I'm not a fan of WideViewAspect (if that's what you mean) and the reason is if you leave it off and zoom out to .4 or even .3 you get basically the same view from the VC but since you're zoomed out your ground textures will appear sharper. Also being zoomed out gives you a better sensation of speed on takeoff & landing.

Apologies to all for my slightly misleading question. I was in fact referring to the WideViewAspect option which, as odourboy pointed out, is not used by the likes of Rob A and others.

 

Are there any performance benefits to be gained from leaving this unchecked I wonder and is it simply an old throwback to the days when not everyone had access to a widescreen monitor?

 

@Jim, Interesting observation about the ground textures and perceived sensation of speed. I tried your suggestion and you are absolutely right.I think you have answered my question for me.

Jim has described an upside. There are three downsides IMHO - 1) Larger field of view means more scenery has to be rendered for every frame - zooming out decreases performance. 2) Distorted view of the low zoom factor 3) Unrealistic appearance of distance from the scenery (runway, traffic etc.)

 

My 2 cents. Merry Crhistmas to all!

If my understanding of the widescreen option is correct, you are telling the sim to generate an aspect ratio that is not 4:3 but more like 16 x9 , so that it fits the widescreen monitors of today. If the sim is generating a 4x3 aspect ratio video, then you either have to crop the top and bottom so that it fits the height of your wide screen monitor, or stretch it horizontally with the height set normally, which distorts the video. If I have a wide screen monitor, which I am sure that most simmers do today, then the best image in my opinion would be to set the sim to make a wide screen aspect ratio image to fit the screen. 

After reading this I went in and changed mine back to a False setting to try and see the differences.

 

Very controversial I have always used wide since I got ms fsx but yesterday I used Normal or false

and adjusted through EZdok...to be honest there is not a great deal of difference if the zoom is adjusted.

 

The trouble is with any flight sim based on MS programming you cannot adjust the the vc without effecting the outside world zoom as well...and no one has found a fix for this I take it it must be hard coded?

 

So when your VC looks great and life like the outside world is to near and the take off run and landing appear slow, zoom out and speed effects come back but of course you cannot read you instruments as your to far away.

 

Pity there was not a way of separating the two views!

 

Enjoy the holidays everyone!

 

Mark

I'm not a fan of WideViewAspect (if that's what you mean) and the reason is if you leave it off and zoom out to .4 or even .3 you get basically the same view from the VC but since you're zoomed out your ground textures will appear sharper. Also being zoomed out gives you a better sensation of speed on takeoff & landing.

Could well be but it does look less realistic. If not totally unrealistic. But to each his own, of course. As the movie that I posted (which still gives a valid answer to the OP's question imho) shows, various settings have to do with a realistic view on the outside world. The fact that Rob uses this setting, doesn't have to mean it is the best of course. He uses a few more settings most people don't use.

There's a lot of techno talk on this thread, which is understandable, but surely the thing we are all trying to achieve, is immersion. So, to increase the immersion factor it stands to reason to increase the amount our eyes 'see' during the time we fly. So a wider view must be preferable as it fills more of our field of view with what we want to see... flying.

Slightly off the topic, but wide screen monitors are a problem over the LED CRTs especially in the area of multiple monitors. Making Wide Screen = False, the stretching at the edges of the outer screens resolves significantly, and does look much better. (I personally think anyway, and no doubt some will hate it and that's okay as wel). I have searched everywhere to try to resolve the stretching and this is the best so far. Tom Tsui wrote the following in FSX Times Article 251 ( there are two parts to this).

 

 

Tom Tsui writes .....

 

......... .With the three 27-inch monitors in place, I’ve been able to bring up a glare-shield of the Cessna 172 panel that matches the size of 41 inches (105 cm) as if in the real cockpit. To achieve the result, I set InitialZoom=0.3 in the Virtual Cockpit of the aircraft.CFG, and WideViewAspect=False in either fsx.CFG or Prepar3D.CFG.

This creates the widest scenery display in front of the wind-shield from my 8040 x 1440 monitor-combo, without the appearance of distorted scenery objects towards the edges on both ends ...........

