Did I make a mistake?

[Spinelli]

If you're not gonna go VR then I highly recommend triples. Seriously, racing on a single screen sucks compared to triples.

Even with my new top-of-the-line 45" 21:9 OLED, it doesn't come close to the h.FOV & immersion I used to have with my triple 27" setup, let alone a triple 32" setup. If I didn't have a Pimax VR headset, I would have never gotten rid of my triple 27" setup regardless of other single-monitor options (eg. 24:10 38", 32:9 49", 21:9 45").

 

[tweaks_mcgee]

I have 70" x 65" of floor space for a triples setup. My rig is like 54" long? (GTO Prime). It'd be tight

 

[Spinelli]

Can you fit triple 27s on an integrated stand?

 

[Neilski]

I'm still waiting for a setting that switches the engines to render to a curved viewport where you type in your screen radius.

Ooooooooooooh, your comment makes me realise (mind blown now) that I've probably always been assuming that they already render to a curved viewport.
So that would mean: you type in the angle you want for the field of view, and it maps it onto an arc that subtends that angle at the virtual "camera"/eyeball. Is that not how it works in reality?

I've never used an ultrawide screen or indeed a curved one, and I don't like driving with a postage-stamp view so as a result I have never experienced a game FOV angle that was remotely similar to the physical angle subtended by my screen at my eyeballs...

 

[Spinelli]

Yes please.

Ooooooooooooh, your comment makes me realise (mind blown now) that I've probably always been assuming that they already render to a curved viewport.
So that would mean: you type in the angle you want for the field of view, and it maps it onto an arc that subtends that angle at the virtual "camera"/eyeball. Is that not how it works in reality?

I've never used an ultrawide screen or indeed a curved one, and I don't like driving with a postage-stamp view so as a result I have never experienced a game FOV angle that was remotely similar to the physical angle subtended by my screen at my eyeballs...

Na, I don't think any sim racing game has an option that allows you to enter in the curve of your screen to adjust for it. Actually I think I read that iRacing does, if it does, I'm pretty sure it's the only one and I haven't researched into how accurate it's results are.

It sucks even for single-screen racers because a curved screen should have more h.FOV for the same v.FOV than a non-curved screen, and the more the curve, the more added h.FOV you should get for that same v.FOV.

By the way, I've seen lots of discussion on Reddit with people discussing this. I even saw a FOV calculator someone created which allows you to enter the curve of the screen. All these people have it completely wrong. The FOV calculator may give the correct number, I'm not disputing that, the problem is there's no way for us to add h.FOV without also adding v.FOV. No game allows that (except maybe iRacing).

For eg.:
My eyeball is about 55 cm away from a single 45" 21:9 monitor. That means, to get a 1:1 FOV, the game's vFOV = 45° and hFOV = 87°. Now, let's say you plug those same numbers (55 cm away from a single 45" 21:9 monitor) into a FOV calculator that takes the curve of a monitor into account. Let's say it then spits out hFOV = 99° (vFOV should be the same). You can't do this in the game, if you set the game to 99° hFOV, then that means the vFOV will end up being 53°. Therefore all you've done is increase the FOV of the entire picture, making every thing smaller, like you always could do regardless of curved monitor or not and that is completely different from adding only hFOV in order to compensate for the monitor's particular curve.

 

[RasmusP]

So that would mean: you type in the angle you want for the field of view, and it maps it onto an arc that subtends that angle at the virtual "camera"/eyeball. Is that not how it works in reality?

That would be the idea, yep!
But right now it works like this (Screenshots from some nvidia demo):

That's the standard viewport rendering. The FOV setting is how far the projection point at the bottom of the picture is away from the monitor and determines the angle.
With a curved monitor like these 49" 32:9, you take what you see in the picture and make it curved. So the projection is pretty wrong...
ACC has a setting for this btw! But it only bends the final frame, so the center becomes blurry/pixelated if going too far.
It looks quite disturbing when changing between different games/sims...

For triples, it looks like this without the adjusted rendering:

And like this when it gets corrected/split into 3 viewports:

And for curved monitors, you'd need to draw the projection lines to a curved viewport, which would be quite different and probably isn't easy to change in the engines

These are from this video about VR projection btw:

I've never used an ultrawide screen or indeed a curved one, and I don't like driving with a postage-stamp view so as a result I have never experienced a game FOV angle that was remotely similar to the physical angle subtended by my screen at my eyeballs...

Yeah me neither! I'm using 49° FOV on my 34" 21:9 (27" height) at 80cm distance.
"Correct" FOV would be 24°!!!
I seem to be a special snowflake as my eyes start to hurt when going below 40°. And I get super dizzy when going above 50°.
There's a little sweetspot where it feels natural for me. I hate games without an FOV settings and a (for me) wrong FOV.
For some reason Battlefield defaults to something like 38° fov, Rocket League to 60°, lol.

 

[Neilski]

Na, I don't think any sim racing game has an option that allows you to enter in the curve of your screen to adjust for it.

