Nausea from Virtual Reality

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Sclass
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Nausea from Virtual Reality

Post by Sclass »

Should I stop using my new Oculus Quest? Is this healthy?

I thought I’d dip my feet into virtual racing. It was pretty cheap considering I already had a good PC with a GeForce Nvidia card. I got this wheel and pedal control from Logitech and I used a monitor and it was good fun for a few hundred bucks. Shockingly the game (Assetto Corsa) was only $20. I loaded the (free) Shutoku Revival maps and I was having the time of my life till I decided to try VR.

Then I thought I’d try the quest headset. More immersive experience? Sign me up heck yeah! It seemed like a nice piece of technology for $300.

I put it on and within two minutes I was gagging and dizzy. I mean holding my hands over my mouth trying to keep the barf in. Especially when I brake and accelerate. I tried to tough it out given I’d just spent $300 on this thing. I have to keep my waste basket at arm’s reach where I can grab it without seeing it.

I ride real motorcycles and real cars but I’ve never ever had such intense motion sickness. I put it down yesterday and I still feel a bit unsettled a day later. Just thinking about it makes my head spin.

This happened once while playing Halo (2?) many years ago. I’m not a gamer. I just was trying to see what all the fuss was about with Meta, Unity and Nvidia. I like to try the products I’ve bought stock in. These are making me sick.

Do I keep going and get over it or is there a health risk here? Online searches say tough it out. If you don’t stick with it you’ll never get over it. Is there such thing as “getting my VR legs”? I certainly feel quite awful.

I can return it but I realize if I do that I’ll probably miss out.

ERE Gamers?

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Re: Nausea from Virtual Reality

Post by jacob »

If anecdotal evidence counts, you wouldn't be the first "gamer" to give up VR on that account. Even astronauts take dramamine. Even w/o VR I've found that there are (were, really, as I haven't played much of anything since the early 2000s) games that I simply can not play for more than a few minutes, whereas other games in the same category were just fine for me. No idea why.

However, some argument could be made for "getting your sea legs" essentially breaking or rewiring the connection between eyes and sense of balance. This in turn cause sailors to walk funny when back on land. OTOH, since you're continually switching back and forth and VR is getting increasingly realistic, it might render your sense of balance weaker---you'd start to walk like an old person.

zbigi
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Re: Nausea from Virtual Reality

Post by zbigi »

Sclass wrote:
Tue Jan 11, 2022 2:06 pm
From what I've read, a significant portion of users (10-20% ?) report getting these symptoms from VR.

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Sclass
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Re: Nausea from Virtual Reality

Post by Sclass »

jacob wrote:
Tue Jan 11, 2022 2:26 pm
This in turn cause sailors to walk funny when back on land. OTOH, since you're continually switching back and forth and VR is getting increasingly realistic, it might render your sense of balance weaker---you'd start to walk like an old person.
I didn’t realize sailors walk funny on land. That makes sense. They’ve selectively attenuated some of the sensor inputs on their stability control.

When I think about this I realize it’s all in my mind. The animated view out the windshield of the car simulates braking. I think it brings up the POV and makes it dive a little as you would in a real car when the brakes are applied quickly. The problem is I’m sitting perfectly still in a chair when I see this.

Man my head is still floating.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: Nausea from Virtual Reality

Post by mountainFrugal »

Your inner ear is where most of this is sensed:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-con ... g-20006286
Not getting the body movement feedback while braking is what is causing the disconnect between what you are anticipating given the visual field and lack of feedback from your inner ear fluids remaining still. I have dealt with motion sickness my entire life. It is the worst when I cannot anticipate what direction the forces will be coming from. I can read in the car on a straight highway, but can barely sit in the backseat on curved roads or stop and go traffic. If I am driving this completely goes away because I know exactly what to expect. Same for fast downhill tree skiing or mountainbiking with fast changes in direction, but sometimes I get motion sick watching POV films of the same activities on a flat screen.

Are there easy modes/courses of the game with fewer turns or fast stopping to get used to the disconnect?

Edit: I have played a few games where I was standing up and dodging out of the way of things (Superhot I think?) on a friend's Oculus a few years ago and did not have a problem, but have not tried a racing game.

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GandK
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Re: Nausea from Virtual Reality

Post by GandK »

Me three. I have the same reaction to reading in the car (or even looking at Maps sometimes), to boats, airplane turbulence, you name it.

I really look forward to more AR being around. I think seeing reality in the background will be anchoring for people like us. VR needs work... maybe they'll find a way to [programmatically? mechanically?] compensate for the disconnect between what our eyes see and our inner ear balance mechanism.

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Re: Nausea from Virtual Reality

Post by Jean »

It's funny, in a way, it's the opposite of playing of tour GameBoy while your parents are driving. Walking Silly on Land is temporary. I haven't suffered from motion sickness since childhood, and i have a good sense of balance.

What helps a lot is to have a part of thé inertial référential in your field of view. It might lower thé imersion, but its the best trick when Trying to read on a boat. Don't know if thé option exists on vr headsets. Might bé something to implement.

