I had a headache everytime after playing minecraft for like 20-30 minutes. Idk why because i play a lot of games of every genre for hours and ive never even had the slightest of headaches. But minecraft is an exception. So i was looking for answers in the internet and it turns out tht im not the only one
The theory I heard is basically when the inner ear motion detector doesnt match whats happening from the eyes theres a vestigial instinct that goes "I've been poisoned!" and so the stomach dumps its contents to try and remove the poison. Which makes sense , since many poisons will cause halucinations or dizziness.,
that is sort of what I got told for me last gen your brain does not understand why you are sat down but your eyes show you moving on the screen and it causes an inner ear motion issue thing I dont get is why I seem to be cured of this on the ps4 xbox one and can play first person for hours with no issue
@@wolf99000 These systems have probably mitigated the issue in their Operating System. They can modify the output to the screen to reduce the issue silently. We don't know that they do but they will be blamed before the game design is blamed so they do have a good reason to try.
Please stretch for your health my dude. Bad blood flow from sitting down can lead to bad headaches and worse like blood clots that form from your butt and legs being compressed and stagnant for too long. Our legs are built to be able to have us pushing off of the ground at decent speeds for 8 hours a day for 40 years. They sometimes malfunction when forgotten about.
Clowntrooper It's for everyone. Nintendo recommends playing for no more than 30 minutes at a time to prevent eyestrain, migraines, and overuse injuries.
I don't know. For me, I have zero problem playing for hours on some games (like Halo, Doom, Battlefield) but on others, I just cannot play beyond 15 or so minutes (MOH , COD). That is just super weird.
I never had any motion sickness playing any video games before... Unreal, Metal Gear, Counter Strike, Medal of Honor, nothing. And yesterday, it finally happen when playing Yandere Simulator, something about that game just makes me so nauseated, I was convinced I caught the flu last night and went to bed. Woke up, felt fresh like I was never sick, turn on Yandere Simulator... Within 30 minutes I had to puke, and felt sick til this morning.
I've felt the same thing, although, Yandere Simulator doesn't make me as nauseated as it gives me a creepy vibe. I don't get scared easily, and gore doesn't scare me at all, but for some reason, Yandere Simulator creeps me the hell out.
+Accalia Wolf I wonder if it might be disconnect between the various different aspects of that game...It looks like none of the games elements fit one another. As an example, Anime art style with either Photo-realistic, or non-existent shading. (Or a mix thereof...)
+AirStyles VN It could also be something with how the game elements are animated and moved around the environment as well, and nothing with the themes of the game.
+AirStyles VN wow I've never had simulation sickness even though some of my family does. The closest thing to it for me is my eye hurting but probs because of glasses :C but yea I don't have it
As for simulation sickness with tablets in moving vehicles, that's not just technology. I've had it from reading books, or anything that involves looking in one place for an extended period of time.
I was going to say this, but yes, it's true. In a car, if you are looking down at a book, every sense in your body is telling you you're moving, but your eyes just see pages, and you get a reversal of the inner ear conflict mentioned here. So yeah, testing for simulation sickness on a screen needs to be done and considered separately between moving vehicles and sitting in a fixed spot.
I am a programmer and I am used to keeping looking at the screen for an extended period of time (10+ hours) sometimes. But whenever I play any FPS games, I get thie sickness within 10-15 minuets of playing.
Bobbing is stupid and shouldn't exist from the start. I mean, when you walking or running, your vision still stable, because your eye still focus on what your are looking. Bobbing mean your eye can't move at all, and you have to move your head just to look at something, so when your head move you vision move. That is the unrealistic/stupid game system, that just look cool but unnecessary and only cause problem.
Deman Dema Well I think that bobbing is nice and adds to the realism of the game, besides is kind of difficult to program, but yea it should include the option for turning it off.
One thing that helps a lot of people with motion sickness is ginger. It's been shown to have better results than over-the-counter medication, and should have fewer side effects. I like crystallized ginger, but that's a bit strong for many people. Ginger tea or ginger ale should work just as well.
I was just going to suggest that! I use ginger on every road trip I take, otherwise I can't read or draw without being ill. In haven't been sick playing games in a while, but if it happens I'm certainly going to try ginger for that too.
+Charles Griswold Ginger suppresses the vomit reflex, which is why it helps with a LOT of situations that make you sick to your stomach. I'm guessing that's also the reason to avoid caffeine. Not only is caffeine itself not too easy on the stomach, a lot of things it comes in (coffee, tea, a lot of sodas) aren't very easy even without caffeine. So, I'm guessing it doesn't hit the inner ear as much as the inner stomach.
+Charles Griswold i personally didnt find ginger all that helpful, granted i was dealing with bvvp vertigo and a MUCH MUCH MUCH more severe level then just a little motion sickness (i mean losing conciousness, vomiting about 100 times an hour litterally) sweating and extreme spinning (like me walking 10 feet feels like a mile it was horrible). if i felt it was going to kick in i would take bonine. that stuff is a life saver (the chewable tablets). seriously that was the only thing that helped. dramamine didn't help all that much for me, but if you want something POTENT. bonine.
Does anyone feel a sense of amazing peace that the guys from Extra Credits are wholeheartedly reinforcing the games that we all love? I have pointed people with amazingly biased opinions that videos games are "the spawn of Satan" or something of the like over to Extra Credits and they have completely back flipped on their opinion of them. Thank you guys for doing all the amazing work in just bringing the bright side of the things we all love with all of our hearts. Thank you so very very much.
Yup, as someone who plays a LOT of FPSes on PC (since the days of Wolf3D, DOOM & RoTT), one of the first things I do is check and test what different FOV settings look like in the game. For me, anything about 90-120 degrees is fine though.
He mentioned it a few times himself. I know he has specifically referred to Simulation Sickness at least once. It really doesn't help if it feels like you're playing while wearing blinders, pretty frequently. And there is one example of a game (Not a full release thing) that had an FoV so narrow that watching a youtube video of someone else playing made me feel ill.
Ah , I completely understand why , it was more of a funny remark than anything :P Just thought I should point out that I'm not trying to be rude or anything if anyone gets that Idea , but it seems like he's the only person to ever mention FOV over every other youtuber.
I want to say that you should not play in the dark. Your eyes won't know how to properly dilate due to the brightness of the screen and the darkness of the room. This can lead to headaches and such. Dim the lights, don't turn them off.
Owen McGrath Now see you'd think that, but that is incorrect. I think it makes perfect sense. Why do you think theater's no longer turn off the lights all the way, they just dim them? It's the same principle. TheDylan10123 That's pretty much the full experience, some can even get nauseated and pass out. Frankly, it's like simulation sickness, lel. For me personally, my eyes get real tired and start to hurt and burn. Then the headache kicks in. I don't suffer from simulation sickness, at least I don't think I do but playing in the dark sickness, YUP.
Holy crap, this works! I turned the FOV all the way up in BioShock Infinite, and it did wonders! I could spend the whole day playing it, whereas before I could barely play 20 minutes at a time. I finally beat the game thanks to this! =D
I don't think sim-sickness by tablets and vehicular travel are derived specifically from using mobile devices. I often experienced nausea as a kid when reading books in a moving car. Your body is affected by the vehicular motion, but no visual stimuli confirm the momentum. The solution was simply to lift your gaze and watch the road for a while. It's the same thing, but the other way around - the "sim" says I'm NOT moving, but in reality, I am. Thus, sadly, it's not much you can do about it other than to slowly acclimatize.
Agreed. My family often when on road trips where we'd be in the car for 5-8 hours a day. I loved to read as a kid, but I'd have to take breaks because I got carsick so easily. We always had Gravol in the car just in case. I've grown out of it for the most part, but winding roads still make me queasy. All in all it's probably a good thing I didn't have a Gameboy at the time.
I’ll be honest with you, I still experience this as an adult. Regardless of what I’m doing, playing games like Minecraft or going for even a one hour car trip made me sick to nausea. When travelling I always have my music in my ears and take travel sickness medication (ginger tablets) before I travel. As for the games...I just don’t plat them, which means my gaming expertise is limited to RPG and puzzle games.
this is a great video. ive always gotten made fun of because im of the small percentage that cannot fully acclimate. ive always gotten it but not with every FPS just certain ones. some people have a hard time accepting that games can make you sick. its a very real problem. more devs should consider. the most important ones ive found are to limit playtime in games or areas of games that make you sick (the driving sequences in Half Life 2, i cant play in a single sitting). but also those frequent breaks should be much longer than the time you play so if you play for 20 minutes you should break for an hour or two. it sounds harsh but its much harsher to get sick. you also shouldnt break when you start feeling the oncoming effects. stop before then. 20 minutes is usually a good time to start from and tweak it as need be. the other big is the FOV setting. i know these are both mentioned in the video but they help greatly. also not as important but higher frames per second can help. if they are too low it can exacerbate a weird FOV.
My mother gets simulation sickness with 3D games. It's kind of a shame since she really enjoys playing games but with the rise of 3D in games that became less of an option for her. She still has games to play (mostly puzzle games), though, but seeing her frustration as the games that were becoming popular were ones that made her ill to play. :(
Also I recommend try turning down your bass a lot. It could be the cause of nausea. I realised this when listening to loud bass-heavy music in while sitting at a restaurant (ie no motion or screen at the time). According to google other people also claim to experience bass-induced nausea. Worth a shot if you're not sure what the cause is.
+Tammy Nieuwoudt Yeah, kind of puts a dent in the "wind power will save us theory" given that they produce a lot of low frequency sounds. There are a bunch of studies going on right now on people at various distance from wind power farms and they results so far are interesting and now in favor of wind power.
This is both my favorite episode of this series and the first one I watched when a friend of mine introduced this TH-cam channel to me and let me know that it wasn't weird that I kept getting dizzy while playing some games :) You guys are awesome
I've always thought I was weird for having to deal with migraines whenever I play a new FPS game and I have to constantly play in order to get rid of that sickness. This helps a bunch!
the optimal FOV setting in most games is 90, and it's about as close as the real human eye's FOV as possible. Any wider and you're essentially placing eyes facing forward on the sides of your head, like a bird. Any shorter and you're essentially giving yourself tunnel vision. Just a tip. Most FPSes are hard locked at 60, and it bugs the crap out of me. 90 is the optimal setting.
Yeah locking these things became a habit in game development when last gen consoles needed fps because of there very bad hardware. It's unacceptable these days and i'm hoping it becomes a normality to have your games have fov of 90.
Real life fov is about 180. Optimal fov can be solved with trigonometry and it depends on screen size and how close you are to it. 90 is good for pc gamers for the most part who sit really close to their monitor, but if you are playing on a tv far away, 60 can actually be more comfortable.
I wouldn't say 90 is the optimum, I much prefere something around 105. So I'd really like the default set to around 90, because that is definatly what most people are used to and will set anyways. Just give us the option to go up and down from there since 90 is the sweetspot and people like to differ from that. So I always find it diapointing when the FOV only goes from 60-90 instead of more of a 75-115 or something.
Thank you very much, i've been trying to find answers for this illnes for a long time from family and friends but then i searched it online and here it is, tnx u very much i hope i won't be ill anymore of screens!
