BF3 FOV?

BF3's FOV is exposed vertically, the horizontal FOV (like you're used to seeing) transparently changes with the aspect ratio.

Basically set it to whatever looks best, you don't need to worry about manually compensating for the aspect ratio.
 
It is highly subjective. You have extremes from those that want to pretend to be fish to those that want to play like they are looking through a window placed a few feet in front of them, as well as everything in between.
 
I use 83 which is the same value that I used in BC2. But as others have said, it's all personal preference.
 
It is personal preference but the "correct" values are 90 horizontal FOV for 4:3, 106 FOV for 16:9 and 100 FOV for 16:10.

In vertical FOV this would be 74 for the setting in BF3. The reason they use vertical FOV is because it is constant then. 74 vertical would automatically provide 90 FOV in 4:3, 100 FOV in 16:10 and 106 FOV in 16:9

Any more than 74 and you start to fisheye. If you don't mind a little fisheye effect then use higher, but there is no reason to go lower.
 
Blackstone said:
Are you telling me nobody can actually answer this?
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Not sure what more you want...


You asked
Blackstone said:
What is the "correct" field of view setting for 16:9 @ 1080p? :confused:
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I said
socK said:
BF3's FOV is exposed vertically, the horizontal FOV (like you're used to seeing) transparently changes with the aspect ratio.

Basically set it to whatever looks best, you don't need to worry about manually compensating for the aspect ratio.
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AKA you don't need to try and right an "incorrect" value because you have a widescreen. It's solely based on your preference and nothing more... though the "norm" as mentioned above is generally 90 horizontal at 4:3, so 74 vertical.
 
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So thats why it's so zoomed out... They should state it's horizontal or something, I just went in and put the usual and wondered why everyone seems small. Should be able to see people long range better now. :D
 
BF3 uses horizontal FOV, not vertical. The tooltip is wrong.

In general, I think a good FOV is 90. However, if you have a small monitor (less than 24'') you might want to lower this because everything will appear smaller on the screen. Also, if you have a weak video card, consider lowering FOV to improve FPS.
 
It depends on your monitor and resolution settings. Thats why you just need to find what works for you like they guys above have stated. Try the links also provided above to FOV calculators. I use an Asus 27" widescreen at 1920x1200 (16:10, not 16:9) and have my FOV set at 75. I tweaked it up, and I've tweaked it down and settled on this as fitting for me. So thats what you should do. Adjust it up, adjust it down until you find a setting that works well for you.
 
jbz7890 said:
BF3 uses horizontal FOV, not vertical. The tooltip is wrong.

In general, I think a good FOV is 90. However, if you have a small monitor (less than 24'') you might want to lower this because everything will appear smaller on the screen. Also, if you have a weak video card, consider lowering FOV to improve FPS.
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It's still vertical, their rendering guy has literally said so on twitter.
 
The BF3 tooltip is indeed wrong. Even though it says vertical fov, its horizontal. I don't even know how people don't realize this. The BF3 fov slider tops out at 90. If that is vertical fov then that is equal to a whopping 121 horizontal. Come on people, do you not know how ridiculously fisheyed that would look. I personally use 106 fov by editing the ini file. 106 vertical is 134 horizontal, lol no way is my horizontal fov 134.
 
It's definitely vertical FOV. You can confirm it by taking a screenshot at different aspect ratios. The vertical viewing area stays constant while the horizontal area grows and shrinks. Assuming you don't touch the FOV setting between changing aspect ratios.
 
Blackstone said:
Are you telling me nobody can actually answer this?
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There is no "correct" FOV, it really is just personal preference.

Back in the day when proper 3D engines started showing up for FPS games the generally accepted standard was about 90 degrees for a 4:3 aspect ratio monitor and many of the popular games stuck to that with good success, I think Quake was 90 and UT was 85.

To work out that equivalent in a 16:9 aspect ratio (that is to say assuming you increase the horizontal angle for the additional horizontal space and you want to keep the same angle/space ratio) then you can do some maths (trig) and you'll find that it comes out at approximately 106 degrees, I think for 16:10 it's approximately 100 degrees.

Many games these days shoot for a very low FOV, mostly to do with super-aids they've caught from consolization, you'll probably find that way too low if you're used to "oldschool" shooters.
 
The size and distance from the display also makes a big difference.

Good explanation:
ZsR6n.jpg
 
SirMaster said:
It is personal preference but the "correct" values are 90 horizontal FOV for 4:3, 106 FOV for 16:9 and 100 FOV for 16:10.

