Quote from Hallen :

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Quote from ATic ATac :

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Nice posts gents.

The field of view becomes very important in the absence of other inputs when driving sims. We simply don't get the cues we have in real life through G forces and the like. As already pointed out, with a narrow <90 FOV we see much more detail in the corners. The problem here is it could be likened to driving with blinkers on. Don't try this at home, but I would bet that if someone tried wearing blinkers and drive, they too would find it difficult to judge speed in real life.

We humans judge our speed through something called optic flow. simply put, that is how fast something moves across our field of vision. A tight FOV loses the peripheral vision we rely on for speed judgment. We might not necessarily look to the immediate sides of the track, but we are aware of it, and this lack of information leads to overspeeding, and perceived lack of handling.

A wide field of view on a flat screen alone does not fill the gaps, and always looks distorted unless a curved screen is also used. It is a very complex matter to try and get a plausible effect on equipment (pc + monitor) that isn't specifically designed for the job.

You can see the limitations of a low FOV when you watch these 'Police! Camera! Action!' shows on TV. Often the camera car will be doing upwards of 100mph, but as the camera only has an FOV of 40 degrees or so, it looks more like 30mph.

That's a good point crashgate3.

There was a good discussion on this some time back.
FOV - Sense of Speed
Which started before the introduction of multiple renders that Scawen introduced a few patches ago.

For my single screen rig which has a 17" 5:4 monitor, I have these settings.

7 renders 3-1-3
Main screen FOV 27°
Screen angle 12°
Which yields a total FOV of 149.4°

Values of 25° - 30° give just about the right amount of central detail for picking apexes, and judging distance to car ahead while the increased FOV of 74.7° - 74.7° either side gives a good sense of speed and peripheral vision.

It might seem odd at first, but you quickly become accustomed to it, and in my opinion is quite realistic. The problem here, is the bad distortion using the in car view, but setting custom view with body and wheels off, works really well.

That said, nothing beats a proper curved screen which totally fills your field of view.

Quote from didomusicuk :

I have a Logitech G25, love the fact that LFS is pretty much the only game that supports the clutch pedal properly. Currently have the wheel set to 720, but practically all the cars in the game handle poorly and unrealistically. I know the tyre model is STILL in development, but the current one should never have been released. Its terrible. At the moment, its easy to spin any car in the game at very low speeds, it feels like I'm driving around on ice most of the time. There is almost no grip, regardless of the car setup. Braking causes skids at low speeds too - real cars do not do this! I hope this huge wait is worth it - Z28 is showing its age now, and even cheap racing games have decent car handling and physics, such a shame LFS is being left behind.

You are very wrong - stop playing artificial sims ( such as SHIFT )