Sans FOV changer

[BadAim]

The big thing with this program is to spend some time tuning it. I have found that 105 degrees is max for a 4:3 monitor, I think about 120 degrees will be max for widescreen. If you use 150 degrees, of course you will have distortion and the view will be screwed up. It's like everything else in life, you need to use it in moderation. The best thing is what Squawk noticed, you get a more realistic field of view. It should almost be imperceptible, especially with a std 4:3 monitor, With a 16:9 or 16:10 monitor, you can get a nearly full field of view as you see every day with your natural eyesight (assuming you actually use your full FOV), again that will be about 120 degrees max.

P.S. I have had quite a bit of trouble with the button assignments. The good news is it works great with a slider or rotary. Also two VERY important points, you must disable all zoom assignments in game and also disable the "z" axis on your track IR because both will interfere with it.

[Snacko]

Is anybody having any problems with this in Windows 7 x64?

The Start button never changes it's text to say 'Re-Start', which it was doing under XP.

[BadAim]

I had some trouble with that too, I forgot how I fixed it though. Er, I'll get back to you on that.

[Crash]

I have just tried this program and it certainly helps me however there is a large lag 5 seconds or more before the view changes. Is this normal?

[Snacko]

When you first start to fly it does wait a few seconds before it adjusts your zoom.

[Shadrach]

I know this is an old thread but having read it I thought I'd give Sans FOV another go as I have tried it before with all the problems others have had. After a lot of experiementing I hit on settings which I found flipping brilliant. I set default, max and min FOV all to 170 and all keys for changing FOV to none. In game I made sure 6 DoF was active for Track IR. I also had auto activate and restart ticked. I don't know if it had an effect but the Ecran_Wide mod was active.

When San's FOV was started and IL2 launched San's kicked in automatically. Everything looked vastly improved. Sitting normally the whole cockpit is visible, the instrument panel, mirror (in Spitfire), rudder pedals and down each side to the seat. But everything looks completely natural, there are no distortions, the dials are perfectly round and the wings are straight out with no bits missing even when looking back. It feels like you are really sitting in a plane and everything has a much more pronounced 3D effect. On the ground the runway is nice and wide and in the air the view appears far more panoramic, tracking other planes is far easier with much better SA.

Sitting normally the instruments appear further away and with my 1680 by 1050 res the smaller text is broken and difficult to read but lean forward a little and everything zooms in beautifully. This works especially well with the gun sight. Lean in and it's right there with everything lined up. In fact I think that is the biggest game improvement. I used to have the hat switch mapped to toggle FOV, gunsight view etc. etc. but that is now completely unnecessary, head movement and Track IR does it all.

I'll try and work out how to do some screen shots although I doubt they'll do full justice. I use an LG L226WTQ-SF monitor and 8600GTS card.

[fruitbat]

just for information, after testing ages ago, i found and still use to this day, that in widescreen,

101Fov = default 4:3 wide,

80 Fov = default 4:3 normal,

and 55 Fov = default 4:3 gunsight

i have these mapped to my hat on my throttle along with restart, and use it in conjunction with 6DOF.

[BadAim]

I'll have to give that a go Shadrach, I've never had luck using the z axis in conjunction with San's .

LOLs, Bat. I don't think I've ever been quoted in someone else's sig before. I'm honored, and I can feel my ego inflating already.

[Trout]

HAXORS!!! HAXOR ALERT!!!

Just kidding... but it is a pretty good crutch if you need it. Kinda like using the "Granny Aid" when playing billiards.

(Ps - It is a pretty good quote BA...)

[BadAim]

Granny aid? GRANNY AID? I got your granny aid right here! Don't make me come over there and give you a totally vengeful noogie.

Seriously dude, how is a tool that allows you to have a more realistic field of view a granny aid? Especially with a wide screen, it's practically a requirement, seeing as the game doesn't support wide screens properly and gives you a totally borked perspective on the world. I'll certainly grant that the thing is a total pain in the ass to get set up, but it does work well when it is set up properly. (at least as well as track IR).

All the pictures of distorted perspectives and random see-through airplane parts are examples of this thing not being used correctly, and are only useful as such.