My hubby suffers from simulation sickness. At least now we can put a name to it other than "motion sick during game time." So, thanks guys!! I know this is one of your old videos but still! He has many of the symthoms you describe and has an extra tip to dampen them: HEAT! When we have been playing a game where he normally gets nausious, a contributing factor has been the heat and incidently the humidity. I hope it can be added to the list of "what to think of if I suffer from simulation sickness." Once again, thanks guys :)
Just want to say, my girlfriend has really bad simulation sickness, like to the degree where if she watches me play Portal she gets motion sick. She found this episode very relevant to her, and she appreciates this advice. Thanks guys!
A tip for people messing with FOV - The most natural FOV for your setup is going to be the angular size of your screen. Obviously, that's going to be very hard to measure, because most of us don't think of size that way, but that's what the number means. Console games seem to standardize at about 75, which works well for the kind of play distance you're normally working with (4-6 feet from a 3-4 foot widescreen). Badly ported cross-platform games often leave that setting where it is for the PC release. Thing is, you're not much more than a foot from your screen. The monitor takes up FAR more of your field of vision. Most of the recommendations for PC gaming suggest around 90-95 for normal play. (Hardcore gamers will say crank it way up, because having a higher FOV lets you see further to the sides, which can be important in high level play (I've seen one demo of a setup that showed 360 degree FOV, where a character moving off the side of one side of the tri-screen immediately appeared on the other.), but that's EXTREMELY disconcerting when you're not used to it. If your view of the game feels kinda like tunnel vision (if you don't know what I mean, it's not easy to induce safely - it's caused by concussions, insufficient air intake (asthma attack, in my case) and other such things that you really don't want to try), your FOV is too low. If you seem to have a fisheye effect (google the term; it's done deliberately at times for effect), the FOV is too big. (Personally, I really like it when console games give you an FOV modulation too. I've heard console side people argue that video options are the result of a dev team that failed to reach a decision as to what optimal performance is, but for things like FOV, that's entirely BS. FOV is, to the normal player, defined by the size of one's display and the shape of one's gaming environment. You're not going to get it right for everyone. (Especially not when people like me scavenge weird display adapter collections so we can pipe our entire console collections into our PC monitors' other display options.)
I've never experienced sim sickness, but I do get sickness trying to use devices in moving cars for any length of time. I always got that same sickness when I was younger trying to read (analogue) books in the car as well. I believe most would call this motion sickness rather than sim sickness.
Thank you for this video. I had never had game motion sickness until tonight, and my game Identity V is pretty good with me on my phone, but tonight before my nausea I had a lot of caffeine, I was jumping up and down my stairs, and had a bright light on in my room conflicting my screen brightness. I laid down and turned off the light, giving myself peace and watching this vid. It helped.
I found it very interesting that I experienced simulation sickness with I watched by brother played Metroid Prime. Because if I was playing the game for myself, I could go for hours and not feel a thing. Its more than just the content on the screen and the environment of the room. I found that since I was not playing and in control, my eyes would strain themselves more to keep focused on objects that I didn't know were going to shift perspective (because I was not in control of the view). When I was in control of playing however, my eyes would not try to focus on a small detail and keep track of it while it moves. We can try to not focus on any item in particular when the camera is moving about. Instead try to intake it all as a big picture and focus on stationary things such as the gun the player is holding. Hope we can elaborate more on some of these findings.
The only games I've noticed this in recently is Racing Games. Because of the crazy hi res backgrounds, extra animations going on, and obnoxious motion blur I can never accelerate to full speed without completely losing my bearings and crashing into walls I couldn't see until it was too late. It happened to me around the PS3 era, games just put the camera too close to the vehicle for me and I can never see what's going on in the distance and react to it in time.
After a severe concussion I had when I was younger, I started having really bad bouts of vertigo. One thing that helped immensely was playing a game that had an intense 1st person experience. This reduced my nausea and kept me from rolling all over the floor. For some reason being able to put my conscious perspective somewhere other than in my own messed up head helped. Video games are now my go-to remedy for vertigo, much more agreeable than prescription medication ^-^
Ten years later and I'm still sending this video to people. I've mostly gotten over my simulation sickness (thanks Slime Rancher!) But it's still important!
Try a virtual reality game, if you ever get the chance. It just occurred to me that that could be a major problem that's keeping VR from getting to the shelves.
I've never have this happen to me, but recently I've noticed that I can't play games in the car anymore because it makes me feel sick. I find that odd since when I was younger I didn't, or at least not as much, but you said it gets better over time. I've seen videos on why we get motion sickness in cars, and it seems to be the exact same problem, or technically the exact opposite; in a car, your eyes say you're sitting still, but your inner ear says you're moving. In a car, motion sickness is probably at its worst since the screen tells you you're moving one way, but the car says you're moving another. One theory says that we get sick because in nature, your senses not adding up would only be the result of eating something poisonous, so our body makes us try to throw up. I heard that eating ginger can help because it moves digestion along, making us want to throw up less. Thinking about it like that, how to make your body's digestion system not want to throw up as much, could be one way to mitigate the problem. I think one solution in a car with video games could be to use gyroscopes so that the screen simulates you moving, making both senses add up.
Oddly, I don't get motion sickness from playing video games while sitting down at home, but if I'm in a car playing games, or even reading a book, I do get heavily nauseated.
I think that is because when you're reading or playing games you can kinda see out of the window of the car and that makes your brain think your not moving while movie and that makes you nauseated.
This is pretty standard. Your eyes (when reading or gaming on a car) are more or less telling your brain that nothing is moving. But your balance system in your inner ear is aware of the car's movement, and tells the brain that you are moving. So given these two conflicting signals, the brain is confused and you get sick. The details aren't all nailed down yet, but that's the gist of it.
I think the actual reason for feeling/being sick is a defence mechanism against poison. The fact that what your eyes are seeing does not match with what your inner ear is detecting would have historically been a clear indication that your inner ear or sight is faulty and in-case this is due to something you ingested, the vomit reflex is induced to some degree. Alcohol (a poison from your body's perspective) actually enters your inner ear thus throwing off it's calibration as it has a different density to the natural liquid present there. I'd guess other poisons also have this effect so it's a good enough indicator of being poisoned for the body to risk dehydration.
this video made my life easier. I've been playing games for years and love playing them but I get simulation sickness very often and it ruins the experience for me and often forces me to put games down and not come back to them for a long time. I really hope these tips will make it easier for me
Jan Škopek Oh gosh, same here! Actually, it's even worse for me and it has to be between 100-120 FOV. I remember getting terrible headaches and almost throwing up while playing Half-Life 2 until I found out I had to change the FOV.
yes, I haven't felt simulation sickness with any game until I played fallout 4 and half life. when I look around quickly in Fo4, I got some nausea, same with moving very fast in half life. though that might be because of the sharp turns in that game coupled with the speed making it a bit jittery. but my personal anecdotes are nothing close to definitive science. just a thought
i think so my cousin could not play more that a minute or 2 of turok without needing to vomit and the main theme of that game was how fast and smoothly your character could move
it depends, sometimes yes, it has a lot to do with the speed of turning the camera, (even looking to other people play) for example i can't play outlast for more than 10min without felling like trowing up, part is in the need to look around you, and even behind you so fast, but the other part comes from motion blur, turning off that blur (in games that allow it) can drastically help with the time i can bare the sickness, combine with less sensitive controllers and the correct light adjustment i can bare to play a lot of games. (also been playing games for all my life, 22yo here, and the sickness has been only getting worse with the developing of more realistic graphics and movement)
Yes it can definitely. I'm personally fine most of the time no matter what games, but I've had games which had rubberbandy external cameras which lagged way too much behind the player's movement and it made me extremely sick. There's like an uncanny valley of camera motion speed, either make it slow enough so that you can look away for a second and still know where you are or make it so fast that it is interpreted by the brain as a "movement". As disorienting it can be to have a fully stiff camera in for example Rocket League, it is MUCH worse is you have lagging one that is slower than your perception can handle and forces your brain to wait for input to figure out what's going on. That's atleast how these feel to me, I know that something fast happened but the camera is too slow to keep up and trying to keep up to that fast event with the slow input desyncs my brain and makes me sick. Actually thinking about Rocket League, I'm getting slightly sicklish when I turn off the ball cam, my settings are probably just bad but that camera is a little too stiff. And no matter what: looking around motion blur sucks, the one from being in a fast car for example can be ok if not done overkillish, but blur from just looking around; that's something that should be put under penalty.
*adds to check list* I haven't even thought about that as I didn't get any simulation sickness during that(or phone VR(rift maybe a little but it was also augmented and not adjusted)/ playing in a car/motion controls in a car(which actually was pretty fun for me)). I'm curious about this as I don't really know how to handle it in making games if I don't know the major trouble points.
I get simulation sickness (ie, get dizzy) when watching 1st person gameplay in the morning if i haven't eaten breakfast yet. Otherwise, I can mostly handle it just fine. Too narrow FOV can make my head spin after a while, though, regardless of my hunger/nutrition levels. Then again, I also get motion sickness when riding a car (not when driving, though) and on airplanes. So despite me having been a gamer for over 20 years, I suppose I may have been prone to this from the very beginning.
Thank you so much! I never knew why playing these games made my head hurt. I love gaming culture and all the tropes and memes. I love the lore and ideas behind games like WoW, but it hurt too much to really get immersed. I felt bummed out about not being able to play with my gamer friends, but that can change now that I know what I have.
YES!! Thank you! The few times I have heard people mention video games and nausea, somebody says, "Oh, you just haven't played enough games." I have played plenty of games. I don't get motion sickness. But the bloody bobbing thing gets me everytime! Well, that and rapid changes in what I'm looking at in a first person game, but spinning around makes me nauseous so it makes sense that the same would happen in games.
Screen bob should not be in video games anyways. Not only does it irritate simulation sickness, but it's really annoying even for those who don't suffer from simulation sickness, and it doesn't aid in the immersion of the games.
I disagree, this might just be me but whenever I've had screen bobbing off it gives me more sickness than screen bobbing alone ever has.If I were to walk in a straight line in real life the world wouldn't stay still as I move forward so I wouldn't expect it to if I were in a game. I'd say that contributes greatly to the immersion in games. Although I do understand why the screen bobbing would bother someone to the point of sickness, I %100 disagree with the notion of exiling the feature in games. Maybe a compromise would be to have the option between screen bobbing or not required before playing a game with any new character or save as well as being able to toggle it at any time!
I agree with Drake! I personally love head bobbing because it makes me feel a lot more immersed than without it! It replicates natural movement and without it it feels like moving on rails and THAT´s what we people who don´t suffer from simulation sickness call annoying! Head bob should be in every first person video game! Period. I however can live with the option to turn it off even though it gives the people that turn it off a slight advantage over the ones who don´t...but if I personally had to chose as a designer between head bobbing always on or always off, I´d say screw the minority, screen bobbing FTW! Making it optional is the best compromise you can get, deal with it!
Nice opinion, I'm glad its just that, your opinion, because I happened to like Head bobing in video games. It adds to the imersion, your character feels like he's walking instead of gliding or skating through perfectly even planes. This is just my opinion and my personal preference though. I would advise you to either turn off the head bob in the games that have it or play older games that don't have it.
It's fine when it isn't over exaggerated. I can't even play Doom or Quake just because of the extreme head bob in older FPS games. It's not as noticable in newer titles like BF, though Dishonored gave me some headaches for the first hour.
