Field of View (FoV) plays a central role in building immersion when you’re behind the wheel of one of Le Mans Ultimate’s 13 World Endurance Championship contending cars. The FoV you use in the cockpit dictates how you feel a sense of speed and how much of your surroundings you can see from a static position – all of which is central to the dynamism of your on-track experience.
However, of equal importance is the FoV of your mirrors. It’s all well and good perfecting your primary in-cockpit FoV value but you shouldn’t ignore the finer details in the world around you, all of which will take you out of your DIY sim rig and into a Hypercar flying down the Mulsanne. Here’s how to change your mirror FoV in Le Mans Ultimate.
What is FoV?
First of all, you have to understand what FoV really is. At a scientific level, Field of View refers to the observable area that an optical device can see. In a more digestible format, the optical device is you and the observable area is how much you can see! Simples.
FoV is measured in degrees and, crucially, the brain only uses between 40° and 60° of the maximum 200° that it has at its disposal to interpret information. That might sound like you and I aren’t built to the same level of efficiency as a brand new BMW M Hybrid V8 Hypercar but all of that excess area is utilised as peripheral vision.
When you’re looking at calculating your FoV, most of that peripheral vision you can ignore – in the majority of cases, you aren’t going to use even half your possible vision in Le Mans Ultimate but you need to strike a middle ground. When it comes to calculating the FoV of your mirrors, it is the same story: you need to find a balance between incorporating some peripheral vision without making it difficult to pick out the details of what’s going on around you.
- To learn more about adjusting your FoV in Le Mans Ultimate, check out our guide here.
Why is mirror FoV important?
Even after the introduction of the virtual radar in Le Mans Ultimate’s June 2024 update, your mirrors remain a central tool for enabling clean wheel-to-wheel racing. At the end of the day, your view from the cockpit of a Le Mans Prototype or a state-of-the-art GTE-Am car is heavily restricted; you don’t get to enjoy the luxury of panoramic windows like you would in a road car so you’ve got to maximise every possible route of heightening your awareness.
Setting a correct mirror FoV has two distinct advantages: it will allow you to accurately pinpoint the locations of the cars around you and simultaneously gauge their speed effectively.
If you remove a significant portion of your peripheral revision by lowering your FoV too far, you are going to suffer twofold as the cars behind you will look like they are approaching you far slower than in reality, whilst you will also create blind spots between cars leaving your mirrors and when they appear alongside you.
On the other end of the spectrum, a mirror FoV that’s too high will make it difficult to spot exactly where the cars behind you are and they will also appear to be approaching you too quickly, leaving you with too little time to react to your surroundings.
Here is a visual representation of how FoV affects your vision:
No matter which car you are using in Le Mans Ultimate, you will always have at least three mirrors at your disposal. The two mirrors attached to the doors of your car are ideal for users with a triple-screen setup or a Virtual Reality headset, whilst the virtual mirror at the top of your screen is a universal way of seeing everything that’s going on behind you. Some cars also feature a fourth central mirror that utilises a rear-facing camera within the game.
You can only adjust the FoV of the door mirrors and the monitor mirror in Le Mans Ultimate, but you can enable your virtual mirror using the “3” key.
How to change your mirror FoV
Adjusting the position of your car’s physical mirrors can be done in a few easy steps.
Whilst you can change the FoV of your cockpit camera by navigating to Settings -> Graphics and then scrolling down to Visuals, where you will then find the “Vertical FOV” unit, you don’t need to worry about any such settings when adjusting your mirrors!
Simply head into a lobby at your favourite circuit and jump into the car. Now, all you need to do is remember some simple keyboard binds that have already been set for you by Studio397 and voila, you have changed the FoV of your mirrors.
| Mirror type | Controls to change mirror FoV |
| Left door mirror | Ctrl + Up or Down arrow key |
| Right door mirror | Left Alt + Up or Down arrow key |
| Rearview monitor mirror | Ctrl + Left Alt + Up or Down arrow key |
