homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation DCS World 2..5 Release Date ANNOUNCED!!

It's a good one hey. Don't credit me for it though but I think it will become the "Norm" around here

Memory problem it surely has, using more than a normal design. Leaks can be finite (rare) and infinite (common). But at the end of the day if use is more than available it doesn't matter if it is a leak or a RAM dwarf hidden inside your PC case; it breaks just the same.

1.5.8 was given as an explicit option but it's no longer supported just the same as I can still keep DCS v1.2 if I want.

I think DCS testing branches should have a big fat watermark on the screen FOR TESTING USE ONLY or automatic program exit every hour or just something to ensure people understand that testing version is for testing.

Also, ED could keep OpenBeta dug down deep in forum and stop announcing beta releases in weekly update.
That way only the very few actually enjoying betatesting for free would suffer from the ever-flowing hickups and maybe, just maybe, beta testing feedback would be more useful (but I doubt they read/care).

For me there is not really any difference between using the release branch or the open beta. In both paths there are parts which are broken in the core sim and when using open beta there is a slight chance to get the fix 1 or 2 weeks earlier. The past showed that even when you exclusevly use the "stable" version you can also get some serious game braking bugs and ED has to put out hotfix after hotfix.

I don't feel like bothering with the beta client. Roughly when will the current version move to the release branch? In the past it was typically a week or so. I want to give the J-11 a try. I'm glad that we're getting some more content for free when everything else seems to cost a good bit of money (maps, modules, asset packs).

I suppose I am stretching a bit but maybe someone nice enough will come along and make a free flyable Su-27SM.

Probably won't move the version from OB to Release until 1 week or more after OB has a good version. OB version right now isn't good so next step will be to improve OB version. Then after OB version is good then later that version will be moved to Release.

So given that OB isn’t great right now, how could it possibly have been good at 2.5 when it was moved to ‘release’ when there were even less fixes in place and the memory manager wasn’t purging RAM?

Indeed! It doesn't matter what name you slap on it or how a thing is broken specifically, if it's broken, it's broken. Fix it.



Except that even the "stable release" version isn't exactly stable and is just an older testing version. We already know ED will chuck whatever version they have out the door even if they don't know the bugs and limitations of that version, how can you expect to convince anyone that ED knows what they're doing when they slap on a Release label on an OB version?

How could you know if a release version is any good if it spent zero time being beta (release candidate?)? If you make significant changes between the version that was sitting on the OB shelf then it's not really tested. If the updates are focused then ED can test themselves any minor improvements and be reasonably confident any changes are OK.

I guess really OB is a cycle of genuine betas and release candidates. The betas do major changes but introduce bugs, the RCs follow cleaning up, and if it's any good RC ports to Release. That seems to be the pattern 2-3 OB versions for ever release.

Except that a known buggy version is released anyway, both in the "release" of 2.5 Open Beta and in the "release" of the Open Beta into the Release label.

That's exactly the point, it's not essential to have a public beta before software is released. ED's open beta's expose the flaws to a mass audience which is perfectly fine, they can put the fixes in place and re-release as an up-issued version if necessary and internal testers (in normal development, not the clowns testing EDs products) can then find any other minor deltas. A '2.4.867' beta can then become the 2.5 milestone release when they are happy the integration is complete, the testing has been done and Quality Assurance verify the fixes.......it's ED's stupid terminology and lack of strategy that just throws anything out to the public and people then expect some sort of beta every single time.

Any other software company are more than capable of finding the problems, it seems that the half-wits doing the internal testing for ED are clearly incapable. I'm sure we can understand massively complex software and/or soak testing by the public for different hardware configurations but ED have no excuse, they release buggy software with major flaws that shouldn't get anywhere near the public, attempt to fix elements and break others....and then just up-issue the version anyway and class it as a 'release' candidate. It's hard to imagine how what processes they actually follow based on the massive mistakes they make, together with their continual ignorance in learning from previous mistakes....that alone makes the completely incompetent. It's the textbook definition.