 

 

 

Read the setting on FSX Times Article 251. Some may not like the outcome. but this is offering a choice to resolve an issue I have not previously been able to find an answer to.

 

Hope it helps some

Anthony

given that widescreen monitors are the norm these days

 

WideViewAspect has nothing to do with widescreen monitors. I presume the original meaning was supposed to be antithetical to TallViewAspect. Perhaps a better name would have been ConstantVerticalFOV. As far as I know P3D generates its display in precisely the same way as FSX (identically, in fact, as it is likely the same code), so nothing changes.

Adding more screen in the vertical is a waste. Try holding your index fingers to the left and right of your peripheral vision and note how far you can still see your fingers. Now try the same with your fingers above and below the center of your vision. Even if you cheat you will quickly see that your side to side vision is at least 50% more effective. In a real plane this is the way you see, even without windows the cockpit is seen wider so it makes sense to duplicate this with your visuals .

 

It is indeed very true that our effective peripheral vision is greater in the horizontal plane than the vertical.  However, all four edges of my 32" monitor, including the top and bottom, are still easily within my effective peripheral vision. So therefore, adding the vertical screen space to go from a 24" monitor to a 32" monitor, was most definitely not a 'waste'.

 

In the aircraft that I put the most hours on (Marcel Felde's DA20-100), it allows me to comfortably fly at a view position where on at the very top of the screen, the roof is just barely intruding, while in the bottom half, I can easily scan all my gauges which are displayed at a very readable size due to the large screen.  My horizontal view is quite comfortable as well, giving me enough width to scan a good portion of the sky side to side.  As a bonus, when I'm banking, I still get a very good view of the horizon.

 

I used 3 x 24" in a triple widescreen for a long time, and personally, I would take my now single 32" over my older triple 24" setup any day.

 

I've experimented a lot with various monitor layouts.  For example, I do actually use a second monitor as well, just not for flying.  It's a 23" touchscreen, and at one time I used it underneath the triple 24's. That particular setup was amazing with the VRS Superbug - I could drag the digital input pad to it, as well as some of the other 2D gauges, and it made for an awesome simpit.  That was one of the few times where I preferred 3 x 24", since my cockpit extended downwards nicely due to the 23". However, it didn't stay long in that position, since when I wanted to fly anything with a yoke, I had to shift everything around again.

......... .With the three 27-inch monitors in place, I’ve been able to bring up a glare-shield of the Cessna 172 panel that matches the size of 41 inches (105 cm) as if in the real cockpit. To achieve the result, I set InitialZoom=0.3 in the Virtual Cockpit of the aircraft.CFG, and WideViewAspect=False in either fsx.CFG or Prepar3D.CFG.

This creates the widest scenery display in front of the wind-shield from my 8040 x 1440 monitor-combo, without the appearance of distorted scenery objects towards the edges on both ends ..........

 

Or set InitialZoom=1.7 and WideViewAspect=True for exactly the same result.

Adding more screen in the vertical is a waste

 

I cannot imagine what confusion of thinking leads you to this statement. It is only a waste if you have already filled about 100 vertical degrees of your field of view! This is why most of us still have to use head trackers. Your field of view, BTW, is about 16:10 in aspect - the ratios commonly used in cinema are used for largely historical reasons that followed the technology of shooting on film.

I would take my now single 32" over my older triple 24" setup any day.

 

 

Interesting Jimmy. I run a Dell 2560x1600 display and it is superb. The 16x10 format allows the display of the instrument panels and with the added resolution, I rarely need to zoom in, as I can easily see the instruments in the VC. I have thought seriously about a three monitor setup, but keep worrying about the wide format. OK, it might be cool for a wider view, but the format will be such that it will be at the sacrifice of the main panel in many aircraft. So my 'take' on things is, if you are flying within a VC setup, then a single, large 16x10 monitor is best, but if you are flying with a hardware/cockpit, with the outside view presented, then a three monitor setup would be desirable. Only my opinion.