In vertical FOV this would be 74 for the setting in BF3. The reason they use vertical FOV is because it is constant then. 74 vertical would automatically provide 90 FOV in 4:3, 100 FOV in 16:10 and 106 FOV in 16:9

Any more than 74 and you start to fisheye. If you don't mind a little fisheye effect then use higher, but there is no reason to go lower.
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This is an answer. Thank you! Is it subjective, yes, but it is an answer. I will try it when I get home.
 
OMG I have been playing at 90 the whole time and wondering why everything looks strange. Hmmm can't wait to try this tonight.
 
I don't really like that image that was posted. I've seen this kind of "math" before. It leads to really claustrophobic FOVs if your eyes aren't glued to your monitor. Fish-eye effects may seem unnatural, but looking at the world as if you're looking through a monitor-sized peep-hole at arms length is unnatural as well. The only correct FOV is the one that feels best to the individual gamer.
 
evilsofa said:
"We use a vertical FOV, not a traditional horizontal fov, making 90 fisheyed. 75 is more 'typical'." -Alan Kertz, DICE's core gameplay designer for BF3.

https://twitter.com/#!/Demize99/status/141504461515403264
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It is well known that comment is erroneous Look at the facts, he even says they use vertical FOV which makes 90 fisheyed and 75 more "typical". Well let me ask you, does setting the fov to 90 in BF3 look fisheyed or does it look more like any other fps at 90 fov? Do you even have the game?
 
SirMaster said:
It's definitely vertical FOV. You can confirm it by taking a screenshot at different aspect ratios. The vertical viewing area stays constant while the horizontal area grows and shrinks. Assuming you don't touch the FOV setting between changing aspect ratios.
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Ugh, what kind of logic is that, how does that prove they're using vertical fov? If your at 4:3 aspect ratio and change to a widescreen resolution of 16:9 of course the horizontal area grows while the vertical remains constant and vice versa. That is the correct way of implementing widescreen. This has nothing to do with whether or not vertical fov or horizontal fov is used.

Ok, one thing we all know is that BC2 uses vertical fov. Nobody disputes this. Here's a handy fov calculator.

http://www.rjdown.co.uk/projects/bfbc2/fovcalculator.php

If BF3 uses vertical fov like BC2, are you seriously gonna tell me BF3 at 90 is the same as BC2 at 90? Convert 90 vertical to horizontal. For a 16:9 display, that is 121 FOV. 121 jesus christ. Like I said, that is incredibly fisheyed. On the other end, 60 vertical is 91 horizontal. Do you honestly believe playing BF3 at 60 fov is giving you 91 horizontal?

It's like if your playing a game at 20fps you know your fps is real bad even without fraps telling you the number right? If you playing BF3 at 20fps and somebody from Dice tell you that your fps is 60fps, who are you gonna believe, your instinct or Dice? This is exactly the samething.
 
DeathPrincess said:
That picture bugs me. A isn't 90 degrees, as the total photo is barely, it's more 70/80. Then C is around 30/40 degrees. :p
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The point is that it demonstrates why lower FOV's can look natural on consoles, but look very bad when ported to PC, where it's being played on a screen that's much closer to your face and fills more of your total field of view.
 
Skunt said:
Ugh, what kind of logic is that, how does that prove they're using vertical fov? If your at 4:3 aspect ratio and change to a widescreen resolution of 16:9 of course the horizontal area grows while the vertical remains constant and vice versa. That is the correct way of implementing widescreen. This has nothing to do with whether or not vertical fov or horizontal fov is used.
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Um, it is correct logic...

What don't you understand about how FOV works?

FOV is FOV is FOV. FOV absolutely dictates exactly how much you can see irregardless of resolution or aspect ratio.

A 90 degree horizontal FOV used on a 4:3 aspect ratio would produce the exact same left-right viewing distance as a 90 degree horizontal FOV on a 16:9 monitor. (This is exactly how I know BF3 does NOT use a horizontal FOV. Because changing the aspect ratio changes the horizontal FOV even when you don't touch the FOV number.)

As far as the whole image is concerned, there are 2 things that can happen to the 16:9 screen compared to the 4:3.

Either they can keep the same vertical FOV (in which case the screen would look identical to the 4:3 except it would appear stretched left-right)

Or, they can lower the vertical FOV cutting off the top and bottom the the image and have the remaining data not stretched.

Battlefield 2 used a constant horizontal FOV, so when you used a widescreen monitor, you actually saw less picture overall than a 4:3 since they opted to reduce the vertical FOV rather than stretch the image.

See the images here:
http://www.widescreengaming.net/wiki/Battlefield_2#Screenshots


BC2 and BF3 both use vertical FOV I really don't know how else to explain this as it's just obvious they do. I can take some screenshots after work and do the measurements and calculations if that would help.
 
