Slashdot Mirror
Simulator Sickness Cures?
jensend asks: "Two years ago, Ask Slashdot posted
a question about 'simulator sickness'. Since then, games have become much more realistic, causing (in many cases, my own included) more severe nausea. any updated tips on avoiding this problem?"
When I started playing quake3 again I had a problem with getting extremely dizzy. The problem was the bobbing, turning that off fixed it perfectly.
What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
Well, then don't do that!
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
This was the only thing I found when I got violently ill from Q2/Q3. Play time increased day after day and eventually you get through it--no fun though to be hurling after a frag fest for this reason...
10mg im Metoclopramide or 4mg sublingual Prochlorperazine
you have two options:
There aint no pancake so thin it doesn't have two sides.
On some games (using Quake 3 as an example) it is possible to minimise or totally remove the 'bobbing' and 'weaving' effects of the game. There are also settings for extra visual features which can be disabled.
like so:
seta cg_bobroll "0"
seta cg_bobpitch "0"
seta cg_bobup "0"
seta cg_runroll "0"
seta cg_runpitch "0"
The problem will still be there, however, but only to a lesser degree, as it is the insconsistency between what the eye sees, and the ear feels. Which will still be prevelant.
One can also play around with refresh rates and field-of-view settings to lessen certain side-effects.
The term described the way some people take a beutiful ganme and turn down all the settings. This enhances the frame rate, but more importantly makes objects simpler/easier to see, understand and kill.
Another effect this has is that it also disassociates the game word a little from real life, perhaps making it a bit less nauseating wrt. motion sickness.
"Just shoot the squarish-looking block"
I've never suffered from any form of motion sickness since I was 2 years old, so this is not a personal experience, just an idea.
I'd like to hear from people who do suffer what the following settings do for their malady:
/cg_picmip 20 (or higher)
/r_textureMode cg_nearest (not sure of this command)
I seem to get a really bad headache and some nausea after playing Half-Life for a long time. I have a decent computer with a Geforce 2 GTS, so I know I have a high framerate and response time. I've finally concluded that it is probably from the fact that to open a door, you have to run into it... and having my face 1-inch away from a door isn't something I'm used to doing. The headache stems from trying to focus on something that close to you, or rather, that your mind thinks is that close to you, but not being able to. I keep trying to focus, but it's never going to happen.
:-)
As far as solutions go? Beats me... if only I could play HL with all the doors already opened.
Experiments must be reproducible; they should all fail in the same way.
I find the I get motion sickness when I get hot in a moving car/truck/plane etc..etc. Most of the time this also only happends when I am the one that is not in controll of the said object.
Hence when I started to play games as a kid I noticed that I also started to have the same issues. Ironicly enough the cure to both turned out to be the same. Keep cool! I don't mean this in a "Hey baby, check out my package" kind of way I mean cold like your nipples could cut glass cold.
Also found that if I used things that helped with sea sickness fixed my problems as well. The bands with the buttons on the inside fore pressure points don't work as well but they did offer me some relief.
Over all the only thing that really really helped and cures me to this day is keeping your body cold and having a little break every 29 minutes or so to re-orient.(spelling?)
I wish you the best of luck and turn that air down low, get a nice cold drink, and launch a scud.
Cheers,
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
I find that problems vary by game. back in the day DOOM or the original Quake would make me want to hurl after a few minutes, but I could play Descent without problem. I blamed it on the bob and roll effect.
Recently I played Halo on a friend's XBOX and became ill and remained ill for hours afterwards. Of course, this was on his Sony Projection TV, displayed on his bare wall at 117" diagonal. And the display was, due to a rickety table the projector sat on, rotated about three degrees counter clockwise. Makes me queasy just thinking about it.
My wife, notorious for her motion sickness problems, has to turn her head when the new Commercial for Driver on the XBOX comes on TV. It will make her sick, just watching it on a 37" TV from across the room.
The one thing I've found that really causes motion sickness is trying to play UT on a projector.
All of my housemates thought it would be great,but when we finally set it up, I could barely even watch someone else play.
This is a very difficult problem to solve. Try looking through STRICOM, IST, and any human factors programs (UCF has a large human factors program) papers on this subject. STRICOM is the division of the US army that deals with reasearch and development of simulator technologies. It seems that most simulator sickness is related to an individual's optical configuration, and one way to prevent simulator sickness (besides having a high enough frame rate), is to adjust the simulator's visual settings--field of view, screen width, height, etc..--for each player. Again there are many papers published by STRICOM, IST (Institute for Simulation and Training), and other human factors programs that deal with this problem. Good luck. This is a very serious problem that is often over loooked.
I occasionally have this problem. VR-type headsets send me running to the bathroom immediately, but never had a problem with Doom. Only occasional trouble with the Quake series, and had a short bout when I first started to play HALO, which I was able to correct. The problem I've noticed is when the images you see from the game become convincing enough, or overwhelming enough that they actually start to convince your brain that what happens on the screen is real-life. I suppose that I didn't get sick from older games because it just wasn't realistic enough, or I had a smaller monitor, or side-scrolling games don't really trick the mind into thinking I'm moving. My solution, back up from the screen and take your eyes off of it for a second whenever you get a break in the action, and don't catch yourself constantly staring at the same point all the time. When it takes up a smaller part of my field-of-view, my mind doesn't get tricked into thinking I'm actually in the game, so I don't get sick. This worked like a charm last week when I started feeling a little queasy playing HALO in my living room. Was about 4 ft from my 27" TV. After moving back to about 7-8 ft, symptoms disappeared! Not moving randomly about like a spaz in the game is a good idea. When your brain has a chance to anticipate the movement (ie. when you are in control instead of your buddy), you tend not to get sick. That's why passengers in fighter jets always toss their lunch about 5 seconds in while the pilot is just fine. PS: Staying cool helps for me as well.
