This is wrong; the field of view has no relationship to the resolution. a 3840x2160 screen and a 1920x1080 screen of the same physical size at the same physical distance will have the same field of view – which is measured in degrees, not pixels.
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I think I have found a discussion that can help me!! Can you change the FOV for the external camera?? Other AI static airplanes and buildings are distorted when panning left to right. I am using a 49" curved Samsung G9 monitor.
Thanks
David
I am not aware of a way to change the default external view camera other than just zooming in with the mouse wheel. The external view on my setup is warped as well, but once you start to zoom in, everything should start looking better.
Interesting - might have a look at this for fun. I have flown a B737 in a full size training simulator and the first thing that struck me when I first sat down was just how close to your face the instruments are and how easy it is to get tunnel vision on just 1 or 2 instruments when you are used to having everything on the screen in front of you while zoomed out on a desktop sim. I set custom camera views with varying levels of zoom for different parts of the cockpit to get things feeling right
Thank you for this! Im pretty sure this is correct.
I just checked it in my sim, and especially when i make screenshots in outside view, i set my zoom to 75, as this was the most “realistic” appearance to me.
I now calculated my VERTICAL VOF with the website (34.2),
using your calculation the result is the following 34.2 : 57.3 = 0.597
Using the camera debug, this results in a 74 Zoom value, and thats matching what i always just assumed based on my eye, and it also matches the recommendation from an A320 pilot to get the POV in the aircraft as real as possible.
Its maybe a bit close for me, i will adjust the seating position accordingly, but atleast i have a rough value, slight deviations wouldnt be too bad.
Coming from racing sims with ACTUAL FOV settings, i always calculated the mathematically correct FOV but then adjustet a bit to get me the situational awareness and immersion i need/want.
IMPORTANT:
Make sure you change the zoom in the Main Menu > Camera Settings, not in the menu bar Camera settings! Leave that at 50.
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May I ask the dumbest question in this fascinating post?
Since you can measure FOV in degrees reasonably acurately in a VR headset, is the zoom table conversion from deg FOV to MSFS zoom applicable to VR?
Thanks
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Interesting question and idea, but I have no experience with VR so I personally can’t answer that.
AFAIK the camera zoom settings do not apply in VR; VR always sets the FOV to the proper “real-world” FOV of the headset’s screens in front of your eyes.
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According to Meta Quest 3: Full Specification - VRcompare (vr-compare.com), the Meta Quest 3 has a hFoV of 110° and a vFoV of 96°. It also has a number of other headsets’ details - for example, it says that the Pimax Crystal Light has a hFoV of 115° and a vFoV of 105°.
I just stumbled over your valuable table.
Since quite a while I’m having an issue with the displayed fov as it relates to human sight.
If you extend your arm and watch a raised finger while rotating your arm from the far right to the far left end you’ll notice that even at angles +/- 90 degrees (might be even a bit more) you can still see your finger.
While the view is not sharp after certain angles you still can recognize objects (like your finger).
This in turn makes me believe that in a default view in the cockpit you should see more than what is currently displayed.
Acc. to your list just about 100 degrees but should be more towards 180 degree.
Again: what I’m after is that if you sit in a real cockpit you can see much more to the left and right than what you currently can see in the Sim 
You know that would create an extreme “pincushion” distortion effect right?
Just to point out that the relationship of the FOV to zoom level is dependent on a variable in a cfg file for each aircraft. The table in the OP therefore cannot be relied upon unless you know an aircraft is using the same value that the table was created with.
For Asobo aircraft that seems to be consistent, but they don’t appear to even enforce it for MSFS native aircraft from external developers. For example the Bell 407 and Cabri G2 helicopters are completely different to each other.
God knows what the situation will be given how many developers are producing content for 2024.
See this topic for more details…
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OK, I’m not too much into optics st this point and I take your hint on it.
What I am after is the fact that I do not see as much to left and right when I’m sitting in front of my screen than what I see when I’m sitting in a plane (glider for me irl).
So for example if I’m seated in a glider like the Discus 2 (which we have from GotFriends in the Sim) if you’re strapped in and look straight ahead you can see the complete hood including where the hood attaches to the hull on the left and right.
Shouldn’t it be possible if I’m at a certain distance from the screen to have that too?
May be even on a curved screen?
Is that a problem created by the projection of what I see in real life onto a flat (screen) surface may be?
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A standard 3-d projection to a 2-d flat screen at a nearly-180 degree FOV will be very very distorted unless it’s shown on a really large screen a few inches from your face; at typical screen sizes and viewing distances you’d see a tiny zoomed-out portion in the center and extremely stretched stuff all through to the edges.
You can produce a nicer looking image with a wide FOV by reprojecting – this is something that has come up on other threads before as a recommendation for the devs.
Here’s an example bug report on the Godot open-source game engine asking for implementation of the “Panini” projection for this purpose, you can see how it changes from the “pincushion”/“fisheye” look to a nicer look on a more typical monitor size, at the cost of rendering extra pixels:
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You are viewing the MSFS world through a monitor, not your eyes. If you set the FOV so you can see what the eye can see, you will be zoomed out WAY to far. This will completely distort the perception of distance and speed.
If you were to take a frame the same size as your monitor into a real aircraft, placing it the same distance from your eyes at home, that is the FOV you should be seeing at home.
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