This one really bothers me. I really like the large FOV and especially enjoy playing Skyrim VR with it enabled. Since it’s known that the large FOV and Parallel Projection is a no-go I just l keep Parallel Projection disabled and everything seems fine (of course I would have to switch to normal FOV if I was playing a game that actually required PP).
What really bothers me are the opposing opinions about visual quality with the large FOV (even with disabled PP).
Some say when PP is disabled there is literally no difference in clarity, sharpness and overall visual quality comparing the large and the normal FOV.
Others say that the large FOV always gives you lower visual quality (even with disabled PP).
There is a very noticeable sharpness difference in Steam VR Home but in games it can be different again, so maybe people are comparing different environments
I don’t see any differences in SteamVR Home (comparing normal and large FOV). Also Skyrim VR looks the same to me in terms of sharpness, clarity and overall visual quality (Parallel Projection disabled for both FOV-options)
Edit: I have to correct myself! I did a little test in Steam VR Home by placing myself pretty far away from that huge “screen” where all the apps are listed on the wall. Then I incrementally shortened the distance and observed at which distance I could read all the application names that were listed on that display wall.
It turned out I could definitely read those app names from farther away when using the normal FOV. So I agree that in Steam VR Home (even with disabled PP) it seems clarity still is a little bit better with normal FOV.
Now shouldn’t that also mean that all games should be a little bit sharper/clearer when using the normal FOV?
I switched back and forth in Skyrim VR (alternating the FOV - everytime with a complete restart of course) but I couldn’t really pinpoint any difference.
An important sidenote - SteamVR Home and some other apps do not behave nicely (ie bad tracking, stutters, etc) when the resolution is set higher that 4096px.
SteamVR Home is not the best app to run the tests because it changes the render target resolution dynamically based on the actual performance of the system (CPU+GPU). What could easily happen is that when you set Large FOV in PiTool the physical image size is bigger and SteamVR Home compensates by lowering the supersampling factor (to achieve the same FPS), while with Normal FOV it can afford higher SS (and thus better image quality).
I have the same problem. The sharpness is worse in the big FOV than in the normal one. I think the big FOV is very good. But when I’m playing War Dust, it’s not so good when it’s out of focus. That’s why I take Normal FOV. Can not you fix it ???
It’s worse for games that need parallel projection enabled (in PiTool). Have you tried increasing the 4096 pixel limit (as mentioned above)? That will probably help, assuming you have an appropriate GPU that can handle the increased resolution.
It seems you are right! While it’s a known fact that visuals get blurry in large FOV when Parallel Projection is turned on it seems that there is no difference in sharpness and clarity when PP is disabled (with the exception of SteamVR Home).
Even with PP disabled I noticed a small sharpness/clarity difference in SteamVR Home between the two FOV options but I didn’t notice any sharpness/clarity difference when playing a game.
As I said I switched the FOV several times in Skyrim VR (always with a clean restart of PiTool, Steam VR and of course Skyrim) and I couldn’t make out any difference regarding visual quality between the normal and the large FOV.
So I would like to know if there is anyone here who has got a notion that even with Parallel Projection disabled the normal FOV gives you overall better visual quality (sharpness/clarity) than the large FOV?
We should ignore here the inevitable blur at the outer peripheral vision in large FOV!
But is there any game where even with disabled PP the visuals in large FOV are generally worse than in normal FOV?