My 32" TV is as close as technically possible in my room although I'd like it closer still. Yet I'd probably have to put it in direct contact with my nose (and I'm not a Kubica look alike) to fill my field of view and thus be able to use realistic FOV and have the same view as I'd have in a real car (albeit keeping my head in a fixed position).
Can I ask what v-FOV you run at?
As you say, it's not practical to use a single (flat) screen and fill your vision in a realistic way. You can get most of the way there with 3 fairly large screens, horizontally at least (in a sedan your vertical view is limited by the dash/bonnet(/hood
) and roof, and you can never choose to drive any higher or lower than the ground anyway [apart from jumps], so for the purposes of being able to race with others I don't think vertical vision is crucial).
The question is, if you're looking to get close to true perspective but want to maintain a practical (for racing) field of view, what should you be aiming for?
If we start with rFactor defaults as a base, it wouldn't have been too uncommon to have a 1280x1024 screen in the early days, and on a 'normal' rFactor v-FOV setting (let's say 75°) that would give you 87.6° H-FOV. [note that the FOV ratio isn't linear with the screen ratio; see below**] You could probably use that as a bare minimum setting, any less than that and you can't really see enough around you to be able to race with a good idea of what's going on.
On a more normal ratio of 4/3 (800x600, 1024x768), that 75° vertical gives 91.3° horizontal, so a bit more there.
I'll throw in my settings and screen as a third example, I run 60° v-FOV on 16/9 (1920x1080), which gives h-FOV at 91.5°. I must admit I've never calculated this before, and from pretty early on in rFactor I set my v-FOV to 60° (while using 5/4, 4/3, and 16/10 screens) so while I tend to feel I now have pretty good peripheral vision it's obviously not much better than default
**(FYI [and you may choose to skip this bit] my calculated h-FOV figures might seem a bit confusing; the farther away a screen is the more its h-FOV : v-FOV ratio will start to resemble its actual pixel ratio, but when a screen is actually occupying 75° vertically its edges are receding at a fair rate due to perspective - so the horizontal increase is greatly reduced. It's actually easier to calculate this directly using simple trigonometry than the triangle calculator in the first post, since you need to work out the hypotenuse to use it)
Now, obviously in this case more is better - having apparently severely limited myself with a 5/4 screen I'm much happier with my current setup (for seeing cars around me) and no doubt I'd be happier still if I had 100° or 110° or 120+°... but given the figures above
let's assume 91.5° is a fair minimum h-FOV for racing. Since this matches my setup we already know what v-FOV we need for a 16/9 screen: 60°.
So, how close do different size 16/9 screens need to be to achieve 60° v-FOV?
22": 9.3" (23.7cm)
24": 10.2" (25.9cm)
32": 13.6" (34.5cm)
42": 17.8" (45.3cm)
Feasible? Not really. (to avoid ambiguity I probably should just say, "No."
)
Go for 3 screens, on the other hand, and suddenly you only need 17.4° v-FOV to achieve the minimum 'practical' h-FOV in total (91.5°, so 30.5° per screen). Distances:
22": 35.2" (89.5cm)
24": 38.4" (97.6cm)
32": 51.2" (130.1cm)
42": 67.2" (170.8cm)
Not only is this feasible, only on the smallest screens is the viewing distance actually a realistic figure - on the larger screens (and probably even the 24") you would want the screens closer, giving you higher v-FOV and improving your peripheral vision above our stated minimum. And let's be honest, 17.4° isn't a lot, even for the relatively unimportant vertical orientation. (tight oval racing could be difficult, I imagine)
-
Sorry to throw all these figures in here, but I think ZeosPantera has (quite ironically, given he uses a single screen) clarified an issue triple-screen users should be aware of; namely, they have the opportunity to achieve proper perspective without cutting down their awareness too much, and I think some actual examples help highlight that. (and, I think a lot of 3-screen users blame rFactor for 'warping' on their outside screens because they don't realise how low their FOV needs to be for things to be correct - rFactor's fairly high default FOV doesn't help)
Also, the first set of figures above perhaps illustrates why a lot of single-screen users aren't willing to implement proper perspective given that it cuts down so much on their in-game vision (or requires an extremely close screen). ZeosPantera is happy to cut down his FOV to get realistic perspective, but I'd suggest most people are not.
PS Hoping I have no maths errors in all this, tried to double-check everything
