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Playing with motion sickness

Lucky

Arcane
Joined
Apr 28, 2015
Messages
672
So, I’ve tried to play Deus Ex numerous times, but I can never get further than Hong Kong because of having take constant breaks due to getting motion sick really fast, which makes me bored and eager to play something that doesn’t make me nauseous. I have the same problem with other FPSs, but there I rarely care enough about the story and design for the breaks to bother me. It has also kept me from finishing the S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Thief and System Shock games, though, which is pretty aggravating.

Did anyone else with the same problem find a way to deal with it?
 

Angthoron

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
13,056
There's a "Head bob" setting in Unreal 1, Deus Ex and Unreal Tournament. Turn it off. That'll help a lot, from what I understand.
 

Durandal

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My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
Does turning in first-person shooters make you lose awareness of the situation, or just erratic movements in first-person?
The least I can say is to increase the field of vision if possible, or even limit the FPS to 30. Some people say they get motion sick from playing games at >60 FPS, probably because they are simply not used to it.
If the motion sickness occurs primarily when turning, try turning off stuff like head-bob and motion blur. The LAST possible thing I can suggest is to play with keyboard controls, so the turning is at least smooth and controllable.
At least you have something to brag about in Doom threads if you do.
 

Lucky

Arcane
Joined
Apr 28, 2015
Messages
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The head bobbing I've tried and it did help make some games playable. I've yet to try changing the FOV, though. Never considered doing that. Thanks! I'll give it a try.

Does turning in first-person shooters make you lose awareness of the situation, or just erratic movements in first-person?
The least I can say is to increase the field of vision if possible, or even limit the FPS to 30. Some people say they get motion sick from playing games at >60 FPS, probably because they are simply not used to it.
If the motion sickness occurs primarily when turning, try turning off stuff like head-bob and motion blur. The LAST possible thing I can suggest is to play with keyboard controls, so the turning is at least smooth and controllable.
At least you have something to brag about in Doom threads if you do.

I don't lose any awareness and it only seems to happen in certain games. I had no trouble with Tribes 2, for example, even on the more twitchy maps where you had to spin around and hop through multi-layer buildings. I'm also fine with the Dark Forces games, but not with DOOM. It also happens when moving the camera slowly, though, but not consistently. Dishonored I had no problem with moving sneakily in, but Thief is unplayable. Motion blur I always turn off because it tends to look hideous. As for the framerate, I don't know whether it makes a difference when above 60, but I'm fairly certain that it also happens at lower framerates.
 

Durandal

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My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
In games like Thief the camera tends to 'move on its own' when performing actions like charging your blackjack, mantling and leaning to simulate certain movements Garrett makes in first-person. In Doom the angles look completely fucked if you look up or down (if you aren't playing it on GZDoom), since it wasn't made with mouselook in mind. Although if you managed to play Dishonored without having motion sickness, then I don't know what else to say.
Does it trouble you less if the camera doesn't move at all when moving your character in a straight line?
 

Telengard

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If your issue is the 3d draw angle and the vanishing point, then widening the field of view will help, but it will not conquer the issue. And if that's the case, low FPS will often be worse than high FPS as the mini-lurching will only aggravate your dizziness as the world fazes in and out of the bad vanishing point. Blocking your vision of the vanishing point with a sticky will help a lot, but interferes with gameplay. On older games, lowering the resolution until everything is super-blocky can help obscure your vision enough to make the game playable, but lots of people refuse to do that.

So, do what the poster above said, and if you have any light sensitivity at all, you gotta wear shades.
 

octavius

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Bjørgvin
I first noticed it myself when playing the Life of the Party mission of Thief 2. Never had problems with Thief 1, though. Nor with Deus Ex.
Also got a bad case of it when trying to play the Windows versions of Marathon 1 and 2 (but no problems whatsoever with the Unreal Tournament remake of Marathon).
I get some nausea from the Doomsday Engine version of the early Doom games, but not enough that I can't play.

