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BeamNG.drive FOV calculator

Measure your screen and your seating distance, and this returns the exact number BeamNG.drive asks for — on the axis its menu actually uses.

Free & unlimitedWorks offline
Screens
Screen measurement
Aspect ratio

1920×1080, 2560×1440, 3840×2160

Enter this in BeamNG.drive
31°
vertical degreesexact value 31.30°

Options → Camera → the FOV slider for the camera you are driving — FOV. Numpad + and Numpad − nudge FOV while driving; the Lua console accepts core_camera.setFOV(0, n).

Your geometry
Horizontal FOV
53.0°
across one screen
Vertical FOV
31.3°
set by the centre screen
Visible width
59.8 cm
33.6 cm tall
Optimal side angle
53°
if you ever add triples
Why the car feels slow

At the value above, a car 50 m ahead covers exactly as much of your vision as a real car 50 m ahead would. Set the FOV wider than that and the engine squeezes more world into the same glass: everything is drawn smaller, so everything moves fewer millimetres across the screen per metre you travel. That is the whole illusion — the speed is identical, the apparent motion is not, and your brain reads it as slow. It also moves your braking references, because a board that is drawn at 60 % size looks further away than it is.

same axis as the value above
BeamNG.drive
Where
Options → Camera → the FOV slider for the camera you are driving
Units
Vertical degrees. A horizontal number typed here gives a badly zoomed-out view.
Accepted range
10–120° Every camera has its own FOV. The docs give 65 for the external and chase cameras and 55 for a dash camera.
Triple screens
BeamNG has no screen-angle or bezel fields. On a spanned triple resolution it keeps the vertical angle and widens the horizontal one to fill the surface, so the number you type stays the vertical one — but the side panels are drawn on a single flat plane and will stretch unless they are close to flat.
Checked against
beamng.com forum — "[QUESTION] Vertical or horizontal FOV" (reply from BeamNG team) · documentation.beamng.com — Camera ("Default field of view of the camera (degrees)")

hFOV = 2 · atan(W / 2D) and vFOV = 2 · atan(H / 2D) where W and H are the visible width and height of one screen and D is the distance from your eye to it.

Which axis this page uses: Answered by the developers on the official BeamNG forum: asked "vertical or horizontal FOV", BeamNG team member Nadeox1 replied "Vertical IIRC", and the thread's author confirmed it by matching BeamNG's view against Assetto Corsa, which is also vertical. Note that at least one widely used calculator lists BeamNG as horizontal — it is not.

Every number here is trigonometry run by JavaScript in this tab. Nothing is uploaded and nothing is stored.
Axis and menu path verified 2026-09-15

BeamNG.drive keeps a separate field of view for every camera, and all of them are measured vertically. That last part is worth stating plainly because at least one widely used sim-racing calculator lists BeamNG as a horizontal-FOV title; it is not, and a BeamNG developer said so directly on the official forum. This page works out the vertical angle your screen actually covers from where you sit, returns it in the units the camera sliders use, and shows the horizontal figure beside it so you can see how far apart they are. It also handles the case BeamNG itself does not: three screens, where the game has no angle or bezel fields of its own.

Key facts about BeamNG.drive FOV calculator

Key facts about BeamNG.drive FOV calculator
Axis BeamNG usesVertical degrees. Asked "vertical or horizontal FOV" on the official BeamNG forum, team member Nadeox1 answered "Vertical IIRC", and the thread's author confirmed it by matching BeamNG's view against Assetto Corsa, which is also vertical.
One calculator gets this wrongThe simracingcockpit.gg tool groups BeamNG with the horizontal sims. On a 27-inch desk setup that is a 22-degree error in the wrong direction.
Where the setting livesOptions, then Camera, then the FOV slider for the camera you are driving. There is no single global field of view.
Per-camera defaultsBeamNG's own documentation gives 65 degrees as the default field of view for the external and chase cameras and 55 for a dash camera, described simply as "Default field of view of the camera (degrees)".
Practical range10 to 120 degrees through the normal controls; the world editor's slider will go from 0.001 to 179, which is useful for screenshots and useless for driving.
Live adjustmentNumpad plus and Numpad minus nudge FOV while driving, and the Lua console accepts core_camera.setFOV(0, n) for an exact value.
Worked single-screen valueA 27-inch 16:9 panel at 60 cm covers 31.30 degrees vertically, so the driver camera wants 31 — less than half the 65 default.
What the default costs youAt 65 instead of 31, the world is drawn at 0.44x life size, which is why a 200 km/h run on the default camera feels closer to half that.
Triple screensBeamNG has no screen-angle, bezel or distance fields. On a spanned triple resolution it keeps the vertical angle and widens the horizontal one to fill the surface, so the number you type stays the vertical one.
Does not affect FOVResolution and refresh rate change nothing on their own — but a wider spanned resolution does widen what you see horizontally, because the vertical angle is what stays fixed.

What happens to your file

No file, no upload, no account. The page derives your panel's width and height from its diagonal and aspect ratio, evaluates 2 x atan(height / 2 x distance) for the vertical angle and its horizontal counterpart, and runs the side-panel trigonometry when triple mode is on — all in JavaScript in this tab. Nothing is sent to a server, nothing is stored, and closing the tab discards everything you typed.

About this tool

  1. 1

    Measure the visible image

    Use the diagonal of the picture rather than the chassis. For a curved panel, switch to measured width and run a tape across the picture instead.

