How To Set The Correct (FOV) Field of View in iRacing

Your field of view (FOV) is an important setting to correctly set up when you jump into iRacing. It can have a strong impact on your performance on track when correctly configured. And despite taking a little time to correctly configure, it is well worth doing.

In this guide, I’ll run through exactly what field of view is, and how best to correctly set it up in iRacing.

What is FOV?

Your field of view (FOV) dictates how much of the track you can see at any single moment. However, it is more than just that as it dictates the angle that you can see around you. Higher FOV in iRacing allows you to see more of the track but can give a fisheye effect. Lower FOV settings will limit how much you can see.

Essentially, FOV is your viewing angle. Wider angles that show more on-screen can increase the sense of speed, as objects in the distance feel further away. This can have a strong impact on your distance perception, which is why your FOV can affect how fast you can lap in iRacing.

If items look far away because you have a high FOV setting, they will come at you faster giving you less time to anticipate your braking and turning. It also affects your perception of how early or late you have to brake. This can mean you’re braking too early for certain corners and losing overall lap time.

Lower FOV settings reduce your overall viewing angle. This means you won’t be able to see as much of your car’s interior, and objects on track appear larger and closer. It can also reduce your sense of speed.

A human eye can see a maximum of around 200° horizontally. But that doesn’t mean you should set your FOV to 200° in-game. This would give you a very distorted fish-eye camera angle.

Depending on how large your monitor is, whether you are using triple screens or a single monitor and how close you are to the screen all affect your overall FOV. Essentially the closer you are to your screen and the larger it is, the higher your FOV setting should be.

This is because your screen will be taking up more of the visible area directly in front of you. So it should be closer to your maximum viewing angle of around 200°.

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Why should I set the correct FOV in iRacing?

As I mentioned above, setting your FOV higher or lower will dictate how objects appear in front of you. If objects appear further away, it can be harder to react to any movement. While if objects appear too close you can be limited in what you can see on the track.

As you can see from the image below, setting your FOV higher or lower dramatically affects how objects appear.

You can see that it is much harder to make out the track details in front in a lot of detail in the second image. Whereas in the first image, the corner appears much closer, and I can better react to any movements.

• Wider FOV – Can see more of the track, objects appear smaller, faster sense of speed
• Narrower FOV – Can see less of your surroundings, objects appear closer, slower sense of speed

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Narrow vs wide FOV

The goal of setting the correct FOV in iRacing is to ensure you have a comfortable and realistic experience.

• Too close and you won’t be able to see as much information in your peripheral vision. This can impact how you react to other drivers on track around you.
• Too wide and objects will come at you faster giving you less time to react. Your image can also appear distorted with high FOV settings.

As you can see from the above image and my notes, your FOV can have a strong impact on your overall iRacing experience. Many sim racers who have never touched or adjusted their field of view may well be racing with a FOV that is actually too wide.

Narrowing your FOV will bring you closer to your car’s windscreen and to the action in front of you. This can help by giving you more on-screen information.

When I say more information, I don’t mean more information to the sides, as your viewing angle would have actually decreased. This will limit how much you can see to the sides of your car.

Instead, I’m referring to being more attuned to your own car’s behaviour. As well as being able to better see cars in front of you and the corners you are about to race around. With items appearing larger in front of you, you will better be able to judge your exact position on track through a corner with higher levels of precision.

You’ll also be able to feel and see how your car is behaving on track and reacting to surface changes such as kerbs. As you feel like you’re sitting closer to your windscreen, any car movements will feel more prominent. This is why many sim racers will set their FOV close enough to hide elements such as your steering wheel.

This can lead to overall faster lap times.

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iRacing FOV Calculator

If everything above sounds very daunting, don’t worry. Setting your correct FOV doesn’t have to be a long process. There are a number of brilliant FOV calculator tools. These calculators allow you to input your screen size, and screen distance and select between single or triple screens.