I wonder if pills you take against sea sickness would help?
Anyone tried it?
 

deuxhero

Arcane
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Jul 30, 2007
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Flowery Land
If a game doesn't allow FOV increases (heathen!) try playing it in a window. It has worked for me with emulated PSP games.
 

Unkillable Cat

LEST WE FORGET
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Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy
I've gotten motion sickness playing some games that use the old Quake engine, Heretic 2 for example.

I've also noticed it with more modern FPS games like Dark Corners of the Earth.

When I do notice it the most though, is when I'm watching YouTube videos of others playing FPS games for too long. 10-15 minutes is usually enough.

So far I haven't come up with any method to solve it except not play those games/watch those videos except in short burts.
 

Mr. Pink

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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I have this problem with Half-Life (and its mods), Thief and Mirrors Edge. I'm still not sure what triggers it because motion intense games like Quake and games with head-bob like Deus Ex don't effect me...
 

CreamyBlood

Arcane
Joined
Feb 10, 2005
Messages
1,392
I never got motion sickness for most of my life until I tried the occasional modern console port. For me it was the FOV, it's designed for watching a big screen from a distance. I would occasionally get tinges of nausea when playing.

STALKER did it to me too. If you're playing older games designed for 4:3 on a widescreen you should look up what the FOV should be. It works for me but you may have other issues. For most people, like has been said above, it's most likely your FOV.

Some videos to help explain it:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...fov-in-modern-games.85682/page-2#post-2818745
 
Last edited:

pippin

Guest
Funny that you mention Mirror's Edge, it was quite comfortable for me. The problem were the VIBRANT SHINY WHITE environments, which were really painful for my eyes sometimes. Nothing that couldn't be fixed with adjusting the brightness controls of my screen, though.

I get it from over-the-shoulder. FPS and TPS is fine though, regardless of FoV.

TP perspective in games like GoT RPG is really bad. The FoV problem, for me, is not related to an issue of how fast or slow the movements are, but how I'm feeling I'm not seeing the ammount of things I should be able to see. Like there's a constant obstacle I can't remove and this really bothers me. I don't know if that makes sense, but thankfully in GoT rpg you just tend to walk in straight lines everywhere you go, so it's not really killing me, but it's distracting as fuck.
 
Self-Ejected

theSavant

Self-Ejected
Joined
Oct 3, 2012
Messages
2,009
So I installed Gothic 3 demo and tried to play it in 1st Person View. Man... this is the first time I got afflicted by something called "motion sickness" (something I previously only assigned to tards). I had to stop after 5 minutes. No, really... this is disgusting. Though I wouldn't call it "sickness" - it's just very unpleasant and annoying to play.

Now I also believe this is the reason why I considered many games in the past (e.g. UT3, Mirrors Edge, Crysis, Skyrim, Dark Messiah...) unpleasant play. They just felt "ugh" but I couldn't find the reason why (mostly blamed it on weak GPU or something else), but now I know better.

Alternative: I'm simply too old and can't bear the stress in 1st Person RPGs/Shooters anymore. But the truth is, there is much more camera movement/swaying/bobbing/automatic takedowns etc. than 15 years ago. For example Serious Sam 1 had only minimal bobbing and I got no problem. But nowadays with all these sophisticated, animated 3d models the camera must move realistically as well, shouldn't they? ... but it's like this "realistic" camera movement produces more stress than 100 enemies on the screen.

Can't enjoy these games anymore without a fix...now I understand why gameplay in 3rd person games (e.g. Mass Effect) felt more fluid, smooth.
 

Turjan

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2008
Messages
5,047
I'm happy for every game that offers me third person view. In 1st person view, I easily feel somewhat sick, so yeah, it's a problem.
 

Dedup

Augur
Joined
Jan 1, 2013
Messages
146
I found both Deus Ex and Unreal to be both pretty rough for inducing motion sickness but manage to power through the nausea (with frequent breaks) and finish them. I didn't have any problems with playing the old sprite based FPSs, the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series, or the first 3 Elder Scroll games.
 

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