Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hello. I'm new to this forum. I've been looking at the HDTV Gaming section over at HTPCnews.com for help with setting up PC games to display at 16:9 without being stretched. (I'd like to see more to the left and right if possible.) I've come to the following general conclusions. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

1. For most current games this has to be done "manually" by changing config., ini. or even registry settings.

2. If you just change a resolution to 16:9 aspect numbers, you won't see more desktop, just a stretched game FOV.

3. Many (if not all) games allow you to specify a different FOV manually.

4. I assume the default FOV for any game is a number that must represent your "degrees" of sight.

5. Many games have a default FOV of approximately "90".

Now for some questions:

A. If you search through a games config. or ini. file can you usually determine what the default FOV is exactly? I think that would be helpful since it should tell you at what FOV run at a 4:3 aspect ratio the menu items, etc. will be perfectly proportioned.

B. Is the FOV setting a linear function across the width of a screen? If so, I would think the best way to set the new 16:9 FOV would be to simply multiply the default value by 1.33. (16:9 = 5.33:3, 5.33 / 4 = 1.33) This would expand the desktop horizontally but keep circles perfectly round and other items correctly proportioned. The HDTV gaming section seems to have a potpourri of recommendations for setting FOV. Sometimes you increase 90 to 100, sometimes 90 to 115, sometimes 80 to 100. Can't this be an exact calculation as I've suggested above?

Thanks, and happy gaming! 8)

Questions...

A ) Unfortunately, it's often going to be guesswork unless one of the developers leaks the info. Halo, for example, used an FOV of 70 degrees. Games like Quake 3 use 90 degrees, but Deus Ex 2 used 68 degrees. Weird value, but there you are... it also recommended that if you wanted the circular menu nearer the edges to turn the FOV down to 62...

B ) That will work. Again, it doesn't always work exactly like that... the 2D overlays for example, in games like Jedi Knight II, will always be stretched, since they are created for 4:3 ratio screens. But the actual 3D world will be correct.

Is the FOV setting a linear function across the width of a screen? If so, I would think the best way to set the new 16:9 FOV would be to simply multiply the default value by 1.33. (16:9 = 5.33:3, 5.33 / 4 = 1.33) This would expand the desktop horizontally but keep circles perfectly round and other items correctly proportioned. The HDTV gaming section seems to have a potpourri of recommendations for setting FOV. Sometimes you increase 90 to 100, sometimes 90 to 115, sometimes 80 to 100. Can't this be an exact calculation as I've suggested above?

I've wondered about this as well. And recently I've tested this with UT2004, and I've found out that FOV change is not necessarily proportional to aspect ratio (or resolution change).

I usually game at 1920x1200 (or 1920x1080) + 2xAA + 16xAF with my X800 XT PE.

Here are the screenshots. In UT2004, default FOV is 90.
UT2004 @ 1920x1200, default FOV = 90 16:10 aspect ratio
UT2004 @ 1600x1200, default FOV = 90 4:3 aspect ratio
UT2004 @ 1920x1200, default FOV = 100 16:10 aspect ratio

At least in UT2004, FOV 90 at 4:3 aspect ratio is proportional to FOV 100 at 16:10 aspect ratio.

I've been experimenting with UT2004 also. I guess you're right that the FOV change is probably not proportional to changes in the resolution aspect ratio. According to my formula above, a default FOV of 90 should be changed to 119.997 if you use a 16:9 resolution such as 1280 x 720. The highest FOV I can get in UT2004 appears to be 100. This is by using both the in game setting under "player" and by trying to modify the FOV settings in the user.ini file. Despite only getting to 100, the in game world appears to be only minimally stretched at 16:9. (I'm judging this based on the appeareance of a round cursor. Perhaps that is wrong. Maybe just the HUD is minimally stretched, and the world is fine.) Anyway, the game looks pretty good at 1280 x 720 with the FOV set on 100. I still wish there was a way to set exact FOV values that would keep everything proportional at different aspect ratios. 8)

PowerK, you're the man! (or woman!) Thank you, thank you, thank you! I knew there had to be an exact way of calculating the correct FOV. I was just looking at it wrong. I was treating the FOV number as if it were a linear distance across the screen. I forgot (or never really knew) that it does indeed represent an angle measured in degrees. Your diagram and method of using trigonometry are exactly right. I will see if I can use 106 in UT2004 using either an .ini hack or console command. I had tried it before using just 120 and it didn't seem to stick.

