Motion Sickness - Thread

FoxEye said:
Epic multi-generational thread necro. Because why make the same thread muliple times?

I've discovered recently that I get really bad sickness in certain kinds of FPS only. Outdoor (e.g. Skyrim) I can play for hours, np, no sickness.

Narrow corridors with lots of right angles (think air vents), and not being able to see very far (I know - it's weird) make me sick in a matter of minutes. One of the worst games I've ever (tried to) play was I think Qube, which made me feel horrifically sick almost instantly. Right-angles, primary colours, weird lighting... vomit bucket, please! Man, the headaches from that were immense, and the nausea.

I'm not sure if this is just a problem with getting older.

Anyone else finding they're starting to suffer when maybe previously they didn't?
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I recently tried playing Duke Nuke 3D again. Hadn't played it in 10-20 years but this time it made me feed a bit sick and dizzy when I never had issues in the past. Maybe it was something to do with the graphical changes in the 20th Anniversary World Tour version. Couldn't change FOV, don't remember if you could on other versions on Duke but too low FOV can make me feel off
 
Funny this thread, got a starfield code recently so thought I'd give it a go, game makes me feel really sick, cant play it. Quick google suggests I'm not the only one.
 
I suffer from motion sickness from most first person view games. I first noticed this long ago in games like Doom, the head bobbing as the character walked around was mostly what did it for me as I recall. I was able to play the first Grand Prix game various flight sims without too much trouble. However as these type of games have got more realistic over the years my tolerance to them declined. In particular any flight sim that moves my head in the cockpit without me directly controlling it will trigger it. I could get away with Elite Dangerous so long as I stayed out of the rover as the cockpit viewpoint is fixed ahead, but when I borrowed a VR set in the same game it was barf city.

One thing that may have a bearing on this is that my left and right eyes focus very differently to each other. When I first needed reading glasses a few years ago I noticed I'd get motion sick if I moved around while wearing them but it was fine if I kept my head still. Also while wearing them computer screens no longer looked rectangular but would have a trapezoid shape as my brain had learnt to correct for my odd eyesight over the years and the glasses were "anti-correcting" my vision. Just out of curiosity do the other motion sickness sufferers here also have a similar left and right eye focus issue?
 
Neil79 said:
Worst game for giving motion sickness, would have to be

Battlebit, Doom Eternal, Dying Light..
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Im ok with Doom Eternal although i am nowhere near good enough to create the movement good players can.

I watch one of the best Doom players Zero Master and it looks like an entirely different game than i play lol.
 
The older I get, the more games I find I can't play now.

Any faster paced FPS game (Apex/cods etc) I struggle to play now without getting some kind of blinding headache/motion sickness.

Can play other games for hours with no issues (Tarkov etc).

Tried changing gfx settings/motion blur/bobbing etc but just doesn't work for me now.
 
As someone that suffers badly with motion sickness, my advice is that perseverance is the key. I had a long break from gaming but came back to it a few years ago and at first I just could not play first person games. I'd feel absolutely rotten if I tried. When I say perseverance, I don't mean just continue to fight through it and make yourself feel awful, I don't suggest doing that. Start playing and when you start feeling the symptoms of motion sickness, close the game and come back to it later. If you keep doing that, and you're doing it frequently (this is the key part), you'll find you can play for longer and longer and eventually, for me, it's now not a problem at all. Flying a spaceship in Starfield first person is the only game recently that has given me motion sickness, but I haven't played it much at all. Hundreds of hours in other recent first person titles hasn't been an issue.

I'm finding the same with VR, which I thought would be an absolute no go for me. I'm easing myself into it gently and it's getting easier each time, I even managed a couple of hours in a racing sim last weekend. I couldn't hack more than 30 seconds the first time I tried it.

I've tried all the tips and tricks over the years, make sure you're in a well lit room etc. and I'm not sure how much they help. I think the higher refresh rates we have now help. I attempted to try drinking ginger beer a couple of weeks ago when trying to get my VR legs, but that made me feel more sick than VR does, vile stuff. :D

EDIT: Oh and I always turn things like motion blur off, if you search online you can usually find recommended settings to reduce motion sickness for the specific game you're playing. Motion blur will pretty much always be on the list of things to disable, but some games provide further settings to mitigate it.
 
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Forgot to add. I went on a VR experience a while back - Cars in VR was awful - I just felt sick in seconds (the breaking was so awful I just literally felt ick). The Batman game wasn't too bad. There was a mild bow and arrow game which wasn't too bad (no idea on the name) but yeah fast motion in VR is me very ill.


M.
 
Started to notice as i am getting older ( 40+ ) I am getting motion sickness in games more and more.

Especial FPS, Serious Sam, Doom etc.

I just played Doom 2016 for about 25 minutes and started to feel really ill and had to stop completely. It was quite intense.
 
I've struggled with motion sickness in games ever since it manifested with the original Doom. I don't think things have got worse as I've got older, but they haven't really got better. That said, games devs are more aware of it these days and thankfully do usually include plenty of settings which you can adjust or turn off to help.

FOV - personal preference. I find 80 or 90 is usually good.
Motion Blur - always off
Head bob - always off, if there's a setting for this
Depth of Field - depends on the game, usually off
Camera Shake - usually off
Camera / Mouse sensitivity - personal preference, but usually you want to dampen out the wild camera swings
Filtering / AA - personal preference. Some find too much detail or sharpness can be a problem.
View distance - personal preference. Depends on the game and whether parallax occurs.
FPS / Refresh - higher is better of course, but there's diminishing returns for motion sickness

I would suggest never ever trying to 'push through it'. For the majority of people this just doesn't work and you'll wind up feeling very rough for several hours.

The advice about playing problem games in short but regular bursts to try and train / desensitise yourself is good. Stop as soon as you feel the first signs, then try again later. It can sometimes work and you can get to a situation where a reasonable length session is possible.

But there'll be those games for which nothing works. When that happens you just have to concede defeat and walk away (and get a refund if you still can).
 
As someone who lives with an inner ear condition I would echo the advice Cern provided above. Some games can be tuned with FOV, headbob or control options. For those that can't or simply don't work for you, definitely walk away as soon as you can.

First person games tend to be the worst for me, but any game with a high degree of input lag or a narrow fov can be too much for me, and so sometimes I just have to admit defeat. There's always another game :). Just got to hope that the whole gaming ecosystem doesn't go VR, as that's a total no go for me.
 
Since moving to much larger monitors (e.g. 42" LG Tv) I've found if sat too close and do the wrong things I can suddenly have horrific bouts of motion sickness.. but I'm more convinced that is just the large monitor taking up most of my vision..

I can play hours of VR Racing as long as I stay in the car view.. if post race you get helicopter views or just external camera views, I might quickly pull the headset up and need a breather.. but once back in the car itself, no issues.. so I don't think I suffer from motion sickness on that front..
 
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