/lotro-fov

mod for changing the FOV in lotro

MIT LicenseMIT

lotro FOV mod

This is a cheat table to change the field-of-view (FOV) of the third-person camera in Lord of the Rings Online.

Narrow FOV settings in games give me motion sickness. I asked the dev team to implement an FOV setting, but what are the chances of that happening. So I did it myself. This mod is not perfect, it breaks the animation when scrolling in, but other than that seems to be pretty stable. I have tested it for some hours while running around the Shire, so if you find any issues with it let me know in the issue tracker.

Default FOV default FOV screenshot Wide FOV wide FOV screenshot

How to use

There are two versions of this cheat table, one for the 32-bit client and one for the 64-bit client. If you don't know what this means, you need the 32-bit version.

  1. Download the cheat table corresponding to the lotro client you are using: lotro-3rd-person-FOV-32bit.CT or lotro-3rd-person-FOV-64bit.CT

  2. Install Cheat Engine

  3. Start lotro, log in and go into the game. Make sure that the camera is in 3rd-person view. This mod does not work for first-person view, so don't be zoomed all the way in.

  4. Tab out of the game to Windows and start Cheat Engine. Cheat Engine also comes in 32-bit and 64-bit variants. You need to start the one matching your lotro client.

  5. Attach Cheat Engine to the running lotro process. To do this, click on the attach to process icon (marked red in the screenshot below), then select the process of the lotro client. If you have the launcher running, make sure to attach to the client not the launcher.

    Attach to lotro client process: attach to process screenshot

  6. Load the cheat table. To do this, click the open button (marked red in the screenshot below) and select the .CT cheat table corresponding to your lotro client: 32-bit or 64-bit.

    Open cheat table: open cheat table screenshot

  7. If everything worked properly you should see a memory location at the bottom of Cheat Engine called "FOV Base Pointer" of type Float with value 45. If you see a garbage value or lots of question marks ??????? something went wrong. Stop! Do not continue. You have either selected the wrong version of the cheat table, or a newer version of the game has been released, and the cheat table is no longer compatible with it.

    Verify that the value 45 is found: verify value screenshot

  8. Tab back into the game and press Ctrl-PageUp or Ctrl-PageDown to increase or decrease the FOV. Only press these keys in 3rd-person mode while in the game. Do not press the keys in any other mode, like the character select screen, first-person mode or in-game cutscenes. You will overwrite arbitrary memory, leading to unpredictable behaviour or even crashes. Once you have set the FOV, the other modes will work as before. Just don't press the keys while in any other mode.

  9. Optional: Once you have found your favourite FOV value, you can bind it directly to the hotkey Ctrl-Home. Tab out to Cheat Engine and note the value currently being displayed in "FOV Base Pointer". Then right-click the "FOV Base Pointer" entry in Cheat Engine and select "Set/Change Hotkeys". Enter the value as shown in the the screenshot below. Save the cheat table, and next time you run the game you can use this key to directly set the FOV to your preferred value.

    Set your own preference: change hotkeys screenshot

Development notes

  • After some hours of scanning and poking around in lotro's memory, I found out that lotro calculates the FOV from two values: it multiplies the current reolution's aspect ratio with a scene-specific factor.

  • For example, when your screen resolution is set to 1290x1080, the aspect ratio factor is 1.777777

  • The scene-specific factor is different depending on the mode

    • Character select screen: 60 (I think)
    • In-game 3rd-person: 45
    • In-game first-person: (some value, I forgot)
    • 3d character portraits: the small 3d heads of your characters and pets have their own scene.

  • We can't change the resulting FOV directly, because it is never stored, just as intermediate result. We have to find the original value of the scene factor and change it. The factor for 3rd-person camera is 45, so we must find a constant value 45 somewhere in memory.

  • This is how I found it:

  • Scan memory for a float between 44.999999 and 45.000001

  • In the game, walk around, move the camera, do stuff, and continue scanning for this value to remove all values that change. We want to find a constant value.

  • After some scans, there are still thousands of constant floats with value 45 left.

  • By sheer luck I found out that the third one is the one we want.

  • This value is stored in some nested object, and changes location every time you switch scenes or restart the game.

  • To create this cheat table I followed the instructions of Cheat Engine's tutorial for nested pointers to find the base pointer. From the base pointer to the scene factor it's 4 indirections with varying offsets. Make sure to understand the nested pointer tutorial to understand what's going on.

  • The base pointer location and offsets might or might not change when new versions of lotro are released. We have to update the cheat table when they do.

    My notes while finding the base pointer: developer notes