While flying a Spitfire recently, this occurred to me as I played with the "Field of View" and its associated Zoom feature:
As I zoomed to fill the display screen with more "Cockpit", that is, the slower moving presentation of the inside of the airplane, the overall video performance seemed to improve. Consider the huge portion of the screen that's filled with moving objects when banking low over cities... It's obvious that the work required by the rendering system is greatly increased as it tries to "Paint" the huge number of buildings and trees in this situation. Likewise, when panning too quickly with the TrackIR5 headtracker, the rendering demand increases, causing all the common skips and jitters discussed here in our forum. Comparing video performance while flying a a fighter to that while operating a Blenheim bomber supports this hypothesis. The bomber screen has much less "Outside World View" and so displays more smoothly.
Flying at the "Full Size" fighter cockpit (Field of View = 70°) does a couple of things:
First, it fills more of the picture with "Cockpit", and less with the ever changing world outside. I think this improves display performance. (FPS and smoothness)
Next, it more closely approximates the actual size of cockpit elements (Gauges, handles, etc.) by making them larger. On a big screen TV, they can be life-sized.
Finally, it eliminates the unnatural "Fish Eye" effect on the leading edges of the wings which makes them look like they are "Swept" forward. For me, this is a serious shortcoming, especially when viewing videos created and posted here on ATAG.
Of course, this affects game play by altering the available horizon in view as well as distant spotting, according to some players. The work-around is to practice realistic clearing a lot more. (Oooo, my aching neck!)
There's always a trade-off, but for realism and performance, the "Normal" field of view is something to think about.
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