The Definitive FOV Discussion Thread

What FOV do you play in?

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ZeosPantera

Limp Gawd
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Field of View. Is it a personal preference? in most games you are forced to use only the fov the developers chose. In FPS games having a higher fov can mean the difference of not only a match but your entire career as a gamer. But high FOV is not without it's drawbacks.

I want this thread to educate, enrage and encourage people to fiddle with their field of view (if you can) to see and feel the benefits of the entire scale going from 100° horizontal to 30°!

6a0120a85dcdae970b0120a86d9495970b.png


Normal in-game FOV. Source games like CSS, TF2 have a slider to set from 75° Horizontal to 90°. (Presumably this was to accommodate players with new fancy-pants wide-screen monitors) And old school games like doom and Unreal Tournament touting 100+ FOV. That sort of FOV has been the norm for years. But with modern screens getting larger and larger, and the FOV's staying the same, I see a problem. I will rephrase. There is another option.

Stop thinking about games as "games" and try thinking about them as simulators. Every "game" you play under the right circumstances can act as a simulator, no matter the genre. How is that possible? It is all in the proper Field of View. It may help to think about it like so. A window into the virtual world.

FOVExample2.jpg


You have a magic calculate-able and real value that corresponds to your unique hardware setup. I guarantee no-one reading this post has played anything in their Proper fov. The way you determine your personal, proper fov is very simple. It involves taking two measurements. The width (or height) of your monitor's viewable area and the distance you are sitting from it. With that you can use a triangle calculator http://ostermiller.org/calc/triangle.html OR http://www.pagetutor.com/trigcalc/trig.html (use half values) and get the angle your eyes see the monitor.

I sit 34" away from my monitor. It is 12" high and 19" wide. I calculate to a Horizontal FOV of 32 and a vertical of 20 (16:10 Monitor). If I was able to move the monitor closer and still be comfortable I could raise those values but still would not come anywhere close to what can be considered "normal" in most games. In order to sit 32" away and achieve a calculated H-FOV of 90° the screen would need to be 63" WIDE!!! Now Triplehead and eyefinity can certainly supply a gamer with a gaming surface 63 inches wide (3x24"). BUT ... you would still be playing the game with the TOTAL horizontal FOV at 90°. Meaning instead of gaining all that screen real-estate with two extra monitors you would actually just lose a LARGE amount of up and down and retain the same width you used on your single monitor just placed across three. Which would look like this.

fov_90x3-1.png


So what does an H-Fov of 32 look like in action? Killing floor can be freighting but when it appears as though you are fighting creatures on the other side of your monitors bezel, it is terrifying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XE234ejXns&hd=1

NOW STOP>.. YES it is narrow, YES I can't see beside myself and YES in a real match I would be no help and probably murdered from a clot just outside my view. That is not the issue. Scale, Distance and Reality are. With a larger monitor or the ability to move it closer I would be able to up the FOV to possibly 40 Horizontal and still achieve that perfect scale.

Imagine bringing up iron-sights in a game and nothing zooms in. Because you are already at the exactly correct amount of detail you would have in real life.

Here are some more videos a friend and I have recorded in our proper FOV's..

Amnesia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOaq-R5tyJ0&hd=1

Gmod
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SecYuFVVrY4&hd=1

ArmA2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3I4UmT5Qfc&hd=1

rFactor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFIx5Zoi5oo&hd=1

rFactor 1080P comparison Video (62 Vfov vs 20Vfov)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWV0_u0r-Hk&hd=1

NOTE:: Will check thread for coherence when not 5:46 am. Please be patient.
 
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ZeosPantera said:
Field of View. Is it a personal preference?
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Yes, it is.

While you can easily calculate a "realistic" FOV based off how far you sit from your monitor and how large the monitor is, for almost all users this will be far below "comfortable". The problem is that your eyes and brain aren't used to viewing the world through a tiny little window placed several feet away from your head. Its not natural, you lose awareness, you might get dizzy or headaches after a while if you actually tried to walk around like that for an extended period.

