FOV: Field of View. Optimal/real settings?

I've recently been thinking about FOV and changing my sim settings...

I've previously always driven with what would be an unrealistically wide FOV - Started on LFS a few years back and basically used to set it so I could see the actual car mirrors, not knowing any better.

I had a little play in iRacing yesterday for the first time in years. It has an FOV calculator in the options, in game (uses screen width and distance to eye, and of course the resolution). Takes some getting used to moving in so much!

If I set Assetto Corsa to the same FOV number as iRacing calculated, I still feel like I am further back in the car than in iRacing, and seeing more peripheral.

It's not a bad thing - but I suppose my main concern in this new FOV consideration is that things be fairly accurate in scale/FOV, perhaps with a bit of compromise for some extra periphery (single screen...).

So I moved AC FOV in (lower number) such that the steering wheel on screen kind of felt like a realistic scale...

What do people think of FOV and its impact on your driving experience, realism and feeling better connected to the track and hitting your apexes?

There's another thread requesting some kind of app for FOV. This could be cool.
https://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/index.php?threads/app-request-fov-display.1896/

 

FOV is quite important. I used a calculator (can't remember where from) to get my FOV and it was around 58, but I use 60 as I find it gives me a better sensation of speed. It would be really nice to have an in-game FOV calculator like iRacing.

Also I would like FOV per car. Right now FOV is global, only seat/eye position is set for individual cars.

 

IRacing uses horizontal fov, ac uses vertical. In ir my fov is 65 and ac 40.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Ah! that explains the difference. Thanks.

FOV per car - Seems like a reasonable and presumably fairly easily implementable request to me.

 

Setting the FOV to a realistic view (depending on your screen size and your distance from the screen) is very important. I think it is far more immersive because the game world appears at the correct scale. You can judge distance and speed better.

 

Once the brain has adapted away from being fooled with an incorrect FOV for such a long time!

So it's just a simple triangle calc, but knowing whether it's a vertical or horizontal FOV is critical
(Note: Mentioned above by JRantajoki, apparently Assetto Corsa is a vertical FOV)

For those that might be interested, this calculator might make your life a bit easier.
http://ostermiller.org/calc/triangle.html.

As a single screen user, fairly large and fairly close, I still think I will probably run the FOV a bit wider (bigger number) than truly "to scale". Then perhaps move the seat/eye position a bit.

 

Strange thing with AC is, for example, 68 FOV give you 100 FPS, but 37 give only 70FPS with same graphic setup. That`s the reason, why I must play AC on one monitor, meantime all the other games (included rF2) easily on all three.

 

This is likely at least in part to do with the fact that with a wider FOV (bigger number) the screen gets taken up with more of the dash/car - which is not really moving or doing much from a graphical/processing consideration.

 

My fov is set to 75 degrees. Always had a wide fov on any game even though I only have a 23 inch screen. I do have the screen positioned just behind the wheel though. I have also raised the seating position and "look down" (-14 degrees), this seems to give me a better sensation of speed.

 

1080p on 27" -> 40 Fov

Back in old times I was a FoV enemy.
But now... changing the FoV improves your drive so much.
After I changed the FoV I've got a totally different feeling for the car, (better).

 

Two screen shots, 1 40fov, the other 85.

40fov:

85fov:


The view is "similar" in perspective, but you can see how 85fov shows a lot more of the track, and with a softer representation of the corners - with 40fov the left hander is clearly deep into the side window, on 85fov, it is fully within the windscreen only.

I have played long enough on a triple screen setup with a correct fov to know that it can make an enormous difference to the perception of what is going on in corners, so much so that i do not trust the physics assumptions of anyone who doesn't play with a correct fov for their screens (i realize for single screen players this is hard).

An example is you enter a corner which on your screen looks pretty soft, like a slight curve, so you enter it at 140mph, then the car loses grip and slides - two things happen: (1) the car handles weird to you as you find yourself steering quite hard on what you saw as a small bend, and (2) you think the physics are ice because you just slid off the track on a "small bend". Yet in the correct perspective, the turn was far deeper and more complex than you ever could have guessed - all of a sudden the physics make a lot more sense for the type of inputs you make.

