Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hey all, I'm a noob to these forums as I have just (finally) set up a 3D Surround system and I was wondering if someone could help or point me in the right direction. Concerning Crysis & Dragon Age 2, I've finally seen seen first hand the distortion and stretching on the side monitors and was wondering if there was a way to fix it. Navigating through the forums (great job BTW!) has given me an idea on what I have to do but I have no idea HOW to do it. From what I understand it is an FOV issue which can be fixed or minimized by modifying a command line. Things like opening a command line in game and modifying them are things I have never done before. Its a little overwhelming at this point. Could someone help me out maybe by using crysis as an example? Thanks.

I'm using 5760x1080 btw...

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i72600@4.5GHz w/ Hyper 212+ | GA P67A-UD7-B3 | EVGA GTX 580SC SLI | G.Skill Ripjaws 2x4GB | Corsair P3 128GB SSD | WD 1T Caviar Black | Corsair 1200AX PSU | HAF 932 | Asus VG236HEx2 & Asus VG236H

First off, :welcome

To the subject of your query:

What you are noticing is referred to as edge distortion, and there is really no 'fix' available. This is simply how the vast majority of 3D engines work. Multi-mon setups simply make the issue more noticeable. See my post HERE for more details.

If there is anything more to your question that I have overlooked, please let me know. FYI, most games featuring an in-game console use the tilde ~ key to activate it.

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VirtualDub Game Recording Guide | BFME2 & RotWK Widescreen/Triplehead Mods

I've been waiting to join the multi-monitor display community for some time now. It's nice to be here thank you.

After finally having some time to play around with some console commands in Crysis I see what you mean. Using the cl_fov command and setting it to a higher value, I did not notice any improvement in the distortion effect on the side monitors. Disappointing. Are there some 'standard' settings the community general use to help alleviate the problem in FPS'/games in general?
I'm assuming game developers are aware of this effect. Is this a problem associated with all 3D engines? Are there games out there that don't have this issue and are developers going to be taking the 'multi-display gamers' into consideration when designing up coming titles? The distortion isn't enough to turn me off but having this issue dealt with would greatly increase the immersion factor when playing...

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i72600@4.5GHz w/ Hyper 212+ | GA P67A-UD7-B3 | EVGA GTX 580SC SLI | G.Skill Ripjaws 2x4GB | Corsair P3 128GB SSD | WD 1T Caviar Black | Corsair 1200AX PSU | HAF 932 | Asus VG236HEx2 & Asus VG236H

It's a general problem with 3D viewports. I believe the newest OpenGL has implicit functions that will allow a viewport for each monitor to eliminate the distortion and fisheye, which means it will show up in DirectX eventually.

Is there something that would have to be done on the users end or would the fisheye/distortion be inherently fixed? Someone should really get on this at some point. Aren't more & more gamers using eyefinity/surround???

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i72600@4.5GHz w/ Hyper 212+ | GA P67A-UD7-B3 | EVGA GTX 580SC SLI | G.Skill Ripjaws 2x4GB | Corsair P3 128GB SSD | WD 1T Caviar Black | Corsair 1200AX PSU | HAF 932 | Asus VG236HEx2 & Asus VG236H

Is there something that would have to be done on the users end or would the fisheye/distortion be inherently fixed? Someone should really get on this at some point. Aren't more & more gamers using eyefinity/surround???

Unfortunately this is a developer-and-engine centric issue. The game(s) would have to be re-coded to provide for multiple viewport rendering. Considering the current treatment of the multi-monitor industry segment, I wouldn't engender any hope of developers suddenly devoting significant resources to such a tiny segment of their customer base. There are huge industry players who could not care less about us ( :nudgenudge Epic), and some companies that actually advertise multi-mon support for their games don't get it right.

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VirtualDub Game Recording Guide | BFME2 & RotWK Widescreen/Triplehead Mods

Edge distortion is exacerbated by using unrealistic FOV values. Try running BC2 at around 32 (vertical fov) or less and you will begin to lose any sign of edge distortion. Granted you may find yourself losing some competitive advantage.


Eventually you will get used to not looking at the side monitors and learn to love the effect of triple wide gaming. It really adds a sense of depth in 3rd person games, as you can imagine the camera swinging far behind the character.

Edge distortion is exacerbated by using unrealistic FOV values. Try running BC2 at around 32

Isn't that just putting the game back into a vert- behavior? :)

Here's a comparison... though this is a bit extreme, between 25 vFOV and 66 vFOV

We're having a fight about it over on the [H]ardOCP gaming forums right now. The argument is using real world FOV that your monitor occupies (imagining your monitor as a window attached to your gun) vs. very large/wide FOVs that most gamers tend to use. There really isn't a clear cut answer. I see your point -- you are losing a lot using a small vFOV in BC2, but on the other hand.

Here's a comparison...

Excellent post.