Feel nausea playing FPS games ??

[greecemonkies]

I have a hard time playing any Quake 3 engine games and also Half Life series and Far Cry. If I stay on them for more than 20 minutes straight someone will have to administer CPR on me.

Does it happen to any of you? If so in what games?

 

[FinalDrive]

The only time I have anything close to that happen is in certain games where you have to make jumps down to platforms below, sometimes I get minor vertigo. Don't get it too much, though my brother-in-law gets it fierce when watching someone play (UT2K4 mostly).

 

[stemnin]

strange... what about super mario?

 

[Sunder]

This may be due to the "bob" effect. Don't blame your friend Bob ... what I mean is the game puts bounces (or bobs) into your movement as you walk or run. Your point of view shifts up and down slightly and it isn't usually very noticeable. It does, however, make some people feel queasy after extended play. The easiest way to see it is running down a hallway toward a window. The distant scenery will move up and down more than nearby objects.

This used to be configurable in HL1 through the cl_bob command in the console. I do not know if the command works/worked in single player. I know you cannot configure it in Counter-Strike: Source unless the server has cheats enabled, but it used to be a popular option in the original.

 

[Sunder]

I just tried and it looks like you can. Just open the console (~ key, if you enable it in the keyboard options / Advanced button) and type:

cl_bob 0

This should stop it for HL. I can't help with Quake or Far Cry...

 

[ajloeffl]

I've had this FPS nausea problem ever since the days of Wolfenstein 3d! (so quite a long time) It's wierd though because some FPS's get me sick and others dont. Also, I have never had a mmorpg get me sick even though most are first person. I think it has to do with the speed of movement. As in games where you run around really fast probably have a greater chance of getting you sick.

 

[robwright]

The only shooter that's made me nauseated lately is John Woo's Strangehold. Shaky controls and wierd view perspectives make it hard for me to play.

I've found I can handle almost any FPS on a decent-sized screen, but the larger the display, the greater the chances are that I'll get dizzy and have to put the game down.

 

[Ananan]

I've had this FPS nausea problem ever since the days of Wolfenstein 3d! (so quite a long time) It's wierd though because some FPS's get me sick and others dont. Also, I have never had a mmorpg get me sick even though most are first person. I think it has to do with the speed of movement. As in games where you run around really fast probably have a greater chance of getting you sick.

That's funny you should mention that because I just started playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein and the game makes you run around really fast. I had to stop playing after about 10 minutes.

It's the first FPS since Half Life to give me motion sickness. There must be something to the whole running around fast thing, because if I remember correctly HL also has a very quck default run speed.

 

[cafuddled]

Motion Sickness is what it’s called, you start to feel sick when you play fast paced games that involve a lot of moving and jumping. I don’t get it at all personally but I noticed when playing DOOM with my dad that he was ok when he played it but as soon as I taken over the controls. Because I was a much faster player than him, using strafe and constantly moving/running he told me that he felt sick watching me play.

The only thing I have ever encountered when playing games is a splitting headache when playing on my old CRT monitor at 60Hz but at anything above that I was perfectly fine.

 

[aziraphale]

It happened to me a few times. But it depends mostly on my own condition, whether I'm tired, my eyes are tired or when I'm drunk

 

[prawcess]

I've experienced that as well, as previously mentioned, when I am tired. If I've been up all night, and I'm tired and I need to eat.. its almost as if its my bodies way of saying "Enoughs enough slugger, go grab your blankie and go nighty-night".

It also happens if I am playing and I get tired and start thinking about my teddy bear.

 

[notherdude]

I get it now on most FPS games - have been for a few years. It's a real bummer because shooters are my favorites. Didn't get it 4 - 6 years ago when I was playing FPS games like Quake on my 17 to 19 inch monitors. I assumed it was age related but now I wonder if it's the larger monitors I'm using or something else related to the newer 3d engines and tech.

Weapon bob makes it worse but turning off bob isn't enough to make this go away if you have it as bad as I do.

I don't actually feel like I'm going to barf but I do feel vaguely dizzy and generally crappy. The longer I play the longer it lasts after too.

 

[4Ryan6]

I have a hard time playing any Quake 3 engine games and also Half Life series and Far Cry. If I stay on them for more than 20 minutes straight someone will have to administer CPR on me.

Does it happen to any of you? If so in what games?

The game Will Rock did that to me, I don't know why but it really was uncomfortable, I would play about an hour and suffer for three to four hours afterward dizzy as a coot.

So far I haven't had any problems with FarCry, F.E.A.R., SSSE, SS2, but my wife can't play SSSE [Serious Sam Second Encounter], she gets sick.

