Abstract

The goal of this study is to assess the effect of display settings in different visual perspectives on performance in computer games. We define perspective to be one of three possible views: 3rd person 3D where the camera is placed behind the avatar and objects increase or decrease in size with respect to the avatar, 3rd person 2D where the camera is placed above the avatar and objects do not appear to change size, and first person where the camera is placed as if you are looking through the eyes of the avatar. Three custom games, one for each perspective, were built with two basic tasks per game: the navigation task where the user had to find the correct object in a room and the shooting task where the user had to shoot a specific target. A test harness was developed for a study that presented users with games in these varying perspectives, tasks, frame rates, and resolutions and their performance was evaluated based on their score. Twenty-seven users participated in the user study. The analysis finds that participants perform better in the 3rd person view than in the 1st person view for the navigation task and perform better when frame rates are above 15 frames per second.

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