Triple screen / FOV / FC vs RoF

[testid]

Hi guys, long time no see!

 

Finally getting around to shaking out FC. Unfortunately after I got my basic control schema worked out I started trying to set my preferred head location and realized that the game offers a narrower forward FOV both side to side and vertically than RoF.

 

I scrubbed both the FC fora and the wider site and did find a couple of threads about it, but, not unexpectedly, triple wide is a minority setup. I use 3x 1080p monitors, so the side to side pixel measure is 5670.

 

Basically the max FOV width for triplewide is 150deg. Someone in another thread documented  various differing views and the conclusion they reached is that ultrawide pilots end up looking at a smaller slice of view than single-screen people.

 

Additionally, in the startup map view, an untrawide user cannot zoom the map to full view side to side but must scroll blindly around - and that’s a big map!

 

Anyway, I just wanted to drop by and confirm that this is correct and there’s no way around these issues at the moment. I hope there is, but if not, it’s back to the other plane set, I guess. I mean I suppose I could go single screen just to get the hang of what I surely hope is a fixed Camel, but the view as it is now feels sorta like flying while wearing Ned Kelly’s helmet.

 

Hope you are all well! S!

Edited June 18, 2020 by testid
typo

[Zooropa_Fly]

No idea how to help you here - but it's good to see you around again testid.

 

S!

[Guest deleted@83466]

Field of view is Field of view, whether we are doing Rise of Flight or IL-2.  Same thing.

 

I used 3 screens for years.  I don't anymore, because I wanted a G-Sync monitor, and I wasn't going to pay for 3 of them, otherwise I'd probably still use 3.  You definitely get a wider lateral field of view with 3 screens.  I'm pretty sure if you adjusted the zoom factor in the snapviews.lua files so your center monitor showed exactly what your single screen does, you would in fact have 3 times the FOV on your triple screen setup.   However, there is some fisheye distortion on the periphery when you do this, so your tendency is to adjust the zoom factor to be closer, thus cutting off more vertical view.  If you pulled the zoom out so far that you can basically see wingtip to wingtip on a single screen, the view would be very unpleasant because everything would be so small, and all that fisheye effect is right in front of your face instead of on the periphery of your vision, though true, you would have a much greater vertical FOV.  The perception of looking through a slit is obviously because you are now at a 48:9 aspect instead of a 16:9 aspect.  Bottom line, you definitely can achieve higher lateral field of view, while still having a decently sized and readable center display.

 

I think my ideal perfectly proportioned monitor would actually be something in the 32:9 aspect ratio range instead of the 24:9 21:9 my monitor uses now, but to do that with 2 monitors would obviously put the screen bezel right in front of your face.

Edited June 19, 2020 by SeaSerpent
correction

[testid]

Quote

I'm pretty sure if you adjusted the zoom factor in the snapviews.lua files so your center monitor showed exactly what your single screen does

 

I will root around on this. I don’t think any of the earlier threads discussed this approach.

 

Screenies showing the narrowed vertical view for ultrawide vs single screen, primarily non-triple-screen in this thread:

 

Further discussion and roundup of issues:

 

 

Embedded link in coconut’s post goes to a pretty clear set of screenies illustrating the view issue. I did not mention the edge-anchored UI and control elements because those are present (and will remain so) in RoF, as suboptimal as they are.

 

One thing I noted mentioned in these fora was an approach also experimented with in RoF, monitor rotation, to produce a virtual monitor of 3240x1920. I played with that ages ago, I think back when I was using a Triple Head to Go, but not lately.

 

hmmm! I probably should just go mow the lawn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 18, 2020 by testid
typo

[JGr2/J5_Klugermann]

@testid, be careful with typos regarding your name.

Edited June 18, 2020 by J5_Klugermann

[testid]

ha ha, no worries. Big and brass, baby.

 

The handle originated when I signed up for DoA, what, in ‘98? They ran on a shoestring, as you may recall, and their online account creation procedure was obtuse. So I thought I’d try a dummy signin, back out, and do it properly. Nah. They were pushing out a browser rendered java or something that did not permit backstepping. Ergo, testid = test ID. I was amused by it and still am, one eighteen inch grognard-grise chin fringe later.

Edited June 18, 2020 by testid

[J5_Rumey]

15 hours ago, SeaSerpent said:

Field of view is Field of view, whether we are doing Rise of Flight or IL-2.  Same thing.

 

I used 3 screens for years.  I don't anymore, because I wanted a G-Sync monitor, and I wasn't going to pay for 3 of them, otherwise I'd probably still use 3.  You definitely get a wider lateral field of view with 3 screens.  I'm pretty sure if you adjusted the zoom factor in the snapviews.lua files so your center monitor showed exactly what your single screen does, you would in fact have 3 times the FOV on your triple screen setup.   However, there is some fisheye distortion on the periphery when you do this, so your tendency is to adjust the zoom factor to be closer, thus cutting off more vertical view.  If you pulled the zoom out so far that you can basically see wingtip to wingtip on a single screen, the view would be very unpleasant because everything would be so small, and all that fisheye effect is right in front of your face instead of on the periphery of your vision, though true, you would have a much greater vertical FOV.  The perception of looking through a slit is obviously because you are now at a 48:9 aspect instead of a 16:9 aspect.  Bottom line, you definitely can achieve higher lateral field of view, while still having a decently sized and readable center display.

