Absolutely; games with an FoV lower than ~90 are pretty much unplayable for me.

In console ports to PC, FOV is important because the games are usually developed for people sitting across the living room from a TV. When I'm right up next to my monitor, I sometimes get motion-sick from the close-in perspective. Being able to widen the FOV fixes that.

Aside from that, I've become accustomed to a pretty wide field of view from playing PC shooters over the years and anything less than ~85 horizontal FOV looks weird to me.

Depends on the game.

I was one of those crazy people in Quake that set the FOV out so far that it looked like a fisheye lens.

Playing PC games with a low FOV gives me a headache. It's like looking around through a camera that is zoomed in.

Similarly, I get pretty serious motion sickness from narrow enough FOVs, e.g. Darksector is unplayable on PC for me. I just like high FOV aesthetically anyway, though I might be biased since I don't feel like vomiting when I'm playing with it.

FOV is a must for FPS.

I assume we're talking about field of vision, yes? Like the draw distance? Or is there a difference?

@stonyman65:

I still do it in any game that allows me to do it. Minecraft has the hilarious Quake Pro setting when you max out the FoV to 120 or so. Which makes creepers in that game a joke.

It's never bothered me in games. I rarely have to mess with it in the options.

Then agian, my monitor is 4:3 so....

I don't care personally as I'm not affected by lower FoV's in the PC, but I am totally on the side of people that wish that the option becomes more common in games that require it like the FPS genre.

I don't usually care, until its set to something really terrible. So I put depends on other factors, I guess the other factor would be if the developers set it up reasonably. That said I've never had to adjust it yet.

A small FOV never really bothered me despite the tactical disadvantages, but when given the option to widen it, I will. Nothing super-nuts like 120 unless I'm fucking around, but enough to make up for peripheral vision.

It never has bothered me. I don't even notice it unless I go from one game to another with very different FoVs and even then, I really have to look for it to notice.

Yes I need higher FOV something like 90 is usually what I like to have unless my eyes start to hurt or the bloody weapon takes up a quarter of the screen. (Cough* Cough* Crysis 2/Bad Company 2 Cough* Cough*)

I do.

But It's more for it looks weird when it's too zoomed in. A wider (~90 degree) view looks more natural.

Nothing that I've ever really paid much mind to really. I just play with Default FoV

In console ports of fps, yes since most of the time the fov is so low, its hard to play for more than 10 minutes w/o feeling dizzy. Any fov lower than 85 is basically unplayable for me. But it other games, its not that big of an issue.

Same

Same here, not a full headache but I just feel uncomfortable and I stop playing pretty quickly.

I play my PC games on my TV and the FoV is usually set to be played on a monitor, so I end up adjusting that setting most of the time.

Honestly, I just turn down the graphics on all my games to minimum because all that stuff is totally irrelevant to me.

I voted "Depends on other factors". I hadn't had an issue with default FOVs until a first-person game a few months ago (I have forgotten which) that struck me as peculiar during the QL here on GB. Given the number of people who report motion sickness I think developers of first-person games should be obliged to include options for FOV adjustment.

FOV: Field of View. i.e. the viewing angle or "the angle of your peripheral vision".

It's not a quality setting - its a preference re how wide you'd like your vision to be. Edit: It can have an effect on performance, but usually very minor.

At one point in my life I did. Now I don't give a fuck.

I remembered feeling really claustrophobic when playing the first Borderlands because the FOV was something ridiculous like 65. For first person games, having an FOV slider is a must for me.

@probablytuna: Actually that brings up a good point, don't some developers limit FOV for atmosphieric reasons? I remember hearing something about that in the original Bioshock... Maybe that's why some games don't have FOV sliders?

Someone been drinking the Total Biscuit Kool-Aid? He's been on that crusade the past few months and it's been really annoying to watch, practically dragged the Zeno Clash 2 developers through the mud with his PSA 'campaign.'

Only in a first person game. It matters.

