FOV, everyone's right?

I keep pretty quiet on the forums, don't say much, but read most everything. I'm fortunate enough to play RF2 at 130-180+fps across triple screens with multiview on, maxed out (less reflections of course) no perceivable input lag... I thank the community for all the help achieving the best I think rfactor can be at the moment...

However, these same forum heavy hitters (you know who you are that help so many, can't agree on "correct" vFOV calculations. Perhaps they forget that hundreds of us readers take what they say as "the right way". It's just math battles, theory discussions, and some genuinely excellent info on the matter, but as of yet, no unanimous methodology to solve "correct field of view"

Thanks in large to the obutto r3volution triple monitor mount, I have the ability to have my screens 19" from my face and perhaps 1" from my knuckles on the wheel. The immersion is beyond reproach! I think I've read and tried all the usual suspects (triangle calc, nifty online rfactor calc/wip etc...) But I get different results every time. Anywhere from 28°-34°. At this distance from my displays, every degree is a noticeable change. What's right?

I won't give any specs at the moment, because I'm not asking anybody to do simple maths for me just, perhaps with a little ISI guidance, we can solve these very small but important issues to further the "experience".

For instance... Do the side displays NEED to be at a 45° angle inwards from the center screen with multiview enabled? ISI?

I don't want to start any kind of argument about right or wrong, but for those of us that have the ability to move screens around, anywhere at all... We deserve correct should we choose it. No?

"whatever works for you" is not good enough. I would rather adapt to a simulation knowing it's doing it's part for realism sake...

Sorry for the rant, but I have so little to complain about the game at the moment all is well

 

As far as vertical field of view or vFOV, the only correct way is the math way with the triangle. That will give you an optically correct setting for the vFOV according to where your eyes are in relation to your monitors. As to the question about side monitors, that has yet to be answered from all the reading I have done here. Some say they need 45 degrees, others say less and some will even say it should be more to wrap around your head and give you the 180+ degree hFOV.

I think that the best solution was mentioned by someone in one of the threads where he suggested finding a spot on a track where you have a straight line that can extend across all 3 monitors, then you can adjust the monitors to show the line straight all the way across. A good example would be the pit wall at Sebring. If you face the wall, you know that the wall should be a straight line, so adjust from there.

 

If you spend a lot of time on "correct/proper" field of view, does that mean you don't move your head while racing lest FOV changes?

 

Now, I don't use multiple screens, but I've been thinking about the topic, and especially the 45 degree question.
As Gearjammer said, getting the vertical fov is quite easy, measure.. however with multiview you then have the hfov to think about as well, and assuming you use 16x9 monitors you would then have to calculate from a 48x9 screen (3x16)x9 which in the case of a 30 vfov angle would be 160 degrees hfov (30x48/9). To achieve that you need to angle the screens, but the amount of angle is a question I'd leave to others, but I assume it's pretty close to 45 degrees.

 

I dot know about multview (but assuming it doesn't have something to do with accounting for the screen bezel width for example), your hFOV should be calculated no differently to your vFOV. Also, each screen's geometric center should be perpendicular to where your head which means the "angling" of the side screens is not a matter of fixed values across the board but is completely dependent on how far away your head is from the center screen. E.g. The closer you are to the center screen the more angle the side screens will require to be centrally perpendicular to your head and also the higher the vFOV & hFOV.

Take everything I said with a pinch of salt however because I do not own a triple screen setup, I only think this is the right answer though lack any experience in the matter.

 

Bottom line......we need a fov calculator that factors in our side monitor angle built into the sim......something like LFS or iracing has.

This has been raised in the past but I'm yet to see ISI commit to doing this, the community needs to push for this to happen!

 

That would be interesting if there would be ingame option to set the values and game would adjust the fov by the given data. Obviously you wouldnt have to do that, but an option for it would be great. Shouldnt be too hard to implement.