Many people get a headache when playing games with an extremely low FOV, and to me that just screams out as the brain/eye's way of saying "I'm not meant to be viewing the world through a tiny window". So instead you set the FOV higher than what you might calculate is realistic, and rather to something that gives you a wide enough FOV to see enough of the world to not become as easily disoriented.

Personally I would like a monitor set up that slightly wraps around to give a "real" FOV of about 110-120 degrees then also set the game FOV to 110-120, but then the game themselves aren't set up for this as the game assumes you're viewing a flat panel, so if you set a high FOV like that, the side screens warp. That's part of the reason I never got into the Eyefinity craze.

So for me, I just set whatever FOV feels natural for the game I'm playing. That value is different for FPS games and racing games and will even vary from game to game within a genre. I figure what feels natural is what *is* natural, to me at least. I set it high enough that I dont get "starting at life through a window" sickness, but low enough that I dont get fish-eye effect from the image warping.
 
Tudz said:
Personally I would like a monitor set up that slightly wraps around to give a "real" FOV of about 110-120 degrees then also set the game FOV to 110-120, but then the game themselves aren't set up for this as the game assumes you're viewing a flat panel, so if you set a high FOV like that, the side screens warp. That's part of the reason I never got into the Eyefinity craze
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Same here. I tried it at a friends house and the distortion on the side monitors was too much. I'll consider it again once they give us something that can compensate for that effect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WM3ISbv4Q0

For example look at that video. No distortion on his side screens. It looks totally awesome. If more games could compensate like that, I'd be in.
 
I'm not really sure how the formulas work to calculate a "realistic" field of view for a rendered virtual gaming environment, but as a photography enthusiast (and a wide-angle junkie at that) I can say that I really enjoy playing games with a very wide-angle view-point. In games that have the option, I always crank the angle up to the widest it will go, and it does seem to help my gaming performance slightly.

The only game I've ever actually had issues with the camera-angle being too narrow was Borderlands - it gets really dissorienting when the scene isn't tied together and you start viewing it like a slide-show every time you move the mouse (like viewing the world through a tele-photo lens or rifle scope, you lose track of how each object is tied together). I had to find the settings file to fix it. I cranked it up to something like 160° and played for a little while with that crazy fish-eye effect before I decided that was a little much - think I ended up using more like a 130° viewpoint, and that worked great.

I'd really love to see games with the option to crank the field of view up as high as 120-150°. Just put a warning beside that setting in the menu that you may make yourself sick, and if that happens, turn it back down! :cool:
 
Thanks for the writeup. I am definitely going to play with using a proper sim FOV for in Arma 2. Hopefully that helps my depth perception when trying to land helicopters. I play TF2 at 90-deg in game on my eyefinity setup. For BC2 I have been experimenting sim FOV's for my setup ~32 or so in the config (vertical). I definitely experience the lack of zoom in while aiming down the iron sights, just like you are talking about.
 
madFive said:
I'd really love to see games with the option to crank the field of view up as high as 120-150°. Just put a warning beside that setting n the menu that you may make yourself sick, and if that happens, turn it back down! :cool:
Click to expand...
In the old days before FOV locks, a few overly-competitive gamers would play games like Quake with incredibly high FOVs like 300°. Surprisingly, people were able to do it without getting sick over it (at least a lot of them were), so it seems like the it's really just the very narrow FOVs that cause problems as opposed to the very wide ones. It might actually have more to do with the lack of radial distortion in the projection at low FOVs than anything else.

As for the poll, I can't answer: I don't know whether the numbers are in horizontal or vertical. A 74 degree VFOV yields an HFOV of about 100 at 16:10, so I don't really know whether to check '75' or '100'.
 
phide said:
As for the poll, I can't answer: I don't know whether the numbers are in horizontal or vertical. A 74 degree VFOV yields an HFOV of about 100 at 16:10, so I don't really know whether to check '75' or '100'.
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I should have specified. My Bad. When I posted it, it was... late.