Then the calculator will present you with your mathematically perfect field of view for iRacing. These tools aren’t always perfect and do sometimes require a little adjustment. But they do give you a good starting point that will be mathematically close to where you FOV be set to.

Here is our favourite FOV calculator

This calculator allows you to very quickly find your ideal FOV setting. There is also a great video by David Sampson who runs through the process of setting the correct FOV.

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How to change your FOV in iRacing

There are a few steps that you should go through to correctly set your FOV in iRacing. The first involves using a FOV calculator, much like the one I mentioned above. This will give you a ballpark field of view setting. From there you can test out the suggested FOV, and then make adjustments in iRacing from there.

1. Use the FOV calculator above to find your recommended field of view
2. Change your iRacing settings to reflect this FOV
3. Drive a practice session in iRacing to test your FOV
4. Adjust your FOV until you feel comfortable
5. Adjust the seating position

1 – FOV calculator

The first step should be to use a field of view calculator to give yourself a ballpark FOV setting. These calculators are very good to narrow down your FOV to a rough setting. However, you may need to adjust it in-game to give yourself the perfect FOV for your own set-up.

2 – Change your iRacing settings

Once you have completed the FOV calculator, jump into iRacing and adjust your field of view setting. These settings can be found in the iRacing options, under the display section. You will find multiple options that can be filled out such as monitor width and the angle of your triple screens if using them.

The field of view setting is directly under these on the right-hand side and can be set manually.

3 – Test your field of view

Next up is a little practice session. Load up a regular practice session or a single-player race event. A single-player AI race is a great place to test your field of view setting as you can pause mid-race. And you can test your FOV without worrying about it affecting your iRating and safety rating.

4 – Tweak your FOV

If you feel that your field of view requires a little adjusting, you can do so in the options. You can do this when viewing a race replay to allow you to pause the action at a specific moment. Alternatively, you can do this in the options and then proceed back out for another test drive to confirm your setting changes have had the desired effect.

5 – Adjust your seating position

The final adjustment you should look to make once you are happy with your field of view is your seating position. This will position you correctly in the car in relation to your eye level. By sitting higher in the car, you will be able to see more of your car, and the immediate track in front of you.

However, be careful not to position yourself too high, as this can start to cut off some of the action in front. You may miss important on-track markers such as brake distance markers.

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Single monitor vs triple screen FOV

The debate between single screen, ultrawide and triple screens in sim racing is one that every sim racer has a different opinion on. Many sim racers love the amount of information you can see using triple screens as they wrap around you. While many will prefer a single monitor or even an ultrawide monitor.

All three options have their perks, but all three also require a different FOV approach.

Triple screen iRacing FOV

Triple screens allow you to literally wrap your screens around you giving you a really immersive experience. You’ll see a lot more action around your car and even out of your side windows in some scenarios.

Running triple screen monitors for iRacing will mean you can set a much higher FOV setting. Remember the maximum of around 200° horizontal field of view that our eyes are capable of seeing. If your triple screen wraps around you so much that when you look straight on, you can see past the edge of your side monitors. Then your FOV will need to be set higher than your eye’s maximum field of view.

Single screen iRacing FOV

In contrast, a single monitor won’t take up nearly as much of your horizontal vision. When looking straight at the center of your screen, you will be able to see past each side of your monitor in your peripheral vision. This means it isn’t taking up your entire horizontal field of view, so won’t be anywhere close to 200°.

You will find that your FOV will most likely be between 50-85° depending on your screen size.

The immediate downside of using a single screen compared to triple screens is that you won’t see as much of the track and action out the side of your car. It will be harder to know when drivers are alongside you and you’ll have to rely on your iRacing spotter much more.

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Are there any iRacing promo codes for new members?

iRacing often runs promotional codes giving reduced price memberships. These normally apply to new members only, but sometimes you can pick up a renewal code, so it’s always worth checking.

Read our iRacing promo code guide for a full list of working 2022 iRacing codes.

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