 

If FOV is set in that way that when you look at the screen it appears a natural perspective, then the side monitors (supposing they are of the same size) should be at the same distance as well in order to maintain that ratio. Considering this, you just need to adjust the angle so that the centre of side screens is at the same distance as the main screen. A simple trigonometric calc will do the rest. A more manual way would be to adjust the angle so that the screen is perpendicular to the line from eyes to centre. If you draw the scheme in a piece of paper is easy to understand

 

The side monitors angle need to be adjusted do they are facing your face "square on" I.e just like your centre monitor is flat square on to your face

So if you get this right the angle then is dictated by the distance the centre monitor is away from your head

The fov should be then set so the actual graphics are true size & aspect to real life *****one should also consider the resolution ratio setting too ****** so important but many don't seem to consider this

Your monitors are no more than a window I to a virtual world & there is only one correct setting ?thst differs from setup to setup depending on monitor distance away etc)

The very best immersive results will be obtained when distance / resolution / fov / angles are wirking together correctly

 

I'm surprised you would note that the forwards/backwards head movement has any significance whilst racing to warrant any form of head tracking with triple screen or otherwise. Also, tracking gear such as trackir unfortunately don't mimic irl perfectly. Since movements of the head towards or away from the screen with trackir does not change the in-game FOV dynamically this type of moment only moves the in-game head position forwards and backwards and with a fixed FOV, that means you are mucking up the FOV for your fixed calibrated head distance. Your right on the money with the Oculus Rift as the fixed FOV works perfectly with head tracking because the display is at a constantly fixed location away from your head and follows you where-ever you move and/or facially change direction. The result is a perfectly true 1:1 relationship with how you would persieve irl.

But even with something like oculus, I would imagine head translational movement to be limited to about as much movement you could get away with if your body was locked in position for racing, strapped down tightly without any wiggle room.

 

Actual Head movement is only minimum so not really considered,

Awaiting a oculus rift myself (have preordered),

With my monitors (3x27") I find I don't need a magical calculation as visually I'm use to set everything to a natural looking setting fairly quickly, I think most people set fov way to high yo try & see as much as possible resulting in an unrealistic view , unrealistic sensation of speed & more weight on the pc system

 

Yeah, i've seen a lot of pictures of this sort of thing from people with triple screens and my instant reaction is "...but why???", lol.

I have only a single 28" monitor and have it as close as possible to me so i can use a higher vFOV (30 degrees for me) without compromising a 1:1 dimensional relationship. It gives you terrible letter box vision in game with only 90 degrees hFOV but you adapt to it quicker than one might think and it also makes the sense of speed feel so much more natural.

Despite the brilliance expected from the rift, i can imagine that it might be a little bit of a step backwards for those who have triple screens though since the hFOV is only going to be 90 degrees with the oculus rift. But then again, you'll have perfectly natural head tracking that should suffice to counter balance this.

 

You must have a monster of a PC

 

In testing I've done it seems that higher FOV = higher frame rate rather than lower. Seems counter intuitive as the higher the FOV the more is being rendered but that's what my results would suggest. Anyone else done any testing of FOV v frame rate?

 

im not using render sep, maybe that has something to with it

 

When you are sitting in a real car and you move your head forwards or back, does the image out the windscreen change as far as FOV? You might see more of what is very close to you, but the road ahead and everything else remains pretty much the same, which is represented fairly accurately by a static FOV in the sim. The only difference is we don't see the top of the windscreen or the dash move when our head moves. With TrackIR or other headtracking, we can get this appearance, so we can more closely imitate real life. Again, by using this, does the FOV change for what we see ahead of us? NO!

You just need to think of the screens as the glass in your car that you are looking out of.

 

I agree! I just upgraded to a 3 x 39" setup. iRacing looks freakin fantastic, rFactor2, not as much. I can angle my monitors at 45 degrees in iRacing, in rF2 I have to push them back to get straight lines. I'm still learning what I need to do to make the lines straight in rF, but in iRacing it only required entering some info. If iRacing had rF's physics, it would be really tough for me to come back...

 

I just realized something re-reading this thread. I have my center monitor closer to my face than my side monitors. That’s because they are 39” wide. That’s probably why I’m experiencing distortion in rFactor. I think moving the center TV further from my face might solve the problem, but I want the center TV as close as I can get it. With iRacing, the calculator must compensate for the side TV’s being further away, which is why it all lines up nicely, even at a more extreme angle, like 45 degrees.

ISI: Please develop a system like this. Your sim seems much, much more realistic than iRacing, at least to a layman like me. I enjoy the physics of rFactor much more than iRacing, but now that I have 3 screens, iRacing seems more immersive because of the straight lines. I bought the three screens specifically for rFactor 2. Please make a 3 screen calculator a priority. I don’t expect you to make a change just for one customer, but I’ll bet there are thousands of other triple screen users who would benefit.

 

+1

That's a really good point you've noticed.