Why High FOV Sucks – Fixing It with Panini Projection

A new video says super-wide “field of view” (FOV) makes games look warped and dizzy at the edges — and shows how a camera trick called Panini projection can fix it. Cue the comments section turning into a geometry cage match. Old-school devs like shannifin nostalgically recalled trying this in the 90s when “computers were too slow,” while first-person shooter purists got roasted for cranking FOV to max. As pyrolistical snarked, more FOV doesn’t mean more wins: you see more, sure, but your targets get smaller. Eyes wider than aim? The meme writes itself.

Then the “why isn’t this everywhere?” crowd arrived. jsh eard dropped the bomb that Unreal already supports Panini, yet hardly any games use it. Some pointed to HYPER DEMON as the poster child. Enter the philosophy squad: dima55 declared “straight lines are a lie”, arguing that every projection distorts somehow, and sticking to the classic pinhole model just makes images “look like crap.” Meanwhile, futurists linked FOVO Dynamic Projection, claiming it mimics human vision, and asked if this is revolution or marketing magic.

The vibe: excitement that both Godot and Unreal can make ultra-wide FOV (even 150°) playable, frustration that big studios won’t flip the switch, and plenty of jokes about fish-eye selfies and Panini being the “sandwich that fixes your screen.” TL;DR energy: Panini vs Fish-Eye is this week’s gamer drama.