You confuse multiple projection with single screen hFOV. If you increase hFOV on a single projection screen to match what you see on triples, your world scale will be affected, things at the center will become smaller and off.
Yes, you're 100% correct. That's 1 of the reasons why I think curved monitors, and especially the wider and/or more curved they are, are overrated for 99.999% of games.
What needs to happen is the h.FOV has to change
without the v.FOV changing.
For eg. Screen = 45", 21:9, 800r, 55 cm from eyes. For 1:1 FOV:
v.FOV = 45°
h.FOV if 0 curve (flat) = 87°
h.FOV if 800r curve = 104°
The problem is - as you correctly pointed out - if you set a game with a 21:9 resolution to 45° v.FOV, it will only give you 87° h.FOV. If you set the h.FOV to 104°, then the v.FOV will be at 58° which means your entire world scaling will be smaller and you are then back to "square one" and did not really accomplish anything. So, basically, the game needs to allow adjust the h.FOV relative (ie. without changing) the v.FOV. In order to properly make up for the curve, the game has to be at 104° h.FOV
while also at 45° v.FOV (not 58°). Sadly, this cannot be done in 99.9999% of games.
The only way to do this is to play a game which has, both, triple-independent rendering/viewports
and the ability to use triple-independent rendering/viewports while only using 1 screen. Or, if the game has some other way of adjusting the h.FOV for the same v.FOV (like iRacing apparently does).
Another way of doing it, I'm guessing, is to set the game and your monitor to a custom horizontal resolution as if you had a wider monitor (eg. 25:9 instead of 21:9). You'd have to play with the h.resolution numbers until you find a a number that ends up giving you the curved monitor's h.FOV (104° in my example) for the same v.FOV (45°). However, this will probably end up giving poor picture quality because you won't be running your monitor's native resolution (or a perfect 2x2 version of it) so this is not really an option. Plus, not only will image quality noticeably suffer, but post-rendering image scaling also adds input lag. It would be an interesting experiment though.
I would love to have experience of triples or any kind of super-wide view, but I can readily agree that it's likely to be a non-issue until you get to "large" angles.
But some people really do have large angles (ballpark 180 degrees, with aggressive curvature or tilts) and at some point I reckon the stretching could become immersion-breaking (if you turn your head, or maybe even just from peripheral vision noticing that stuff isn't passing by at the "right" speed).
Ya. The stretching thing can be overblown. For me, personally, it's more the h.FOV we're getting cheated out of - basically making the curve more gimmicky than truly being properly utilized in 99.999% of games (besides like 3 or 4 racing games).
The stretching can be really bad. As you said, depends on size and curve. When I first bought triples like 10 years ago, I thought it was going to be this amazing experience for all games. I get home, fired up Battlefield, and the stretching and size of objects on the outside monitors is absolutely horrendous. Anything on the outside monitors looks huge and like it's only 3 ft in front of me, but on the centre monitor, the same object looks tiny and like it's 50 ft in front of me. It's a massively distorted, "broken" mess. So, aside from missing a ton of h.FOV, the extra h.FOV I did indeed get was ridiculous, barely useful, and more annoying and distracting than fun. I ended up just playing all my games in single-screen mode. The only non-triple-independent rendering games I can deal with the triple-screen stretching are racing games because with them set to a low v.FOV (for 1:1 scaling), the stretch is much less. It's still bad compared to a triple-independent rendered setup - looking at corners, apex's etc. via the outside monitors will look bigger and closer then suddenly shrink and look further away (not anywhere near as bad as other games because of the low v.FOV) - but it's doable and still enjoyable.
In the FOV calculator, set a curve of something like 800r to simulate triple angled monitors, distance 55 cm, size 72" (3x 27" 16:9 monitors), and aspect ratio to 48:9. The non-curved h.FOV is 48°
less, at 117° instead of 165°. So, if using the 1:1 v.FOV of 34°, and playing a game with no triple-independent rendering like GTL, GTR2, R07, PC1, all WRC, Dirt, and Codies F1 games, you'll be missing 48° h.FOV, with only 117° instead of 165°! Final result = Way less h.FOV + Way more horizontal & distance distortions. What a rip-off!...It's the same general theory with curved monitors (including a single one) but - as you stated - no where near as bad.
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