I've said it before but I'll say it again....what makes this so frustrating is that there is massive potential that will probably never get realised. Just how Wags and the incompetence of fellow management can't see what an abortion they have created and continue to make a mess of is absolutely tragic.

No, they really don't. Even if they ran the sim on a 128GB RAM, quad Titan SLI, and 1080p to get buttery-smooth framerates, how hard is it to build a min-spec and avg-spec PC and test their software on those PC specs? The fact that they didn't know about the memory lead/allocation issue make them look like n00bs.

2.5 Release is not buggy. 2.5.1 OB is buggy. That's not to say 2.5R doesn't have bugs but if you're going to force a binary viewpoint then I point out your mistake.


Who cares what's essential? It's a good idea. In any case what you describe as a small fix skipping the OB step has already happened so what are you talking about?

The main factor is that ED don't follow standard process.......They don't test properly and don't fix bugs before moving to new versions. That is the crux of it. What's the point of ED having a beta (open or closed) if they're not reacting and attempting to fix the issues that are identified? It's not essential to have an open beta if there is no strategy or intent behind it.......ED just push 'something' out of the door because they are always late and try to please their customers regardless of the state and bugs present......we've seen that time and time again. Further evidence of that was EDs intent to move to release in 1-2 weeks after the 2.5 open beta, they had no idea how crap and buggy the software was because they clearly hadn't tested it properly, the memory problem would have been identified internally too.

I'm not sure how you can claim 2.5 was not buggy......it was a complete and utter mess.

If it has bugs, then it is buggy, is it not? Is the memory leak/allocation issue a 2.5.1 OB problem? Are there not pages and pages of bugs/crashes/issues with 2.5 when it was still in beta?

My viewpoint isn't binary, it's realistic. 2.5.1 OB is buggy simply because it inherits the issues from 2.5.... it's not like 2.5 was stable (despite the name) and then 2.5.1 just suddenly breaks a lot of things.

If a supermodel has six fat cells is she fat? No, you are entirely wrong on this issue. Your equivalence of "has bugs" to "is buggy" is intellectually bankrupt.

As programmer im struggling to understand your point. Are you implying that just because a bug was found/introduced on a previous release somehow a new release becomes a sort of non buggy version as long as it doesn't introduces new one? (which is impossible since we are talking about ED) Did DCS worship reach this level?

An old bugged release that has not been fixed will unavoidable translate into a new bugged release if not fixed....simple as that. As matter of fact, properly done development should be about :
- major version that introduces new features/concepts;
- minor updates to improve introduced features (may include very small new features to fulfill major features)
- fix updates that .... fix introduced bugs in major and minor updates.

Which is not exactly what ED does, and as premium they love to fork the development just for the sake of bad development process.

I can't tell the difference between OB or R - but I can say that 2.5 in my particular case does not work at all.

the irony of this is that now I can dedicate myself in creating skins for Il-2 Sturmovik and P3D exclusively ...

I hope at some point I'll be able to install DCS again.

Like, won't even spool up?

For me, the first time loading a mission in both 2.5 and 2.5 OB took a LONG time (~6-10 min) to the point I thought it had frozen (that's a long load time for an SSD based install) , but after that it smoothed out.

It's a minor issue, but would be nice if such back-end maintenance was done as part of the update process itself, so it was more clear what's going on.

In general, the first launch of OB on my machine hung a bit, but seemed fine on subsequent launches. I suspect it was reaching a lot of items.

Point being, if it's launching and appearing to freeze, it might still be working along.

a simple mission would never load - that is it, no error file ,nothing, DOA ... it crashes clean.

sometimes I feel like giving it a try again - but downloading 50+GB again and ending up with the same results is a no-go.

but lets look at the bright side : those who have it running are getting frustrated/angry - while I am OK with waiting, not a bad outcome