3D Games make me sick!

[zaphod]

What you peole are experiencing is "simulator sickness' trthat's when your vision doesn't match up witth what you arrre feeling and your brain gets confused. it i squite normal, an dpoeple have had it ever since wolfenstein 3d. Half Life 2, most notable, has done that to many people that aren't affected by most oother games. wolfenstein 3d got me once becausse the framerate was too fast and it had no "bobbing' feature to the camera.

What seems to cause it in half life 2 is the field of view used by the game. the dark makes it worse because you can't see the static are aaroud the screen. someimes a really bad framew rate can also be disorienting.

suspect that the reason so many people her are postingwit the problem is that to do well at old school stuff you have to zone in, an dif you do that while playing a FPS, you forget the static world around you, and the effect is more pronounced.

backing away from the screen is probably my best tip. you will note movies never seem to cause problems with this. that's because you are farther away form the screen, and they use "first person view" rather sparingly.

[ST Dragon]

Generally I don't experience physical problems while playing any genre of games, either 2D or 3D, but if I play a game continuously for many hours none stop (6-9 hours+), I'll get a headache & I'll need to get some sleep for it to pass. Aspirins won't do a thing, only a good night's sleep.
This happens more often if I play at night time for many hours.

Is this natural?

[MadSteelDarkness]

I certainly hope this phenomenon doesn't get noticed by the mainstream press. The next thing you know, Jack Thompson will want to try and get all videogames outlawed as a "public health hazard."

They can take my Saturn pad when they pry it from my cold, dead hand...

[Minzoku]

Kiken told me to post.

I can't even read a book while riding in a car. I played Quake with some folks once, and I spent the rest of the night with my head spinning, wanting to throw up but with nothing in my stomach. Kingdom Hearts killed me to play through I bombed in Sonic Adventure 2 probably not because I played badly, but because I simply could not get the hang of how the environment worked, particularly at a fast speed like in Sonic's/Shadow's stages.

[It's occurred to me that having had to play those games "larger than life" via a projector only made the problem worse... I had little say in the matter, unfortunately.]

The thing is that 3D engines are extremely unnatural in their emulation of real life, so trying to do simple tasks like turning around are incredibly jarring. Really the only 3D games I can play without physically dying are racing games/flight simulators, because the camera movements are much more natural and believable.

[Dartagnan1083]

I must be a living rock or something.
The only game that ever made me ill was Mario Teaches Typing. . .and it had little to do with motion sickness

[D]

Maybe I'm just lucky then, as I've never suffered ill effects from playing any type of game.
Even when Doom first came out, I was a "non dizzy" fan.

The only slight effect I've ever noticed is when I was playing Tokyo Extreme Racer for about 5 hours straight in a dark room(I play all games in the dark anyway), I stepped outside for a smoke and I felt a slight sense of vertigo. Then again, it was nightime, so maybe that was a factor.

What was in that sigarette?
That's not a sigarette, that's a sigaweed. (rush hour)

[Thunder Force]

A major JP game developer publicly stated a while back that Metroid Prime will never become overly popular in Japan no matter its quality, simply because a large % of the Japanese population experiences motion sickness from playing FPSes, which contributes to ongoing lack of interest in FPS in Japan. Whether he was right in this assertion is up in the air, but it's plausible.

[Elixir]

Give me the name of one good FPS.

Some awesome old-school FPS...
You can't go wrong with these:

Alien Vs Predator 2
Doom 1, 2, 3
Descent 1, 2
Duke Nukem 3D
Heretic
Hexen
Hexen II
Rise of The Triad
Unreal 1

I knew a guy that he used to get sick from 3D games, so he would only play shmups.
After some time, he went to a doctor for treatment.

Oh you've just got to be kidding.. thank god nobody said forsaken otherwise I'd start.

[PsikyoPshumpPshooterP]

Men of Valor for Xbox


nuff said

[TWITCHDOCTOR]

Maybe I'm just lucky then, as I've never suffered ill effects from playing any type of game.
Even when Doom first came out, I was a "non dizzy" fan.

The only slight effect I've ever noticed is when I was playing Tokyo Extreme Racer for about 5 hours straight in a dark room(I play all games in the dark anyway), I stepped outside for a smoke and I felt a slight sense of vertigo. Then again, it was nightime, so maybe that was a factor.

What was in that sigarette?
That's not a sigarette, that's a sigaweed. (rush hour)

No you silly goof!
It was a Marlboro Light.

[Elixir]

I was playing Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath last night. I had to squint at the screen for some reason -- I noticed this with Fable too. Many of the newer "graphically intense(replace with "beautiful" if you will)" games available seem to have light/dark effects which just kill my eyes.

[mannerbot]

Well, I don't expect to get a response but does anybody that suffers from video game induced motion sickness have Killer 7? I've got some interest in the game, but I fear it's yet another great game that I'm going to have to miss out on (I literally played Metroid Prime for 5 minutes the other day and was sick the rest of the day).