An interesting side note is my physical determination of the correct FOV for Painkiller. (See my earlier post at http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=231. I came up with a value of 111 for the FOV in 16:9 aspect ratio gaming. Using your formula above (substituting a default 95 degrees and changing the distance from eyes to screen to 5.49803 at 4:3) gives exactly the same 111 degrees! I'm not trying to boast. I just thought it was kind of cool that my experiment and the trigonometry way match exactly. 8)

Manually setting the FOV at 106 in the user.ini file of UT2004 works great. It definitely shows a little more width than the in game option of 100. When I had tried 120 previously, it looked no different than 100. 106 is definitely the ticket! Thanks again. 8)

X-ray Doc,

Yeah... like you, this FOV has been bugging me for sometime. End user can alter FOV to whichever value she/he wants. But I'd like to see it the way it's meant to be seen as "designers' intentions".
So, I wanted to figure out how to calculate the *correct*, and *proportional* FOV for different aspect ratio. Of course, the calculated FOV is derived from the original (4:3 AR) reference, and this is why the new calculated FOV is perfectly proportinal, dead on correct. :)

As for UT2004, You can specify FOV value upto 5 decimal places in UT2004. :D (Yes, I'm being anal here).
I set it at 100.388858 degrees for 16:10, and 106.26020 for 16:9 just to be as exact as possible. (They're rounded off to 5 decimal places). :) (Yes, I've just confirmed this using user.ini file as well as just using console command).
BTW, UT2004 Editor's Choice Bonus Pack is out today. (just in case, you're not aware of it, yet) Make sure you have the latest patch (v3323) installed before installing this new Bonus Pack. I've just downloaded, and tried it. It includes new maps, new Onslaught vehicles, and possibly more stuff I have not found yet. The new vehicles are very interesting.

As for Painkiller, if default FOV of Painkiller is 95 degrees, the correct/proportional FOV for 16:9 aspect ratio would be 111.0025356, not 110 to be exact. :D Yes, 111, and 110 are close enough, but the idea is to calculate, and find the *perfectly* proportional FOV *without* any distortion, agreed? :D

EDIT : Oh, you said 111 FOV in that original Painkiller thread you linked to, and 110 here. Typo in the above post, eh ? ;) Yeah, your calculation is indeed correct. :) You might want to edit you post above regarding Painkiller FOV as it may confuse new readers.

Cheers.

I looked carefully at my previous posts. I think I always typed a FOV of 111 when making a 16:9 recommendation for Painkiller. I did mention that I had read to use 100-110, but the answer is 111.0025356! The default setting is 95, so I don't think I could add the seven decimal places. But I'm definitely adding the extra digits to UT2004. 8)

I don't mean to get giddy, but this new knowledge is freaking cool! I'm a huge gamer and thought things were pretty sweet on a 21" monitor. I recently finished a dedicated home theater with a 16:9 110" diagonal screen. So far UT2004 and Painkiller look awesome and I love having the extra side vision. I will add COD shortly! Now I wish there was a FOV setting for Tron 2.0. I've looked and can't find any. When you modify the resolution settings you just get a stretched image. If you're into gaming, I'd definitely recommend the two relatively unknown, sleeper games of Tron 2.0 and Painkiller. The glowing graphics and light cycles of Tron 2.0 are a blast. And the sophistication of game play and graphics in Painkiller are awesome! It has a mature rating, so don't be offended by the gruesome rag doll physics. Here are a few resized screen shots of Painkiller at 16:9 to wet your appetite.







Now hack Tron 2.0 and I'll be happy. What about FarCry? I've read that you don't see any more width even though there is an in game widescreen resolution available.

I just installed COD in the theater and tried making the cfg file changes. It seemed to work for the single player game, although I no longer see the Activision and Infinity Ward movies at game start up. For multiplayer though, the seta cg_fov "80" line always reverts to 80 when I start multiplayer. Do you know anyway around this for multiplayer?

Yeah, Call of Duty as well as Quake 3 forces defaults FOV (80, and 90 respectively) in multiplayer mode for even playing field. There is no way around it.

:roll: I know... developer should allow proportional FOV change upto 16:9 widescreen ratio in multiplayer games. But remember those two games (Quake 3 engine) doesn't even support widescreen resolutions out of the box. I just thank to the flexibility of Quake 3 engine for config tweak --> widescreen.

As for Far Cry,

What about FarCry? I've read that you don't see any more width even though there is an in game widescreen resolution available.

if that's true, that means FOV "value" does not increase with aspect ratio increase. (4:3 --> 16:10 and/or 16:9).
And this actually means that *actual* FOV is decreased in widescreen resolutions compared to normal 4:3 because top, and bottom of image will be cropped to overcome aspect ratio distortion (aka horizontal stretch).

Ideally, FOV should increase automatically as AR increases. But I guess, Crytek didn't take this into account.

I haven't tried Far Cry yet. But as long as there is a console command for FOV change, I guess this FOV issue can be overcome just like UT2004. I'll look into it.

P.S. Nice screenshots of Painkiller, BTW. I might as well try Painkiller. And also nice to see another HT enthusiast. :D I'm using Sim2 HT300+ Link DLP projector with 92" (diagonal) FireHawk as well. But I use it mainly for movie watching, and play games on it time to time. For PC games, I mostly use Apple 23" Cinema Display because of its high resolution. (1920x1200 native).