Actually, I'm pretty sure the Lod settings DO change with the Fov. Check out the first post - big difference between 70 and 39 fov LODs. Have a look particularly at how differently a plane is rendered at 3km and 4km with 70 and 39 fov - at 39 fov these STILL haven't become dots!;
This is why I prefer switching fov's - its simple, results in more accurate rendering of distant objects and presents the most realistic plane scanning that we can do without a huge, high resolution, all-encompassing monitor.

You are aware that 70 degrees, is wider than 50 degrees aren't you?

Of course.. but what is your point? If you are referring to the photos above, don't worry, I haven't mixed them up. They are in the OP's post and are probably crops meant to show the zoom of smaller fovs. The images are different sizes but the actual planes are as they would appear at the relevant FOV.

LOD settings, or at least the way they are rendered, still does change because there are no longer as many pixels available to render a single object, forcing the engine to do things like turn planes into 'dots'.

and 70mm is narrower than 50mm, when talking photography... unfortunately, this isn't photography.

Here's some screenshots, taken at the same resolution and screen size for a more accurate comparison ->

and two more, just for giggles ->

All I can say is you're missing the point and need to re-read my posts and the OP.

I think you're getting sidetracked by the OP's attempt to find an ingame FOV equivalent to a 50mm photography lens. Ignore that, he was just making the point that 39 fov, for him, on his monitor, made for an almost 1:1 visual representation.

The important thing to note is that the upper picture is taken at 39 FOV ingame and the lower (despite being smaller, again, its cropping, ie, you are not seeing the full screenshots, but part of them! Just ignore that) at 70 FOV.

The thing to look for is the relative SIZE of the aircraft at the same ingame distances (50m out to 4km) - you will note that the aircraft appear SMALLER at higher FOV's despite being the same distance from the ingame camera. You can see the same thing in the photos you have posted - notice how distant planes appear SMALLER at higher FOV's? This makes them much harder to spot at long distance, because their size on your screen decreases more rapidly and they become dots sooner.

Now look at the 3km and 4km distant aircraft in both the photos I provided. Remember, ingame, these are at the same distance. Notice how at 70 FOV both those aircraft have turned into 'dots', and are very difficult to spot, yet at 39 FOV they are both still models/tiny horizontal lines that are much more apparent?

THAT is what I am talking about when I say that the LOD rendering is different between 70 and 30 fov and that aircraft are MUCH easier to spot at 30 FOV than 70 FOV (provided you are looking in the right place).

that's why the models (at least for the airplanes, should be scaled up to 200% in size for the 70 FoV in order to have the same apparent size as at 30 FoV.

they did it that way for MS CFS, and it was good. When flying in formation, you really felt like flying in formation, a feeling you can't get in IL2 unless you are touching the wing of your flight mate.

I believe that is exactly what I was saying and it does this because of the way the image shifts to accommodate the larger FoV on the same size window (screen)


LoD (as such) doesn't change though (is the LoD not determind by ingame distances?)... image size gets reduced by the larger number of pixels drawn, as you said earlier " ~ or at least the way they are rendered ~ "


60 degrees is much closer to normal human (looking straight ahead) vision. than 70

Yes.

Those pictures were made with the help of 3DStudio where Tamat (a great 3D modeller btw) made a box to rappresent the 109 size. Then he reported to me his "on screen" length of this object at different fov (we have similar monitors)... so I could use a 2D software to copy/paste the resized CloD's 109s on a screenshot.

and a more representative (comparative) view is achieved by using images at the same size, aspect ratio and resolution.