Motion Sickness

Littlenose · 23 Oct 2024 at 14:00

I'm struggling with VR motion sickness in titles such as HL Alyx, Subnautica.
I find within 20 mins I feel a bit queezy, and it knocks me sideways for 2-3 days.
I quickly got used to all the flight sims I've tried (IL2, DCS, MSFS2020), and Moss doesn't cause me any issues. It just seems to be the first person movement that gets me.
Does anyone have any tips for geting past this ?

Littlenose · 23 Oct 2024 at 14:12

Unseul said:
Fan on you, ginger before you start. Try swinging your arms as you walk, and even walking on the spot.

It's really weird that you can do sims and not first person though.

You've made me think of a couple of other points that may be super important:

car sims are ok for me too
You mention swinging arms... I do all my VR sitting

Maybe it's using the thumbsticks for movement that's killing me?

Littlenose · 23 Oct 2024 at 14:18

Yes I agree and do try to stop at the first sign. But it seems to kick in hard a little while after stopping.

To be honest, I've avoided it all together by not playing those games for 6 months or more... but I feel I'm missing out on something that I know I would enjoy.

Littlenose · 23 Oct 2024 at 14:48

I've done the smooth movement, and also the teleporting, but not tried standing yet.
I'll see about giving that a go at the weekend - I don't want to try it on a "school-day"

Littlenose · 23 Oct 2024 at 14:49

Tykey said:
Maybe try limiting yourself to short vr spells to build up a tolerance, stop playing before you feel queasy, do 10 mins then stop even if u feel fine, and slowly over a period of weeks add a minute or 2 on here and there.

Thanks for the suggestion, I think I'll try this too... set an alarm for 10 mins and stop no matter how I feel

Littlenose · 23 Oct 2024 at 15:45

Infidelus said:
~~For Half-Life: Alyx, have you tried the teleport option? I get motion sickness too but have never had it in HL: A when using teleport.~~

Ignore. Just noticed you said you had tried teleport. You must suffer quite badly for it to happen with that ...

Yep, I think I do suffer badly compared to most. I'm particularly intrigued by the fact that flight sims don't cause this, despite doing some crazy high G, inverted flight stuff at times.

ssmacc said:
As other have said, don't "fight it"...stop until it's gone and then have another go...you'll get your "VR Legs" it can just take a while...

It's the way it takes me days to recover that is the problem here.
I'm going to try what Tykey said and stop before there's any signs of sickness. See how that goes.

Littlenose · 23 Oct 2024 at 16:12

That makes sense too.
I think other than maybe taking longer to get my VR legs, I can't lose anything by trying by starting with short timed sessions that get incrementally longer each session with the proviso of stopping as soon as I feel anything untoward.

Littlenose · 23 Oct 2024 at 17:56

That's a fair point re frames, I'm running an Aero on a 3080Ti... the foveated rendering works wonders for sims, but I've not set that up in Alyx, and it occasionally struggles. That said in Subnautica it's very smooth.

Littlenose · 23 Oct 2024 at 18:05

First, I'm sorry to hear you were out for weeks after getting the motion sickness.
On the upside for me personally it's the first time I've seen someone else mention that the feeling lasted a good while, just knowing I'm not alone with that helps.

Littlenose · 24 Oct 2024 at 09:36

cheers... I'll look at implementing some of those too, but I can't do the actual moving / room scale VR unfortunately.

Littlenose · 30 Oct 2024 at 20:10

Justs want to say thanks for all the tips folks.

I've Been doing some short stints in HL:Alyx.
Using the "shift" style and 45° rotation increments it seems to be ok for the time I've played.
Within 30 seconds of using "continuous" movement (translation or rotation) I can feel my head spinning, so stop.

I'm going to keep doing short stints, but won't try Subnautica until I upgrade the PC in the next few weeks.

Littlenose · 31 Oct 2024 at 09:23

SimonRigga said:
Do people not turn IRL?

I find that using the thumb sticks for rotation makes me feel a lot more iffy than turning on the spot in real life. I've got 100% used to smooth locomotion now, forwards, backwards and sideways, but still not 100% on rotation if I do it using smooth or even jump motion using the thumb sticks.

I understand that if you're playing sitting then turning IRL is a slight issue, unless you use a swivell office chair!!

If there another reason why people wouldn't just turn on the spot?

I'm seated, and I'm using a combination of 45deg instant turns using the joystick, and swivelling on my office style chair.
So far, it seems to work well for me with my limited space setup.