Eyesight problems and shmups

[PAPER/ARTILLERY]

So today I had my first eyesight test in about twenty years and received my first prescription for glasses, turns out my eyes are a bit wonky. This got me to thinking, does near or far-sightedness or astigmatism affect people's ability to accurately view and process bullet patterns? If you wear glasses, do you notice a marked improvement in playing while wearing them? Do our resident super players all have 20/20 vision? I'd be interested to find out.

[BIL]

My scores improve 1000% with specs/contacts. I cannot see shit without them. (literally - I would fear stepping in something were I to venture out on the town unaided!)

All I know is when I hit 30 the prospect of the BEETUS weened me offa the soft drinks real quick. The only thing I fear more than losing my wiener is my already questionable peepers. :O

I have a cigarette burn-esque floater in my right eye that makes reading an absolute bitch and a half, to the point I can barely concentrate on stuff for work/school and prefer audiobooks where possible. Totally unnoticeable when gaming/watching TV etc. I'd prefer it the other way around tbh.

[Bananamatic]

i have one eye near sighted and another far sighted
i just close one eye if i need to

[Strikers1945guy]

i have one eye near sighted and another far sighted
i just close one eye if i need to

Need to set up separate score boards for people with 1 eye

Also I was prescribed glasses last year (at age 26) but fuck it. Until I need them to drive I refuse to get them. They will only be a pain in the ass, especially at work (house construction). I also can't do contacts, I tried.

[PAPER/ARTILLERY]

My scores improve 1000% with specs/contacts. I cannot see shit without them. (literally - I would fear stepping in something were I to venture out on the town unaided!)

I suppose this is one end of the spectrum - if you're almost blind without (no offence) then it's clear you'd play better while wearing. My prescription is very mild but I'm excited to see if it makes any difference to my playing.

Also, there's the point where you become so familiar with a game that your hitbox and position and the incoming bullets are more a matter of 'feeling' than seeing, I wonder if good eyesight is truly still so important at that point. Reaction-dodging of course is a different matter.

[BIL]

almost blind without (no offence)

None taken, it's all true. brb pestering a mod to rename me "bat_man"

[Xyga]

My right eye is shite. Cornea transplant + fake lens.
Could never adapt to contacts nor multifocal glasses, so that eye has been on fixed focus for a decade, and very sensitive to bright white.
Had the glasses made optimal for computer screen and arms lenght distance.

So yeah, I have specific 'display needs' for proper comfy shmupping: the right size and distance and contrast/brightness. :p
Japanese candy cabs are too big, and anything below 20~17" is too small.
25" (4:3 or pillarboxed) well-contrasted but with controlled white peak, is my ideal.
Many people seem to play ok on any display of any size, but not me, or not for long as it's otherwise really tiring.

[rjosal]

I am also in the cannot see shit without them camp. But I can sure smell it.

[Shepardus]

One of my eyes is too near-sighted to see farther than a couple inches without glasses. My other eye's a lot better, noticeably more near-sighted than it used to be several years ago but nothing that interferes with viewing a computer screen at a normal distance. I used to rarely wear my glasses so I was more used to playing without them, but I started wearing glasses more regularly after entering college and finding that I had to strain my eyes to read chalkboard writing across a lecture hall, and since then I've gotten used to playing with glasses on. I can still play without glasses, though, if I've taken my glasses off long enough for my eyes to get used to it (such as after sleeping and waking up). I haven't rigorously compared my performance with and without glasses, of course, but with vision like mine I think it matters more what I'm used to than simply whether I'm wearing or not wearing glasses.

For what it's worth I noticed that SOF-WTN wore glasses during his Dodonpachi demo at Stunfest and took them off after finishing off Hibachi.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I got the impression that playing games where I must track things in motion all the time, giving my optic nerves workout, improves my eyesight (I'm shortsighted because of reading). Eyes during intense real-time gaming work differently from reading text or merely watching TV.
Aldous Huxley believed eyesight can be corrected far into one's adulthood and recent experiments with video games sort of proved that, I read somewhere online...
Before I read that, somebody on here posted their DDP practice lead to improved performance when playing football with mates (thanks to better visual awareness).
I also found the job where I had to watch people carefully from afar beneficial to my eyesight; heard a similar story from (astigmatic) pal who drove high-storage forklifts too.

[BIL]

Eyes during intense real-time gaming work differently from reading text or merely watching TV.