Assume Horizontal as that's more common in games.
 
100 it is. With games which tend to feature more claustrophobic, contained environments, I need the higher FOV, but in open-world games I can pull it back a tad and go with about 95.
 
its funny, i just fired up RE5 and the FOV in that game is just horrible, i feel so zoomed in..
 
What every FPS needs is the ability to look around despite where your weapon is aimed, this increases the sense of depth/3D way more than 90 FOV or whatever, although I agree narrow FOVs suck as well.
If you want to see what I'm talking about, check out ARMA 2, or if you've played Operation Flashpoint you'll know too. You're not just playing a gun, your character has a body, and you can look up & down, left & right while your weapon is pointing straight forward.

It gives such a feeling of freedom and immersion compared to all other FPS games which just have a gun stuck to the screen wherever you look. That feels just flat.
 
With single player games I usually play at about 75. Multiplayer however I play much higher. Quake Live for example I play at 130, TF2 105 and COD4 80. I would go higher than 80, but that's as high as it will go.
 
depends on the game and mode for me.

When I was seriously playing ut2k4 my fov would vary depending on what I was playing (this is all multiplayer obviously)

CTF/DM I would play at fov 105, because I needed to see more of what was going on and the fisheye was minimal. It was beneficial because you could see more of the area, which is critical to gameplay.
TDM I would lower the fov to 97 because Its pretty easy to know where the enemy was and where they will be.
Duel I would drop it to 90 because its just him and me. I know where he his, and the zoom effect helped me be a little more accurate with my aiming. I didnt have to worry about people behind me etc etc so the zoom effect was helpful.

Eventually I lowered my CTF fov to 97 as well because I got so used to it that it was comfortable in both game modes.

cliffs: personal preference :)
 
One of the issues is indeed with most triple-head setup's there is distortion on the side monitor's.. This occur's for two reasons.

1.First, the game assumes your screen is flat in-front of you.

2.Second, if horizontal is set to 100+ it assumes the vertical. When you can set the vertical and set it correctly to a value between 15-30 you will have no distortion in the side monitors. That is what that iRacing video is showing. More monitor's and a lower Fov.
 
For kicks, I watched your videos in full screen on this 21.5" 16:9 display. Couldn't stand it for longer than about eight seconds. I don't have any idea how you could possibly cope with playing games like this.

Calls us suckers for sitting with our 75, 90, 100 degree FOVs (as you did in the Gmod video), but at least we're not hurling after thirty seconds.
 
phide said:
For kicks, I watched your videos in full screen on this 21.5" 16:9 display. Couldn't stand it for longer than about eight seconds. I don't have any idea how you could possibly cope with playing games like this.

Calls us suckers for sitting with our 75, 90, 100 degree FOVs (as you did in the Gmod video), but at least we're not hurling after thirty seconds.
Click to expand...

I could care less if the considered the "proper" FOV is 32 that killing floor video looks out of wack. 90 + plz
 
Tudz said:
Yes, it is.
Click to expand...



Exactly - the idea that FOV is determined by how far I sit is bullshit. This isn't a window into the game. The game needs to give me a proper amount of data to be able to play. That means simulating what I would see if I WERE the player.
 
I've always been annoyed by how small things look when you stand next to them. I never attributed it to the fov for some reason. Now that I know, I'll be keeping my fov where it's at because anything lower gives me a headache and frustrates me with it's narrow perspective.
 
I knew including that "enrage" part in the first post was a good prediction.

No fussing, No fighting. I am giving an option that differs from the norm and backing it up with math. Not everyone will be able to cope. Some are too accustomed to the 1990's fov. Yes it can get annoying. Yes it is harder to play. Yes there is now a limiting factor put on your hardware.

