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VR: Solving The Motion Sickness Issue

Hi. This is a video I made after looking into studies involving motion sickness and specifically VR induced motion sickness. I tried to cover all the ways both players and developers can deal with motion sickness when playing or designing a game. I know Neogaf generally frowns on posting your own content but based on the last thread we had on the subject I figured this might be helpful.

For those who experience VR induced motion sickness, the best advice I would give is to look into the software “natural locomotion” and also play VR slowly over the course of a few weeks to get your body used to it.
 

PocoJoe

Banned
After driveclub demo I felt bit off/sick for 2 weeks.

2 weeks, for real

And really sick while playing it, and somewhat sick in other games.

So, I dont think it is worth the torture for some of us. Good that I just tested it and didnt buy it
 
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After driveclub demo I felt bit off/sick for 2 weeks.

2 weeks, for real

And really sick while playing it, and somewhat sick in other games.

So, I dont think it is worth the torture for some of us. Good that I just tested it and didnt buy it
Out of curiosity have you tried other VR? Maybe other games wouldn't be so bad.
For some people cinnamon bubblegum does the trick.
I haven't heard of this one before.
 

pr0cs

Member
Framerate is key, if your machine isn't up to the task of ensuring ~70 fps you risk vr sickness.
No good way to get rid of it, if you start feeling hot /sweaty or anxious then stop immediately. Trying to 'push through' and continue is a horrible idea
 

lukilladog

Member
Finding your sea legs. Ease into it as you’ve addressed, it will happen.

I doubt it, I´ve been playing two decades on normal monitors and still find FPS that make me sick from time to time. I´m afraid the industry and the vr lobby is gonna push all kind of useless advice like they did with crt monitors, they never wanted to admit the real problem was the high frecuency flicker, always had burnt eyes until pwm free monitors. The index, the oculus, and the PSVR all are missing motions sickness warnings on their product pages, pathetic.
 
Someone pointed me to https://otolithlabs.com/science/
It's a device that reports to stop VR sickness by sending junk information to the brain. I have no idea how expensive this would be or how realistic it is for consumers but I find it definitely interesting and will look more into it.
 

Karak

Member
I get motion sickness horribly. To the point where even looking down once in a car if I am not driving and the aching headaches start and so forth. Been part of over 70 studies around it and worked a bit on the side with some VR companies about it.
The only thing that works for me is taking a type 2 motion sickness drug like bonine before VR.
And by works I mean no sickness at all. For many people "getting used to it" just isn't in the cards much. For me instead of being out for the entire day sick I would be out for a couple of hours.
Now with that drug, I am not out at all if I take it every 4 hours. Its one of those things I am sure we will lower but for some it wont go away ever which is sad.
Even when covering games and working with devs a good number of people I know never 'get used' to it fully.
 
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This video is so true, I had VR for about a month before returning it. I used it for a little while to see if I liked it. The only game I had available to test it was Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, while the experience was truly immersive more than ever, I was getting serious motion sickness from it and couldn't play longer than an hour. Little by little though, I seem I was able to play it for longer and longer and starting to build an immunity towards it. Eventually I beat the game in VR before finally returning the item. VR is an amazing experience and nice novelty, but I'm not sure if I'm ready for it yet, maybe in a few years when the tech becomes cheaper and more evolved (like 3D). The novelty starts to wear out just as the motion sickness does (like 3D), but doesn't completely go away. This is true with many other types of motion sickness as well, I was getting this with 3D, long car rides (especially if you're reading), buses, airplanes, roller coasters, and even cruise ships, they're all at their worse at first, but eventually your body starts building an immunity towards them.
 
I get motion sickness horribly. To the point where even looking down once in a car if I am not driving and the aching headaches start and so forth. Been part of over 70 studies around it and worked a bit on the side with some VR companies about it.
The only thing that works for me is taking a type 2 motion sickness drug like bonine before VR.
And by works I mean no sickness at all. For many people "getting used to it" just isn't in the cards much. For me instead of being out for the entire day sick I would be out for a couple of hours.
Now with that drug, I am not out at all if I take it every 4 hours. Its one of those things I am sure we will lower but for some it wont go away ever which is sad.
Even when covering games and working with devs a good number of people I know never 'get used' to it fully.
"sup everybody this is Karak with A.C.G coming at you with a review of Motion Sickness. What has the debilitating combo of feeling like joe rogan injected trt into your belly combined with sense of diseased cats running around your inner ear? Well put these two together and you have Motion sickness. Graphics are up first."




