FOV Opinions Please

[Ian Cameron]

Have played around with FOV settings since the beginning. Have used the calculators, one suggests 31, one says 35 and another says 59 according to my monitor size and position from me.
Width 19" Height 10.5" Distance to eyes 30". None have felt right.
So I decided to try and go for a more natural look as you would see behind the wheel. Set FOV to 65
set seat position to how I think it would look. Have uploaded a video for some feedback on this, apologies for quality it was recorded using frapps, and forgive the spin off. Also used is FaceTrackNOIR.
Not my best lap but I go more for realism than breaking records, although any feedback on this would be appreciated.

 

[David Cordell]

I have a measly 5:4 19" monitor now and my very next purchase is to get a widescreen 27" monitor and then 2 more after that. I think that the only way to properly use side mirrors is to have a large widescreen monitor or preferably 3 of them. If your fov is so wide on a small monitor to be able to see your mirrors, whether you realize it or not, it's slowing you down.

To be able to see who's next to me in races, I use the rear view mirror and left and right look buttons and most importantly spatial awareness. If I saw someone in rear view passing on my left and can not see them with that mirror or with the left look button then they are directly beside me and I can no longer use the left side of the track until they pass or I pull ahead and they become visible again. Pretty simple.

In a perfect world we would all have giant curved screens and have 180deg view but until then, it's better to have a more unskewed view of the track to be able to hit braking points consistently . Pinching a larger fov into a small frame is just cheating yourself out of faster lap times.

I am sure some guys are so talented they can run very fast lap times with a FOV that is wider than it should be but I also am sure they could run even faster times with a more correct FOV.

I really hated loosing my side mirrors and the extra peripheral view as well as the lowered sense of speed when I switched to a closer to real FOV. Now that my lap times have decreased greatly and am much more competitive with the fast guys, I would never go back to the pinched view.

I had a hard time understanding this even after looking at the drawings trying to explain the difference between what you see sitting in a real car and a 2 dimensional representation of that view with a pc monitor. I used to think to myself, "this is BS cause I can see my mirrors and all my dash and then some while sitting in my car!" Well, it does not work that way in 2d on a monitor.

I think the easiest way to understand is to make a 4 sided cone that is just large enough to fit around your eyes at the small end and then make the other end the size of your monitor and the length of the cone is the distance your eyes are from your monitor. Now take that cone out to your car and sit in the driver seat and look through it out the windshield. This is what a proper 2d FOV looks like on a monitor without the benefit of peripheral vision in real life. You will notice you can just see the top edge of the steering wheel and maybe just a bit of the left a-pillar and the top of the dash and some lower portion of the gauges may be cut off.

 

[Connor Caple]

... and if you could only see out of a 19" square of your car windscreen the police would not allow it on the road. Just saying...

Real FoV is only worth having if you have a big, wide screen in front of you, or three monitor setup. Less is not more in this case. Telling people with tiny monitors to 'see less it will make you faster' is just not a great idea, in my opinion.

I have a 40" screen about 30" from my eyes, so real FoV works quite well for me, not everyone has setups like that.

 

[David Cordell]

That's exactly why, in my earlier post, I said that I run 55deg instead of what my true calculated FOV should be.

Running closer to a real FOV will make you faster. That's just a fact. I never said you must run exactly your calculated FOV.

 

[Cote Dazur]

... and if you could only see out of a 19" square of your car windscreen the police would not allow it on the road. Just saying...

They would not let you drive looking trough binoculars held the wrong way either, which is the vision you get when you have to wide of an FOV.
I think we all agree, proper FOV is best, but trying to drive with a very small screen will end up with a compromise one way or the other.

 

[Ian Cameron]

Thats alot of info to digest from you guys, thanks for your input.
Going by the suggested calculator my monitor measures 21.5" from corner to corner and gives my fov at 35 so I'll play about with this on sunday.
Why is there such a difference using pcars for the calculator. Ac suggests fov at 19 big difference.
Guess I need to invest in a larger monitor at some point.

 

[Georg Siebert]

AC adjustements are for horizontal FOV, PC's one could be for vertical FOV.

 

[Stereo]

I really hated loosing my side mirrors and the extra peripheral view as well as the lowered sense of speed when I switched to a closer to real FOV. Now that my lap times have decreased greatly and am much more competitive with the fast guys, I would never go back to the pinched view.

As to sense of speed, with a high FOV you get much more rushing past you, but objects that you're moving towards look smaller and slower. With low FOV you don't have the stuff rushing past, but objects grow larger at a realistic rate as you drive towards them... different types of speed sense.

Once I got used to a low FOV, the main weirdness from high FOV is the warping that happens when you turn, all the stuff at the sides of the screen warps like crazy when you steer, and it makes corners look like they're much less sharp.


If you can, push your monitor as close to yourself as you can get it... directly behind/above the wheel is ideal really. How well you can do that depends on the wheel & monitor stand.

 

[David Cordell]

Nick, unfortunately I am still driving at a desk. My Fanatec Gt3RSv2 wheel is bolted to the desk and the monitor is as close to it as possible because the monitor stand hits the wheel base. The rim of the wheel is 6 inches from the monitor. I would like it to be about 2inches.

