuracy
- IMPROVED video playback is now done via Windows Enhanced Video Renderer
- IMPROVED event log weapon min/max range is now displayed till 5 seconds after time-out
- IMPROVED Time-Shift tool ergonomics
- IMPROVED Track Injector ergonomics
- IMPROVED EAG files support
- IMPROVED only global waypoints are now listed in objects lists
- IMPROVED Korea & Balkans database and terrain for BMS 4.35.2
- IMPROVED max frame rate is now limited to 120 instead of 200
- IMPROVED cost lines and underwater terrain for custom elevation maps
- IMPROVED buildings can now fire shells/bullets (but this will not be displayed in the log)
- IMPROVED it is now possible to merge static/dynamic data with real-time recorded telemetry
- IMPROVED Facebook and Twitter icons are now gone when using an enterprise license
- IMPROVED shot log colors are now inverted to better show what is coming next
- IMPROVED roll and pitch are now ignored in satellite view for a clearer picture of the battlefield
FIXES
- FIXED crash when running out of memory during custom texture loading
- FIXED rare crash when streaming real-time telemetry
- FIXED rare memory leak for some errors in Lua addons
- FIXED corruption on exit which could cause random UI layout on next startup
- FIXED random mouse jumps during camera rotation
- FIXED 3D view would rotate forever to the right after locking the session with [WIN+L]
- FIXED AOA & AOS calculation during heavy g-force turns
- FIXED course vector was showing future instead of present
- FIXED file-save command was disabled during real-time telemetry
- FIXED invalid objects selection after removing an object from the world
- FIXED grey scale and color adaptive modes were not working anymore for terrain textures
- FIXED objects list not updated after editing object name/type/color
- FIXED events not always updated after reloading a log (Event Log addon)
- FIXED Telemetry.Clear() was disconnecting the real-time telemetry
- FIXED not possible to go under water with the free camera in most maps
- FIXED SRTM30 loading not working properly since Tacview 1.8.4
- FIXED "random" holes in terrain