I don't care what people claim to be immersive. You aren't the player ingame with camera's for eyes. You are you. Sitting in front of a viewing portal. If you could point a rifle at your screen and run around on one of those infinite floors you'd be set.

fov_2a.gif


fov_setup.gif
 
I appreciate the info you've gathered and it is an interesting experiment, but you really don't believe that we should all switch to 32 fov do you? You admit that it will make you far worse in multiplayer games, so I won't bring the competitive advantage argument up, but even in single player games, there's reasons why one of the most common workarounds that people want for console ports is an fov tweak. I find it interesting that (for setups similar to yours) 32 degrees is mathematically correct for displaying objects at proper scale, but it sure as hell isn't correct in terms of giving our brain enough information to feel comfortable in the virtual world.
 
Well it won't be 32 for everyone. That is just what mine worked out to be. If I could move my FW900 closer I would just for gaming then back for browsing/other it would have been higher, but not much.

As far as comfort. It just takes getting use to or bigger hardware. A Projector for example or even a J-Dome.

jdome.jpg


If this thread does nothing else let it help explain why most games just distort in triple-head.

Oh. Some gif's of an arma player I convinced to use proper on his vertical triple-head.
His setup. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGJj9qKRH3g&hd=1

anim_rifle.gif


anim_sucockpit.gif


Not a huge change but that was because he has such a big screen to display on.
 
ZeosPantera said:
I knew including that "enrage" part in the first post was a good prediction.

No fussing, No fighting. I am giving an option that differs from the norm and backing it up with math. Not everyone will be able to cope. Some are too accustomed to the 1990's fov. Yes it can get annoying. Yes it is harder to play. Yes there is now a limiting factor put on your hardware
Click to expand...

Not everyone is able to cope because what you're saying isn't accurate. Your "maths" simply says "if I were viewing the world through a window the size of my monitor, this is what my FOV would be". But playing a game isn't about viewing the world through a window the size of your monitor.

Playing with a low FOV is about as realistic as walking around blinders on. I dont see how that's any more realistic than setting a slightly higher than calculated FOV to actually see enough of the world to not be disoriented.

If I drove my car and covered all the windows and mirrors except for what is seen through a small 24" section, I'd more than likely crash :p If I tried walking around like that I'd probably get run over trying to cross the road.

Games aren't realistic, so setting a FOV that matches the distance you sit from your monitor is not realistic anyway. A while back I calculated the "correct" FOV based on how far I sat from my monitor, being the engineer that I am I like to calculate things and set them correctly. But after a while I soon discovered it simply wasn't natural unless I moved the monitor extremely close so that I could in turn set a higher FOV to see more of the world and not be disoriented. So in the end I moved the monitor back to a comfortable distance and set whatever FOV feels right for the game I'm playing.

In conclusion... set whatever you feel comfortable.
 
ZeosPantera said:
You would be terrible on public roads and intersections.. But on race tracks you'd be OK..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSYcj4rde_I&hd=1

Go Little Bro!!
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure I'd still crash, probably into the other cars on the track, if not into a wall from the tremendous motion sickness I'd get from looking through a tiny portal while being subjected to high G-forces ;) Even a race helmet doesn't block off as much viewing the world through a monitor sized window would.

I used to play a lot of GT Legends, GTR and LFS and tried a lot of different FOVs. I would move the monitor as close to behind my wheel as possible, but still set the FOV slightly higher than what you'd calculate as a "realistic" FOV.
 
ZeosPantera said:
In that case take this to the proper forum post. http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.php/93-Setting-up-your-rFactor-FOV-Tutorial
Click to expand...

Yeah, it'd be nice if the games had the option to go down to really low FOV for people who want that, but I guess the point I'm trying to get across is just because you feel that you should set a FOV that matches the triangle of vision between you and your monitor doesn't make it "correct" or "realistic". I know my trigonometry, I know how to calculate a FOV, but that doesn't mean I think that setting the FOV which is equal to my real world FOV is realistic.

Honestly, many people (myself included) would get severe headaches from setting a FOV like what you're saying is the correct FOV.

