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Motion Sickness

1 by Goober5000
Uber Goober
So, my roommate has Halo. I've watched some of the cutscenes and read up on the story, and I'm starting to get interested in it and would like to play it.

There's just one problem: I can't play longer than 30 seconds before I start getting severely motion sick. If I keep playing for two or three minutes I get so nauseated that I have to get off immediately and go lie down.

This has happened with every first-person game I've ever tried to play - DOOM, Quake, whatever. Even Uru... I was really excited about Uru until I played the demo and found that I got motion sick whenever I so much as turned around. (This happened in the third-person view mode too, although to a lesser extent.) Needless to say, I didn't get the full version.

I've experimented with the various suggestions I've encountered over the years to try to alleviate this, but nothing seems to help. Not sitting closer or farther from the monitor, not squinting, not changing the detail setting.

Any thoughts, suggestions, or similar experiences?
Last edited by Goober5000 on Wed Dec 01, 2004 7:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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2 by aldo
The Blessed One
I think, medically, the cause is suppossed to be to do with the fov setting. How you'd fix that on a console game, I don't know. But IIRC a lot of people have had that problem with the vehicle sections in Half Life 2.

3 by Top Gun
Elite SG Commodore
Strange...you get motion sickness in FPSes but not in Freespace? Here's a tip: don't try playing Descent. :P Seriously, though, that truly sucks. Do you ever experience motion sickness when driving in a car? I know the advice in that situation is to sit in the front seat and try to look straight ahead, but that obviously won't work for you. In Uru, at least, did you try turning more slowly? I can't really think of any solution, other than keeping a large supply of Dramamine on hand.

P.S. As a long-time Myst fan, I have to say that Uru was pretty enjoyable. I just recently finished both expansion packs. Looking forward to getting Myst IV for Christmas too. :D
A.K.A. Mongoose, for you HLP denizens

4 by kasperl
SG General
You might indeed try playing with the FOV setting. Dunno what would help aside from that, though. Aside from trying to get a good stable background behind the monitor.

5 by WeatherOp
SG Admiral
How long have you been playing FPS? I remember when I first got GoldenEye For N64, me and my bro would play for hours, but every 15 min. of so I had to stop and close my eyes cause they hurt so bad. And maybe that is something you need to try, playing the older FPS with wose graphics and maybe that would help in more better graphic games. I could sujest Rainbow Six games, since their slow, it might not make you as sick.
The Only Thing faster than Lightning, is My Aim.

7 by Goober5000
Uber Goober
Top Gun wrote:Strange...you get motion sickness in FPSes but not in Freespace?
I know, it's weird. :p The FOV might have something to do with it though. When the FOV command-line setting was added, I experimented with various settings and found that a bunch of them made me sick.
Do you ever experience motion sickness when driving in a car?
Not really. If we're on a highway, I can even read books. :D
In Uru, at least, did you try turning more slowly?
It wasn't just turning, it was any sort of movement. I had the same problem in Exile, too, whenever I dragged the screen around. But there, at least, I could close my eyes when I dragged the mouse and pretend it was a slide show like Myst and Riven.
I can't really think of any solution, other than keeping a large supply of Dramamine on hand.
What's that... motion sickness medicine?
WeatherOp wrote:How long have you been playing FPS?
I've never gotten into FPSes, because of all the problems I had. I wasn't too disappointed, though, because most of them just focus on shooting everything in sight and have no story to speak of. The reason I got interested in Halo was that it looked like it had a good story.
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9 by Robo
SG Colonel
Totally stay away from Descent. Extremely sickening if your not used to it.

My girlfriend spewed after 3 minutes of watching me play it... yah.
Ninety-nine percent of women kiss with their eyes closed; which is why it's so difficult to identify a rapist.

10 by Hunter
Founder
Ditto on Descent, the only game on the planet with true 360 motion at high banking velocity. I am immune to all kinds of motion sickness, so I am thankful for small favors. I am however, not immune to general sickness, which I get a lot ;)

I love to wind down and play EVE Online. It's really "relaxing" to play. If you can't overcome your problem, theres plenty of games you can enjoy...

11 by Goober5000
Uber Goober
There has been *one* game that displays a first-person perspective that I haven't gotten motion sickness from. It's Betrayal at Krondor, the RPG published by Sierra in 1994, and one of the best games ever IMO. (They were nice enough to release it as freeware a few years ago, so I highly recommend downloading it and playing it.)

The game's navigation takes the form of a first-person view of the player walking around the countryside, meeting people and fighting turn-based battles. Yet I've never gotten motion sickness playing it, and I've played it several times.

Now that I think of it, the control panel is a split screen, with a panoramic display of the world on top and a set of controls on the bottom. Perhaps the reason I don't get motion sick is because the view doesn't cover the whole screen.
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12 by Grimloq
Elite SG Admiral
first off kudos on 'no storyline on FPS games' :razz: couldnt be more true IMO. halo has a story, but it reminds me (a little TOO much) of star wars/FS2. its not that great IMO.

many FPS games seem to have a weird FOV, its less than real. because you cant code peripheral vision :wink: ever.

my suggestion would be to forget about consol games (they pretty much all suck) and get the computer versions. besides, then you can play online :wink: (well, if there IS a computer version)

also, TVs have a screwey 'refresh rate' (if thats what you call it with TVs) and have low screen resolution. i get slightly sick playing any game on a TV. that could be part of your problem.

again, dont play D3. after a few minutes a friend of mine was turning green watching me play it. :razz: its funny.

good luck

oh, and BTW dramamine REALLY does work very well! although, dont overdose :| it can be fatal. (were talking X10 overdoses here :razz: ) some kids near where i live tried to get a high off dramamine, and got carted off to a hospital. idiots...
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