[Shadrach]

I know I'm stating the obvious but the basic problem is that you are trying to fit the 4:3 monitor ratio provided by IL2 into a more rectangular wide screen. With the standard set up you only have three options.

You fit the view to the monitor top and bottom which means the view is too narrow with bars at the sides.

You make the view bigger so it goes to the sides which means the view is too tall so the view is cropped top and bottom.

You stretch the view so it fits all round which means everything is distorted with oval dials etc.

There is, however, a fourth way that San's uses. Start with a bigger view and crop it back to the size and ratio required by the monitor. San's in effect has removed the 4:3 ratio constraint imposed by IL2. But how big is too big? I suppose really you only need to have the same field of view top and bottom as you would see normally and have San's fill the side views out to the monitor edges. But of course, because you now have the ability to make the field of view so much bigger and "see more" the temptation is to do just that.

I have trouble getting my head around what actually happens but it seems to me a bit like being in a goldfish bowl and looking through a keyhole. If you want to see more of the bowl you have to make it bigger like blowing up a balloon which is what San's is doing. Except you are not in a bowl you are seeing a 2D representation on a flat screen and beyond a limited range the two are irreconcilable and so you get increasing distortion and anomalies. Because the effect is like blowing up a balloon then the surface is moving away from you as the view increases and so the depth of field increases with better distance perception and 3D appearance.

[BadAim]

I've seen little (if any) distortion in screen shots of the thing being used correctly. I have an old school monitor so I only run it at 105 degrees, but even at that level, it really opens up the view, and allows for much easier takeoffs and landings, and it's especially nice for formation flying. I should think that 120-130 degrees would be ideal for a widescreen (and that's what San recommends), and this can be had with little or no distortion. 120-130 degrees should closely approximate a natural field of view (not accounting for peripheral vision).

As for "seeing more", isn't that the whole point? If anyone wants to constrain themselves to some arbitrary limits on their field of view, then they can be my guest, but if I can get closer to what I can naturally see in real life, then I'm all for it. If there was anything unrealistic about it (when used properly), I wouldn't use it.

[Crash]

Has anyone run the release candidate? I have checked all the settings and it cant find Il-2. the other version works though

[fruitbat]

i'm using the release candidate....

[Snacko]

Is this release canidate a new version, or something from last year?

[fruitbat]

Is this release canidate a new version, or something from last year?

last year, it says v1.0.6.9 RC.

are you still having problems with using it with win 7?

[Snacko]

I have not tried again in months. I did not work when I went to Win7, it was flakey. And BadAim sometimes has issues with it.

Is it working consistently for you? I have not heard anybody with Win7 say that..

[fruitbat]

i have vista 64 so....

it still goes flakey every once in a while, but 90% plus of the time its fine.

[Snacko]

Hmm.. Ok, I'll try it again sometime. Thx..

[erWatson]

I've had pretty good luck with this tool. Previously for a triple head setup it cut off a lot of the top and bottom making the game unplayable at these wide-screen resolutions.

edited for clickable thumbs

[fruitbat]

man i would love that set up

[BadAim]

Now that's what I'm talkin' 'bout!

[erWatson]

Here are some more shots:

(clickable thumbs)

I can't wait for the next Nvidia drivers. They supposedly FINALLY support "Surround Gaming" for 3 screens + SLI. Triple-head without a Matrox product or Eyefinity. If not my other option is to continue the use of SoftTH and get a 3'rd PCI-e video card (as a 'dummy' card). Currently I have to disable SLI to use 3 screens because I only have 2 PCI-e video cards, and the card doing the rendering starts to suffer at 3840x1024 or 4800x1200.

[Crash]

Hello Kev,I am still having problems with Sans not seeing Il-2. The previous version sort of works but RC dont. The text files are there, device link is set port 1711 the il-2 exe is there any ideas? I think that the vid you posted at the zoo really makes me want to get it working properly. Any chance of a tutorial on how you set yours up?

[fruitbat]

i'll throw something together tomorrow for you crash

Did you like the vid at the zoo? its my first effort at making vids from the game.