[JigsawMan]

I know this post is well old, but has anyone come up with a 'solution' in the past year or so to stop people being sick from FPS games. I am itching to play something that's not 2d. I can just about cope with Neverwinter Nights as long as the camera is zoomed right out...

[benstylus]

Motion sickness occurs during video games because your mind is tricked into perceiving movement, but your body doesn't feel it... this throws things off.

I don't think there's a guaranteed solution to the problem, but here are a couple things to try:

1) Sit further back from the TV. The closer you are, the greater the 'movement' your mind will perceive and the more likely your body is to become confused and make you feel sick.

2) Put a candle on top or to the side of your TV. The candle will help serve as sort of a mental anchor. By having that anchor, your brain may not perceive the movement on screen as actual movement, and so your motion sickness will be reduced. Also, the flickering of the candle will help make sure your brain doesn't just lose it into the background.

3) Drugs. I'm not a big advocate of drugs in cases like this where the problem is self-induced (if you know playing 3d games gives you motion sickness, it's probably best not to play them), but if you gotta have your FPS fix and neither of the above two suggestions work, head down to your local drugstore and pick up some Dramamine or something. It's designed for actual motion sickness, so I don't know how well it will work on simulated motion sickness... but hey if all else fails it's available over the counter and it's inexpensive.

One thing I can't stress enough - if you begin to feel sick, you should stop playing as soon as you can - the longer you play, the sicker you'll feel... and these effects can last for a couple of hours or more after you stop playing with prolonged exposure.

[professor ganson]

What you peole are experiencing is "simulator sickness' trthat's when your vision doesn't match up witth what you arrre feeling and your brain gets confused.

The cause is said to be a juxtaposition between what your vision tells you about your movement and what your "body sense" or proprioception tells you about your movement. Proprioception includes a number of different senses, and I believe it is the vestibular sense in particular (located in your inner ear) that is relevant here. Precisely why this juxtaposition releases certain nausea-inducing chemicals in some individuals and not in others-- I have no idea.

I sometimes get it pretty bad with FPS, a bit with Halo. Racers are usually fine for me.

[E. Randy Dupre]

Normally I don't have any problems, but some games can make my stomach feel "uneasy", for some reason. I've noticed this in Katamari Damacy and Dog's Life. And in the latter, it's only in the first-person-view, otherwise I'm a-okay.

Yeah, KD can get me sometimes. The bob isn't the same as in first-person games - it's a kind of sea-sick, swaying thing.

I'm generally okay with games, which is odd because I feel sick as all hell in cars unless I'm sitting in the fron passenger seat with my eyes glued forwards. Wolfenstein 3D fucked me up massively when it first came out and continues to make me want to upchuck after five seconds to this day. FP games with low or inconsistent frame rates are also really bad - the Xbox version of FarCry is particularly bad for this.

If you want to make yourself *really* ill from playing a game, load up Deus Ex 2 on the Xbox and start abusing the physics engine. Find a small space and start piling shit up in it - dead bodies, drinks cans, weapons, bullet cartridges, the works. As the game starts to struggle to compute how all the items will interact with each other the frame rate drops to about 1fps. Puketastic.

Well, I don't expect to get a response but does anybody that suffers from video game induced motion sickness have Killer 7? I've got some interest in the game, but I fear it's yet another great game that I'm going to have to miss out on (I literally played Metroid Prime for 5 minutes the other day and was sick the rest of the day).

Killer7 handles movement quite differently than other FPSes. I'd say go for it.

[Damocles]

Hoo boy.....Breakdown. That's all I have to say.

[E. Randy Dupre]

Ah, yeah. That's the other one I was trying to think of.

It's worse in Breakdown because of the way that it tries to incorporate the point of view - it gives you hands, a body and so on - combined with a frame rate that's just that bit low enough for it to be noticable.

The big, BIG problem, though, is with the head-sway motion. Every time a developer puts something like that into a game, they forget that while your head *does* move about when you're walking IRL, your eyes move to compensate - they don't move with your head, they fix on whatever you're looking at. I think that's got a lot to do with it, too - developers going for something 'realistic' without thinking it through properly.

[2DGaming]

I can't play FPS games at all. The first time I played Doom I was sick for almost the whole day. Same thing happened with Doom 2, Duke Nukem 3D and any other FPS games I tried playing. Metroid Prime and Halo made me really sick after 5 to 10mins of playing. At least with the older FPS I can last around 30mins before my head started spinning.

Its not just FPS though, some 3rd person games makes me sick as well. Both Resident Evil 4 and Killer 7 gave me headaches. Funny thing is, its only the recent 3rd person releases thats been making me sick (Recent I guess from 2002 onwards). Never had any problems playing 3rd person adventures or platformers on PS1 or N64. I think it has to do with the lighting and the frames in the newer games.

Oh well. doesn't bother me at the end of the day anyway as my fav genres are 2d fighters and shmups so I don't see myself missing out too much.

[umi]

3D games make me sick too, but for a completely different reason :P

[howmuchkeefe]

It's been years since I've experienced motion sickness while playing a FPS. It used to happen every one in a while when I played Wolfenstien 3D.