Eat candied ginger while you play (slices of ginger that have been packed in sugar)-- you can get it at Asian food stores. Very tasty too.
There used to be a company (can't remember off the top of my head) a few years back that was creating a "vestibular" stimulation system - apparently they had patents on the tech, and according to those patents, an AC signal of a certain frequency and amplitude is induced in the skin from the forehead to just behind and below the ears, which in some manner stimulates the vestibular region of the brain (in some manner, I don't know how), and by varying the amplitude, frequency and difference between each side, etc - the device, while under computer control, could make the user feel like they were tilting, moving, or falling. The company claimed they could even make people fall off their seats. Supposedly it was a more advanced and developed version of a certain device used by doctors to treat motion sickness, except it was directional and computer controllable. They were supposed to "go beta" and release a development SDK and API for game developers, but I don't know what happened to them (and as a part-time homebrew VR developer, I was interested).
Aside from that, you have two other options - increase the amount of stimulus, or decrease it.
By that I mean:
Increase the amount - right now only your eyes are sensing the "movement" in the game, and your ears are also getting cues. You may want to have some form of "touch", beyond the joystick, perhaps also a sense of real movement for your inner ear. Try to move around a bit, to simulate the walking. Or, try to set up a full immersive VR system, with sound, HMD, two-axis treadmill (ok, that last one will be hard - look into the DOD's dismounted soldier project), maybe some fans for "wind". Smell won't play much a role here.
Decrease the amount - are you sitting to close to the monitor, or do you have the image on a large monitor or projection system (ie, big screen TV)? You may be getting "immersed" - but without actually standing and moving in the environment (simulator sickness wasn't much of a problem for me playing such games as "Dactyl Nighmare", because you had to stand and move around - and I get sick while trying to read in a vehicle), your inner ear is getting different signals from what your eye is telling you - you either need motion to your body (see above), or you need a non-moving frame of reference - so play on a smaller screen, or move your field of vision back so that the edge of the screen (and surroundings) come into view. On occasion you may want to glance around the room (when you are at a point in play when you can - it doesn't need to be a long stare, just a brief one).
Also - don't play in a dark or dimly lit room - even if you aren't close to the screen, in a dark or dimly lit room, after a while, the screen will seem to "fill" your view (it is some kind of psychological thing), further immersing you. This happens with HMDs that have small FOV's as well (it doesn't compensate, but it is an interesting thing to keep in mind when shopping for an HMD). This "effect" can make a small 15 inch monitor seem to "suck you in". This is just something I have experienced - I don't know if it is universal, or just me. But keep it in mind.
Also, keep play time down, take breaks every so often (in VR circles it was recommended to take a break every half hour or so of full immersion - not sure if this was just one of those "8 glasses of water per day things", or what - but it seems like good advice).
Other than those things, your only other option is to not play...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
6 odd years back, my first day at my first job (startup company with lots of young people), we got back to the office from a nearby pub late in the evening and my boss introduced me to networked DOOM.. after an hour and a half of intense 4 player carnage, i threw up outside the front door of the office..
not the best way to get introduced to professional life!!
I've been subject to motion sickness for quite some time, and I've had some luck with bonine, wristbands with beads, looking at the horizon, etc. But ultimately overcoming motion sickness is about reprogramming yourself to accept the disconnect between sight and body motion at a subconscious level. In other words, play through it and tell yourself that it's just a primitive raaction and you can learn to overcome it. Do your best to keep emotional reactions like fear, anger, self-pity, etc. from weakening your resolve. Believe that you will overcome the nausea and make it a challenge, not a handicap.
I had a roommate who taught flight lessons in small aircraft, and he ran into people with nausea periodically. The ones that stuck it out and continued the lessons usually felt fine after no more than ten lessons. They were willing to suffer to overcome their limitations.
Play your 3D games boldly and with purpose!
Learn to speak with confidence.
On why simulator sickness happens, most of this slashdot discussion has been focused on the sensory conflict theory. Joseph J. LaViola Jr. has an interesting paper on the subject. He states in his paper "A Discussion of Cybersickness in Virtual Environments" that there are three theories of what causes motion sickness: sensory conflict theory, the poison theory and the postural instability theory.
Some other interesting points he makes:
Women are more susceptible to cybersickness than men.
Age plays a factor. We are most susceptible as children, and as we approach 50 years old or later, cybersickness is almost nonexistent.
Posture has an effect: Simulations in which you are standing, you get sick more often then if you were sitting.
My personal opinion many video gamer are not sitting in the proper position in front of the monitor for which the video game is rendering. I think this "Off-Axis" viewing may contribute to motion sickness. To make sure that people view the image from the correct viewing angle and distance, there could be an options section of the video game where you calibrate your sitting position. If nothing else, just put a paragraph in the instruction manual.
Play with the monitor turned off.