 

[smokedyou911]

Nope, never fell sick when playing fps's. If you get headaches try turning up the refresh rate to stain your eyes less.

 

[spuddyt]

well you could always try drugging yourself beforehand....... might be funny to see if seasickness tablets help. try it, it'll be a talking point if you have to take pills everytime you want to run HL2

 

[aziraphale]

well you could always try drugging yourself beforehand....... might be funny to see if seasickness tablets help. try it, it'll be a talking point if you have to take pills everytime you want to run HL2

hahahaha!

 

[wouse101]

apparently, for halflife 2 and so on, if you increase your field of view in the console to 109, its supposed to help a bit.

 

[GeoMan]

I've never been motion sick, and I've been on everything from theme park rides, small sail boats on rough seas, flying and wild chopper flights in tropical thunderstorms (don't ask) where even the pilot got out and threw up once we finally hit the deck (in one piece I'm extremely glad to say) and I've never had any problems with feeling ill during or after a computer game.

So my first guess is it's motion sickness from the bob movement, second guess is it's caused by eye strain from a CRT with a low frame rate and third guess is epilepsy, you don't have to be lying on the ground twitching for it to be epilepsy, disorientation is also a symptom (they do put those epilepsy warnings on games for a reason)

 

[Kinkoyaburi]

The old 3D games like "Doom" or "Blood" give me nausea very quick. I am not able to play them for more than 10 minutes.
Once when I played Half-Life 2 I felt really bad and had to lay on the bed so i could recover. I think it was in the level where you float around with that chopper-boat.

Usually when I notice the game uses heavy bob movement I turn it off immediately. Supposedly its purpose is to make the game feel more real but the result is way too "real"

 

[caamsa]

I have a hard time playing any Quake 3 engine games and also Half Life series and Far Cry. If I stay on them for more than 20 minutes straight someone will have to administer CPR on me.

Does it happen to any of you? If so in what games?

Try sitting at different distances from the screen and see if that helps. Also there are wrist bands that you can wear that are supposed to help with nausea you could give them a try.

One thing I have noticed is that I don't get nausea from the motion but I tend to get stiff when playing intense games and that will make me feel ill some times but I am just stiff (like my neck and back) and I find that if I take tylenol or advil or any over the counter generic pain killer it helps.

Have you ever been nervous before and you tend to tense up or not breathe properly. Well that can happen when you play a game. I get it bad when I play PVP in City of Heroes. I tend to get more of an adrenaline rush that can make you feel a little ill. Or at a LAN party where there is stiff competition.

Just like the same nerves you can get for any type of stressful or anxious situation. Like I said it might not actually be motion sickness at all.

 

[spuddyt]

you could always go and see a doctor... if you say its an important passtime to play games then he might be sympathetic enough to check you.... or you could find something else that makes you sick in a similar way and claim that instead

 

[caamsa]

good timing, I just made a similar post then seen this. It's actually called simulation sickness, not motion sickness. As I said in my other post, I nearly passed out a few times from quick glances at time splitters 2 on the cube. I think its time that game developers started looking into this, its not fair that people can buy games they can't play and wont be able to get there money back (imagine standing in tesco with the arse behind the counter looking at you like a freak cause you told him it made you sick)

On most game boxes there is a warning about seizures called (Photosensitive Seizures) It effects a very small percentage and I imagine that it crosses a broad spectrum from a seizure being the worst thing to getting dizzy, having a head ache, passing out, etc. and down the line to no problems at all.

Unfortunately there is probably nothing game developers can do and people with this problem will just need to select games that do not bother them. Just like people who have allergy's.

 

[jaguarskx]

Well I for one do not suffer any motion sickness even though I'm playing on my 4 year old Planar PX191 which has BTB response times of 25ms. I'm guessing that would translate to somewhere between 16ms - 20ms GTG.

 

[mman74]

The problem with Wolfenstein 3D back in the days of the 386/486 was that you were running down corridors, with dodgy colored graphics. Spinning around made me really motion sick. I would get sick after 10 mins and have to stop.

I still get some motion sickness playing FPS, but I generally find that with better graphics, and particularly those set in open battlefields as opposed to running down corridors, greatly reduce the chances of me being sick.

 

[gooeykat]

About a year ago I had problems with nausea when plyaing HL2. Here's few things you can try...

- sit further back from the screen
- turn off "head bob"
- also turn down the mouse sensitivity (so that that the screen doesn't jerk around as much with every little touch of the mouse)

The motion of the screen is what was causing it for me. Try these things and keep playing, after a while you adjust to it. I have no problem with motion sickness in any of the FPS I play now.