Field of View (FOV) Fix for Flight Simulator X (FSX)

I recently fired up Microsoft’s FSX a few days ago to try it out with my Eyefinity setup. I hadn’t done any virtual flying since before I purchased my third monitor, so I was looking forward to a more immersive experience.

Unfortunately when I started FSX I noticed that the field of view (FOV) was too narrow. Instead of having a wider view out the sides of my aircraft, I had less of a view above and below me. This is a classic sign of a vert- FOV, which unfortunately is all-too-common when running games in widescreen and Eyefinity resolutions.

This is the default field of view in FSX when running a triple monitor Eyefinity setup. As you can see the image is cropped on the top and bottom rather than letting you see more to the left and right.

Even using the built-in zoom feature in FSX doesn’t allow you to expand the FOV enough for a true Eyefinity experience (although it does improve things quite a bit).

This is the largest FOV you can achieve using the built-in zoom controls in FSX. It's an improvement, but still hinders visibility.

The fix was very simple once I found it in a forum post on Tom’s Hardware. I found the fsx.cfg file (located in C:/Users/[username]/AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/FSX/ in Windows 7) and opened it with Notepad. Then I found the line that said “WideViewAspect=False” and changed it to “WideViewAspect=True” and saved the file. I started up FSX again and the FOV was fixed! The view now expanded on the sides instead of cropping the top and bottom.

Now that the FOV fix has been applied, FSX provides a gorgeous widescreen view without cropping visibility. The built-in zoom controls can still let you expand or reduce the FOV to your preference, but at least now you're starting from a good middle ground.

With the correct FOV, exterior views provide expansive panoramas.