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UPDATE:
If you play on PC there is something called 'Eyefinity'. Some new graphics cards come with it, it basically does exactly what your saying.
Works with BF3, get 3 monitors and you can have the normal view on the middle and 'extra periferal view' on the other two
You might want to update your OP with that link so people know it's out there
also, in skyrim, you can open console with ~ and then type "fov X" where x is anything. default is 65 and 100 works pretty well for me.
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Whenever I play a first person game, I always feel like I can't see enough of my environment and need to look around a lot.
It turns out that the reason why I feel this way is because the normal person's eye visual field (aka field of view: the amount we can see) is 200 degrees. In other words, if you are facing forwards, you can see 100 degrees to your left out of your peripheral vision, and 100 degrees to your right with your peripheral vision. Also, you can see 70 degrees up and 70 degrees down with your peripheral vision.
On the other hand, in games like skyrim, quake, etc, the total field of view, based on personal testing (I just bought skyrim) seems to be more like 45 degrees. No wonder when I'm playing, I always feel like I'm blind and it's not as immersive. They make these great video games with tons of awesome visuals and scenery, but only give us 45 degrees of visual field. For reference, you need at least 60 degrees of visual field to be allowed to drive. Anything less than that is considered visually impaired. Feel awkward much running through a vibrant scenery with 45 degree visual field?
Anyways, I have some background in game programming, and the reason why games have this happening is because in programming, the screen display is based on a virtual eyeball, and a virtual window in front of that eyeball. Based on how big and how far the window is from the eye, the game calculates what pixels to draw onto your monitor.
Problem is, the natural human eye can see 200 degrees of vision. It can see more than 180 degrees, meaning that a flat window method of drawing would never be enough to see 200 degrees. Currently, in all the premade IDKs (direct x, open gl, etc) and engines that programmers use to make games, they all use a standard eye/window technique to draw to the screen. It is impossible with this technique to get a visual field more than say, 180, because for a visual field to exceed 180 and to approximate what is more realistic, the window would actually have to slightly CURVE around the eye.
EXAMPLE OF 45 DEGREE VISUAL FIELD
![[image loading]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1284194/panorama-sali2000.jpg)
EXAMPLE OF 200 DEGREE VISUAL FIELD
![[image loading]](http://www.sencar.hr/razno/panorama-sali2000.jpg)
Anyways, I guess I should put a poll here.
Poll: Would you prefer the normal 45 degree vision, or a more natural 200?I would prefer more than 45, but less than 200. I don't want games to be just like real life. (198) 49% Give me 200 field of vision! I want to experience games and be immersed in the environment like real (174) 43% 45 is fine. I can play battle field 3 and skyrim just fine as it is (29) 7% 401 total votes Your vote: Would you prefer the normal 45 degree vision, or a more natural 200? (Vote): 45 is fine. I can play battle field 3 and skyrim just fine as it is
(Vote): I would prefer more than 45, but less than 200. I don't want games to be just like real life.
(Vote): Give me 200 field of vision! I want to experience games and be immersed in the environment like real
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The standard FOV on most console games these days is 60 for some reason I don't understand. I don't know why it got knocked down to 60 from the 90 standard that I know from quake, but hey.
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good games have a setting to change your fov, skyrim has it, quake has it, these two are the only ones i can name at the moment.
i changed mine on skyrim to 85, beyond that it looks like i've just pressed the NOS button.
best option would be for the developer to allow customization on fov.
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On November 17 2011 08:29 jinorazi wrote:
good games have a setting to change your fov, skyrim has it, quake has it, these two are the only ones i can name at the moment.
i changed mine on skyrim to 85, beyond that it looks like i've just pressed the NOS button.
best option would be for the developer to allow customization on fov.
How do you change it? I'm looking through my settings and I don't know where to do this.
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180 degree vision would require a very (read arbitrarily) large display. I don't need full field of vision for immersion, but as it is now, I want to see more. It really feels like I am looking through eye slits in a helmet.
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CS and CSS (the shooter for real fps players  ) has fov 90 so its all fine. I did notice skyrim has a retardedly narrow default fov too
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Wouldn't it only make sense to have a FOV of 200 degrees on your monitor if your monitor was taking up your entire FOV? Otherwise you've got 200 degrees of game vision taking up 60 degrees of your RL vision, and it looks like you're playing through a fish-eye lens.
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As much as I want to have a game with that field of view, I'm not sure my desk (or wallet) could support such a large monitor.
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Small FOVs give me motion sickness  . That's why I tend to stay away from first person games... but Skyrim is so fun...
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from what i know 60 degrees give me terrible headaches which can last for hours...for Half life games i switch to fov 90
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maybe because our computer is nor that wide idk
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That's why I play third person in Skyrim. It's more real, even though I can see my own body.
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United States5162 Posts
I was thinking about this exact thing the other day after a marathon session in Skyrim.
Most games seem to show vision only as what we see in our binocular vision. People obviously have peripheral vision, which we can be used to see stuff if we try, but is more useful for detecting movement and other changes in environment which aren't detailed. Not having the peripheral vision is what really makes thing annoying, to me, in video games that use a first person perspective.
Of course, just making the normal vision in a first person view 200 degrees isn't right either. You can't fully see 200 degrees in front of you. Binocular vision really is about 45-60 degrees(check it out by your self by closing one eye and tracking how far you can see your finger before it disappears behind your nose) so someone smarter then me needs to figure out a better system.
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intersting read had never taken the degree to which you can see into thought before!
hm i'm torn between 200 and slightly less to prevent super realism. video gamse allow you to be whoever you be/do whatever you want (within game reason of course) so shooting people in the head is something i'd like in a video game... but obviously not real life... so i dunno HOW realistic i'd want it to be
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somebody make me a curved screen to use 200 degree vision and i'll buy it
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In BF3 I set mine to 110, but I might bump it up. Console FOV's are stupidly small.
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I think it would have to do something with curved image flat surface distortion (IDK) and also the ''ah my head hurts'' factor.
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Console games have low FOV because their hardware is so old, they need to restrict the vision to such a small margin just to make the game run at 30 FPS.
So, to keep it relevant, I can't wait for the next gen consoles to come out so that our multi-plat FPS's can have 90-100 FoV instead of like 45. Anything over 100 is just getting ridiculous, anything under 80 is just stupid.
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Deus Ex has fov change option and imho it's a very good game 
I remember one game where when I changed to widescreen the cinematographic feeling turned on automatically, it was last years AvP. Nothing else felt as new as AvP did on widescreen even with it's decreased fov.
I remember Halo 2 on PC, I couldn't play that game not becuase I felt bad or anything like that, but because I couldn't actually see where I'm going, as if I had a cardboard box with a hole on my head. Always fell somewhere, it just felt super weird. No other game with decreased fov had such impact on me.
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With small POVs everything is zoomed in and more engaging. Things move faster, it can be more frantic, it's a submodalities thing- it's designed to be more engaging.
At around 90 POV most competitive quakers are pretty comfortable, having found a medium between visibility and zoom for aiming. Rapha (world champ) uses 110 FOV, but I know guys who turned theirs down to 60. I used 60 to help aim with certain weapons, you use a hotkey to swap the fov settings.
Couldn't handle playing with 45 degrees though. Ridiculous.
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EPT
