Guild Wars 2

I’ve just set up a multi-screen rig of 3 monitors.

One very noticeable effect is the extreme aspect-ratio distortion of objects in the left/right monitors. Figures for example become noticeably ‘fatter’ as they approach the edges of the FoV.

I’ve tried it in both eyefinity mode and stretched desktop mode. the distortion is the same.

Is this normal?

In short; YES!

You should, by preference, use ‘eyefinity mode’ when playing GW2 rather than any other ‘preset’ created in the preferences interface (ATI Catalyst (or Engine) Control Centre).

Although GW2 and other eyefinity friendly games can be played with monitors that are flat to each other, eyefinity is designed to (when in eyefinity mode) be used with the centre monitor flat and the left and right monitors angled (about 30 degrees). The distortion / noticeably fatter NPCs and such on the left and right monitors is deliberate! This is because in eyefinity mode we use the centre monitor as the ‘focus’ and the two other monitors (L/R) as / for ‘peripheral vision’. The distortion is compensated for by our brain and the picture as a whole is more realistic.

As I have said in many other eyefinity threads (on the GW2 forums and off), each of us has a preference for how we want to set up our monitors and each of us should set our monitors as we please and not suffer any intolerance from those with other preferences!

In any preferred set up, I recommend that the latest ATI drivers and control software should be used. In some cases though, older or ‘beta’ versions of the drivers are used if there are problems with the current set from ATI.

Remember too that eyefinity is best used with ‘Bezel Correction’ – see the ‘Catalyst / Engine Control Center’ > ‘AMD Eyefinity Multi-Display’ >‘Adjust Bezel Compensation’ for this!

Hope to have helped some. Good luck with your settings and happy gaming.

Edit: Forgot to mention; though it may seem obvious to ensure you are using the correct resolution in GW2, it is easy to forget this or miss it. In game, go to preferences and select the same resolution as your bevel corrected eyefinity for better / best results!

Yes, I have read the posts – as many as I could find anyway and I set up my eyefinity as recommended although I see no visual difference in practice between infinity mode and flat multi-screen display on my setup. (apart from bezel correction)

When playing, my eyes are constantly moving over the whole image so peripheral vision doesn’t really play a part. Even if I were to stare straight ahead, I don’t sit so close to the screens that peripheral vision is involved.

If other people agree that this ‘looks’ right to them, I suppose I will have to accept it but I still think it looks weird to have objects distort in such a gross manner.

The distortion is called the fisheye effect. To sum up the issue; you basically have one camera, in the center of your view, which causes the distortion you’re noticing on very wide resolutions.

Not sure on any user-based solutions. A fix on Anet’s end would be to have multiple cameras, or possibly adjust the FoV.

I don’t accept the ‘peripheral vision’ argument. The real world doesn’t change shape when I’m not looking directly at it.

It looks to me like the graphics engine uses a simple radial projection, where the view in a sphere around the camera is projected straight out onto a flat surface.

This works OK if the screen is small and the circle large so there isn’t a lot of difference. But with a large screen, unless you sit in the right spot at the centre (which is VERY close to the screen) objects art the edge are distorted.

I guess Anet are using a third-party Graphics Engine like Havok and probably have no control over the projection.
If so, it’s bad news for Eyefinity users. It’s never going to look right.

I think GW2’s engine is proprietary.

I’ve had an Eyefinity set up for quite some time (I actually got it set up in anticipation of GW2 when I saw how gorgeous it was in beta), and I can attest that every game I’ve played since suffers distortion at the extreme sides if it’s a 3D engine.

You get used to it very quickly, I find.

And I know this sounds tongue-in-cheek, but have you tried sitting closer to the screen so that the sides do reach your peripheral vision? I really prefer the wraparound sensation.

Contiguous.1345:

I don’t accept the ‘peripheral vision’ argument. The real world doesn’t change shape when I’m not looking directly at it.

