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Half-Life 2 Causes Nausea, Looks Good in Doom Engine

BrookHarty writes "There is a large number of users reporting nausea while playing Half-Life 2. There is a thread on the Steam powered forums that talks about the wide spread problem. Some other sites are actively talking about the motion sickness, PlanetHalflife, 3DGPU, usenet group comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action has an active discussion, and gaming IRC network Gamesurge on channel #Halflife2." In related news from people with too much time on their hands, Jacques Chester writes "Folks discussing the visual merits of the Source and Doom 3 engines might want to look at this. The goal is to see what Half-Life levels might look like in Doom 3. An eerie result."

5 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. Finally... by spezz · · Score: 5, Funny
    It'd been ten minutes or so since the last HL2 article.

  2. Wide scale problem by obsid1an · · Score: 5, Informative
    How is this news?

    FPS games have been making people sick for years. Ever since Doom exploded onto the scene, this has been an issue for some people. Of course, it's worse in some games than others - Descent is a perfect example - and I haven't heard about wide-scale problems in a huge release such as HL2 before.

    This is a much more rampant problem. I noticed it too when playing and this has never been a problem for me before. I then come look and see EVERY forum has a thread about this. The problem seems to be the very low fov HL2 uses - 75. Most games use at least 85-90. This is of course changable inside the game.

  3. It is news when it happens this much... by BrookHarty · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've already seen the posts (This isnt anything new!) posts start, so since I submitted the story I'll respond.

    The problem is more people are reporting sickness from this game than the past. I started feeling sick myself, and my friends also reported it. I'm an active gamer, and play in Cyber leagues, local gaming events, and lan parties. Not a n00b in the gaming department in any stretch. I've played almost every FPS since wolfenstien 3d.

    What is strange, is CounterStrike Source isnt making people sick, but Half-Life 2 is. The theory so far is Half-Life 2 is so visually perfect to the real world, that its starting to trick peoples mind causing nausea.

    Really, don't mod these guys +insightful, its not the normal level of people getting motion sickness. It's lots more. Do a google search, its everywhere.

    BTW, I still play, just have only doing 1 hour at a time. About 2 hours and I also start feeling the same as other posts. I only posted when I saw the steam forums, planet half life forums, usenet groups and even people on IRC, way too many people saying the same thing.

  4. Re:Ofcourse by BrookHarty · · Score: 5, Funny

    MY ISP is going to kill me but.

    D3 vs HL2 vs Farcry vs World

  5. My HL2 nausea relieved by changing FOV. by jestered1 · · Score: 5, Informative
    FOV == field of view. HL2's default was 75 degrees, which is like walking around with blinders. I upped to to 90 with good results. Add
    +default_fov 90
    to the end of your command line in your HL2 shortcut. Of course, YMMV.