Ah, but in my magical (and not correct, as Rasmus clarifies) imagined version of how it works, there is no need to enter anything - it just uses the FOV you define and if your physical monitor is close enough to that then results should be really nice. NB: this would be a spherical, not cylindrical surface, but ultrawide curved monitors have such an exaggerated aspect ratio that I feel pretty certain nobody would be able to tell the difference between spherical and cylindrical anyway.

But right now it works like this (Screenshots from some nvidia demo):

Damn, that's a shame. Not sure why they feel the need to do it that way, as I'd have thought (cough, having not actually thought it through) that it's probably no more computationally intensive to do it on a curve
Thanks for the education though!

 

[tweaks_mcgee]

Can you fit triple 27s on an integrated stand?

Based on a light polling, I could possibly fit 32's. It's mighty tempting. I have a bass shaker for seat and some going a few other spots. I'm inclined to go with standalone... stand.

Also ... Are triples hard to run on AMD cards?

 

[Spinelli]

Ah, but in my magical (and not correct, as Rasmus clarifies) imagined version of how it works, there is no need to enter anything - it just uses the FOV you define and if your physical monitor is close enough to that then results should be really nice. NB: this would be a spherical, not cylindrical surface, but ultrawide curved monitors have such an exaggerated aspect ratio that I feel pretty certain nobody would be able to tell the difference between spherical and cylindrical anyway.

There's quite a difference between the correct h.FOV for curved and non-curved monitors. Apparently the following spreadsheet is accurate (from my research). I included a few sizes below.

Spreadsheet download here: https://easyupload.io/1ti18y

Some popular sizes & curves
31.5" (32"), 16:9, 550 mm eye-distance:
- vFOV = 39°
- hFOV = 65°
- hFOV 1000R = 70°

33.9" (34"), 21:9, 550 mm eye-distance:
- vFOV = 34°
- hFOV = 71°
- hFOV 1800R = 76°

37.5" (38"), 24:10, 550 mm eye-distance:
- vFOV = 37°
- hFOV = 77°
- hFOV 2300R = 81°

45.9" (45"), 21:9, 550 mm eye-distance:
- vFOV = 45°
- hFOV = 89°
- hFOV 800R = 106°

48.8" (49"), 32:9, 550mm eye-distance:
- vFOV = 34°
- hFOV = 95°
- hFOV 1000R = 112°


On a single screen, hFOV is desperately needed. In my case (45", 21:9, 550 mm away), being able to keep my FOV 1:1 - meaning a vFOV of 45° - but getting the correct hFOV of 106° instead of 87° would be a pretty big improvement. Not to mention, it would give more value to having a curved screen since you're actually benefiting and technically making use of the curve.

Imagine having ultrawide screens (32:9, 24:10, 21:9) but only getting the hFOV of a 16:9 monitor stretched to fill out the ultrawide. That's kind of what we're experiencing with curved monitors. We have curved monitors but we're only getting the hFOV of a non-curved version of that monitor. Sucks. The curve is not actually being utilized.

 

[RasmusP]

Imagine having ultrawide screens (32:9, 24:10, 21:9) but only getting the hFOV of a 16:9 monitor stretched to fill out the ultrawide. That's kind of what we're experiencing with curved monitors. We have curved monitors but we're only getting the hFOV of a non-curved version of that monitor. Sucks. The curve is not actually being utilized.

Yep..
Although it's not too bad for me.
Only 34" with R1800 at 80cm distance means it's basically just a slight bend, but still flat in front of me.
But for you at 55cm distance, 45" R800, it's a different story!
In theory, you'd want to have a similar look to triples but instead of a scene-split, having a smooth correction that exactly counters the distortion from your curve.
Basically like a (only horizontal) lense correction when using fisheye lenses.

 

[Neilski]

Wow, hadn't realised screens were now available with such an aggressive curve - 800 mm! I'd personally prefer to use that with an 800 mm viewing distance (like Rasmus), which would have a nice side-effect of keeping the entire panel roughly equidistant from the eyeballs.

 

[RasmusP]

Wow, hadn't realised screens were now available with such an aggressive curve - 800 mm! I'd personally prefer to use that with an 800 mm viewing distance (like Rasmus), which would have a nice side-effect of keeping the entire panel roughly equidistant from the eyeballs.

Yeah but it only looks great if there is some horizontal distortion-correction or better, rendering to the curved viewport

 

[Novopaine]

Based on a light polling, I could possibly fit 32's. It's mighty tempting. I have a bass shaker for seat and some going a few other spots. I'm inclined to go with standalone... stand.

Also ... Are triples hard to run on AMD cards?

For triple 32" screens I would recommend an area width of no less than 5ft (60in / 152cm), and even that may be too tight. You will still want room to maneuver around the screens for setup or maintenance, unless you don't mind ducking under the left or right monitor. I already regret pushing my rig up against a wall, making adjustments annoying.

AMD does a pretty good job at triples. The name of the tech they use is called Eyefinity and was created by ATI many moons ago before they got bought out by AMD. ATI was betting on multi-monitor support while nvidia was betting on 3d glasses tech.

 

[tweaks_mcgee]

Thanks. I am thinking tonight and the next few what the best setup will be. The price and specs are good on those Acer Nitro, but worry I'll get what I paid for.