It's about how big the horizontal angle of your cone of vision is. Most PC gamers favor 85-90 degrees, most console games draw 55-65 due to technical constraints.

Ontopic. It depends on the game, but in general I much prefer high FoV-settings. Some 3rd person experiences feel better with a lower FoV. For example Binary Domain has a FoV slider for its PC version, and the higher FoV settings look and feel and play like shit.

Tunnel vision has its upsides in terms of invoking specific feelings - like panic or a heightend sense of speed.

I was just thinking of buying a monitor for my xbox 360. Do you guys reckon I shouldn't bother because of the unadjustable FOV? I'll be playing from a desk, like a pc.

If the purpose was to induce a claustrophobic feeling then fine, I can understand the reason in limiting FOV for horror games and whatnot, but Borderlands wasn't one and I'm glad they finally added it in for the sequel. Same goes for Bioshock Infinite.

i play mostly pc games now and it really bothers me if a game doesn't have a decent fov. i tried to play the mp in tomb raider the other day and the camera is ridiculous; you can't see anything but the back of your character when you sprint.

FPS games, sure, Third Person? of course not.
But it's not like I go nuts if the FOV should be like 90 and it's at like 85 instead.
Most games have .ini files anyway so I just alter those.

Borderlands 2 claims its default is 90, but it still looks zoomed like Borderlands 1 did. I mean, even the console versions of BL1 just gave off an uncanny feeling with their FOV. Only when you run does the game look right. Anyways, anyone here know what the correct setting is for BL2?

I don't get motion sickness from a low FoV, so it's not a must for me. But having the option to widen it is always nice, and it surely makes the game much more enjoyable. As long as it doesn't actually interfer with my enjoyment of the game (see: Darksiders II), I can work with a narrow FoV.

But then again, if it has the option to put it at least at 90º, much better.

90 fov or go home. Only matters in first-person games.

I can play with less but 90 is way, way better. Now that I've played games with a high FOV, I really dislike going back down to something as insane as 65. Why do devs do that?

The only game where the FOV has annoyed me was Borderlands, I just had a hard time focusing on things in that game. I also turn the FOV up in Team Fortress 2, but that is only because a larger FOV allows me to see more at the same time, not because it annoys me. I have yet to see a non first person game where I would care about the FOV at all.

Having the option to change it is nice much like any other graphical option. So in that sense I care enough about it to change it in the options or in a ini file. Some people hate motion blur, bloom and/or depth of field which can be aggravating if they cannot be toggled or modified.

On FPS's, yes.

I can live without being able to tweak it, but having the option is nice.

It's weird, I've never changed the FOV in a game besides TF2 but that was just so I could see more of what was happening on screen. Maybe I just haven't seen the true potential of a higher FOV? Some FPS's may look and feel a little weird when I first start playing them but I usually adjust...

Normally I'm not too bothered, but I do like having the option. For instance, if I couldn't change the FoV on skyrim then I would never be able to play it as, at its default of something like 65, after 20 minutes of playing I'm essentially confined to a dark room for the next 2 days with a massive migraine :/

that bummed me out so much.

as for the OP, no. I don't notice it at all.

This.

I have literally never changed the setting for anything other than playing around with it. I always just play the game at whatever the default is.

Not very often. I altered the FOV slightly in Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Borderlands 2, but otherwise I've never been bothered by narrow FOV. I can see why some people would though.

I cant stand narrow FOV so yes.

As a dev I can say narrow FOV mostly comes from developers wanting to have less rendered on screen for consoles so that whatever they do fits in memory / less draw calls on the GPU.

You should see wider FOVs on "next gen" console games, even predict some console games would get the same FOV sliders you see on PC, since higher FOV values would finally be allowed.

After all, up to the developer.

It really doesn't bother me, however, I want FOV sliders to be standard in video games. Especially in first person shooters.

Quake is just so much faster at high FoV. It's awesome.

70- 80+ or I'll get a headache after playing awhile.

No I don't even notice it.