Think of it like this, what you think is correct/realistic is to set your FOV as being equal to what it would if you were looking a flat pane window the size of your monitor. What I think is correct/realistic is to set your FOV to what it would be if you were looking through a slightly concave lens/window the size of your monitor, such that it acts to allow you to see more of the world, compensating for the fact you're looking through a tiny window. If that doesn't make sense then just go read about lenses :p
 
The math is simple and everyone is just upset (mentally) that their "window" is too small and therefore they all have to live with their view f**ked up to compensate.

Admit this, If everyone had triplehead or 50" plasma's on their desk we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Every FOV but the calculated is by it's very nature wrong. Distorted to compensate for lack of monitor size. Now all this thread aims to do is to get that fact known. Put it in the back of everyone's mind. When a clever person learns that there is a problem they will usually try to find a solution, even if that solution is not favorable, easy or understood by the masses.

It is all about understanding the facts. I feel like punching people who say 100° H-fov is more immersive. Right in the face.
 
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ZeosPantera said:
The math is flawless, the formula is simple and everyone is just upset that their "window" is too small and therefore they all have to live with their view fucked up to compensate.

Admit this, If everyone had triplehead or 50" plasma's on their desk we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Every FOV but the calculated is by it's very nature wrong. Distorted to compensate for lack of monitor size. Now all this thread aims to do is to get that fact known. Put it in the back of everyone's mind. When a clever person learns that there is a problem they will usually try to find a solution, even if that solution is not favorable, easy or understood by the masses.

It is all about understanding.
Click to expand...


"Every FOV but the calculated is by it's very nature wrong."

You're wrong in this statement because you assume games are meant to played as if your screen is a window into the game world, which by its very nature is wrong.

You can draw diagrams and make pretty pictures and that might impress some people and make them think you're right, but that doesn't mean you're right ;)

What you're trying to say is that a low FOV which gives people headaches is correct and by nature correct? I say by fact that it gives you a headache and makes you disoriented then it shows that by nature its not as simple as you are making out.

When talking about video game FOVs, you aren't simply talking about straight lines and drawing triangles in MS paint to show what the "correct" FOV should be, rather you're dealing with the human brain/eyes and how they percieve the world. In this case how the eyes/brain percieves the world when viewed on a small 2D flat panel. That is a topic which is not a straight forward as basic geometry.

Hence, there is no "correct" FOV just as how my brain operates and percieves things is no more or less "correct" than how your brain works. That's why people should just set whatever FOV makes them feel most comfortable instead of trying to shoehorn themselves into what someone has said is "correct" just because they had a few nice diagrams. And also why games developers should, while attempting to set a FOV that best conveys their game, also allows some flexibility.

I know I'm taking this further than I should and I should just walk away and say "whatever", but I dont like it when people pretend to be using science and maths to prove a point in an incorrect manner. It happens all the time right up through all levels of academia and why I think no one should trust something just because some scientist said so.
 
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ZeosPantera said:
No fussing, No fighting. I am giving an option that differs from the norm and backing it up with math.
Click to expand...


That it's mathmatically correct doesn't make it any less stupid. You go ahead and play the game at those FOV settings if you like, I'll enjoy following you around and knifing you because you can't see shit. Its a truly terrible idea IMO, simply because it makes games unplayable.
 
Something close to my gamer-heart, I feel FOV is one of the biggest reoccuring issues in modern PC games, there was a time where 4:3 monitors had a decent 90 degree FOV and 16:10 widescreen variants had the appropriate 100.4 degrees.

However the low FOV of consoles has spilled over to the PC and now we see terribly low FOVs which for many PC gamers is not ideal, it can cause motion sickness and headaches easier, it also makes competitive play significantly harder.

The problem is that you're making an FOV such that the monitor appears to be a window into the 3D world of the game for FPS games, and I don't think that's a good premise, I think the game should be more representative of our own vision even though the monitor itself may only be covering part of our real vision.

From a competitive standpoint high FOV is desirable, you want as much information about the battlefield available to you at all times, and yes many pro players will play with higher FOVs even though it creates a fisheye effect, I think I used to play with about 120 degrees in the original UT sometimes, back on a 4:3 monitor this was extremely high.
 