I have been running 55deg for the last couple months and just starting practicing with 50deg today and am already getting even faster as I can start threshold braking later and more consistently than when I was at 55deg. Takes less time to get used to than when I went from a ridiculous 85deg to 55deg.

 

[Cote Dazur]

.
Why is there such a difference using pcars for the calculator. Ac suggests fov at 19 big difference.

AC and Pcars use different value, one is horizontal and the other vertical. If you use the correct value for each SIM you will see that you will get the same FOV on your screen.
For you in AC ( at a ratio of 16:9 with a screen of 22" diagonal seating 29 " away), the FOV is 21 degree and it is 37 degree in Pcars.
If you seat in the same car and the same track in either SIM you will see that the different value will yield the same FOV.
http://www.projectimmersion.com/fov/index.php?m=1

 

[Ian Cameron]

AC and Pcars use different value, one is horizontal and the other vertical. If you use the correct value for each SIM you will see that you will get the same FOV on your screen.
For you in AC ( at a ratio of 16:9 with a screen of 22" diagonal seating 29 " away), the FOV is 21 degree and it is 37 degree in Pcars.
If you seat in the same car and the same track in either SIM you will see that the different value will yield the same FOV.
http://www.projectimmersion.com/fov/index.php?m=1

Thanks for that

 

[Andrey Varlamov]

AC adjustements are for horizontal FOV, PC's one could be for vertical FOV.

It's vice versa: AC - vert, pCARS - hor .

For me acceptable FOV in AC is 42-48 for 16/9 screen.

 

[Georg Siebert]

It's vice versa: AC - vert, pCARS - hor .

For me acceptable FOV in AC is 42-48 for 16/9 screen.

Where did you get that info? Source please.

 

[Andrey Varlamov]

Where did you get that info? Source please.

From AC forum or even maybe from your AC FAQ .

P.S. For 16/9 screen should be hor.FOV >vert.FOV and from FOV Calculator pCARS.FOV>AC.FOV, so pCARS - hor, AC - vert .

 

[Georg Siebert]

From AC forum or even maybe from your AC FAQ .

P.S. For 16/9 screen should be hor.FOV >vert.FOV and from FOV Calculator pCARS.FOV>AC.FOV, so pCARS - hor, AC - vert .

Hm, a general link to the official forum doesn't cut it and I put "horizontal FOV" in under point 3.2 in the FAQ.
A quote from a dev or some test results would be credible evidence.

 

[Stereo]

Here's some pictorial proof:

top is 28 degree FOV single screen spanning, calculator says 28.3 vertical FOV but I don't know how to put in decimal places.
bottom is triple screen setup with the same numbers used in the calculator. (24" monitor 25.2" away)
FOV for the middle screen is just about the same, if it was horizontal FOV then it would be way different - 28 across triples would be 9 ish degrees per screen which is an extreme zoom.


If you want to be sure you have the right FOV and you don't mind a small framerate hit, you can enable triplescreen rendering and set rotation 0, margin 0, distance to your face in mm, and screen width to 1/3 of your display width to get an exact fov.

 

[Andrey Varlamov]

A quote from a dev or some test results would be credible evidence.

A have no dev's quote but have some test results:
1920x1080 FOV 50

1920x864 FOV 41

 

[Georg Siebert]

A have no dev's quote but have some test results:
1920x1080 FOV 50
View attachment 70880
1920x864 FOV 41
View attachment 70881

ui, have to check that out further, thanks!

 

[MrPix]

Hm, a general link to the official forum doesn't cut it and I put "horizontal FOV" in under point 3.2 in the FAQ.
A quote from a dev or some test results would be credible evidence.

a vertical FOV adjustable SIM/Game (most of them apart from pCARs) exhibits the following behaviour:
the vertical display does not change when switching between 1 and 3 monitors if the in-game FOV remains constant ..

(30" from eyes, 1x 30"(16:9) monitor = ~28 degrees vFOV)

the only difference you will see is that the horizontal field of view extends out to the side monitors, the centre monitor does not change at all. e.g 1920x1080 <> 5760x1080 .. yo are adding pixels left and right, but not changing the up/down size

(30" from eyes, 3x 30"(16:9) monitor = ~28 degrees vFOV)


a horizontal FOV SIM/Game e.g. pCARs, exhibits the following behaviour:

(30" from eyes, 1x 30"(16:9) monitor = ~47 degrees hFOV)

the horizontal display does not change when switching between 1 and 3 monitors, but the picture changes in proportion over all both horizontally and vertically.

(30" from eyes, 3x 30"(16:9) monitor = ~47 degrees hFOV)

(30" from eyes, 3x 30"(16:9) monitor = ~141 degrees hFOV)

 

[Ian Cameron]

Blimey if i was confused before i started this thread what must i be now.
That many opinions and formulas about plus getting so many different fov figures to use.
So to get this straight using the calculator
Corner to corner measures 22" 30" to eyes
Single screen. Should i use vert fov for ac which comes out at 20.4 fov somewhat different from what has been suggested at 35-37° or what?

Have now adjusted my position I'm now 25" away from screen, so vfov for ac is now 24.3
pcars puts it at 42

 

[Fieldy]

Any help with my 29" ultra wide monitor, sitting about 54" away. The calc says 27 does that sound right