Field of View – or vision- is the extent
of the observable game world that is seen
on the display at any given moment. In other
words, it’s how much peripheral vision you
have.
Humans- provided they haven’t fought the
mountain- typically have 180 degrees of vision-
that’s 90 degrees either side. You can test
this right now by holding your arms out, like
you’re an aeroplane! You won’t be able
to make out much detail, but you’ll be aware
of your fingers wiggling about. Prey animals
can typically see even more, so they can spot
predators creeping up behind them. Horses
can see almost all the way around! We CS:GO
players, however, are not prey. No matter
how much we feel like it sometimes. For we
all have a very narrow FOV!
What it is depends on this console command,
and the resolution you’re gaming at. Since
you can’t change the console command without
cheats, this is always set to 90 during competitive
play. But what you’re seeing is only 90
if you’re gaming at an aspect ratio of 4:3.
If you’re gaming at wider resolutions, your
actual FOV will be a bit bigger.
How much more? I guess I could have used maths
and stuff, but I’m a visual kind of guy,
so instead I got a picture of a protractor
and made it into a CS:GO map.
No matter what resolution you game at, you
will ALWAYS have a vertical FOV of 74- meaning
that you won’t be able to see directly above
and below you at the same time. But the wider
your screen is, the more horizontal FOV you’ll
have. Let’s go through them all, starting
with the narrowest.
If you turn your widescreen display on its
side, you’ll be gaming at 9:16. I don’t
recommend playing like it, but it’s almost
like a sneak-preview of what a higher resolution
would look like. If your monitor is full HD,
your gun will look like it’s in 4K. And
since I have a 4K monitor, what I’m seeing
here is kind of like a sneak-preview of 8K.
It’s detailed. And probably not necessary
for this game.
Moving onto the next, also pointless aspect
ratio is 1:1. I tested this just to confirm
that you get a vertical and horizontal field
of view of 74. And you do. I don’t think
anybody games at this aspect ratio- and that’s
probably for the best.
Next is 5:4, with a horizontal FOV of 86.
This was a popular resolution for the first
LCD monitors, and you can still force your
monitor to display it in CS:GO by choosing
1280 x 1024. It’s under the 4:3 category,
even though it isn’t that.
Next we get to proper 4:3, which is a FOV
of 90. This aspect ratio is still popular
for some reason. Maybe people think it makes
player models wider and thus easier to hit,
though I’ve never bought into that theory.
I still think it’s because you get higher
FPS with lower resolutions, which could make
your mouse movements feel more precise. Plus
it’s what a lot of older players are used
to. Anyway, I still think a lot of pros use
this aspect ratio, so it’s important to
cover.
16:10 is the next one up, and was an aspect
ratio I liked. A few of the older widescreen
LCDs used this, giving you some extra vertical
space in programs and stuff. This gives you
a horizontal FOV of 100.
Next is the modern standard that all of my
videos are recorded in. It’s 16:9- and this
gives you a horizontal fov of 106! This lets
you see further around, which may help you
to spot enemies that players gaming at 4:3
fail to notice.
Beyond this we get to ultra-wide and multiple
monitor displays. Say you have 2 16:9 monitors
next to each other. Not recommended, since
your crosshair will be in the gap between
them. But this will result in an aspect ratio
of 32:9, and a horizontal fov of 138.
And last is a 3-monitor setup, which some
people might be using. This has a horizontal
FOV of 152. And as always, the vertical FOV
is still at 74.
I would say, all things being equal, that
a wider FOV is better, since you’ll spot
players in your peripheral that otherwise
you wouldn’t have seen at all. But unfortunately,
the support for it in CS:GO is somewhat limited.
This is what the main menu looks like on a
2-screen setup. And this is it at 3. That
terrorist is beginning to look awfully lonely.
Poor him.
And the HUD stretches out so far that you’d
have to twist your neck to see stuff. It would
be far better to have all of this stuff moved
closer to the centre, leaving the peripheral
stuff just for the game.
I don’t know if VR will ever come to CS:GO.
If it does, it’ll be exciting- and I hope
not just for those using VR. It would require
a reworked HUD where it’s not all hidden
around the corners of the screen. And there
would be rendering techniques that could lower
the resolution in the peripheral vision to
improve FPS. Both of these things would also
help ultra-widescreen setups!
While it’s fun to speculate about what Valve
might do in the distant future, I think there’s
something far simpler that they could implement
for now- and that’s a FOV slider.
Other games have it! It would give players
a way to customise their desired FOV and resolution,
without being bound to one to get the other.
The console command is already there. All
they would have to do would be to have a slider
with a maximum and minimum setting for competitive
play, say, 80-105.
But it’s still wise to have limits. Turn
it up too far and it breaks the models, and
the maps themselves. You could say this is…
a FOV too far.