Offhand, I can believe that. The problem I have when reading is the regular left/right movement whipping the floater back and forth like a goddamn horsefly. That, and typical texts being black print on white paper. If I'm focusing on something like this:

Spoiler

Not a problem!

[PAPER/ARTILLERY]

My problem largely presents itself when I've been working at a computer screen for 2+ hours, I steadily get more and more squinty until I realise my eyes are barely open.

Haven't noticed it when playing games though, so that sort of backs up the idea that eyes work differently in these different situations.

[Zen]

My scores improve 1000% with specs/contacts. I cannot see shit without them. (literally - I would fear stepping in something were I to venture out on the town unaided!)

All I know is when I hit 30 the prospect of the BEETUS weened me offa the soft drinks real quick. The only thing I fear more than losing my wiener is my already questionable peepers. :O

I have a cigarette burn-esque floater in my right eye that makes reading an absolute bitch and a half, to the point I can barely concentrate on stuff for work/school and prefer audiobooks where possible. Totally unnoticeable when gaming/watching TV etc. I'd prefer it the other way around tbh.

Jesus, BIL, your falling apart!

I got the impression that playing games where I must track things in motion all the time, giving my optic nerves workout, improves my eyesight (I'm shortsighted because of reading). Eyes during intense real-time gaming work differently from reading text or merely watching TV.
Aldous Huxley believed eyesight can be corrected far into one's adulthood and recent experiments with video games sort of proved that, I read somewhere online...
Before I read that, somebody on here posted their DDP practice lead to improved performance when playing football with mates (thanks to better visual awareness).
I also found the job where I had to watch people carefully from afar beneficial to my eyesight; heard a similar story from (astigmatic) pal who drove high-storage forklifts too.

Obiwanshinobi makes great points here.
Eyesight, is something we lazily take for granted and when it fails us we, just as lazily, accept the "age" diagnosis, and get (pay for) the recommended solution.
Of course it has nothing to do with the fact that one might have been misusing ones eyes for years, even decades!
Its akin to sitting down and never standing up.
Then not being able to stand up and then receiving the "diagnosis" that your inability to stand is age related (and by the way, heres our latest best deal on our new wheelchairs!)

Of course im not saying that things dont "break", or go wrong etc.
My point is that once you accept a mediocre and incorrect diagnosis and start wearing glasses, you aint going to improve your eyesight buddy!
You are just compounding the cause of the problem, which in the majority of cases (in my opinion) is misuse of the eyes.

[BIL]

My eyes have been too fucked to Nintendo since I was six bro, it ain't age or misuse unfortunately. :[ Don't worry though, I still do ok at the videogames. ;3

[Zen]

My eyes have been too fucked to Nintendo since I was six bro, it ain't age or misuse unfortunately. :[ Don't worry though, I still do ok at the videogames. ;3

Im glad to hear it, BIL.
Judging from that Gun Smoke run, things cant be too bad

[juonryu2nd]

hold shift for focused eyesight

[BIL]

Judging from that Gun Smoke run, things cant be too bad

Haha, thanks. I need to quit lollygagging around and finish the ST it's meant to illustrate...

[Eaglet]

Used to have perfect vision but a work accident lowered my perception in the right eye by a tiny amount and also developed slight astigmatism as i got older.
My glasses only have +0.25 and +0.50 correction and i don't use them when i play on a cab (only use the glasses for viewing text over longer distances).
So I guess slight problems won't affect you at all.

[rjosal]

Zen makes a good point that there is a also an element of using your eyes correctly. I can't see 3D stuff much, the new movies work ok, but I got nothing on viewmaster or anything like that. I really just use one eye and the other is a backup. For my consultation for laser surgery they said they can't fix that, it's been hard wired in my brain since I was a kid. They can fix the astigmatism and lens but that's only the physical part. If my parents caught it earlier it would have been corrected.

What does that mean for shmups? Check your your kids eyes so they can score better later in life!

[TransatlanticFoe]

Shmups are the one genre I can't play properly with contact lenses in - with glasses you can hold a focus and not blink for a fair while in a tight spot. But with contacts, a focused stare for too long makes them feel weird then you have an extended blink that properly ruins focus. But also regularly blinking to avoid it messes up focus in smaller patches - which is still useless when things get crazy.

Perma dry eyes as a possible side effect is what keeps me away from laser surgery (as does knowing how it works!).

[PAPER/ARTILLERY]

Update: played some last night with my new specs, no noticeable improvement sadly but I did feel like I could continue playing comfortably for longer.