FOV in games - FPS-Racesim-etc - Games

Hi all, I am a huge FOV nerd. I can't stand how most games strap a fish-eye lens to your head and expect you not to be sick. It is all about scale. If my monitor was a window to the virtual world it would be hard to see the surrounding but what I did see would be perfectly to scale as if it was really there. It would get bigger as I got closer in the exact same way something in real life would. This is the benefit of a correct FOV. You want to talk immersion. [u]This is it.[/u] I have made a couple tutorials one specifically for rFactor explaining how to figure out PRECISELY what your real life Vertical Field of View is and apply it to the game. rFactor uses vertical but some simple math can give you your horizontal for FPS's. [img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v504/F12Bwth2/Game%20Screens/FOV.png[/img] Take the 2 Distances (Side 1&2) and your viewable Screen Height(Side 3) and put those numbers into this calculator. [url]http://ostermiller.org/calc/triangle.html[/url] Full Tutorial [url]http://www.racesimcentral.com/forum/showthread.php?5691-Setting-up-your-Driving-view[/url]. As an example here is a side by side I did using a default view for rfactor of 62.5 degrees VERTICAL fov and my calculated and adjusted 20.5 [hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWV0_u0r-Hk[/hd] Now in Driving sim's this is fine because you are driving on a linear track. You know where you are going and nothing should surprise you. Not even other cars [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1QsnHq5PBo&fmt=22[/url] [b]FPS's are a tad more difficult.[/b] [img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v504/F12Bwth2/Forums/FOVExample2.jpg[/img] I will use my Arma2 video since it's really the only game that allows fully adjustable FOV in the settings file. [hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3vnRIsHG-A[/hd] Full Tutorial [url]http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=100235[/url] Here is a bit of gameplay using 40 v-fov. Double what I should be using. Yes it is difficult but I can see enemies far away and in arma that is almost more important than next to you. [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jus-eosshv8&fmt=22[/url] All Low FPS applications would benefit from some head-tracking and also from having a triple-head or huge projector setup. My perfect V-fov is 20 and therefore with my single 16:10 screen my perfect H-fov is 32. However if I had a triplehead I would still have a vertical of 20 but my horizontal would now be a healthy 96 degrees! I implore everyone to turn their FOV down in every game as close as you can to perfect for a day. It helps if you move your monitor as close as you can to your face (don't go blind dummies!)

I thought that said "Racism"

"Racesim" is two dyslexic letters away from 'racism'.

I hate it when the fov is so low that it feels like the cam in on your gun. Like borderlands. Give's me the impression of vacuuming with the frame. The low fov on rfactor looks dumb on this small highres screen. Point taken though. Might try this on my big screen with forza 3.

Metro 2033 has such a painfully small FOV that it almost made me puke. [editline]04:24PM[/editline] Thank god you can change it.

You're a retard, matching up FOV to your screens apparent size is completely useless and due to the size of your screen will pretty much just cripple what you can see and make navigation extremely hard. There's no benefit. It doesn't make sense, it doesn't look better, it doesn't feel better - in fact it feels worse due to the laughably small fov. Just don't and shut up before you hurt yourself. P.S. More fisheye please, so I can actually [i]see[/i] something and not feel like I'm walking around with blinds on. [editline]12:35AM[/editline] For racing games there may be an improvement, [b]but not for the reasons you think.[/b] Since racing games require far more focus further ahead, decreasing the FOV means more detail is visible in that area, improving the experience. [editline]12:36AM[/editline] A good FOV has nothing whatsoever to do with your head position. [b]Nothing.[/b] And everything to do with finding a good compromise between perspective distortion, forward detail and situational overview. [editline]12:38AM[/editline] [b]Movies have had mismatched FOV, even between shots, for a hundred years. Nobody cared about that even once in all that time.[/b] [editline]12:40AM[/editline] Seriously, your brain doesn't give a shit if the display covers 20 degrees and the FOV is 90. As long as it is not overly distorted by the perspective projection.

Racing games without a proper FOV, lose any sense of speed and it can become really hard to play them like it.

What BmB said. A million times over. I'll take actually being able to see what the fuck is going on 30 degrees to me left over a theoretically perfect fov any day.

This is the reason you can change your FOV in most modern games today, because some people like the OP will just whine and complain and change it themselves when it's not completely realistic in every way.

This just... doesn't work. A true sense of FoV in the way you are trying to achieve it is only possible with a three-screen setup and, even better, TrackIR.

Heck just TrackIR alone will do the trick. No need to fiddle with FOV.