I have never gotten Sim Sick. It's weird. For as long as I can remember I've never gotten it. Infact I've never gotten motion sick. Huh. Veiw bob is very important for some games in my opinion. Imagine playing WOT or WT-GF mode without the Sniper Veiw moving up and down as the tank goes over hills. For me that half the imersion. Afonso Wiborg I completely agree with you. I don't play many FPSs but the veiw bob is amazing. Also in Warframe, HAWKEN and some others I love the camera bob I belive you get, though I forget, of the camera being locked to the character's head from a distance. It just makes you feel like your right there.
I have an odd form of strabismus where I can control the independent movement of one eye when I so choose, but often times my eye can move away if I begin to space out or receive a lot of visual input at once. This happens especially when I'm playing first-person games, so I can't really play FPS games like Halo or CoD. When my eye moves away, I suddenly only have the depth perception of one eye, so I keep running into walls and it's difficult for me to move my character properly. I try to avoid playing those games for that reason, but I'm often invited to play them and people keep saying I just haven't gotten good at the game yet. I know how my body functions and it's much more difficult than it sounds. I do much better playing third-person platformers and 2D sidescrollers because it doesn't cause as much visual confusion and my eyes don't separate. It kind of sucks, but hey, I'm freaking awesome at Sonic and Mario because of it.
It's so frustrating to get this sickness in certain games. I will try some of the tips in this video, it's much appreciated. I've been gaming my whole life and still deal with it.
Thank you so much for the video, i will deff be trying these out :) Sim Sickness really blows... Not only does it prevent me from playing FPS games (like HALO, COD and Farcry) but I can't even watch others play without getting nauseous :(
Jayanne Torpy I found that if I keep a small fan blowing on me, it helps considerably. If you're like me, simulation sickness will follow a rise in body temp. I get hot, then I get sick. If I cam keep from getting hot, then I keep from getting sick
In regards to number seven, in place of a manufactured pill you can have ginger pills or just have a little ginger--that seems to do wonders. I have a close friend with severe seasickness and so long as he has that stuff in his system he seems to be alright.
I NEVER feel motion sick, unless gaming in a car. It's not something new with tablets, many kids are/were unable to experience those legendary "long car ride gaming sessions".
+ZobmieRules Trying to a screen or read a text when it is jostling around makes me nauseous. Maybe if I had some kind of fancy shock absorption platform to place the device on that wouldn't happen, but I don't feel like taking a seat out to rig something like that up.
+ZobmieRules In my case, it has to do with how much the entire device's screen moves (compared to my own perspective) when I'm trying to play anything. So any ground vehicle causes me to get motion sick. In planes or some buses that don't move nearly as much I can play just fine. I never played any games in 3D so I don't know if Oculus can cause any simulation sickness on me. Considering how I get sick sometimes watching 3D movies on the cinema, I guess that first time I try I'll get simulation sick.
I've actually found the opposite to be true regarding caffeine. I don't regularly get simulation sickness, but it still comes on occasionally if I've been playing all day. One of the things that actually helps get rid of the headache is a nice cup of earl grey, or any other caffeinated tea I happen to have on hand.
thank you guys for making these videos I've wanted to get into game making and just finished your "game design" playlist, it was VERY informative and has really helped me to understand games as a whole. again, thanks!
The only thing that I feel as in "Simulation sickness" is headaches. Fallout 4's FOV was god awful, it was like looking though a pool noodle. Then the other game, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter gave me headaches, I really didn't understand it. I increased the FOV, dimmed screen and took frequent breaks - I like puzzle games so I gave it many chances before I simply uninstalled and called it a headache simulator.
+IIIPlasmaIII This is why I hate people who say "FOV adjustments in games hinder difficulty". While the argument may be valid to a degree, what happens if adjusting the FOV doesn't do anything to a game's difficulty other than being able to tolerate the damn game that gives headaches because its FOV is garbage? Like, shit, Warframe's default FOV gave me more of a headache than Fallout 4's FOV, but shit... atleast that one didn't need tinkering in the .ini folder to adjust the FOV.
I'm the same, I get a thumping headache and pain behind my eyes. I've only noticed it since the start of the current generation though, and almost entirely with driving games. The worst offenders in my library are Mad Max and Project Cars... For some reason I can't go more than about 30 minutes on either game. It almost feels like I can't quite focus on the screen properly, as if I've gone cross-eyed or something. GTA V does it a little bit too, but it's only slight.
TB does tend to harp on about this kind of thing, with good reason. I actually suffer from simulation sickness and can't play any first person game with an FoV of less than 90 (100 is optimal)
You joke about his simulation sickness but I literally can't play Bioshock because the devs didn't put in an FoV slider. I spent the first hour of the game focusing on not puking up my guts and as a result I wasn't even able to figure out the game's basic functions.
I've played games all my life and I still get horrible simulation sickness in _certain_ games and not others. Example: Counter Strike, a FPS, has never given me any form of sickness and I've played it for hours... but Left 4 Dead made have to lay down for 3 hours after 5 minutes of gameplay. My formula for success: Remove head bob. Remove motion blur. Turn *down* FoV (maybe I'm further away from the monitor than most? Playing a game with fisheye warping just exacerbates the problem), keep the frame rate as high as possible.
I have to turn up fov, which is what I've read generally fixes it. It's weird that turning it down helps you. Games that have a lot of wandering in tight quarters seems to be worse for me. Skyrim on consoles I can't even watch, but at 90 fov on pc is fine. Portal was awful but I made it through it. Portal 2 I lasted 15 minutes and was out of commission for the day.
Only game that has ever made me feel sick in any way was Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Vietnam. Something about the graphics makes me dizzy and unable to focus my eyes. Never touched it since.
Ps - Hetfield is working heavily in Oculus dev now and has been telling me all kinds of fun motion sickness during dev. Maybe I'm in the wrong business ;)
The first 3 suggestions are the most useful. Even though I've been playing FPS games since Doom in the '90s, when I was playing through Serious Sam 3 a few years back I had this pretty bad. They had a forced view bob with the sledgehammer animations which wasn't toggleable at the time and the setting in many of the maps was bright desert that required a fair bit of dialing back on the brightness, the default FOV definitely felt way off and needed to be adjusted. Another consideration I didn't hear brought up here was that of frame rate, unsteady frame rate that frequently drops below 30 FPS can really exacerbate things when mixed with the above problems. I also feel that a lot of the fancy nonsense devs love throwing into games probably add to the problem as well, things like motion blur, depth of field, bloom, etc. Disabling or turning down most of that crap is almost always one of the first things I do with a new 3D game.
I wasn't really brought up on FPSes, so I find it as no surprise that playing Mirror's Edge for the first time (not even a year after its release) had me needing a break after half an hour, if not less. It's gotten better with that game, and I hadn't had many issues until I was helping develop a game for the Oculus Rift a few months ago. Not only did I exhibit the same motion-sick symptoms (I'd also started getting increasingly semi-regular bouts of vertigo within those years), but I also felt super claustrophobic after a while. If it happens again, I'll be sure to try the prevention methods! Also, one of my colleagues has similar symptoms of a worse magnitude, so I'll be sure to send this their way. Thank you for making this!
When they got talking about tablets and vehicles, that got me thinking about my motion sickness with reading. Though I'm wondering if that may be considered Simulation Sickness, and I'll tell you why: I have a tendency to get so deep into reading that I don't even see the page anymore... In my mind, I actually see the character or see through the character's eyes. So, according to my consciousness, I'm actually in a different world doing something completely different. Now, when I can see the page, I think it happens because I'm focusing on something static while I can see movement out of my peripheral vision. When I really get into what I'm reading, what I see in my head, doesn't line up with the movement my body feels outside of the book. There's a disconnect between the movement I see, and the movement I feel. Naturally, my brain can't figure it out, and I get nauseous. Anyway, I think that could possibly provide some insight as to Simulation Sickness...
I do the same thing and don't see the page but a whole 'nother world But (this is kind strange) sometimes in my head I see the characters in a very realistically shaded and we'll drawn but it's a cartoon. But other times I see them as if they were in lifeve action
Games these days have less and less options when it comes to FOV (limited or fixed to 70), screen Bobbing (not an option) etc. because of consoles. Why don't devs get that they're essential to have even _on_ consoles? :/
Mtaalas Higher FoV means they have to render more thing on screen (so more fps drops, especially when games are already getting below 1080P on PS4 and X1) and most ppl dont get the effect since they are far away from the screen. However, Screen bob should be an option for all fps.
i've been gaming since i got my first game boy (now i'm 25) and suddenly a few months ago, out of nowhere, playing games for a few minutes or watching a long movie would make me feel like throwing up. it took me some time to realise what's causing it because i'd play some every day after work/in my free time and i'd feel shitty everyday. it doesn't just go away after an hour, i can play for half an hour and be sick for 2 days. if i ignore it and keep playing for 2-3 days straight if there's a new game that i like i become really sick. it's weird that it happened so suddenly. i was hearing about ppl complaining and especially about 3D movies etc, that they're making them sick and i was like "wtf is wrong with them?". i haven't found anything that actually works except not playing/watching for days.
Amfibios I have problem with specific games.... Minecraft and oblivion(i love oblivion so much but i just can not play it :( ) this has always been happening
The dimmer screen has more to do with reducing the saturation of the color pallet. Sim sickness caused by vestibular disconnect (not postular instability) becomes increasingly pronounced with additional sensory input.
What I've found interesting is that with the vive, people who usually have motion sickness during games have no effects at all, probably because all the movement in the game corresponds with your actual head and body movement. The only exception to this seems to be games where you move with the controller rather than your body, because that creates the same disconnect as the playing with the oculus rift
The thing is that "third person perspective" is in fact more close to the real first person perspective. Since when we do something, we imagine the motion of our own body and not just what happens in front of the eyes. So while what our eyes see are important, we also see ourselves as a "third person" when we perform actions, and that is usually what people call hand-eye coordination. Meaning first person games are really nothing more than players controlling an eyeball and a comically short pair of arms with limited range of motion, so it really isn't so much "simulation sickness" than it is sickness resulted from poor simulation.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I find that a bit hard to believe. A friend of mine who use to suffer from simulation sickness felt the effects way more with first person than third. Even I feel more immersed when it's first person (done well) than third. When playing from a first person perspective and I happen to fall from a very high place I don't feel sick, but I feel a slight rush as if I'm falling. It's usually brief as I realize it's just a game and I'm not actually falling. When it's third I feel very little, if anything at all. I see the character fall, fly, jump, etc. and I am well aware that it's not me, it's a character I'm playing. If I feel anything it's probably because the environment feels real enough to make me imaging that I'm right there with the character I'm playing as. Those are my experiences. I realize other people will have different ones so I accept yours as a possibility, but I just can't relate.
Played Fallout 4 for about 5 hours today and got a major migraine. I definitely need to limit or spread out the time that I play.. it's just so damn addictive.
Thanks for the help. This may sound weird but I was creating a character in 3D Dot Game Heroes and just looking at different parts of the screen made me queasy which is strange because I've never had this before in a video game. But thanks to this I haven't been feeling sick anymore! Thanks a ton!
One thing that help me with simulation sickness, this is just personal experience, was moving a little with the game. I don't mean running but just a slight adjustment to your head angle and bobbing it with jumping helped a lot for me. Maybe it'll help you.
Im so glad that I'm one of those people that apparantly have no problem at all with games. I never felt motion sickness or anything of that sort and i can play for however long i want without my eyes hurting.