love ya karak :messenger_beaming:
 
I get motion sickness horribly. To the point where even looking down once in a car if I am not driving and the aching headaches start and so forth. Been part of over 70 studies around it and worked a bit on the side with some VR companies about it.
The only thing that works for me is taking a type 2 motion sickness drug like bonine before VR.
And by works I mean no sickness at all. For many people "getting used to it" just isn't in the cards much. For me instead of being out for the entire day sick I would be out for a couple of hours.
Now with that drug, I am not out at all if I take it every 4 hours. Its one of those things I am sure we will lower but for some it wont go away ever which is sad.
Even when covering games and working with devs a good number of people I know never 'get used' to it fully.
I'm sorry to hear that but that is really cool that you were able to try so many studies on the matter. Maybe try seeing if you can try https://otolithlabs.com/science/ to see if that works in any way.
 
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Three

Member
Framerate is key, if your machine isn't up to the task of ensuring ~70 fps you risk vr sickness.
No good way to get rid of it, if you start feeling hot /sweaty or anxious then stop immediately. Trying to 'push through' and continue is a horrible idea
The effect of framerate on motion sickness is over exaggerated. You can have a stable 60fps and it would be fine. The motion sickness comes from movement even at high framerates.
 

pr0cs

Member
The effect of framerate on motion sickness is over exaggerated. You can have a stable 60fps and it would be fine. The motion sickness comes from movement even at high framerates.
Just talking from my experience. Poorly optimized games have always been good at pushing the sickness buttons for me
 

Wonko_C

Member
After driveclub demo I felt bit off/sick for 2 weeks.

2 weeks, for real

And really sick while playing it, and somewhat sick in other games.

So, I dont think it is worth the torture for some of us. Good that I just tested it and didnt buy it
How long did you play DriveClub before you started getting sick? and did you play other games immediately before that? Did you stop playing immediately after feeling discomfort or you tried to push through?
 
everyone is subject to it as a VRgin. The eyes see motion, the inner ear doesn't and our organism react to this conflict by barfing - because surely it's a hallucination caused by poison.

aside from borderline pathological cases, most healthy people can develop tolerance to it until it's a non-issue. I've witnessed plenty of such success cases in web forums out there - of course, from people who endured it until it was gone rather than just return it

My personal experience is that for my first week with psvr back in holidays 2017, I only had the demo disc 2 to try out and Skyrim and limited time to play. Most of these were teleport-only (I couldn't even figure out what controls were in Skyrim, let alone options) and mostly I only played the demos. Hardest on the stomach, but also among the best, was Battlezone, basically a Doom from the cockpit of a tank. It was awesome enough that I kept playing its only short level in the demo, but I guess I played enough of it for that week that I was in pretty good VR shape already when I tried other games, including Driveclub. However, Doom, Ultrawings and RIGS still trashed me. But not for long - by then could already easily play for hours...

the way to deal with it is to slowly but surely build endurance to it, in short but constant doses - no resistance if no exposition to it. Doesn't help either to begin with hardcore experiences like racing games, Doom, RE7 etc. Gore, sudden acceleration, artificial turning (I tend to follow where I'm heading with my neck so I rarely feel turns)... all of these get to your guts as a VR beginner. Better begin with good games with no locomotion at all: Moss, Superhot, Job Simulator, Space Pirate Trainer, etc

or just take drugs or wait for the nextgen vibrating device that should be part of nextgen VR and should make your inner ear agree with your eyes...
 
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Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
just stop playing when your mouth suddenly starts overproducing saliva.
that is your body prepping you to hurl.

every time continue a bit longer until you are immune
 

Birdo

Banned
No chance. I get motion sickness BIG TIME.

No amount of conditioning will stop it. VR wil forever be a no-go for me (And many others).
 