I don't really give a shit about FOV.

low fovs suck AND they hurt mine eyes

I swear I feel like a substitute teacher in summer school. I don't care if you like it or not. I'm just telling you that all the shit currently is wrong. All of it. And until you as a gamer take a large, long, hard and throbbing step toward say a projector or massive triplehead you will be doing it wrong forever. End of line

I thought the title said "FOV in games - FPS-Racism-etc"

[QUOTE=F12Bwth;23929283]I swear I feel like a substitute teacher in summer school. I don't care if you like it or not. I'm just telling you that all the shit currently is wrong. All of it. And until you as a gamer take a large, long, hard and throbbing step toward say a projector or massive triplehead you will be doing it wrong forever. End of line[/QUOTE] [i]Hey, maybe next time try to back up your argument. It works better.[/i]

[QUOTE=BmB;23930256][i]Hey, maybe next time try to back up your argument. It works better.[/i][/QUOTE] Monitor Height.. Eye distance from Monitor.. Calculate what your FOV is.. Profit.

Low FOVs look like looking through a funnel. High FOVs look like my eyes are sticking out of my head. FOVs that are just right let me see what I want to see and not make me disoriented by looking at the screen. Console games tend to have very low FOV values in order to have to render less on the screen. However, watching a game from a distance will negate the fish-eye feeling of low FOV. Therefore if you play your games on a couch, some distance away from the screen, you will not experience low FOV sickness. However if you sit at a desk, directly infront of the screen, you will experience low FOV sickness. The best cure for low FOV sickness is to raise the FOV of the game to the appropriate value. Values may vary depending on the aspect ratio of the screen. I find it on a 16:10 aspect ratio that a FOV value of 90 is good. Its all personal preference, so play with what you feel looks right. Some people can see wider than others. Not everyone can be a Jet Fighter Pilot.

I did this, i can't see the end of my rifle on tf2. fuck this

I dont really care what my FOV is, my eyes adjust to the game.

"Fish eye" refers to extremely high FOV's Zombojoe. And no, aside from minor differences in build or maybe deformations or disabilities, everyone sees pretty much the same "width". The difference is in situational awareness.

[QUOTE=F12Bwth;23929283]I swear I feel like a substitute teacher in summer school. I don't care if you like it or not. I'm just telling you that all the shit currently is wrong. All of it. And until you as a gamer take a large, long, hard and throbbing step toward say a projector or massive triplehead you will be doing it wrong forever. End of line[/QUOTE] All the shit currently is wrong? Wrong by what definition? The way I see it, you ether have low FOV that makes it look like the game is happening right on the other side of a little window you have to peek through (like you are trying to get us to believe is the only true way to do it), or high FOV that pulls the camera back in order to give you some damn peripheral vision so you can actually see what the hell is going on around you. If you want to go through the trouble of calculating your "perfect" FOV, go right ahead, but don't go around telling us that sticking to the higher FOV is wrong. Not everyone is so obsessed with realism. Functional game-play is more important than immersion.

What if a game could finally get the focus thing right, since I think we can see more than 100 degrees of FOV, but we can only really see things in a much smaller cone of vision inside that >100 degrees FOV.

so if I understand the OP correctly, current FOV is "wrong" because the monitor acts like a window into the games world, and therefore should only give a view as though you are looking through a window? A valid point, except that it [B]completely disregards the goal of a game developer.[/B] Games are made to be an immersive experience, and it's kinda hard to be immersed in any experience when I'm watching it through my window. And that's completely ignoring the fact that it would be next to impossible to play most games this way, as it would be like playing scoped in with a sniper constantly. All any enemy would have to do to "hide" from me is step about 1.5 feet to either side.

I've never ever felt the need to touch FOV settings. Ever.

How about a monitor that covers your whole eyesight and an FOV of 180? It's the only true way to do a proper FPS, since human eyesight is literally just a small bit over 180 degrees.

Triple Screen Display does that job fine. :smug:

[QUOTE=F12Bwth;23929283]I swear I feel like a substitute teacher in summer school. I don't care if you like it or not. I'm just telling you that all the shit currently is wrong. All of it. And until you as a gamer take a large, long, hard and throbbing step toward say a projector or massive triplehead you will be doing it wrong forever. End of line[/QUOTE] Guess what? I like doing it wrong.

Here's a quick concept I cooked up in 10 minutes. Bit stretched of course, I just wanted a proof of concept. [img_thumb]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7539801/fov.png[/img_thumb]

I don't notice nor care about the FOV in games.