Now I had answers.. I thought I'm just the only one having this issues.. Playing Minecraft, Roblox and Medal of Honor for a couple of minutes makes me sick
In my experiences, the Steam/PC-version of "Borderlands" felt extremely claustrophobia indusing due its extremely low field of vision... I personally enjoy playing with dim lighting instead of dark; light enough to read books and other document, but dim mostly with warm slightly "durty" color and creamy-gently colored tapestry. I also use "f.lux"-software to automatically adjust my computer monitors, which I highly recoment to give a try with.
F.lux also makes it way easier to do your evening reading on a computer, too. I use the Linux version on an old laptop with the temperature specified on the command-line at 2000K.
Playing HL2 on a monitor means your inner ear doesn't detect acceleration/movement. With todays higher end VR HMDs using sub-millimetre positional tracking your ear detects all the movement your eyes see, so all perception matches up.
i get mild simulation sickness if I play first person games for too long, and sometimes even during assassin's creed games if i run for too long. the worst, of course, is mirror's edge. it was horrible. i could only play for about 20-40 minutes at a time. but then I spent like 5 hours in one sitting playing the time trial mode trying to get the best times and it almost completely went away ahah. tho i don't necessarily recommend dealing it with that way.
I am not sure why I didn't watch this video sooner! I'm one of those people that gets simulation sickness ALL THE TIME. Which is weird because I've been playing games since I was 7. Turning off the motion bobbing is a big help, it's something that definitely helps me through Minecraft server parties. I'll try the other ones too, then maybe I'll be able to beat Bioshock.
I'm so glad this video was made, you don't know how much I appreciate it! :) I like to play minecraft with my brothers or by myself sometimes, but i have always gotten a head ache from playing after about 10 minutes, on a scale to 1-10 it would be like a 4 with pain, so its still bareable to play, it just really bothers me. Somethings that I notice that helps me is playing on a smaller screen, when i play with my two brothers, the screen i play on decreases by twice the size it would be on full screen, it helps at least 50% of the pain. Also i would always get head aches when i'm on a device in a moving car, and i found out how to totally prevent getting sick from it. I put a blanket over my head so that i could only see the device and no windows or anything, i got no headaches! I have also got it from playing fallout 4 but i wouldn't feel the affects after at least from two hours from playing, and i love fallout so i am happy for my time i can play before i get a head ache x.x
That's similar to how I can get queasy in a car unless I'm the one driving. I feel it may have an aspect of subconsciously knowing what will happen next (as you're in control) and that helping to mitigate some of the effects.
Jensaw101 or as mentioned in the video the different level of immersion, which I guess is pretty much what you said but I'm being picky about semantics.
Jensaw101 That's basically it. I believe Extra Credits has an episode that explains that when humans use a tool, our brains stop thinking of it as a separate object that we're manipulating and instead as an extension of our bodies. This likely mitigates the mixed signals your brain gets when apparent visual motion does not match up with experienced motion.
Never had that problem until I played Car Mechanic Simulator 2018. I always felt weird when playing and after playing. Today it's gotten worse. I feel light headed and it's been hours. I stopped playing at maybe 12 am and now it's 4 pm and I still feel sick
Well i just got this motion sickness when i began to play Call of Duty just 1 week ago, never had before. I don't know if the tip of turning your lights off will work, in my case, I have to put extra bulbs in my room in order to reduce the effects. Also sit farther from the TV and lower the tv volume.
That's the only part of the video that I found strange. If it's a perception problem and a dimmer screen helps, turning the lights off sounds really counter intuitive, as it makes the screen look much more brighter in comparison. I have no problems with motion sickness, but I found that if I'm going to read a lot from the screen, having the lights on helps me avoid the feeling of my eyes getting tired.
Ginger is a common remedy for motion sickness which is very similar to (if not the same thing as) simulation sickness. Ginger does wonders for simulation sickness and it's good for you. I suffer from sim sickness with games like the ones mentioned in the video. Shortly after getting Bioshock, I realized I couldn't play the game for more than about 20 min. without feeling terrible. I started eating a slice of ginger before playing, and I could go a full hour without feeling bad. If I wanted to keep going, I'd just eat another slice. I know the taste can be something to get used to, but adopting this habit will allow any of you who are like me to enjoy every game just like anyone else. Seriously, try it. It works wonders!
I have a hard time playing 3rd person games, I don't know why? 1ST person games I don't have a hard time with because I play with them my whole life, the reason I have a hard time playing 3RD person games is because of those times the camera spaze's, and having to control your camera all the time.
For me, lowering the framerate can ease this too. 60fps games make me more dizzy much quicker than 30. I love it when a game lets you toggle this, although its rare on consoles, since everyone else seems to think 60fps is unsubjectively better.
I just had simulation sickness once. Normally I don't go straight to bed after I play a game. Instead, I watch some youtube videos while on bed or couple of episodes of something. One day, after a really long Minecraft session I went straight to bed and I felt a lot of dizziness. Like my brain was expecting my eyes to see the constant movement and change of perspective. It ended after I watched TV for a while. I realized then that I was mitigating that sort of sickness without knowing.
Yeah, this might explain my dislike of first person games too. I did already notice I can enjoy a first person game with a wide FoV much more than I can a limited first person game (which is why, FWIW, the first Borderlands was the first FPS I managed to play for more than a few hours). I've never had any problems with third person games though.
so, I am hard core in the group that both cannot play first person shooters for more than about 30 minutes without feeling incredibly sick, and also the kind of person who plays video games with friends regularly. here is some stuff that helps me, but I cannot speak for everyone: 1, I find my sickness is better in BRIGHT rooms, not dark. being able to clearly see things around the monitor lets my brain realize its not actually moving, but instead is watching something else move. 2, I find the further from the screen I am, the longer it takes to have problems. I set up my computer on my reasonably sized TV on the other side of the room, and I can play for a lot longer before its unbearable. 3, I have found that many developers under accessibility options have started making third person view toggle-able. I wish I could shout this from the rooftops at game designers: THANK YOU FOR THIS, PLEASE EVERYONE DO THIS, IT IS SO INFINITELY HELPFUL. lastly, and again, your mileage may vary, and also this one is impractical in a lot of situations, but if you choose to play games, lower your graphics settings, and lean towards games that don't attempt realism. games like TF2 or Paladins are so much easier for me to play than games like battlefield and Call of Duty, mostly because I think its easier for your brain to recognize that the motion you're seeing isn't real. the same for turning your graphics settings down until the in game graphics look like something made in 2001, again, the terrible quality making it easier for your brain to separate the game motion from the actual world. again, I want to stress that I have no data to back any of this up, this is simply my experience, and I do not intend to claim that this is a universal fix. I just want to share my experience, and maybe some people can benefit edit: I actually found when using a VR headset to not have the same symptoms. largely, because in that sense, I am actually moving, not just watching something move, and well programmed stuff that has little to no lag between my actual motion and the motion in the game made it easy for me to play for a long time, and makes me hugely excited for more widespread adoption and advancement of VR tech.
Thanks for addressing some possible helpful tips, this affects me really badly. Was watching gameplay videos on my tablet for Overwatch and thought I was gonna be sick my head spun so badly. I checked out Journey, as you suggested, but it also makes me ill. I think it's because most games, including Journey, feature a moving camera instead of a stationary one that changes angle with the tap of a button. Wish I could play more games more often without the problem :(
Mine gets so bad that when I was working on a first person game I had to set up a 3rd person camera option for myself when developing. You'd think all the exposure would help, but seems I'm in the group that just can't manage it. :( Glad this video exists though, hopefully some of this stuff works for others.
I was playing Black Ops 3, and now I'm I'm feeling extremely dizzy, I remember feeling the same way when playing Mirror's Edge. Thanks for the video, I hope these tips help me to enjoy FPS games in the future.
I had a headache everytime after playing minecraft for like 20-30 minutes. Idk why because i play a lot of games of every genre for hours and ive never even had the slightest of headaches. But minecraft is an exception. So i was looking for answers in the internet and it turns out tht im not the only one
Same I get sick pretty bad from playing Minecraft for like 30 minutes but can play all my other games for hours and be perfectly fine
YESS me too bruh!! I can play dead ass any other game but minecraft gets me motion sick
I played for like 20 minutes and I legit threw up last night
Same for me, but I sweat alot and need a cool environment temp to avoid this.
Omg really minecraft is the only game really
The theory I heard is basically when the inner ear motion detector doesnt match whats happening from the eyes theres a vestigial instinct that goes "I've been poisoned!" and so the stomach dumps its contents to try and remove the poison. Which makes sense , since many poisons will cause halucinations or dizziness.,
that is sort of what I got told for me last gen your brain does not understand why you are sat down but your eyes show you moving on the screen and it causes an inner ear motion issue
thing I dont get is why I seem to be cured of this on the ps4 xbox one and can play first person for hours with no issue
_"when i'm playing Minecraft, i'm using drugs"_
@@trollconfiavel bad ones at that
So do i lower the sound?
@@wolf99000 These systems have probably mitigated the issue in their Operating System. They can modify the output to the screen to reduce the issue silently. We don't know that they do but they will be blamed before the game design is blamed so they do have a good reason to try.
"if you can keep play time down to about 20 minutes or so at a stretch before taking a break..."
HA! HAAAAHHHH!!!! NOT BLOODY LIKELY!
depends on the game :)
Please stretch for your health my dude. Bad blood flow from sitting down can lead to bad headaches and worse like blood clots that form from your butt and legs being compressed and stagnant for too long.
Our legs are built to be able to have us pushing off of the ground at decent speeds for 8 hours a day for 40 years. They sometimes malfunction when forgotten about.
I think that's only if you get motion sickness, you should take a break.
Clowntrooper It's for everyone. Nintendo recommends playing for no more than 30 minutes at a time to prevent eyestrain, migraines, and overuse injuries.
I don't know. For me, I have zero problem playing for hours on some games (like Halo, Doom, Battlefield) but on others, I just cannot play beyond 15 or so minutes (MOH , COD). That is just super weird.
So that constant warning on Nintendo games is actually helpful?
Apparently
😂
*"do not give your Wii orange juice, your Wii is not thirsty"*
I never had any motion sickness playing any video games before... Unreal, Metal Gear, Counter Strike, Medal of Honor, nothing.
And yesterday, it finally happen when playing Yandere Simulator, something about that game just makes me so nauseated, I was convinced I caught the flu last night and went to bed.
Woke up, felt fresh like I was never sick, turn on Yandere Simulator... Within 30 minutes I had to puke, and felt sick til this morning.
I've felt the same thing, although, Yandere Simulator doesn't make me as nauseated as it gives me a creepy vibe. I don't get scared easily, and gore doesn't scare me at all, but for some reason, Yandere Simulator creeps me the hell out.
+Accalia Wolf I wonder if it might be disconnect between the various different aspects of that game...It looks like none of the games elements fit one another.
As an example, Anime art style with either Photo-realistic, or non-existent shading. (Or a mix thereof...)
Tsuda Otatsuke It could be that, yeah. Even though, there's something deeper about the game that just freaks me out a lot.
+AirStyles VN It could also be something with how the game elements are animated and moved around the environment as well, and nothing with the themes of the game.
+AirStyles VN wow I've never had simulation sickness even though some of my family does. The closest thing to it for me is my eye hurting but probs because of glasses :C but yea I don't have it
As for simulation sickness with tablets in moving vehicles, that's not just technology. I've had it from reading books, or anything that involves looking in one place for an extended period of time.
