Motion Sickness Remedies for Games?

MagikSlinger asks: "A friend of mine gave me Silent Hill 3 for Christmas (yeah, I know it's old), and I finally got around to playing it. Within 2 minutes, I had to stop and step away from the computer: intense nausea and pressure right behind the eyeballs. I got really, really motion sick playing the game. Does anyone have home remedies, set-ups, video options to make it bearable?"

Change the FOV

[Nomihn0]

Change the field of view so it matches what your eyes expect from a 1 foot viewing distance. Your typical FOV is around 120 degrees, in real life. First person shooters often have 90 degree FOVs which are non-proportional to the size that the monitor or television is in your true FOV. Fix it and you should have a virtual, space-accurate, "window" that you look through.

Also, try taking Dramamine about an hour before you begin playing. Seriously.

--Best of luck!

OK...

[Spy der Mann]

First of all. Have your eyes checked, you might need glasses.
I often get motion sickness when I play 3D games, but usually it takes at least an hour of continuous play for that. A couple of minutes is VERY RARE.

To see how bad your condition is, try going to the theater and watch a movie (yes, the theater). If you end up with nausea and headaches, you DO need to see an optometrist.

Second, try not to move the point of view very often. When you do that, you might get migraines. This happened a lot hwne I played Prince of Persia for the first time.

Also, you might try using the 2D controls instead of the default 3D ones (to see if the camera is easier on you), and please, DO NOT RUN OR TURN AROUND LIKE CRAZY! A couple of 360 degrees turns on a 3D game is enough to leave you on the ground.

Try to take it easy, click on the map often (triangle) to see where you're going. If you get tired, press pause and close your eyes.

Try also adjusting your monitor to deliver a smaller view area.

Blink often, and if you get the least bit dizzy, press pause and look elsewhere. Do not stare at the screen so much.

A strategy I use is to close your eyes or look elsewhere when the camera is doing a quick pan. Remember that there's a button to adjust the point of view to first person.

If all of this fails, give up on the game and stick with your old games. It's not worth it. Finally, if you got money and good lawyers, try suing Sony for not putting warning labels on these games :P

Re:Change the FOV

[zephc]

Ginger also apparently has benefits against motion sickness (for some anyway). The parent's FOV change suggestion is your best bet though.

Sea-band

[Psychochild]

I've never used them myself, but a friend of mine swears by Sea-Band [sea-band.com]. It's supposed to be good for different types of nausea, and he says it works wonders to combat the motion sickness he gets while playing games.

Again, I've never used them, just passing along info that might help. They could be total quackery for all I know.

Different people have different reactions to games. There's been a lot of writing trying to explain what causes motion sickness. Personally, I get motion sick of I haven't played fast-action 3D games in a while. After I play for a bit, I can go for hours without getting the reaction. But, if I don't play those types of games for a few months I find myself back at square one.

Some insight,

Everyday travelling sickness?

[der_joachim]

[OT] @ereshire: what you describe, sounds more like normal everyday travel sickness. Here's a few things I found dealing with it (disclaimer: I go to work every day by bus and train, and occasionally have some travel sickness. However, I am NOT a medical expert.):

• Try facing forward when travelling. Many European buses have some seats facing backwards. Avoid them like the plague.
• Closing your eyes is not a good idea either. Neither is reading a book. You can only feel the bus moving, which makes it even worse.
• For bus commuters: if at all possible, try to sit at the front, preferably behind the driver. The trip will be less bumpy.
• When in the back of a car, try to get plenty of fresh air.
• What I found to be a golden tip: listen to music while on a trip. Don't ask me why, but I found that listening to music reduces the feeling of sickness. Probably has to do something with travel sickness being an inner ear imbalance.
• Additionally, you should avoid eating and drinking spicy food and drinks, and food and drinks that are heasy on the stomach.
• Pills. They have been mentioned several times before in this thread.

Hope this helps.

Re:Ideas

[caffeination]

You *shouldn't* be playing with the lights off in the first place.

Ginger has official MythBusters support :-)

[Jugalator]

They had to figure out who in the MythBusters crew was susceptible to seasickness. Adam was a sure bet because of previous seasickness during the Jaws Special. Sure enough, Adam got quesy within 3 and half minutes on the chair. After a half an hour in the chair, Jamie was still fine. Kari and Tory were both fine as well. Grant became the final test subject. He lasted longer than Adam, but he got sick as well.