I never experienced it while playing Doom. I chalked this up to the simulated head movement in the game, but maybe I just got used to first person games.

[King Slime]

3D or not, I don't care. I play whatever has good gameplay.

[Vexorg]

Its not just FPS though, some 3rd person games makes me sick as well. Both Resident Evil 4 and Killer 7 gave me headaches. Funny thing is, its only the recent 3rd person releases thats been making me sick (Recent I guess from 2002 onwards). Never had any problems playing 3rd person adventures or platformers on PS1 or N64. I think it has to do with the lighting and the frames in the newer games.

That's odd, I've noticed that too. I've played a number of third person games over the years, but I can't ever recall one of those resulting in motion discomfort before Kameo, even some newer ones like Otogi and Gunvalkyrie (the convoluted controls on that one cause plenty of discomfort though.) I've never had a problem with racing games though. I can play those for hours at a time and never feel a thing.

[2DGaming]

Its not just FPS though, some 3rd person games makes me sick as well. Both Resident Evil 4 and Killer 7 gave me headaches. Funny thing is, its only the recent 3rd person releases thats been making me sick (Recent I guess from 2002 onwards). Never had any problems playing 3rd person adventures or platformers on PS1 or N64. I think it has to do with the lighting and the frames in the newer games.

That's odd, I've noticed that too. I've played a number of third person games over the years, but I can't ever recall one of those resulting in motion discomfort before Kameo, even some newer ones like Otogi and Gunvalkyrie (the convoluted controls on that one cause plenty of discomfort though.) I've never had a problem with racing games though. I can play those for hours at a time and never feel a thing.

I am fine with some racing games. Certain racers that have terrible frame rates gives me a headache. As for 3rd person, I can play Devil May Cry,Onimusha and Dynasty Warriors style games just fine. These games does not have the greatest animation or frame rate but I can handle it.

[D]

I don't think that this thread is serious. If it is, I'm sorry.
But after trying above, real 3D might be a relief

Good luck, consult a physician.

[VNAF Ace]

I've never gotten sick from gaming.

Gaming related injuries (i.e. blisters, cramps, soreness), however, are another thing. I've also gotten a sore throat several times due to excessive trash talking and/or screaming in horror/defeat.

[DEL]

Like Minzoku I can't read a book in a car, but I haven't experienced sickness from pseudo 3D games. Mainly because I've rarely played them.

I call them 'pseudo 3D' games because they are the illusion of 3D on a 2D screen. Perhaps therein lies the problem.

I could go on about the Western games publishers/programmers being blinded by their own science, insisting on pumping out masses of pseudo 3D games, making the point that; just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it.
.
.
.
But then I'd be opening up that old can o'worms and its not worth it, as we all know the score here

[DC906270]

I played for about 20 minutes and then I began to get a headache, then I began to throw up and just about feel like I was dying.

i too have experienced this same feeling, first time was when i played Goldeneye on a friends N64. Have rarely played 3D games since. Although driving games are okay, until they get too technical/realistic and have too many gears (i like Powerdrift )

[Blade]

Who here has ever seriously been cautious from reading this:

Please read before using this video game or allowing your children to use it.

Some people are susceptible to epileptic seizures or loss of consciousness when exposed to certain flashing lights or light patterns in everyday life. Such people may have a seizure while watching images or playing certain video games. This may happen even if the person has no medical history of epilepsy or has never had any epileptic seizures. If you or anyone in your family has ever had symptoms related to epilepsy (seizures or loss of consciousness) when exposed to flashing lights or patterns, consult your doctor prior to playing. We advise that parents should monitor the use of video games by their children. If you or your child experience any of the following symptoms: dizziness, blurred vision, eye or muscle twitches, loss of consciousness, disorientation, any involuntary movement or convulsion, while playing a video game, IMMEDIATELY discontinue use and consult your doctor (particularly since experience of any of these symptoms could lead to injury from falling down or striking nearby objects). Parents should ask their children about the above symptoms - children and teenagers may be more likely than adults to experience these seizures.

Precautions to Take During Use

Do not stand too close to the screen. Sit a good distance away from the monitor, as far away as the length of the cable allows.
Preferably play the video game on a small screen.
Avoid playing if you are tired or have not had much sleep.
Make sure that the room in which you playing is well lit.
Rest for at least 10 to 15 minutes per hour while playing a video game.

I found an interesting article about Video Game Epilepsy that's suprisingly informative.

Here.

[nsonthi77@hotmail.com]

Glad I wasn't the only one. I started to feel sick after playing COD2(fps) on the 360 for an hour. At first I thought I had a slight fever but each time I started to play COD2 for about an hour, I began to get the same "motion sickness" feeling everytime. The more I play the worse it get and I had to stop playing to get some rest. I don't understand this at all. Why I didn't have this problem the first week that I've played COD2? I've played Halo and it doesn't affect me as much. My friends told me since COD2 moves at 60fps so quickly it mimics real life movement and sends the wrong signal to my brain. This really sucks since I was new to FPS game and I was really into it.