  2. 2

    Measure eye to screen

    Sit exactly as you drive and measure to the centre of the screen. This is the number that moves the answer most.

  3. 3

    Pick the camera you actually use

    BeamNG stores FOV per camera, so decide whether you are setting the driver view, the hood view or a chase camera before you change anything.

  4. 4

    Open Options, Camera

    Find the FOV slider for that camera and replace the default with the vertical figure from this page. On a typical desk it will be roughly half the 65 the external cameras ship with.

  5. 5

    Fine-tune with the numpad

    Numpad plus and minus nudge the value while driving, which is the quickest way to confirm you changed the camera you meant to change.

  6. 6

    Repeat for each camera

    The driver, hood, bumper and chase cameras each keep their own number. A correct driver value will look tight from the chase camera, which frames the car rather than the road.

  7. 7

    On triples, set the vertical value and aim the panels

    BeamNG has no angle field, so type the same vertical number and rotate the side monitors physically to the optimal angle shown here. It will not be a true three-projection render, but it is as close as the game allows.

Specs & compatibility
InputsScreen diagonal in inches or measured visible width in centimetres, aspect ratio, eye-to-screen distance in centimetres or inches, and for triples the bezel gap in millimetres and the side-screen angle.
Aspect ratios16:9, 16:10, 21:9 at both 3440x1440 (2.389:1) and 2560x1080 (2.370:1), 32:9, 4:3 and 3:2, using true pixel ratios.
OutputsVertical FOV for the camera slider, horizontal FOV for reference, visible width and height in centimetres, and the optimal side-screen angle.
Range checkThe page flags a value outside BeamNG's practical 10 to 120 window rather than clamping it quietly.
Browser supportAny browser with JavaScript. No canvas, no WebAssembly, no permissions requested.
OfflineWorks with no network once the page has loaded.
Account or installNone — no signup, no extension, no mod.
  • If a calculator hands you a number in the fifties for BeamNG on a 27-inch desk setup, it is treating the game as horizontal — a developer on the official forum confirmed it is vertical.
  • core_camera.setFOV(0, n) in the Lua console sets an exact value without hunting for the right slider position.
  • The chase camera is framing a car, not a road, so it is the one camera where the geometrically correct number will feel wrong on purpose.
  • A correct vertical FOV barely changes when you move from 16:9 to an ultrawide at the same distance — the extra width comes for free, the scale does not change.
  • The world editor's FOV slider reaches 179 degrees, which is superb for a screenshot and unusable for driving; do not confuse it with the camera setting.
  • Set FOV before you spend time on seat or camera offsets, because changing FOV moves the horizon and undoes the framing you just set.
  • Replacing BeamNG's 65-degree default on the driving camera with a value that matches your own screen and desk.
  • Matching BeamNG's sense of scale to a dedicated racing sim so that speeds feel consistent between the two.
  • Setting up a spanned triple-screen resolution where BeamNG offers no geometry settings of its own.
  • Working out why a crash test at 120 km/h looks slower on your monitor than in the videos you watched.
  • Setting a deliberately wide value for cinematic capture while knowing exactly how far from correct it is.
Vertical. The question was asked directly on the official BeamNG forum in a thread titled exactly that, and BeamNG team member Nadeox1 answered "Vertical IIRC"; the person asking then confirmed it by comparing BeamNG's view against Assetto Corsa, which is also a vertical-FOV title. This is worth knowing because at least one widely used sim-racing FOV calculator lists BeamNG under horizontal, which on a 27-inch desk setup is a 22-degree error.
It depends on the camera, because every camera keeps its own value. BeamNG's own documentation lists 65 degrees as the default field of view for the external and chase cameras and 55 for a dash camera, describing the field simply as the default field of view of the camera in degrees. For a 27-inch screen at 60 cm the geometrically correct value is 31, so the shipped camera is drawing the world at 0.44 times life size — which is exactly why speed feels muted at the default.
Almost always because the camera FOV is far wider than your screen justifies. A wide FOV squeezes more world into the same glass, so everything is drawn smaller and moves fewer millimetres across the screen per metre you travel. The speed is identical; the apparent motion is not, and your brain reads the difference as slow. At the 65-degree default on a 27-inch desk setup the world is at roughly 0.44 times life size. Setting the calculated value is a dramatic change.
Numpad plus and Numpad minus adjust the current camera's field of view while you are driving, which is the fastest way to experiment and also the fastest way to confirm you are editing the camera you think you are. For an exact value, open the Lua console and call core_camera.setFOV(0, n) with n in degrees. The permanent setting lives in Options, Camera, on the slider belonging to that specific camera.
Not in the way a dedicated sim can. There is no screen-angle field, no bezel width and no distance input, so the game cannot build a separate projection per monitor. On a spanned resolution it keeps the vertical angle you set and widens the horizontal one to fill the surface, which means the number you type is still the vertical one — but the whole array is drawn on a single flat plane, so anything on the outer thirds stretches unless the side panels are close to flat. The angle on this page is still worth using to aim them.
Each camera has its own slider, but they are not all trying to do the same job. The driver, hood and bumper cameras are looking down the road from a fixed point in the car, so the geometrically correct value applies to all three and they should share it. The chase cameras are framing the vehicle rather than the road, which is a composition choice — a correct value there will feel unnaturally tight, and most people deliberately run wider. Set the in-car views from the measurement and the chase views by eye.

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