This guy does some explanation of the ‘peripheral view’ argument. The side monitors are not meant to show dead on directly in front of you view – rather they are to show what is beside you on either side in your peripheral view.

It looks to me like the graphics engine uses a simple radial projection, where the view in a sphere around the camera is projected straight out onto a flat surface.

This works OK if the screen is small and the circle large so there isn’t a lot of difference. But with a large screen, unless you sit in the right spot at the centre (which is VERY close to the screen) objects art the edge are distorted.

I sit with my face about 2 feet or perhaps a little more away from my centre monitor with the centre monitor in my central view and the two side monitors angled (about 30 degrees from flat). When not gaming #I have my monitor preferences set up as ‘Eyefinity’ with bezel correction which has the left monitor as main with the other two making up a very large desktop, ‘Centre Extended’ which has the centre monitor as main monitor extended out to the others or ‘Centre Only’ with the other monitors off. In each set up, there is no distortion of the image (except as to be expected when bezel corrected). It is only while gaming in eyefinity mode that the distortion happens and this is deliberate for peripheral view!

I had some ‘paperwork’ explaining the whole peripheral view thing taken from AMD but I have lost it and the associated links and cannot find the pages on AMD website as it has changed. There is a rather long discussion about optimal eyefinity monitor set up here if it helps any one;

http://www.overclock.net/t/1056377/how-to-calculating-angles-to-position-eyefinity-surround-monitors

I guess Anet are using a third-party Graphics Engine like Havok and probably have no control over the projection.
If so, it’s bad news for Eyefinity users. It’s never going to look right.

I cannot say what system ANet use but I can tell you that they have, at the request of many eyefinity users, corrected the eyefinity view in game (GW2). Too many links on the forum to list but a search for ’eyefinity will confirm the fix.

As for ’it’s never going to look right’, it looks great to me. It is not just GW2 that looks great or is affected with the ‘distortion’. Other games include;

Startrek online
Lord of the rings online (very much more distorted than GW2 but still correct)
Star wars the old republic
Age of Conan
World of Tanks
World of Warplanes
Neverwinter

And those are only some of the titles which I have played.

Other surround vision;

All with angled monitors and the distortion.

It is true that some games are less suited to surround vision / eyefinity as they do not need it and would not (normally) make use of it or the associated distortion! The game ‘The Settlers – Rise of an Empire’ comes to mind. As that game is a kind of top down/ isometric type view, it is best played on a single monitor (presets are great) as it is awkward to switch DIRECT vision between monitors.

(Again) As I have said in many other eyefinity threads (on the GW2 forums and off), each of us has a preference for how we want to set up our monitors and each of us should set our monitors as we please and not suffer any intolerance from those with other preferences!

Double post – so removed this one. I only submitted it once!

OK, so I watched the video and looked at the math.

I’ll just say this. The guy in the video explains the peripheral vision argument by waving his arms around and saying ‘it looks kinda weird if you don’t (set it up at an angle)‘. He knows nothing about it except what he’s been led to believe..

The math – which might be impressive to the average Joe is just a bit of basic high-school trig. It’s actually based around a ‘desired viewing angle’ which isn’t specified.

I don’t want this to come across the wrong way (but I know it will anyway, it always does.)I really do know what I’m talking about. I have a Master’s degree in Physics with more than 20 years programming experience and I’ve designed computer programs to work in just this field. In fact, I designed a program which is in use commercially in Electron Microscopy to calculate and identify electron diffraction patterns from crystals. That’s the reason I don’t have to work anymore and can spend my time playing computer games

I can see that what we have here is a short-cut piece of programming designed to save processing overhead. You’ll see the same thing from multiple games because many of them use the same graphics engine and if they don’t, they use similar projection algorithms.
They are just simply not designed to handle wide field of view. The only easy way to fix the distortion would be to zoom out further – but Anet can’t do that without running into problems related to WvW issues.