Monday 17 February 2014

Post of the day: FOV

FOV stands for field of view and determines the viewing arc, or in other words how much you can see while playing.

What is the correct FoV?

That depends on the size of the screen and your distance away from it. Usually console games tend to have about 65 FoV, while if you're playing on a 1080p monitor 90 FoV should be more natural. There is this calculator for calculating the correct FoV based on screen size, but FoV preferences are normally very personal.


Examples of different FoV










And this is a screenshot from above with me estimating about how much your character sees:



Why is having the correct FoV so important?

Your eye sees you monitor as an extension of reality. Looking trough a monitor should feel like looking trough a window. If the view "trough the window" is warped some of us experience a feeling as if we were poisoned. It is very similar to motion sickness, however instead of our body being confused because our eyes are telling us that we are moving and our inner ear knowing that we're not, it's our eyes viewing something warped and our brain not understanding the image.

Why did I make this post?

Because too many developers these days think that if 60 FoV is alright for consoles, it's also alright with PCs, not thinking about how many people won't be able to buy and play their games because they feel sick from incorrect FoV. Also too many gamers that don't get health problems from low FoV don't know what it actually is. With this post I seek to educate people unaware about what FoV is and send a plea to the developers to include an FoV slider whenever they can.

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