But having said this, being correct in your fov won't make you any faster, in some ways you may even be slower, but the immersion, the way the sim feels completely different all of a sudden, is too much for me to give up. Playing rfactor on a single screen with a high fov doesn't feel right at all, like I'm playing a game, put it in triples with the low fov, and it feels and even looks like a different sim altogether.

 

Corners and elevations look and feel completely different with a wide and a realistic FOV, that's for sure. You haven't really driven Nordschleife until you have done so sith a realistic FOV. Those crests suddenly get real scary!

I haven't really driven much lately, but when AC came out I gave it a whirl again. Drove Imola first with a temporary setup with single screen and default setup. Imola is a track I haven't driven much at all before, at least not the last ten years, so it was practically a new track to me. Started to get into it a little, and then set up my rig properly. And I literally didn't recognize the track! The difference is THAT profound!

Try it! It WILL feel really weird at first, especially if you are used to a very wide FOV, but give it some time and you'll see. The brain needs to "unlearn" the FOV compensation before it starts to look right

 

Those screen shots really are a great representation. The way you have altered the seat position (I presume) so we can just see the distortion of the FoV really tells a story!

Would you/do you in fact move your virtual eye position to this extent for your actual sim-ing?

I am looking forward to having my brain re-learn... It's interesting how even the more "sim" of simulators have a pretty wide FoV by default...

 

It makes all the difference. I have recently changed closer to my "correct" fov after using a too wide one for 15years. Only took couple days to get used to and theres no going back.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

When you have triples in AC, you get an extra plugin on the side menu to configure them. It asks for you side monitor angles, size of screens, bezel compensation, and so on, so you just enter these numbers and it does it all for you.

What i try to do with my rig is first and foremost, give yourself a really good seating position, where the wheel and screens are optimally setup. For me, this means not using some tiny desk which is too high (i dont' have a cockpit setup), or chair that is also too high or too upright, you want it to feel like you're in a sports car, wheel quite high, pedals i have on a box angled in too. Next, i try to have my monitors as close to my wheel/eyes as possible and get them so they are quite low too, so i get to see some cockpit. Then providing your wheel is in a good position, i use the correct fov settings, and then move my in-game seat position so the wheel on the screen hides behind my real wheel close to 1:1. I like it this way.

This is how it looks for me in rfactor2, don't have a video of me in AC:

 

Had a bit of seat time. Getting used to a true/close FoV. With a (single) fair size screen up pretty close, what is lost in peripheral vision doesn't seem like it will be a big deal.

Early impressions as I adapt... It's interesting how it makes some things kind of easier in positioning the car, and others harder. and the change in sensation of speed. The environment certainly looks better. Firstly more natural in its fit on the screen (less distortion), but somehow also a lot of things just seem "higher res"

Just did an iRace MX-5 at Laguna Seca.
Seemed easier with true FoV: most corners actually, particularly fast corner before climbing the hill.
Harder: turning into the drop off of the corkscrew.

It will be a good thing. I'll be glad I looked into it and changed my ways.

Thanks for the discussion. Hopefully this will be of use to others too.

 

Either I do something wrong in the calculator or the calculator really says I should use a FOV of 79°. And that's just absurd. Can someone explain to me, how I have to use this calculator for AC? I think, my FOV should be something near 40°.

 

You are using inches and not centimetres?

 

As long as you use the same unit of measurement for all 3 (only two, really) distance input measurements, it will still work with the same answer...

So:
Enter the height of your monitors visible area in the bottom "Side" field of that calculator.
Enter the distance from your face/eyes to the top of the visible area or your monitor into both the side "Side" input fields

Hit calculate...

Then your angle for FoV will be the one that gets written at the top "Angle" box. (It'll probably be the smaller of the resultant angles, unless you have a massive screen and/or are insanely close to your screen...)

Or of course you could just use your good ole high school maths and split the pertinent measurements in half and treat it as a right triangle situation and use pythagoras. Really takes me back.

Link for that calculator again...
http://ostermiller.org/calc/triangle.html

 

Oh, crap. I did read the wrong value, but still 20° might be to less.
My values are 76, 76, 26.5.
Thanks for the help