I was going to say this, but yes, it's true. In a car, if you are looking down at a book, every sense in your body is telling you you're moving, but your eyes just see pages, and you get a reversal of the inner ear conflict mentioned here.
So yeah, testing for simulation sickness on a screen needs to be done and considered separately between moving vehicles and sitting in a fixed spot.
I was wandering about that, because whenever I look at a screen or book for about an hour or so, I just feel all queasy in my stomach.
Harry McCusker it’s called motion sickness
I am a programmer and I am used to keeping looking at the screen for an extended period of time (10+ hours) sometimes. But whenever I play any FPS games, I get thie sickness within 10-15 minuets of playing.
Books, gameboy/DS, tablets, at my brother next to me, all things that werent staring out of the window made me car sick
Bobbing is stupid and shouldn't exist from the start. I mean, when you walking or running, your vision still stable, because your eye still focus on what your are looking.
Bobbing mean your eye can't move at all, and you have to move your head just to look at something, so when your head move you vision move. That is the unrealistic/stupid game system, that just look cool but unnecessary and only cause problem.
Games that handle it well will change both the position and angle of the camera, so the center of the screen will stay focused on the same spot.
Noah Weisbrod I was gonna say that! :(
Deman Dema Well I think that bobbing is nice and adds to the realism of the game, besides is kind of difficult to program, but yea it should include the option for turning it off.
Gecko o it's absolutely not hard to program.
Cow Norris Depends on the engine... For me it's easy too, but you know... I also think it's nice!
for any game locked at an fov lower than 90: please dont
One thing that helps a lot of people with motion sickness is ginger. It's been shown to have better results than over-the-counter medication, and should have fewer side effects. I like crystallized ginger, but that's a bit strong for many people. Ginger tea or ginger ale should work just as well.
I was just going to suggest that! I use ginger on every road trip I take, otherwise I can't read or draw without being ill. In haven't been sick playing games in a while, but if it happens I'm certainly going to try ginger for that too.
+Charles Griswold lol I just posted it along with how Mythbusters used it. :)
+Charles Griswold Ginger suppresses the vomit reflex, which is why it helps with a LOT of situations that make you sick to your stomach. I'm guessing that's also the reason to avoid caffeine. Not only is caffeine itself not too easy on the stomach, a lot of things it comes in (coffee, tea, a lot of sodas) aren't very easy even without caffeine. So, I'm guessing it doesn't hit the inner ear as much as the inner stomach.
Chewing gum works awesome.
+Charles Griswold i personally didnt find ginger all that helpful, granted i was dealing with bvvp vertigo and a MUCH MUCH MUCH more severe level then just a little motion sickness (i mean losing conciousness, vomiting about 100 times an hour litterally) sweating and extreme spinning (like me walking 10 feet feels like a mile it was horrible). if i felt it was going to kick in i would take bonine. that stuff is a life saver (the chewable tablets). seriously that was the only thing that helped. dramamine didn't help all that much for me, but if you want something POTENT. bonine.
Chewing Gum/chewing sweets is actually really good if you experience motion sickness.
Shari K. I wish i could, i have braces so i have rules like i can't Chew gum
Will betel nut do?
Oh, gotta try that out
Does anyone feel a sense of amazing peace that the guys from Extra Credits are wholeheartedly reinforcing the games that we all love? I have pointed people with amazingly biased opinions that videos games are "the spawn of Satan" or something of the like over to Extra Credits and they have completely back flipped on their opinion of them. Thank you guys for doing all the amazing work in just bringing the bright side of the things we all love with all of our hearts. Thank you so very very much.
So you're saying Totalbiscuit had a reason to ask for FOV sliders this whole time ?! THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING.
Yup, as someone who plays a LOT of FPSes on PC (since the days of Wolf3D, DOOM & RoTT), one of the first things I do is check and test what different FOV settings look like in the game.
For me, anything about 90-120 degrees is fine though.
He mentioned it a few times himself. I know he has specifically referred to Simulation Sickness at least once. It really doesn't help if it feels like you're playing while wearing blinders, pretty frequently. And there is one example of a game (Not a full release thing) that had an FoV so narrow that watching a youtube video of someone else playing made me feel ill.
Ah , I completely understand why , it was more of a funny remark than anything :P
Just thought I should point out that I'm not trying to be rude or anything if anyone gets that Idea , but it seems like he's the only person to ever mention FOV over every other youtuber.
I want to say that you should not play in the dark. Your eyes won't know how to properly dilate due to the brightness of the screen and the darkness of the room. This can lead to headaches and such. Dim the lights, don't turn them off.
if youre constantly focusing on the game, your eyes will focus on the brihghtness of the screen
Ive tried playing with no lights before, and it hurt my eyes and gave me a headache. Would NOT recommend doing that.
Owen McGrath
Now see you'd think that, but that is incorrect. I think it makes perfect sense. Why do you think theater's no longer turn off the lights all the way, they just dim them? It's the same principle.
TheDylan10123 That's pretty much the full experience, some can even get nauseated and pass out. Frankly, it's like simulation sickness, lel. For me personally, my eyes get real tired and start to hurt and burn. Then the headache kicks in.
I don't suffer from simulation sickness, at least I don't think I do but playing in the dark sickness, YUP.
I've googled and googled for YEARS on this topic and this is the first time I find something precise about it. Thanks.
Holy crap, this works!
I turned the FOV all the way up in BioShock Infinite, and it did wonders! I could spend the whole day playing it, whereas before I could barely play 20 minutes at a time. I finally beat the game thanks to this! =D
to bad most fps do not offer the FOV slider. Which is something that is a must. I do not understand why fps companies do not add this in.
I don't think sim-sickness by tablets and vehicular travel are derived specifically from using mobile devices. I often experienced nausea as a kid when reading books in a moving car. Your body is affected by the vehicular motion, but no visual stimuli confirm the momentum. The solution was simply to lift your gaze and watch the road for a while. It's the same thing, but the other way around - the "sim" says I'm NOT moving, but in reality, I am. Thus, sadly, it's not much you can do about it other than to slowly acclimatize.
Agreed. My family often when on road trips where we'd be in the car for 5-8 hours a day. I loved to read as a kid, but I'd have to take breaks because I got carsick so easily. We always had Gravol in the car just in case. I've grown out of it for the most part, but winding roads still make me queasy.
All in all it's probably a good thing I didn't have a Gameboy at the time.
I’ll be honest with you, I still experience this as an adult. Regardless of what I’m doing, playing games like Minecraft or going for even a one hour car trip made me sick to nausea. When travelling I always have my music in my ears and take travel sickness medication (ginger tablets) before I travel. As for the games...I just don’t plat them, which means my gaming expertise is limited to RPG and puzzle games.
this is a great video. ive always gotten made fun of because im of the small percentage that cannot fully acclimate. ive always gotten it but not with every FPS just certain ones. some people have a hard time accepting that games can make you sick. its a very real problem. more devs should consider.
the most important ones ive found are to limit playtime in games or areas of games that make you sick (the driving sequences in Half Life 2, i cant play in a single sitting). but also those frequent breaks should be much longer than the time you play so if you play for 20 minutes you should break for an hour or two. it sounds harsh but its much harsher to get sick. you also shouldnt break when you start feeling the oncoming effects. stop before then. 20 minutes is usually a good time to start from and tweak it as need be.
the other big is the FOV setting. i know these are both mentioned in the video but they help greatly. also not as important but higher frames per second can help. if they are too low it can exacerbate a weird FOV.
My mother gets simulation sickness with 3D games. It's kind of a shame since she really enjoys playing games but with the rise of 3D in games that became less of an option for her.
She still has games to play (mostly puzzle games), though, but seeing her frustration as the games that were becoming popular were ones that made her ill to play. :(
@@DudeTheMighty you just have to move in life and do other things besides playing video games
@@DudeTheMighty late reply but maybe she could play 2D indie games.
They are also great and doesn't Tigger sickness.
Like hollowknight, dead cell etc
Also I recommend try turning down your bass a lot. It could be the cause of nausea. I realised this when listening to loud bass-heavy music in while sitting at a restaurant (ie no motion or screen at the time). According to google other people also claim to experience bass-induced nausea. Worth a shot if you're not sure what the cause is.
Hope this helps someone :)
+Tammy Nieuwoudt Yeah, kind of puts a dent in the "wind power will save us theory" given that they produce a lot of low frequency sounds. There are a bunch of studies going on right now on people at various distance from wind power farms and they results so far are interesting and now in favor of wind power.
This is both my favorite episode of this series and the first one I watched when a friend of mine introduced this TH-cam channel to me and let me know that it wasn't weird that I kept getting dizzy while playing some games :)
You guys are awesome
I've always thought I was weird for having to deal with migraines whenever I play a new FPS game and I have to constantly play in order to get rid of that sickness. This helps a bunch!
the optimal FOV setting in most games is 90, and it's about as close as the real human eye's FOV as possible. Any wider and you're essentially placing eyes facing forward on the sides of your head, like a bird. Any shorter and you're essentially giving yourself tunnel vision.
Just a tip. Most FPSes are hard locked at 60, and it bugs the crap out of me. 90 is the optimal setting.
Yeah locking these things became a habit in game development when last gen consoles needed fps because of there very bad hardware. It's unacceptable these days and i'm hoping it becomes a normality to have your games have fov of 90.
Real life fov is about 180. Optimal fov can be solved with trigonometry and it depends on screen size and how close you are to it. 90 is good for pc gamers for the most part who sit really close to their monitor, but if you are playing on a tv far away, 60 can actually be more comfortable.
Lol 90, really? Lol I always jack it to max OTL
I always put it to the max cause it is the advantage of seeing your surrounding.
I wouldn't say 90 is the optimum, I much prefere something around 105.
So I'd really like the default set to around 90, because that is definatly what most people are used to and will set anyways.
Just give us the option to go up and down from there since 90 is the sweetspot and people like to differ from that.
So I always find it diapointing when the FOV only goes from 60-90 instead of more of a 75-115 or something.
Thank you very much, i've been trying to find answers for this illnes for a long time from family and friends but then i searched it online and here it is, tnx u very much i hope i won't be ill anymore of screens!
This channel is seriously under-subscribed. There's much to learn even if youre not a developer.
My hubby suffers from simulation sickness. At least now we can put a name to it other than "motion sick during game time." So, thanks guys!! I know this is one of your old videos but still!
He has many of the symthoms you describe and has an extra tip to dampen them: HEAT! When we have been playing a game where he normally gets nausious, a contributing factor has been the heat and incidently the humidity.
I hope it can be added to the list of "what to think of if I suffer from simulation sickness."
Once again, thanks guys :)
Just want to say, my girlfriend has really bad simulation sickness, like to the degree where if she watches me play Portal she gets motion sick. She found this episode very relevant to her, and she appreciates this advice. Thanks guys!
Developers, LET US CHANGE THE FOV, DAMMIT.
A tip for people messing with FOV - The most natural FOV for your setup is going to be the angular size of your screen. Obviously, that's going to be very hard to measure, because most of us don't think of size that way, but that's what the number means. Console games seem to standardize at about 75, which works well for the kind of play distance you're normally working with (4-6 feet from a 3-4 foot widescreen).