Two things:

1) A low FOV exhibits less distortion in the projection but not zero distortion. If you believe your lower FOV exhibits no radial distortion, you are mistaken.

2) What displays on your screen isn't influenced by the subtle changes in the position of your eyes which help us establish depth and gives us an understanding of three-dimentional space. Furthermore, your monitor displays a single image both of our eyes see as being identical and thus our brain interprets it as a two-dimensional object. A projection of a 3D environment is a clever trick, but our brain knows differently and won't accept a 2D image as a so-called "window" into another three-dimensional world. This is just a guess, but I suspect this is the main reason motion sickness is so common at low FOVs — the less convincing the trick, the greater the chance the brain has of readily 'accepting' it.

During the development of Quake, John Carmack tested various FOV values and settled on a horizontal FOV of 90 degrees on a 4:3 display as being more-or-less optimal. It's a value that doesn't typically cause problems for those who are prone to becoming nauseous when playing a '3D' game and the degree of distortion in the projection is fairly minimal. 90 degrees is a value that numerous other developers have settled on over the years for just those reasons and certainly not by accident. Valve moved it down to 75 degrees in Half-Life 2 and received numerous complaints from those who experienced motion sickness while playing. Increasing the HFOV to 90 degrees resolves the issue for most people.

Suffice it to say that mathematical correctness and practical, human-influenced correctness don't jive when we're talking about how to project a 3D space into a 2D space. To say that everyone is wrong about projection — Carmack included — and that you are right is a pretty arrogant claim. Telling us that we can't wrap our brains around the concept and that we're suckers for accepting high FOVs over the years goes well beyond arrogance.
 
The other thing to consider is detailed information in our peripheral view is next to useless...this is why I've said in the past that eyefinity setups would greatly benefit from being able to lower (preferably half) the flanking monitors screen resolution which would not significantly lower perceivable detail but increase performance a huge amount.

In our case fitting a comfortable 3D FOV typically about 100 degrees for a 16:10 wide monitor into a small percernage of our vision works well because we only see detail in a smaller FOV in our real vision.

The brain is a clever thing, it constructs a 3D model of what we're looking at based on light information and it can subtly manipulate our perception of the world including when we concentrate on one specific area it starts to discard more information from the peripheral, if you watch a movie on TV which is not particularly large in your FOV if you're engrossed then the rest of the room falls away from vision and the screen becomes most of what you see, this happens to me when playing games, my brain adjusts what data from my eyes is important and before long I'm actually in the game only witnessing events in the game and nothing outside of my monitor.

Essentially I believe that your brain is perfectly capable of mapping a wide angle FOV viewport onto your entire vision if you're concentrating hard/long enough.
 
ZeosPantera said:
Every FOV but the calculated is by it's very nature wrong. Distorted to compensate for lack of monitor size. Now all this thread aims to do is to get that fact known. Put it in the back of everyone's mind. When a clever person learns that there is a problem they will usually try to find a solution, even if that solution is not favorable, easy or understood by the masses.
Click to expand...

The problem is that "wrong" is sometimes the right choice. As others have said, there are more concerns than simple mathematical accuracy. If a FOV is panned as looking ridiculous by a large number of people, or worse, headache or nausea inducing, then it is a bad idea, no matter how mathematically accurate it is.

The point of playing a game is to have a good time. If you're getting motion sickness or headaches, you're doing it wrong.
 
I sit 24" away from a 30" monitor so I often use a really high fov (100+) as the monitor occupies my entire rl FOV
 
I must be a masochist for posting this here.

Loaded up synergy yesterday with a few friends.Zild and I used proper FOV mine 32 horizontal his 45. Total change in the feel of hl2.Everything is much more epic.

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPF63GBRykQ&hd=1

Part2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieP7vSSX6-A&hd=1

Manhacks are difficult but you need to move with a much higher sense of your surroundings.

Again I am not advocating this be used on a serious multiplayer FPS. But something like HL2. It's as close to VR goggles you can currently get.
 
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