Does eyefinity increase your field of view in games?

[jtvang125]

Or does it just stretch whatever is shown on one monitor to however many monitors you have in eyefinity?

 

[Lonyo]

Depends on the game.
If it's a bad game, you will get a horribly distorted view. If it's a game that plays nicely with different aspect ratio displays, the game should display properly.
The HUD may be a separate issue and may get stretched even if the actual game FOV works properly.

The trouble is that some games aren't designed to play nicely with different aspect ratio screens. For older games this includes not working for basic widescreen displays (e.g. if they are designed for 4:3 resolutions).

Basically it all depends on the game. Newer games should be better though, and ATI does work with at least some developers to make games work somewhat properly, including game patches to add support.

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/ is a good resource. It also covers issues with just widescreen displays, which as mentioned can have FOV issues.

And obviously the AMD website has a resource page.
http://support.amd.com/us/eyefinity/Pages/eyefinity-software.aspx

 

[digitaldurandal]

It does a little of both. How much stretching depends on the game. However if you only look at the front monitor, it does a decent job of simulating real vision.

I have 3x24 5760x1200. l4d seems to stretch worse than bad company which seems to stretch worse than Dirt 2.

I would estimate field of view to be about 40/80/40 or so in most games.

 

[NoQuarter]

There is a difference between stretching and skewing though. A game that isn't hor+ won't fill up the added space with game world it will just stretch the normal view out. Most games aren't like this anymore but I know Heroes of Might and Magic 5 was. A vert- game will actually remove viewable area vertically to cut the viewport down to 48:9 aspect ratio, effectively letterboxing out the sides without stretching. Every UE3 based game (Mass Effect, Borderlands) is vert- past 1920x1080 and requires some FoV tweaking to fix unless the devs fixed it themselves (Bioshock, Batman:AA). A game that is hor+ actually renders more game world to fill up the area, this is best, BFBC2 is a perfect example.

Skewing happens because of the fish eye effect devs use to give you a sense of peripheral vision on single monitor so you don't feel claustrophobic. Some games have really strong fish eye lens and some don't. Fish eye always causes skewing toward the edges of the viewport, at ultra-wide resolutions this becomes much stronger because the skewing increases further from the center point..

Like Lonyo linked widescreengamingforum.com has a ton of info on this. I'd take a quick look at the 'surround comparisons' at this link http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/screenshots

Here is an example from F.E.A.R. You can see the sides start to skew from the fisheye at triple monitor, but there's also a dude over there shooting you.

 

[soccerballtux]

all it takes is a setting in the game with a wide open FOV slider.
Crappy publishers don't bother with this. Good ones do.

 

[0roo0roo]

yea fish eye might be odd but the fixes will be there soon enough for any half decent dev this shouldn't be a big issue to solve.
real peripheral vision = teh win! increase your sense of immersion and awareness of surroundings for sure...tactical advantage. already they've had to increase fov for wide screen, so this isjust the next bump.

 

[Dribble]

Even if the game does support the fov it doesn't mean you will actually see more. Some games reduce the amount you see in the vertical, not increase the amount you see in the horizontal plane (so you actually see less then you would do with a 4:3 monitor).

 

[mmnno]

Even if the game does support the fov it doesn't mean you will actually see more. Some games reduce the amount you see in the vertical, not increase the amount you see in the horizontal plane (so you actually see less then you would do with a 4:3 monitor).

In eyefinity games like this are effectively broken, much the same as a game that does not alter the FOV at all and just stretches.

 

[MarcVenice]

I've been testing quite a few games, and stretching can't be helped, but it isn't that noticable. You definately see a lot more then you normally would, and it helps in FPS for example. Also, your focus is on the middle-screen. The two on the sides can be seen in your eyecorners. Only rarely do I really look at the left/right screen. Most horrible stretching I've seen is in Dragon Age, which was a bit to much imo.

Also, plenty of games have fixes for them, like Far Cry 2 and Modern Warfare 2. Bad Company 2 actually has an awesome fov-setting. The pictures really say it all ...

Original FoV

Adjusted FoV

 

[MrK6]

Great info Marc, thanks! My only question is, does it make it more difficult to play? The reason being you get kind of a "tunnel vision" view due to the fish eye adjusting to the screens. What I mean is, objects in the center are much further away since the FoV has been increased to compensate for the greater screen real estate. I notice this, especially in fast-paced games like BC2, as enemies are smaller than if I had left the FoV of default. Just looking for an experienced opinion.

 

[NoQuarter]

Great info Marc, thanks! My only question is, does it make it more difficult to play? The reason being you get kind of a "tunnel vision" view due to the fish eye adjusting to the screens. What I mean is, objects in the center are much further away since the FoV has been increased to compensate for the greater screen real estate. I notice this, especially in fast-paced games like BC2, as enemies are smaller than if I had left the FoV of default. Just looking for an experienced opinion.

Hmm, you should be able to end up with the same relative field of view on the center monitor as if you had just 1 monitor there, and therefore the enemies in the center should be the same distance as normal. You may have adjusted the FoV too much.

There is a FoV calculator at widescreengamingforum.com that will tell you what your new FoV should be to compensate for the additional real estate without screwing up the overall perception but you usually only have to mess with FoV in vert- games or stretch games.

But from what I understand BFBC2 only allows you to adjust the vertical FoV. It calculates the horizontal FoV itself from what I read. I didn't try messing with it since the default FoV seemed fine to me on my Eyefinity setup.

 

[MarcVenice]

Haven't played enough yet with the new FoV-setting to come to any conclusion.

Right now, I've set it at 22, which the calculator suggested, but I think it's to much. Originaly it's at 55 though. I'm probably going to end up somewhere in the middle...

 

[Lonyo]

Haven't played enough yet with the new FoV-setting to come to any conclusion.

Right now, I've set it at 22, which the calculator suggested, but I think it's to much. Originaly it's at 55 though. I'm probably going to end up somewhere in the middle...

Could you try using the iz3D driver on your Eyefinity setup?
As in, does Eyefinity also work with 3D? (AFAIK you can at least test the iz3D driver on non-120Hz/etc monitors, so it might indicate if it's possible to get a 3D effect, at least in red/blue mode).

 

[NoQuarter]

Could you try using the iz3D driver on your Eyefinity setup?
As in, does Eyefinity also work with 3D? (AFAIK you can at least test the iz3D driver on non-120Hz/etc monitors, so it might indicate if it's possible to get a 3D effect, at least in red/blue mode).

I've done anaglyph (red/blue) on Eyefinity it worked fine. It might be more complicated but still doable with shutter glasses since they sync to the refresh rate, I don't think using 3 iz3d monitor would work since each iz3d monitor requires 2 DVI connections.