Badly ported cross-platform games often leave that setting where it is for the PC release. Thing is, you're not much more than a foot from your screen. The monitor takes up FAR more of your field of vision. Most of the recommendations for PC gaming suggest around 90-95 for normal play. (Hardcore gamers will say crank it way up, because having a higher FOV lets you see further to the sides, which can be important in high level play (I've seen one demo of a setup that showed 360 degree FOV, where a character moving off the side of one side of the tri-screen immediately appeared on the other.), but that's EXTREMELY disconcerting when you're not used to it.
If your view of the game feels kinda like tunnel vision (if you don't know what I mean, it's not easy to induce safely - it's caused by concussions, insufficient air intake (asthma attack, in my case) and other such things that you really don't want to try), your FOV is too low. If you seem to have a fisheye effect (google the term; it's done deliberately at times for effect), the FOV is too big.
(Personally, I really like it when console games give you an FOV modulation too. I've heard console side people argue that video options are the result of a dev team that failed to reach a decision as to what optimal performance is, but for things like FOV, that's entirely BS. FOV is, to the normal player, defined by the size of one's display and the shape of one's gaming environment. You're not going to get it right for everyone. (Especially not when people like me scavenge weird display adapter collections so we can pipe our entire console collections into our PC monitors' other display options.)
I've never experienced sim sickness, but I do get sickness trying to use devices in moving cars for any length of time. I always got that same sickness when I was younger trying to read (analogue) books in the car as well. I believe most would call this motion sickness rather than sim sickness.
Marshal Walker Sim sickness is the same experience as motion sickness
Thank you for this video. I had never had game motion sickness until tonight, and my game Identity V is pretty good with me on my phone, but tonight before my nausea I had a lot of caffeine, I was jumping up and down my stairs, and had a bright light on in my room conflicting my screen brightness. I laid down and turned off the light, giving myself peace and watching this vid. It helped.
Being a frequent sufferer of this, really glad you shed some light
I found it very interesting that I experienced simulation sickness with I watched by brother played Metroid Prime. Because if I was playing the game for myself, I could go for hours and not feel a thing. Its more than just the content on the screen and the environment of the room.
I found that since I was not playing and in control, my eyes would strain themselves more to keep focused on objects that I didn't know were going to shift perspective (because I was not in control of the view). When I was in control of playing however, my eyes would not try to focus on a small detail and keep track of it while it moves.
We can try to not focus on any item in particular when the camera is moving about. Instead try to intake it all as a big picture and focus on stationary things such as the gun the player is holding.
Hope we can elaborate more on some of these findings.
The only games I've noticed this in recently is Racing Games. Because of the crazy hi res backgrounds, extra animations going on, and obnoxious motion blur I can never accelerate to full speed without completely losing my bearings and crashing into walls I couldn't see until it was too late. It happened to me around the PS3 era, games just put the camera too close to the vehicle for me and I can never see what's going on in the distance and react to it in time.
This helped my dad a lot. Thanks!
After a severe concussion I had when I was younger, I started having really bad bouts of vertigo. One thing that helped immensely was playing a game that had an intense 1st person experience. This reduced my nausea and kept me from rolling all over the floor. For some reason being able to put my conscious perspective somewhere other than in my own messed up head helped. Video games are now my go-to remedy for vertigo, much more agreeable than prescription medication ^-^
Ten years later and I'm still sending this video to people. I've mostly gotten over my simulation sickness (thanks Slime Rancher!) But it's still important!
I've never experienced simulation sickness but i've played video games regularly since I was about 4 years old, so I guess I'm used to it.
Try a virtual reality game, if you ever get the chance. It just occurred to me that that could be a major problem that's keeping VR from getting to the shelves.
I've never have this happen to me, but recently I've noticed that I can't play games in the car anymore because it makes me feel sick. I find that odd since when I was younger I didn't, or at least not as much, but you said it gets better over time.
I've seen videos on why we get motion sickness in cars, and it seems to be the exact same problem, or technically the exact opposite; in a car, your eyes say you're sitting still, but your inner ear says you're moving. In a car, motion sickness is probably at its worst since the screen tells you you're moving one way, but the car says you're moving another.
One theory says that we get sick because in nature, your senses not adding up would only be the result of eating something poisonous, so our body makes us try to throw up. I heard that eating ginger can help because it moves digestion along, making us want to throw up less. Thinking about it like that, how to make your body's digestion system not want to throw up as much, could be one way to mitigate the problem.
I think one solution in a car with video games could be to use gyroscopes so that the screen simulates you moving, making both senses add up.
Oddly, I don't get motion sickness from playing video games while sitting down at home, but if I'm in a car playing games, or even reading a book, I do get heavily nauseated.
I think that is because when you're reading or playing games you can kinda see out of the window of the car and that makes your brain think your not moving while movie and that makes you nauseated.
It's the opposite problem. Your brain knows that you're moving but your eyes do not see you move.
This is pretty standard. Your eyes (when reading or gaming on a car) are more or less telling your brain that nothing is moving.
But your balance system in your inner ear is aware of the car's movement, and tells the brain that you are moving.
So given these two conflicting signals, the brain is confused and you get sick. The details aren't all nailed down yet, but that's the gist of it.
I think the actual reason for feeling/being sick is a defence mechanism against poison. The fact that what your eyes are seeing does not match with what your inner ear is detecting would have historically been a clear indication that your inner ear or sight is faulty and in-case this is due to something you ingested, the vomit reflex is induced to some degree.
Alcohol (a poison from your body's perspective) actually enters your inner ear thus throwing off it's calibration as it has a different density to the natural liquid present there. I'd guess other poisons also have this effect so it's a good enough indicator of being poisoned for the body to risk dehydration.
this video made my life easier. I've been playing games for years and love playing them but I get simulation sickness very often and it ruins the experience for me and often forces me to put games down and not come back to them for a long time. I really hope these tips will make it easier for me
I am FPS veteran, but FOV under 80 can make me feel dizzi, FOV 90 and higher solves the problem for me.
Jan Škopek Oh gosh, same here! Actually, it's even worse for me and it has to be between 100-120 FOV. I remember getting terrible headaches and almost throwing up while playing Half-Life 2 until I found out I had to change the FOV.
Dekubud Yeah, FOV slider should be definite must have for any FPS :).
Now I wonder, can simulation sickness also be caused by the camera or player character moving too fast?
yes, I haven't felt simulation sickness with any game until I played fallout 4 and half life. when I look around quickly in Fo4, I got some nausea, same with moving very fast in half life. though that might be because of the sharp turns in that game coupled with the speed making it a bit jittery. but my personal anecdotes are nothing close to definitive science. just a thought
i think so my cousin could not play more that a minute or 2 of turok without needing to vomit and the main theme of that game was how fast and smoothly your character could move
The Duck that's a big part of it. I always turn the x and y sensitivity all the way down and it helps somewhat.
it depends, sometimes yes, it has a lot to do with the speed of turning the camera, (even looking to other people play) for example i can't play outlast for more than 10min without felling like trowing up, part is in the need to look around you, and even behind you so fast, but the other part comes from motion blur, turning off that blur (in games that allow it) can drastically help with the time i can bare the sickness, combine with less sensitive controllers and the correct light adjustment i can bare to play a lot of games. (also been playing games for all my life, 22yo here, and the sickness has been only getting worse with the developing of more realistic graphics and movement)
Yes it can definitely. I'm personally fine most of the time no matter what games, but I've had games which had rubberbandy external cameras which lagged way too much behind the player's movement and it made me extremely sick.
There's like an uncanny valley of camera motion speed, either make it slow enough so that you can look away for a second and still know where you are or make it so fast that it is interpreted by the brain as a "movement".
As disorienting it can be to have a fully stiff camera in for example Rocket League, it is MUCH worse is you have lagging one that is slower than your perception can handle and forces your brain to wait for input to figure out what's going on.
That's atleast how these feel to me, I know that something fast happened but the camera is too slow to keep up and trying to keep up to that fast event with the slow input desyncs my brain and makes me sick.
Actually thinking about Rocket League, I'm getting slightly sicklish when I turn off the ball cam, my settings are probably just bad but that camera is a little too stiff.
And no matter what: looking around motion blur sucks, the one from being in a fast car for example can be ok if not done overkillish, but blur from just looking around; that's something that should be put under penalty.
Playing F Zero on the game cube in a moving car was a poor choice.
You had a game cube in your car?!
***** The things you can do with a power converter.
*adds to check list* I haven't even thought about that as I didn't get any simulation sickness during that(or phone VR(rift maybe a little but it was also augmented and not adjusted)/ playing in a car/motion controls in a car(which actually was pretty fun for me)). I'm curious about this as I don't really know how to handle it in making games if I don't know the major trouble points.
Oh no, I can't even watch movies or read a book in a moving car!
I get simulation sickness (ie, get dizzy) when watching 1st person gameplay in the morning if i haven't eaten breakfast yet. Otherwise, I can mostly handle it just fine. Too narrow FOV can make my head spin after a while, though, regardless of my hunger/nutrition levels.
Then again, I also get motion sickness when riding a car (not when driving, though) and on airplanes. So despite me having been a gamer for over 20 years, I suppose I may have been prone to this from the very beginning.
Thank you so much! I never knew why playing these games made my head hurt. I love gaming culture and all the tropes and memes. I love the lore and ideas behind games like WoW, but it hurt too much to really get immersed. I felt bummed out about not being able to play with my gamer friends, but that can change now that I know what I have.
YES!! Thank you! The few times I have heard people mention video games and nausea, somebody says, "Oh, you just haven't played enough games." I have played plenty of games. I don't get motion sickness. But the bloody bobbing thing gets me everytime! Well, that and rapid changes in what I'm looking at in a first person game, but spinning around makes me nauseous so it makes sense that the same would happen in games.
Screen bob should not be in video games anyways. Not only does it irritate simulation sickness, but it's really annoying even for those who don't suffer from simulation sickness, and it doesn't aid in the immersion of the games.
I disagree, this might just be me but whenever I've had screen bobbing off it gives me more sickness than screen bobbing alone ever has.If I were to walk in a straight line in real life the world wouldn't stay still as I move forward so I wouldn't expect it to if I were in a game. I'd say that contributes greatly to the immersion in games.
Although I do understand why the screen bobbing would bother someone to the point of sickness, I %100 disagree with the notion of exiling the feature in games. Maybe a compromise would be to have the option between screen bobbing or not required before playing a game with any new character or save as well as being able to toggle it at any time!
I agree with Drake!
I personally love head bobbing because it makes me feel a lot more immersed than without it! It replicates natural movement and without it it feels like moving on rails and THAT´s what we people who don´t suffer from simulation sickness call annoying!
Head bob should be in every first person video game! Period.
I however can live with the option to turn it off even though it gives the people that turn it off a slight advantage over the ones who don´t...but if I personally had to chose as a designer between head bobbing always on or always off, I´d say screw the minority, screen bobbing FTW!
Making it optional is the best compromise you can get, deal with it!
Nice opinion, I'm glad its just that, your opinion, because I happened to like Head bobing in video games. It adds to the imersion, your character feels like he's walking instead of gliding or skating through perfectly even planes. This is just my opinion and my personal preference though. I would advise you to either turn off the head bob in the games that have it or play older games that don't have it.
It's fine when it isn't over exaggerated. I can't even play Doom or Quake just because of the extreme head bob in older FPS games. It's not as noticable in newer titles like BF, though Dishonored gave me some headaches for the first hour.
