Paul Walkers post has today encouraged me to go beyond and try the 1:1 scale. I'd tought i achieved this scale with 46 fov on a 27'' lcd, but this was not true. Soon I started feeling how my shoulder is inside the left door, my head is going thru the roof. The look right and spotting the mirror (yes I use F11, but I like to just kill the dullness sometimes checking the real mirror) wasn't natural. So still there was some empty space there. The cars that I am chasing seemed too small compared to real life cars when I'm driving in traffic and so on. I mean this has been secretly bugging me for a long time. I've bought the biggest conventional monitor size to enjoy the 1to1 realism.
Anyway, long story short. I tried Paul Walkers fov calculator which gave me for 99% of people apauling 31fov figure. Alright, this time I am really giving it a shot. The story goes. I go out into my z4 gt3 and set the view as to have my entire screen as a windshield with edges sort of matching. I mean it's alright, at least it doesn't look worped much if you dont see too much edges. So, I'm doing some laps and it just feels as if you are floating over the road. I try making my seat a little bit lower then, still not good enough. And then it occured to me. I need to forget this idea of my monitor being a windshield, it is not designed in same proportions and I should look at trying to match the top of bmw z4 gt3s wheel with my g27. So I did this and it felt a lot more familiar.
It felt like I was sitting in my dad's old Ford Sierra. Very low down in a car, which is RWD. We almost forget this after driving fwd cars every day, in which u sit more as behind a kitchen table then what u are doing in a rwd or in this case a roadster. So yeah, now it's starting to make more sence, but I could not see much out it. Further adjusting brings me along the path of eye view focus and actually understanding that we for the most case look down towards the road with something of a let's say in my case 4degrees. I mean I'm quite tall person, 190, so for sure one can't just look straight into the horizont.
Well all this has now broung a bit of a surprisment, that the top of my screen is now lacking a good 10cm to top of windshield screen, which is about the size of sunscreen tape on the windshield. No longer does my head go outside of the car. All of a sudden looking left and right felt a lot more engaging. Everything is right there where one expects it to be. You instantly recognize every object in its place. Amazing.
Nordschleife stopped looking and feeling like a backend road. It's about 2 meters wider then public roads and now it looks and feels that way. Race tracks are wider, braking into the corners feels more engaging, you sort of feel the brake point more as of trying to look for it. You have more time and space to look up to the next corner. Approaching the corner now there is time to scan a corner. It doesn't just pop out of nowhere. Tighter corners took a bit of adjusting in a way u really feel the car rotate around it. I mean, there is a book of positives from making it 1to1 scale.
I want everyone to forget the old fear of how you can't see something with low fov. The way I have set it up now, i can see road wider as I'm looking down towards it, I can see a lot further with more depth and I can see what is coming much better as corner opens up. Notice the picture. A lot easier to look beyond the apex. Because everything is bigger, it comes with a more flow as you're exiting the corner. It doesnt just pop right open, you get a sence of road curviture right down beautiful. And the last thing I want to mention is the feeling that the curbs now give me. This is out of this world. I'd never really appreciate the feeling that sound from the curbs gives, but now you really are going over the curb with ur wheel and in this instant hearing it. Because the curb is no longer 1cm wide, you can even choose at which part of the curb you want to be, at amazing speeds you know.
As for speed and laptimes compared as to old fov, the speed is right there, after no less then 3 laps and not more then 7 laps right on it. And just the share satisfaction of it is supstantially higher. This gives more intensity without making extra effort and creates better cosistancy as overdriving is excluded. Beware, you'll need to reduce camera shake as it would be exaggerated. Now mine is at 0.2 from 0.6.
If I manage to encourageanyone of reader from this longest post I have ever done the sim-world will be a better place. Because it gives a more natural feeling of environment and therefor a less aggressive and less suicidal behavior. Thanks for reading.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd...._=1416428085_d0587718ad168d96b398555a10c830f7