Kev Kev

Member
i think most people just try to jump in way too fast

when starting out in vr you really need to take it super slow. start with a game that has little to no movement. only play for 30-45 minutes at first. dont play standing up. you need to continue like this for at least the first week. even with all that youll still feel a bit sick. but as long as you take things slooooow it should be manageable.

it took me doing this everyday or so for about 2 weeks before i stopped feeling motion sickness. in and it took even more time to feel 100% comfortable. now its no issue at all.

unfortunately, a lot of people who tried it out first time and started running around like normal (or driving or flying it whatever) experienced that motion sickness and now think they cant play vr without feeling sick, and they arent willing to try again. i think they can it just takes time and moving slow at first, you really do get used to it over time.

kind of a shame really bc vr is stupid fun.

now, if your one of those people that gets sick just playing an FPS or riding in a car, then i can understand that vr isnt for you, but most people are not like that.
 

Kupfer

Member
I don't even want to get through the struggle to train myself not to get motionsick. No game is worth feeling sick about in real life.
Nevertheless I am a bit jealous of the people who can have a great time in VR.
Good for you, enjoy it!
 
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Wonko_C

Member
just stop playing when your mouth suddenly starts overproducing saliva.
that is your body prepping you to hurl.

every time continue a bit longer until you are immune
In my case the first symptom was a bit of weird-feeling sweat, that sometimes I didn't even notice at first, so I usually kept playing and before long I started to feel some light discomfort and dizzyness.

Trying to power through the dizzyness only makes it worse and could lead you to feeling like shit for the rest of the day (Half-Life 2 did that to me 15 years ago). I just stopped as soon as I started feeling a bit dizzy and it went away in a couple of minutes.

I guess people are affected differently, as I've never gotten to feel like barfing. Not even when stupid young me tried to power through Half-Life 2 for hours while feeling like shit.
 
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Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
In my case the first symptom was a bit of weird-feeling sweat, that sometimes I didn't even notice at first, so I usually kept playing and before long I started to feel some general discomfort and dizzyness.

Trying to power through the dizzyness only makes it worse and could lead you to feeling like shit for the rest of the day (Half-Life 2 did that to me 15 years ago). I just stopped as soon as I started feeling a bit dizzy and it went away in a couple of minutes.

I guess people are affected differently, as I've never gotten to feel like barfing. Not even when stupid young me tried to power through Half-Life 2 for hours while feeling like shit.
sweat is also a really good telltale yes
 

INC

Member
Slow an steady is the solution to motion sickness (in general not everyone)

Play something like super hot to start with, you control time and movement, you understand where you are in the world, no locomotion, but you adjust to be 'in vr'

Next something with simple movement, but still with static movement, like astrobot

Now a little more fast pace, VRcade is great for this, teaches you, you're in a fully 3d world, and you need to move, but not I locomotion

Games like fps and racing is for when you really have your sea legs tbh

Game performance can make a huge difference too, why skyrim psvr is so horrific, head panning is fine, as so as you pan with the controller its basically 30fps bullshit, this causes bad motion sickness
 
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Kupfer

Member
if you go slow it doenst feel like a "struggle"

thats what im trying to say. people try to take off like normal and thats when they struggle with motion sickness
You are probably right, I enjoyed playing Moss from start to finish, but that was somehow the only game which worked for me.
I also have only a PSVR and wanted to play games on it, which I'm interested in. I don't want to purchase games just to learn how to VR without any guarantee it actually gets better for me.
 
I guess people are affected differently, as I've never gotten to feel like barfing. Not even when stupid young me tried to power through Half-Life 2 for hours while feeling like shit.

good you bring HL2 up

I was already in my 20s when I first played the original Wolfenstein 3D back in the early 90s, my first FPS and one of the very first 3D games. I almost barfed 5 minutes in.

Point is: the body grows used to it. None of us noticed it as we've grown with them, but riding in cars and FPS on TV all required a degree of this adaptation as well. VR is no different, except many veteran tv players have not grown with it.

Though the many kids in Rec Room all day long are getting used to it just fine. They run and jump from great heights like there's no tomorrow. This is an audience growing with VR that will laugh about claims of motion sickness...
 

INC

Member
You are probably right, I enjoyed playing Moss from start to finish, but that was somehow the only game which worked for me.
I also have only a PSVR and wanted to play games on it, which I'm interested in. I don't want to purchase games just to learn how to VR without any guarantee it actually gets better for me.

Get the 'playroom', it's free. All run great. Awesome for getting your started vr legs

Then get rec room, again completely free, runs fantastic, has all the style of games you need to adjust, rec room paintball is perfect for learning fps games in vr, and loads more
 
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