 

I think my ideal perfectly proportioned monitor would actually be something in the 32:9 aspect ratio range instead of the 24:9 my monitor uses now, but to do that with 2 monitors would obviously put the screen bezel right in front of your face.

 

So for a wide monitor 3440x1440 what would you recommend? Would like to be able to zoom out a bit more but dont get what I am looking at in the snapview files. Always found wiev a bit to narrow as well.

[Guest deleted@83466]

3 hours ago, J5_Rumey said:

 

So for a wide monitor 3440x1440 what would you recommend? Would like to be able to zoom out a bit more but dont get what I am looking at in the snapview files. Always found wiev a bit to narrow as well.

 

Dell Alienware AW3420DW

 

 

 

[J5_Rumey]

6 hours ago, SeaSerpent said:

 

Dell Alienware AW3420DW

 

 

 

I meant the settings in the files to get a wider field. I have an acer ed347ckr

Edited June 19, 2020 by J5_Rumey

[Guest deleted@83466]

Not sure what you mean when you say get a "wider" field of view.  There is nothing in those files that allows you to go beyond the zoom in/zoom out limits that you can do in the game with your view controls.  Editing these files by hand is not a "mod".  It's just an alternative to positioning your head and zoom factor in game and hitting F10.  That's where the game saves those numbers when you hit F10.

 

First line from my fokkerd7f.svc file, which defines the default virtual head position:

 

[snap]

cvc = -0.115, 0.000,                -1.000, 0.190, 0.116,                -0.750;

........

....

The default zoom factor is in bold.  -1.000 means that the view would default to fully zoomed out.  Left to right, you've got vertical head tilt, horizontal head angle, XYZ head position, and finally zoom factor.  I don't have RoF installed anymore, but assuming the 3D model from RoF was ported over to FC, with the origin point the same,  I'm pretty sure you could just cut and paste that line into the 7F .svc file in Rise of Flight, and it would give you exactly the same default view as you have in FC, and vice versa.

 

As I said above, there is nothing magical about the numbers in the .svc files that allows you to zoom out farther or position your head in any way that you can't do inside the game with the view controls, and saving them with F10.  The only reason to edit them manually is if you want precision and uniformity:  For example, I want all of my airplanes to default to a 75% zoom factor, looking straight ahead (0.000) down the gunsight and if I'm sitting in similar planes, like D7F and D7, or BF-109 G-4 and G6, I want them to have exactly the same head position, so in that case, I'll just copy the first line from one .svc to the other one.

 

Obviously, when you recenter your TrackIR, your view will come back to the default XYZ position, and the zoom factor will come back to the default when you make use of the "Reset Zoom" command in game, both of which you either saved with F10 or specified manually like above.  I don't have a "Zoom Out" command mapped on my joystick.  I only have Zoom In and Reset Zoom.

 

Edited June 19, 2020 by SeaSerpent

[testid]

I wanted to follow up here with some documentation. I did screenies at full wide in single-screen 1920x1080 and triplescreen 5760x1080 in FC and ROF for the Camel and the DR1.

 

Unlike the screenies linked elswhere that seem to show a wider vertical FOV for single screen users over triplescreen users in IL2, triple screen vs single screen in FC was not notably different. There is indeed a slight difference, but it is roughly equivalent to that also seen in ROF between the two modes.

 

However, comparing full wide in both single screen and triple screen brought a real distinction to light with regard to FC vs ROF: FC limits FOV dramatically vs ROF. I would estimate that FC presents possibly one-third or less of the FOV available in ROF. See in particular the final image in the linked imgur set.

 

Presumably this is a result founded on legacy development decisions. I would guess a part of those might be minimizing graphic complexity pushed to screen in order to maximize performance as IL2 and FC developed more nuanced graphics, FMs, DMs, etc. 

 

But what it does mean for me is that after a little more shakeout, specifically with regard to trying to determine if the Camel is what it should be, I’m likely to stick in RoF instead of moving forward with FC, as speculated above.

 

Anyway, sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

 

In the composite FOV image the boundaries of the FOV areas were developed by overlaying the corresponding-sized source images and using PS selection tools to define the borders of the areas after manually resizing the images with transparency to match the approximate size and position of the Camel’s windscreen in the RoF 5760 image. It would also appear that there are differences in the optical-input model used to determine and display the FOV between the two sims, as may be most clearly seen when comparing the left and right spars on the Camel in the 5760w image vs the estimated comparison area as demarcated in the composite image.

 

This FOV modeling difference also incorporates a taller vertical FOV in FC than in RoF, as may be observed when examining both the single and triple screen views for the FC Camel and then looking at the estimated overlay boundaries in the composite, which appear to exclude the top-wing viewport. The actual FOVs incorporate a portion of the viewport in FC.

 

https://imgur.com/a/8oPh9Ei

Edited June 27, 2020 by testid

[NO.20_W_M_Thomson]

Out of curiosity have you ever flipped your monitor's vertically? Would you get taller FOV?  

[testid]

Capt. Thomson, I have not done this lately. I did do this years ago with ROF and, yes, vertical FOV increased. I do expect to try this with IL2 for curiosity’s sake - I mean I have unused cards and matching the size and resolution of my in hand 1080p monitors is an expense on the order of $10 USD if thrifting, and I have additional monitor mounts. But it’s down the priority list from doing laundry and mowing the lawn and so forth. I have been actively maundering about it.