Unplayable on Multi-Monitor Systems Due To Low FoV

Since the last patch in the beta the game has been unplayable on systems running a multi-monitor setup, this is down to a horizontal field of view limited add during that patch. That limit does not take into account the FoV required to play properly on, the current horizontal field of view limit is 110, this is fine for a 16:9 aspect ratio but not for a 12:9, 48:10 or 48:9, this is disappointing because we was told the game would release with multi-monitor support, and this issue means you haven't.

Allow me to put this into perceptive, a horizontal FoV of 110 on a 16:9 monitor is the equivalent of having a vertical FoV of 75, the limit in the menu, and a base horizontal field of view of 90 on a 4:3 aspect ratio monitor.

A horizontal FoV of 110 on a triple 16:9 setup, ie 48:9 is a vertical FoV of 30, and a base horizontal field of view of 40 on a 4:3 aspect ratio monitor.
http://www.wsgf.org/fovcalc.php

Multi-monitor setups need a horizontal FoV of between 140 - 155 to render correctly with a vertical FoV of 75, below are some screen shots to show the correct change in FoV, followed by the incorrect FoV we are currently experiencing on our multi-monitor setups. All screen shots where taken from the same position using the top of the pylon as a reference point, if you see the images below showing correct FoVs that top point never moves.

1280x1024 or 5:4

1280x960 or 4:3

1280x800 or 16:10

1280x800 or 5:3

And now a direct comparison between a single monitor and multi-monitor resolution.

1680x1050 16:10

5040x1050 48:10

As you can see the FoV is much lower, and has chopped off a large part of the top and bottom of the screen, given how important verticality is in this game and how much the FoV is now distorted, this renders the game pretty much unplayable.

The issue here is the artificial horizontal FoV limit added in the last patch, and as such should be extremely easy to fix. Ether remove the limit, increase the limit to 160 or add an if condition:

Code:

if (screen.getWidth () > 3000)
{
    hFoV_limit = 160;
}
else
{
    hFoV_limit = 110;
}

My next post will describe a separate issue to do with vehicle FoVs that has been present since the release of the beta.

The issue with vehicle FoVs is different to issue of a FoV limit as above, infact this issue effects every user as vehicles FoV are fixed values and are not being calculated using the player chosen vertical FoV setting from the menu. The net result is the wider your aspect ratio the less and less you will be able to see, again, screenshots below show the issue.

4x3 aspect ratio

16x10 aspect ratio

16x9 aspect ratio

48:10 aspect ratio

As you can see the aspect ratio increases the FoV decreases, this is not how field of view is mean to work. This is the direct result of the FoV being a fixed value (typically its been fixed to 80 horizontal FoV) not being calculated from the players chosen vertical FoV.

Because I made a fix for the vehicle FoV issue and because the infantry FoV used to work fine, below are some screenshots of what your game should look like, again I've included some normal aspect ratios for comparisons sake.

4x3 aspect ratio

16x10 aspect ratio

16x9 aspect ratio

48:10 aspect ratio

Looks like my post:

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/...igher-resolutions-screenshots-included.47922/

How do I fix this?

You can't atm, the problem is the result of what they've done in the code, read my first post it'll explain what the issue is, you'll also find there is an issue with vehicle FoV, that is explained in my second post.

A fix for vehicle FoV does exists in the form of a memory fix, it basically overrides the vehicles FoV in the games memory while the game is running, unfortunately I couldn't get the same to work with the issue in the first post because the FoV is calculated every frame and so overwrites and changes made to it.

The vehicle FoV fix can be found here: http://www.wsgf.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=24098
But, this fix won't work while issue one exists, as issue one overrides the final FoV value the game uses before rendering.

Bumpety bumpster.

Just want to add my support! Please fix this for us multi-monitor users! You have a great game....let us play it!

I assume that if we try to mod this ourselves we could get banned?

It's probably to make sure people with multi-monitor setups don't have a massive peripheral view advantage over normal players.

No one has been banned yet for the vehicle FoV fix, but fixing the new issue requires a code injection of sorts.

If that's the case then they shouldn't of said the game would release with 2D Surround support, because a 16:9 aspect ratio FoV is unplayable on 48:10.


In other news, my skill level in reading assembler has gone up because I can now do this ^^

I dont understand? We were promised multi monitor support, Did they forget or we we simply lied to?

Personally I think a dev buggered up and didn't think something though, I'm not sure if the FoV limit was added before the last patch or not, but basically, 75 vertical FoV at a 16:9 aspect ratio, is around 110 horizontal FoV. So my guess was someone was told to put a cap on the FoV so that they couldn't for it over 75 vertical FoV, so they worked out that 110 horizontal FoV would be equivalent for their resolution, a 16:9 monitor, and coded that in, without considering other people use aspect ratios wider then 16:9.

Bump

Skid, I appreciate the time you've taken to (re)address these issues.
Does one need to be a member of wsgf to dl the fw fixer? Cannot see it on the thread you linked to.
Edit: Found it, now to figure out how to use it

Nar your don't need to be a member of the WSGF, but we could always use more active community members

I've finished the fix and I've updated the Flawless Widescreen Plugin with it, just about to send it to HaYDeN so he'll push it to the server when he does his next update. To note this fix required a code injection to work, basically I'm replacing 3 bytes in the program that are used to override the FoV and set it to the limit value.

In other words it removes the override from the program code itself, so its a little less clean then simply updating variables, as such if they have any sort of program integrity check to make sure the program hasn't been changed it might trip it. I've had it running fine for a few minutes so we'll see how it goes.

Thank you all for the information. I'll see about reproducing this on my end and make sure it is reported to our QA teams and management.

I grabbed the info Skid posted and I'll be sending it up the chain as well.

Great thanks, that's good to hear

Fantastic!

I spent 2 hours today trying to find the options tab in game to change my graphic settings and bind my keys. I finally went from 5960x1080 down to a single 1920x1080 to find out that alot of the screen was missing with triples. The option button on the bottom right is completley missing when you run triples and the tabs at the center bottom are almost completely gone when running triple screen. It's not just the FOV that is messed up, it is the entire screen not showing even when in the esc menus.

same issue here look at my post (posted higher up) screenshots showing issues with menus as well

Anyone got a free minute or two, they updated the client after I left for work so I didn't have chance to check if my updated fix still works, if it doesn't I need to tell HaYDeN to hang slack on updating Flawless Widescreen till I've sorted it.

You'll need to already have Flawless Widescreen installed to be able to help check for me.