I have never gotten Sim Sick. It's weird. For as long as I can remember I've never gotten it. Infact I've never gotten motion sick. Huh. Veiw bob is very important for some games in my opinion. Imagine playing WOT or WT-GF mode without the Sniper Veiw moving up and down as the tank goes over hills. For me that half the imersion.
Afonso Wiborg I completely agree with you. I don't play many FPSs but the veiw bob is amazing. Also in Warframe, HAWKEN and some others I love the camera bob I belive you get, though I forget, of the camera being locked to the character's head from a distance. It just makes you feel like your right there.
Dramamine: Because you can't get simulation sickness when you're in a medically-induced coma.
I have an odd form of strabismus where I can control the independent movement of one eye when I so choose, but often times my eye can move away if I begin to space out or receive a lot of visual input at once. This happens especially when I'm playing first-person games, so I can't really play FPS games like Halo or CoD. When my eye moves away, I suddenly only have the depth perception of one eye, so I keep running into walls and it's difficult for me to move my character properly. I try to avoid playing those games for that reason, but I'm often invited to play them and people keep saying I just haven't gotten good at the game yet. I know how my body functions and it's much more difficult than it sounds. I do much better playing third-person platformers and 2D sidescrollers because it doesn't cause as much visual confusion and my eyes don't separate.
It kind of sucks, but hey, I'm freaking awesome at Sonic and Mario because of it.
It's so frustrating to get this sickness in certain games. I will try some of the tips in this video, it's much appreciated. I've been gaming my whole life and still deal with it.
Thank you so much for the video, i will deff be trying these out :)
Sim Sickness really blows... Not only does it prevent me from playing FPS games (like HALO, COD and Farcry) but I can't even watch others play without getting nauseous :(
Jayanne Torpy
I found that if I keep a small fan blowing on me, it helps considerably. If you're like me, simulation sickness will follow a rise in body temp. I get hot, then I get sick. If I cam keep from getting hot, then I keep from getting sick
In regards to number seven, in place of a manufactured pill you can have ginger pills or just have a little ginger--that seems to do wonders. I have a close friend with severe seasickness and so long as he has that stuff in his system he seems to be alright.
[Gaming Intensifies]
I NEVER feel motion sick, unless gaming in a car. It's not something new with tablets, many kids are/were unable to experience those legendary "long car ride gaming sessions".
+ZobmieRules Same here but im on the school bus when i play games it feels okay
+ZobmieRules Trying to a screen or read a text when it is jostling around makes me nauseous. Maybe if I had some kind of fancy shock absorption platform to place the device on that wouldn't happen, but I don't feel like taking a seat out to rig something like that up.
+ZobmieRules In my case, it has to do with how much the entire device's screen moves (compared to my own perspective) when I'm trying to play anything. So any ground vehicle causes me to get motion sick. In planes or some buses that don't move nearly as much I can play just fine. I never played any games in 3D so I don't know if Oculus can cause any simulation sickness on me. Considering how I get sick sometimes watching 3D movies on the cinema, I guess that first time I try I'll get simulation sick.
+ZobmieRules I found playing a game like mario kart helps.
I think it's connected to poor oxygen in cars, not the fact that they moving.
I've actually found the opposite to be true regarding caffeine. I don't regularly get simulation sickness, but it still comes on occasionally if I've been playing all day. One of the things that actually helps get rid of the headache is a nice cup of earl grey, or any other caffeinated tea I happen to have on hand.
thank you guys for making these videos I've wanted to get into game making and just finished your "game design" playlist, it was VERY informative and has really helped me to understand games as a whole. again, thanks!
The only thing that I feel as in "Simulation sickness" is headaches. Fallout 4's FOV was god awful, it was like looking though a pool noodle. Then the other game, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter gave me headaches, I really didn't understand it. I increased the FOV, dimmed screen and took frequent breaks - I like puzzle games so I gave it many chances before I simply uninstalled and called it a headache simulator.
+IIIPlasmaIII This is why I hate people who say "FOV adjustments in games hinder difficulty". While the argument may be valid to a degree, what happens if adjusting the FOV doesn't do anything to a game's difficulty other than being able to tolerate the damn game that gives headaches because its FOV is garbage? Like, shit, Warframe's default FOV gave me more of a headache than Fallout 4's FOV, but shit... atleast that one didn't need tinkering in the .ini folder to adjust the FOV.
I'm the same, I get a thumping headache and pain behind my eyes. I've only noticed it since the start of the current generation though, and almost entirely with driving games. The worst offenders in my library are Mad Max and Project Cars... For some reason I can't go more than about 30 minutes on either game. It almost feels like I can't quite focus on the screen properly, as if I've gone cross-eyed or something. GTA V does it a little bit too, but it's only slight.
This episode was brought to you by TotalBiscuit.
TB does tend to harp on about this kind of thing, with good reason. I actually suffer from simulation sickness and can't play any first person game with an FoV of less than 90 (100 is optimal)
You joke about his simulation sickness but I literally can't play Bioshock because the devs didn't put in an FoV slider. I spent the first hour of the game focusing on not puking up my guts and as a result I wasn't even able to figure out the game's basic functions.
RIP
Probably his biggest legacy.
Is this a joke I'm not getting
I've played games all my life and I still get horrible simulation sickness in _certain_ games and not others. Example: Counter Strike, a FPS, has never given me any form of sickness and I've played it for hours... but Left 4 Dead made have to lay down for 3 hours after 5 minutes of gameplay.
My formula for success: Remove head bob. Remove motion blur. Turn *down* FoV (maybe I'm further away from the monitor than most? Playing a game with fisheye warping just exacerbates the problem), keep the frame rate as high as possible.
The only one that gave me issues was the original Unreal Tournament.
I have to turn up fov, which is what I've read generally fixes it. It's weird that turning it down helps you.
Games that have a lot of wandering in tight quarters seems to be worse for me. Skyrim on consoles I can't even watch, but at 90 fov on pc is fine. Portal was awful but I made it through it. Portal 2 I lasted 15 minutes and was out of commission for the day.
Only game that has ever made me feel sick in any way was Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Vietnam. Something about the graphics makes me dizzy and unable to focus my eyes. Never touched it since.
Never had issues, know ppl who have. One of the leaders of a clan I played with in UT99 had wicked issues with the latter versions of UT and Doom 3.
Ps - Hetfield is working heavily in Oculus dev now and has been telling me all kinds of fun motion sickness during dev. Maybe I'm in the wrong business ;)
The first 3 suggestions are the most useful. Even though I've been playing FPS games since Doom in the '90s, when I was playing through Serious Sam 3 a few years back I had this pretty bad. They had a forced view bob with the sledgehammer animations which wasn't toggleable at the time and the setting in many of the maps was bright desert that required a fair bit of dialing back on the brightness, the default FOV definitely felt way off and needed to be adjusted. Another consideration I didn't hear brought up here was that of frame rate, unsteady frame rate that frequently drops below 30 FPS can really exacerbate things when mixed with the above problems. I also feel that a lot of the fancy nonsense devs love throwing into games probably add to the problem as well, things like motion blur, depth of field, bloom, etc. Disabling or turning down most of that crap is almost always one of the first things I do with a new 3D game.
I wasn't really brought up on FPSes, so I find it as no surprise that playing Mirror's Edge for the first time (not even a year after its release) had me needing a break after half an hour, if not less. It's gotten better with that game, and I hadn't had many issues until I was helping develop a game for the Oculus Rift a few months ago. Not only did I exhibit the same motion-sick symptoms (I'd also started getting increasingly semi-regular bouts of vertigo within those years), but I also felt super claustrophobic after a while. If it happens again, I'll be sure to try the prevention methods!
Also, one of my colleagues has similar symptoms of a worse magnitude, so I'll be sure to send this their way. Thank you for making this!
When they got talking about tablets and vehicles, that got me thinking about my motion sickness with reading.
Though I'm wondering if that may be considered Simulation Sickness, and I'll tell you why:
I have a tendency to get so deep into reading that I don't even see the page anymore... In my mind, I actually see the character or see through the character's eyes. So, according to my consciousness, I'm actually in a different world doing something completely different.
Now, when I can see the page, I think it happens because I'm focusing on something static while I can see movement out of my peripheral vision.
When I really get into what I'm reading, what I see in my head, doesn't line up with the movement my body feels outside of the book. There's a disconnect between the movement I see, and the movement I feel. Naturally, my brain can't figure it out, and I get nauseous.
Anyway, I think that could possibly provide some insight as to Simulation Sickness...
I do the same thing and don't see the page but a whole 'nother world
But (this is kind strange) sometimes in my head I see the characters in a very realistically shaded and we'll drawn but it's a cartoon. But other times I see them as if they were in lifeve action
Games these days have less and less options when it comes to FOV (limited or fixed to 70), screen Bobbing (not an option) etc. because of consoles. Why don't devs get that they're essential to have even _on_ consoles? :/
Mtaalas Higher FoV means they have to render more thing on screen (so more fps drops, especially when games are already getting below 1080P on PS4 and X1) and most ppl dont get the effect since they are far away from the screen. However, Screen bob should be an option for all fps.
i've been gaming since i got my first game boy (now i'm 25) and suddenly a few months ago, out of nowhere, playing games for a few minutes or watching a long movie would make me feel like throwing up.
it took me some time to realise what's causing it because i'd play some every day after work/in my free time and i'd feel shitty everyday. it doesn't just go away after an hour, i can play for half an hour and be sick for 2 days. if i ignore it and keep playing for 2-3 days straight if there's a new game that i like i become really sick.
it's weird that it happened so suddenly. i was hearing about ppl complaining and especially about 3D movies etc, that they're making them sick and i was like "wtf is wrong with them?". i haven't found anything that actually works except not playing/watching for days.
Amfibios I have problem with specific games.... Minecraft and oblivion(i love oblivion so much but i just can not play it :( ) this has always been happening
Putin 2.0 Oblivion and Minecraft can both be played third person. Maybe try it that way
I actually started playing in third person... theb switched still same probthougg
Ok, this sucks.... I kinda ran out of ideas. Sorry.
The dimmer screen has more to do with reducing the saturation of the color pallet. Sim sickness caused by vestibular disconnect (not postular instability) becomes increasingly pronounced with additional sensory input.
What I've found interesting is that with the vive, people who usually have motion sickness during games have no effects at all, probably because all the movement in the game corresponds with your actual head and body movement. The only exception to this seems to be games where you move with the controller rather than your body, because that creates the same disconnect as the playing with the oculus rift
The thing is that "third person perspective" is in fact more close to the real first person perspective. Since when we do something, we imagine the motion of our own body and not just what happens in front of the eyes. So while what our eyes see are important, we also see ourselves as a "third person" when we perform actions, and that is usually what people call hand-eye coordination.
Meaning first person games are really nothing more than players controlling an eyeball and a comically short pair of arms with limited range of motion, so it really isn't so much "simulation sickness" than it is sickness resulted from poor simulation.
I get this more often in third person games than first.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I find that a bit hard to believe.
A friend of mine who use to suffer from simulation sickness felt the effects way more with first person than third. Even I feel more immersed when it's first person (done well) than third.
When playing from a first
person perspective and I happen to fall from a very high place I don't feel sick, but I feel a slight rush as if I'm falling. It's usually brief as I realize it's just a game and I'm not actually falling. When it's third I feel very little, if anything at all. I see the character fall, fly, jump, etc. and I am well aware that it's not me, it's a character I'm playing. If I feel anything it's probably because the environment feels real enough to make me imaging that I'm right there with the character I'm playing as.