And notice that as you increase the FOV value, you are increasing the vertical FOV.

You can see higher and lower (that's what vertical FOV means) More road and more sky.

Now, you did this at a constant aspect ratio so the horizontal FOV also automatically increased to prevent vertical stretching.

To prove that the FOV setting is a horizontal FOV value as you claim, you would have to take a picture at 2 different aspect ratios, and the edges of the screen would have to be the same.

Because 90FOV in 4:3 and 90FOV in 16:9 means you can see 45 degrees in either direction meaning you would capture the exact same scene.

If the FOV changes with aspect ratio while the value in settings stays constant then it simply cannot be a horizontal FOV value because the horizontal FOV in game wouldn't be changing if you weren't changing the number...

It couldn't be simpler.

If you still have trouble understanding like I said, I'll take some pictures and do the measurements tonight. If you draw a line in the ground from where you are standing to the edges that you can see, you will see that the angle is 121 degrees and not 90 degrees when the in-game FOV value is set to 90. Even though in that last screenshot it's pretty clear that you are able to see much, much wider than 90 degrees.
 
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Skunt said:
Ugh, what kind of logic is that, how does that prove they're using vertical fov? If your at 4:3 aspect ratio and change to a widescreen resolution of 16:9 of course the horizontal area grows while the vertical remains constant and vice versa. That is the correct way of implementing widescreen. This has nothing to do with whether or not vertical fov or horizontal fov is used.
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Because clearly horizontal FOV is a function of aspect ratio and the vertical FOV and not a constant... therefore...

hFOV = f (aspect, vFOV)
vFOV = constant set in INI file

How does that logic fail?
 
Intel_Hydralisk said:
Because clearly horizontal FOV is a function of aspect ratio and the vertical FOV and not a constant... therefore...

hFOV = f (aspect, vFOV)
vFOV = constant set in INI file

How does that logic fail?
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That logic fails because it does not explain why BF3 fov setting gives you fovs that are clearly horizontal despite the tool tip saying that they're vertical. You didn't answer my questions. Do you not have a general idea of how small and large fov looks? LIke I said, go look at the BC2 fov calculator. Play BF3 at 60 fov and 90 fov. Does 60 fov look typical? or does it look like narrow. Does 90 fov look typical or does it look fisheyed.
 
Here I took some screenshots and drew lines of the soldier's FOV in game and matched them up against the map.

http://imgur.com/a/g8YsR

You can clearly see that at 60FOV setting you get 91FOV in game and at 90FOV setting you get 121FOV in game.

So there, BF3 uses vertical FOV.


To answer your previous post. 60FOV setting looks squished because it is squished. It's only 90FOV in game which is suited only for a 4:3 monitor not 16:9. And 90FOV is super fisheyed because it's 121FOV. 74 looks perfect, it makes 106FOV which is ideal for 16:9 and is equivalent to 90FOV on a 4:3 monitor. There is no fisheye.
 
74 seems to be "correct" but I am not sure I prefer it. I think I would like a little bit more FOV so i will try 76 next time.
 
Yeah, I actually use 75 cause i'll get a tiny bit extra view and no real noticeable fisheye yet.

It's really a trade off between seeing left/right and how far away/small your target in the middle of your screen will appear to look.
 
NKDietrich said:
I don't really like that image that was posted. I've seen this kind of "math" before. It leads to really claustrophobic FOVs if your eyes aren't glued to your monitor. Fish-eye effects may seem unnatural, but looking at the world as if you're looking through a monitor-sized peep-hole at arms length is unnatural as well. The only correct FOV is the one that feels best to the individual gamer.
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I feel similar about it this actually. I wouldn't say that a "correct" FOV is one that makes your monitor appear to be a window into a virtual world, the main problem with this idea is that the angle you attend with the edges of your monitor is usually very narrow, way less than 90 degrees, and what you're trying to represent in game (assuming FPS) is a characters ability to see into the world.

What is more natural is having a very wide field of view which humans have, something that is actually a lot closer to 180 degrees in total, otherwise you're obscuring objects from view which would otherwise be seen if you were actually inside that virutal world yourself.

My answer to "what is the best FOV?" generally tends to be, "The highest FOV you can set before you're put off by the fisheye effect". Generally speaking that's pretty much what the original 90 degrees at 4:3 was based on, it proves the maths (trig) is sound for working out equivelent FOVs based on aspect ratio because the following horizontal FOVs are all about as high as you can get before you fisheye on these types of monitor.

4:3 about 90 degrees
16:10 about 100 degrees
16:9 about 106 degrees
 
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