Remedy Testing

Homoepathic tongue tingler. They used a unnamed spray that you squirt under the tongue as often as needed. Grant was sick within 10 minutes and vomited some small chunks. Adam was sick within 4 minutes.
Wrist straps: They wore little gray wristbands that are 'Barry Manilow's choice.' Adam was sick within 90 seconds. Grant got sick as well. They've gotten pretty quick with bringing a bucket to Grant.
Ginger pills: It worked! Adam and Grant were both fine.
Small shocks on the P6 Accupunture point (on the wrist):Z Both Adam and Grant got sick.
Placebo: They told Grant and Adam they were getting an over-the-counter pharmaceutical remedy, but they actually gave them vitamins. Adam's reponse: "I hate this [bleeping] chair" after three and a half minutes. Grant: "This is among the most effective, if not the most effective."
Over-the-counter pharmaceutical drug: Worked on Adam and Grant, but it made them both a little loopy.

Only thing that worked without any side effects was the ginger pill.

Ginger pills: plausible

(source) [kwc.org]

So there you have it. :-)

Flunarizine

[acariquara]

It could work - if not, try Flunarizine - I got it also, helps a lot. Do not get the tablets, they will knock you off, try getting the droplet version. 5 to 10 drops works best on an adult male without (much) drowsiness. I find it faster and longer lasting than Dramamine.

Simulator Sickness

[cr0sh]

If you want to know how to combat the issues you are experiencing, then you need to search on Simulator Sickness [google.com].

Simulator sickness is something that has been known about for many, many years, and has had a lot of study put behind it. While people were experiencing similar motion sickness issues with the advent of very large movie screens and "wraparound" 360 degree panorama movies in the 1950's and 1960's, it wasn't until fairly realistic flight-simulator systems were being developed in the late-1960's and 1970's that the issue started being widely studied, because now pilots training on large motion-platform simulators and such started to become more common, and they were experiencing such issues (not good PR for the simulator company - many times the builder of the plane!).

What has been learned is enlightening, and there is a lot of research on the issue (and a large resurgence in interes of the phenomena happened in the 1990's when virtual reality system users experienced simular issues). The main problem is two-fold: as you approach (or attain) full-immersion in a simulated world, you need to make the inputs to your brain (eyes and inner-ear are most important) as synced up as possible. Any deviation from this is likely to cause motion-sickness. Thus, if you are in a fully-immersive environment where you are driving or flying, your real-world cockpit needs to move (or at least feel) as real as the real thing would, and more importantly, those movements cannot be out of sync of the motion "on screen" (whether that screen is in front of/wrapped around you, or as an HMD). If you are in a standup/walkaround VR simulation, you need to be able to match the movement on the screens of the HMD with the movement you are making in real life (3D tracking). If it is out of sync (mainly head movement) - say you turn your head, and the turning of the scene lags by a few milliseconds, you may (most likely will) experience motion sickness. In large motion-platform simulators (like flight simulators), the same issue is at play, but this time with the movement of the cockpit relative to the screen movement.

So, what is the solution to your problems? Many other issues can come into play: refresh rate of the scene is important, of course, but so is the refresh rate of the display, which others have noted. I have read comments here that lowering the resolution/effects can help - these may be pychological remedies (make it more cartoony looking to break the immersion factor more?), but if they work, who cares (I have never seen a study on this, but it is an interesting idea, and makes sense from a simulation perspective). Basically, if you are trying to fully immerse yourself into the game, you can't do it halfway - either take it as fully as you possibly can (full-immersion HMD with full 3D tracking of body - ie, $25,000 will get you there), or stop trying to do this: turn on or at least brighten the room lights so that the screen isn't the only thing your eyes and peripheral vision rest on. Move back from the screen so you can see the edges and stuff around the screen. You might try standing and moving as you play (or move more while sitting). Maybe try a recliner that rocks so you can move more. Play on a smaller screen rather than a large big-screen projection TV.

Yes, I know, none of these suggestions are great - but doing these things will help. Also be aware, as others have noted here, that there is a certain portion of the population who are prone to general motion sickness (sometimes these poor individuals get nauseous just sitting up in bed in the morning). Not much can be done (except to stop playing the games) to help these people. I will note though, that one person posted here about this saying that people who get nauseous while reading a book in a moving vehicle are prone isn't completely correct - it may indicate they might be prone, but I can te