Those are my experiences. I realize other people will have different ones so I accept yours as a possibility, but I just can't relate.
I wish I had seen this video before playing Portal. Going through my favorite game while worrying I might puke was not ideal :(
Literally couldn’t get through portal because every 15 minutes I felt like I was going to lose my lunch
Played Fallout 4 for about 5 hours today and got a major migraine. I definitely need to limit or spread out the time that I play.. it's just so damn addictive.
+Mia Giordano It sounds more like eye strain and there are some glasses that might help.
+Eldergeek I wear glasses for my eyes. My eyesight might have something to do with it though.. thanks!
You're welcome and happy gaming. :)
Thanks for the help. This may sound weird but I was creating a character in 3D Dot Game Heroes and just looking at different parts of the screen made me queasy which is strange because I've never had this before in a video game. But thanks to this I haven't been feeling sick anymore! Thanks a ton!
One thing that help me with simulation sickness, this is just personal experience, was moving a little with the game. I don't mean running but just a slight adjustment to your head angle and bobbing it with jumping helped a lot for me. Maybe it'll help you.
But Inspector Gadget told me NEVER to watch TV with the lights off
Normal people: have this issue*
Me a Minecraft player:
Shame
I’m a minecraft player and STILL get motion sickness mygad
I can’t play Minecraft because of this 😭😢
Sunflower Thank god I’m not alone! I was playing Minecraft yesterday and nearly vomited 🤮
absolutely nobody same :(
@@Pink_pr1ncess YOU 2?!
"across the world" with a picture of the US with all the rest covered in clouds. Irony meter up to 11.
Im so glad that I'm one of those people that apparantly have no problem at all with games. I never felt motion sickness or anything of that sort and i can play for however long i want without my eyes hurting.
Now I had answers.. I thought I'm just the only one having this issues..
Playing Minecraft, Roblox and Medal of Honor for a couple of minutes makes me sick
In my experiences, the Steam/PC-version of "Borderlands" felt extremely claustrophobia indusing due its extremely low field of vision...
I personally enjoy playing with dim lighting instead of dark; light enough to read books and other document, but dim mostly with warm slightly "durty" color and creamy-gently colored tapestry.
I also use "f.lux"-software to automatically adjust my computer monitors, which I highly recoment to give a try with.
F.lux also makes it way easier to do your evening reading on a computer, too. I use the Linux version on an old laptop with the temperature specified on the command-line at 2000K.
Playing HL2 makes me sick, but I have no problems playings games on my friend's Vive...
???????
Playing HL2 on a monitor means your inner ear doesn't detect acceleration/movement. With todays higher end VR HMDs using sub-millimetre positional tracking your ear detects all the movement your eyes see, so all perception matches up.
When playing VR you actually move, so that's probably why.
i get mild simulation sickness if I play first person games for too long, and sometimes even during assassin's creed games if i run for too long. the worst, of course, is mirror's edge. it was horrible. i could only play for about 20-40 minutes at a time. but then I spent like 5 hours in one sitting playing the time trial mode trying to get the best times and it almost completely went away ahah. tho i don't necessarily recommend dealing it with that way.
***** I think you're missing the point here...
***** really? fuck off.
***** I can't belive I just witnessed that. Please get help.
***** don't be a creepy sexist racist asshat then
Not so much motion sickness but I still get a little bit of vertigo anytime I play Mirror's Edge.
I am not sure why I didn't watch this video sooner! I'm one of those people that gets simulation sickness ALL THE TIME. Which is weird because I've been playing games since I was 7.
Turning off the motion bobbing is a big help, it's something that definitely helps me through Minecraft server parties. I'll try the other ones too, then maybe I'll be able to beat Bioshock.
I'm so glad this video was made, you don't know how much I appreciate it! :) I like to play minecraft with my brothers or by myself sometimes, but i have always gotten a head ache from playing after about 10 minutes, on a scale to 1-10 it would be like a 4 with pain, so its still bareable to play, it just really bothers me. Somethings that I notice that helps me is playing on a smaller screen, when i play with my two brothers, the screen i play on decreases by twice the size it would be on full screen, it helps at least 50% of the pain. Also i would always get head aches when i'm on a device in a moving car, and i found out how to totally prevent getting sick from it. I put a blanket over my head so that i could only see the device and no windows or anything, i got no headaches! I have also got it from playing fallout 4 but i wouldn't feel the affects after at least from two hours from playing, and i love fallout so i am happy for my time i can play before i get a head ache x.x
My wife gets the dizzies when she watches me play FPS games, but she does fine if she's playing one herself.
That's similar to how I can get queasy in a car unless I'm the one driving. I feel it may have an aspect of subconsciously knowing what will happen next (as you're in control) and that helping to mitigate some of the effects.
That makes sense. She has said it's especially bad when she expects me to turn left, but then I turn right. It throws her all out of whack.
Jensaw101 or as mentioned in the video the different level of immersion, which I guess is pretty much what you said but I'm being picky about semantics.
Jensaw101 That's basically it. I believe Extra Credits has an episode that explains that when humans use a tool, our brains stop thinking of it as a separate object that we're manipulating and instead as an extension of our bodies. This likely mitigates the mixed signals your brain gets when apparent visual motion does not match up with experienced motion.
I also got nauseatic watching other people playing fps games.
It's the same thing lol even though this comment is old
Did +Extra Credits make a follow-up yet?
this has been my favorite episode so far
short and sweet, finds a problem, cause and solution, and of course the developre sygesstions
Never had that problem until I played Car Mechanic Simulator 2018. I always felt weird when playing and after playing. Today it's gotten worse. I feel light headed and it's been hours. I stopped playing at maybe 12 am and now it's 4 pm and I still feel sick
Well i just got this motion sickness when i began to play Call of Duty just 1 week ago, never had before.
I don't know if the tip of turning your lights off will work, in my case, I have to put extra bulbs in my room in order to reduce the effects. Also sit farther from the TV and lower the tv volume.
That's the only part of the video that I found strange. If it's a perception problem and a dimmer screen helps, turning the lights off sounds really counter intuitive, as it makes the screen look much more brighter in comparison.
I have no problems with motion sickness, but I found that if I'm going to read a lot from the screen, having the lights on helps me avoid the feeling of my eyes getting tired.
Ginger is a common remedy for motion sickness which is very similar to (if not the same thing as) simulation sickness. Ginger does wonders for simulation sickness and it's good for you.
I suffer from sim sickness with games like the ones mentioned in the video. Shortly after getting Bioshock, I realized I couldn't play the game for more than about 20 min. without feeling terrible. I started eating a slice of ginger before playing, and I could go a full hour without feeling bad. If I wanted to keep going, I'd just eat another slice.
I know the taste can be something to get used to, but adopting this habit will allow any of you who are like me to enjoy every game just like anyone else. Seriously, try it. It works wonders!
+Ramble52 Have you tried ginger ale too? Some health food or organic stores sell some good brands.
I have a hard time playing 3rd person games, I don't know why? 1ST person games I don't have a hard time with because I play with them my whole life, the reason I have a hard time playing 3RD person games is because of those times the camera spaze's, and having to control your camera all the time.
Yes, I feel exactly the same way. The camera movements irritate me and make me want to throw up. All I need is a steady camera and I'm good.
Allegra I know right, and XD
For me, lowering the framerate can ease this too. 60fps games make me more dizzy much quicker than 30. I love it when a game lets you toggle this, although its rare on consoles, since everyone else seems to think 60fps is unsubjectively better.
Kuroi Raion 60 fps is way too low. you really need 120 but some games can get by fine running a little over 60.
Beghty27 I would probably barf at 120
I just had simulation sickness once. Normally I don't go straight to bed after I play a game. Instead, I watch some youtube videos while on bed or couple of episodes of something. One day, after a really long Minecraft session I went straight to bed and I felt a lot of dizziness. Like my brain was expecting my eyes to see the constant movement and change of perspective. It ended after I watched TV for a while. I realized then that I was mitigating that sort of sickness without knowing.
Hmmm, I guess this is why I find first person games disorientating?
Yeah, this might explain my dislike of first person games too. I did already notice I can enjoy a first person game with a wide FoV much more than I can a limited first person game (which is why, FWIW, the first Borderlands was the first FPS I managed to play for more than a few hours).
I've never had any problems with third person games though.
Follow up episode?
:D
I am so glad I dont get simulation sickness. c:
thats cause you played alot of video games when you where kid
*****
Yes, I grew up with n64 games for the most part, no real first person shooters though
uhm...
*****
idk :V
Some people just don't get simulation sickness, just like how some people don't have a gag reflex.
so, I am hard core in the group that both cannot play first person shooters for more than about 30 minutes without feeling incredibly sick, and also the kind of person who plays video games with friends regularly. here is some stuff that helps me, but I cannot speak for everyone: 1, I find my sickness is better in BRIGHT rooms, not dark. being able to clearly see things around the monitor lets my brain realize its not actually moving, but instead is watching something else move. 2, I find the further from the screen I am, the longer it takes to have problems. I set up my computer on my reasonably sized TV on the other side of the room, and I can play for a lot longer before its unbearable. 3, I have found that many developers under accessibility options have started making third person view toggle-able. I wish I could shout this from the rooftops at game designers: THANK YOU FOR THIS, PLEASE EVERYONE DO THIS, IT IS SO INFINITELY HELPFUL. lastly, and again, your mileage may vary, and also this one is impractical in a lot of situations, but if you choose to play games, lower your graphics settings, and lean towards games that don't attempt realism. games like TF2 or Paladins are so much easier for me to play than games like battlefield and Call of Duty, mostly because I think its easier for your brain to recognize that the motion you're seeing isn't real. the same for turning your graphics settings down until the in game graphics look like something made in 2001, again, the terrible quality making it easier for your brain to separate the game motion from the actual world. again, I want to stress that I have no data to back any of this up, this is simply my experience, and I do not intend to claim that this is a universal fix. I just want to share my experience, and maybe some people can benefit
edit: I actually found when using a VR headset to not have the same symptoms. largely, because in that sense, I am actually moving, not just watching something move, and well programmed stuff that has little to no lag between my actual motion and the motion in the game made it easy for me to play for a long time, and makes me hugely excited for more widespread adoption and advancement of VR tech.
Thanks for addressing some possible helpful tips, this affects me really badly. Was watching gameplay videos on my tablet for Overwatch and thought I was gonna be sick my head spun so badly. I checked out Journey, as you suggested, but it also makes me ill. I think it's because most games, including Journey, feature a moving camera instead of a stationary one that changes angle with the tap of a button. Wish I could play more games more often without the problem :(
2:50 20 Minutes???!!! Dahell :D
Arin Hanson
Totalbiscuit
Gibbontake Nice to see you here Gibbon =)
headbobbing and camra shakes seriously needs to go away, or they at least need to put an option to turn it off.
Mine gets so bad that when I was working on a first person game I had to set up a 3rd person camera option for myself when developing. You'd think all the exposure would help, but seems I'm in the group that just can't manage it. :( Glad this video exists though, hopefully some of this stuff works for others.
I was playing Black Ops 3, and now I'm I'm feeling extremely dizzy, I remember feeling the same way when playing Mirror's Edge. Thanks for the video, I hope these tips help me to enjoy FPS games in the future.