PC Field of View setting for accessibility and nausea reduction

M

m811

New member
Hey,

I saw a few technical discussions regarding the removed "field of view" setting, but none seem to address the issue head on. I'd like to propose it be restored not for aesthetic or gameplay reasons, but health and accessibility. Incorrect field of view (and note that "incorrect" is dependent on the screen size, distance and perhaps personal biology) is a major contributor to motion sickness and from personal experience I can tell 5 minutes with the wrong field of view results in an hour or two of experiencing nausea. While my sensitivity has fortunately been slowly decreasing over the past year, my girlfriend here has had no such luck. Giving 7DTD a try together yesterday I could immediately tell its narrow FoV will be a problem, and it certainly was. It's not a pleasurable experience.

 
Hey,
I saw a few technical discussions regarding the removed "field of view" setting, but none seem to address the issue head on. I'd like to propose it be restored not for aesthetic or gameplay reasons, but health and accessibility. Incorrect field of view (and note that "incorrect" is dependent on the screen size, distance and perhaps personal biology) is a major contributor to motion sickness and from personal experience I can tell 5 minutes with the wrong field of view results in an hour or two of experiencing nausea. While my sensitivity has fortunately been slowly decreasing over the past year, my girlfriend here has had no such luck. Giving 7DTD a try together yesterday I could immediately tell its narrow FoV will be a problem, and it certainly was. It's not a pleasurable experience.
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Ditto

 
Interesting, in that until now, I’d only heard of people having physical problems from an FOV that’s too wide.
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Every bush and tree beyond about 5 meters is blurry. As you move they come into focus. They came into focus further away from the player in A16.4 and took up less of your FOV. I think this is contributing to the nausea as well.

 
I never understood why the hell it was removed in the first place, seemed kinda silly to me after its been there for so long then they suddendly decide to remove it?

 
I never understood why the hell it was removed in the first place, seemed kinda silly to me after its been there for so long then they suddendly decide to remove it?
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Idk but obviously not thought thru very well. For me it's a personal preference but for many other it is literally gamebreaking.

 
faatal explained the reason last Tuesday. Here's the quote.

Quote Originally Posted by faatal View Post

Yes. We discovered different devs had it at different settings. That changed the consistent look the designers wanted and it was causing performance issues. The average player often changes settings, not knowing what they are doing, making the game run poorly and then we get the blame, so we locked it down. There is a setting in the ini file, but it looks like debug mode (dm) has to be on for it to use it.

 
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I hope they bring it back as well. I haven't had time to play around with many of the suggestions today (like using the command in F1).

I know *just enough* about tech to do basic stuff. Measurements are not a thing I can grasp, so it might be next to impossible for me to just add FOV="x". What the heck would "x" even be lol.

The slider was ideal, because I could tweak it WHILE I played.

I am one of the people who have PHYSICALLY and mentally been affected by this change. I've been fighting a migraine for 3 days now. Thankfully, this migraine has had minimal pain. Mostly, it's just been mood altering with visual disturbances. Not even Zofran (an anti-nausea med) has helped very much. Which sucks because I absolutely LOVE this game.

 
Try this. Press F1 and it opens a console window. Type "sg OptionsFieldOfViewNew 75" without the quotes and press enter. It will change your FOV. In SP it changes instantly. Play with the value 75. Go higher and the view zooms further out. Try 90, 100. Hopefully it helps.

 
Thank you, very much. Someone else recommended that technique on another thread.

I finally have a couple hours to get on, so I'm going to go try that now :tickled_pink:

 
faatal explained the reason last Tuesday. Here's the quote.
Quote Originally Posted by faatal View Post

Yes. We discovered different devs had it at different settings. That changed the consistent look the designers wanted and it was causing performance issues. The average player often changes settings, not knowing what they are doing, making the game run poorly and then we get the blame, so we locked it down. There is a setting in the ini file, but it looks like debug mode (dm) has to be on for it to use it.
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That's the lamest excuse. If the game only looks and performs well at 75 FOV, then the dev's SHOULD get the blame.

 
Typically, console-based video games use a roughly 60 degree field of view (or less), and PC games use a higher field of view like 80-100 degrees. The reason for this discrepancy is contingent upon the assumed viewing distance of the player. Console players typically play in a living room-type setting where they are farther from the screen. So, the total field of view presented to them is smaller, because the screen actually takes up less of their real field of vision.

Conversely, PC gamers tend to sit at desks with their monitors much closer. To compensate for their computer monitor taking up a larger portion of their vision, game developers typically adjust the field of view so that the in-game camera does a better job approximating the same portion of the player’s field of view.

Unfortunately, when the field of view on the screen is significantly out of sync with the screen’s position in your real-world field of view, this can lead to headaches and nausea. This can occur when you’re playing a game with a low field of view (60 degrees or below) and you’re very close to the screen: a situation that arises when console players sit too close or when a game ported from the console to the PC does get an updated field of view.

Here is a more interesting research article on eFOV and iFOV, it's used for virtual reality, but it never hurts to understand more about the topic :) FOV sickness is a common thing, it's strange to ignore it.

EDIT: I linked the PDF, but don't like linking straight to a PDF.

Google search "Cybersickness in virtual reality - Jultika"

 
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Unfortunately, when the field of view on the screen is significantly out of sync with the screen’s position in your real-world field of view, this can lead to headaches and nausea. This can occur when you’re playing a game with a low field of view (60 degrees or below) and you’re very close to the screen: a situation that arises when console players sit too close or when a game ported from the console to the PC does get an updated field of view.
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I get motion sickness if my FOV is less than 90 and my monitor is fairly far back on my desk.

 
The FOV-Slider needs to be available again.

What is higher performance for, if you can't play the game at all because of motion sickness?

There has to be an option to disable all the head shaking and bobbing, too, because of the same reason.

That is a standard in all good first-person-shooters for this exact issue.

 
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