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Re: Nausea from Virtual Reality

Post by jacob »

Sclass wrote:
Tue Jan 11, 2022 4:01 pm
The animated view out the windshield of the car simulates braking. I think it brings up the POV and makes it dive a little as you would in a real car when the brakes are applied quickly. The problem is I’m sitting perfectly still in a chair when I see this.
This is subtle but maybe subtle differences explain why some games are problematic and others aren't. It may behoove the developers to figure out the nausea inducing realism and simply remove it from the games---so what if the game car doesn't dip like the real car. Of course your solution could be to build in some pneumatics into your chair, which tilts it forward, when such braking occurs :)

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Re: Nausea from Virtual Reality

Post by Tyler9000 »

My only experience with VR was a few minutes of Beat Saber at a party. No issues there, but it could simply be because of the nature of the game and the low exposure time. I do have plenty of experience with motion sickness.

I'm a long-time gamer, but I'm completely incapable of playing first person shooters because they very quickly give me some combination of nausea and a crippling headache. It's awful and completely not worth it. That said, I've found two things that can make it work:

1) My biggest issue is a matter of perspective. For example, when I first tried Borderlands it knocked me out and I figured I'd never be able to play it again. But on a whim, I installed a 3rd party mod that shifts the perspective back a few meters and lets you see the back of your character similar to other RPGs I enjoy. Even though the surrounding environment was identical, it was like night and day and I could play for hours. FWIW, lots of other people report similar experiences and 3rd-person mods are very common requests online. I have no idea why most developers don't include them natively, as it would greatly increase their market.

2) Years later I fired up Borderlands for the first time in a while and started feeling sick even in 3rd person. Eventually I realized that I was playing on a new computer and had neglected to update the in-game video settings. That helped a lot. While I don't completely understand the mechanism, I suspect it has to do with some combination of the refresh rates and the "right" level of realism.

Obviously YMMV, but if you struggle with immersive games you might try those two tricks to see if they help.

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Re: Nausea from Virtual Reality

Post by George the original one »

VR nausea is very common, particularly for racing sims. A few people will adapt, but none who have strong symptoms like you're getting.

Some of the undesirable motion can be eliminated in the graphic options, but because VR is also tied to your head motion, not as much can be eliminated as with flat screens. I steered away from VR because of the unrealistic narrow field of view and have ended up with triple 43" 4k screens.

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Sclass
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Re: Nausea from Virtual Reality

Post by Sclass »

Thanks GTOO.

I’m actually getting used to the VR goggle. It has taken daily sessions for a week but I’m feeling less and less nausea.

I’ve also learned some tricks. I don’t brake as hard as I used to. Not only does it help with the imbalance I feel as the screen pitches forward and back, I think I’ve improved my track times at the same time.

I got a USB 3.0 cable for the visor and that cleaned up the image a lot. The aliasing and stuttering of the image under USB 2 contributed to the nausea. I didn’t realize I needed a new cable with extra connections to get the 3.0 spec to work. So my video is much cleaner.

Finally I started watching tourist videos on the Oculus. Drone footage. Walking tours. Squirrel suit flights. That helped me get used to VR using baby steps. Driving games is jumping into the deep end. It has helped.

Speaking of which I was thinking the travel videos were a good poor man’s exotic vacation. The views using drones are in some ways superior than actually walking around on the guided tours. Thought this could be kind of an ERE thing but maybe a little OT. It doesn’t require barrels of jet fuel to get to the place. The visor is comparatively cheap. It is a different experience and not really comparable to tourism but it is awfully cheap and environmentally friendly. I’ve checked out the Cairo videos, some Russian spots and Venice. Maybe a good comparison is driving a real car vs. the race simulation. They’re not really the same thing but the VR is fun in its own way. It saves a lot of fuel and money compared to the real thing.

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Re: Nausea from Virtual Reality

Post by flying_pan »

It's a common thing, and it seems Sclass is on the right track to alleviate it.

Still, if somebody experiences it, I would recommend to try to get through it first and not discard immediately. I believe it is similar to early 3D games, where people can feel something similar (if any non-gamer people start to play modern fast paced action games, they can feel a bit uneasy). It is more pronounced in VR, though.

So, first, speaking of simracing, I do not recommend to drive rally at first. The surface is usually too uneven, and the idea of rally racing is based on powerslides, so there are more forces in play compared to regular circuit racing. Second, I recommend to go through driving in the first gear only and no hard braking at all. In real world, we get quite a lot of G-forces from sudden braking/acceleration, and that is missing in VR, and our brain does not like it. So, give it time to adjust. You can also put some fans blowing air at you, suck on a piece of ginger, take anti-nausea drugs, and touch floor to "ground" yourself. If you start to feel uneasy, stop playing and get back to it tomorrow, pushing yourself can cause a connection in your brain that "VR==bad", you don't want that.

You can also build your "VR legs" in other games. Start with super comfortable games, like fitness games (Eleven Table Tennis is amazing and completely satisfied my amateur table tennis desires), and get games with some movement. If you do not want to buy anything, I believe Rec Room on Quest 2 is free and people swear by it. Not sure what kind of content is there, but probably you can just move around by yourself. If you have good enough PC, I'd recommend to get Half-Life: Alyx, the most impressive VR game today. It shows what is possible VR and how you can interact with environment (you'll need to wait quite a bit to get it on sale, though).

It might not work out for everybody, but imo VR is a great piece of technology. At minimum, it absolutely surpasses every previous attempt on "interactive fitness", and adds another layer to a lot of racing/flying games.

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Re: Nausea from Virtual Reality

Post by arcyallen »

I haven't tried racing on a VR headset yet and I know I don't need to. It'll do me in. Any first person "running around" game normally makes me sick, and that's not even in VR. And if I try to push through it like you did, I'll be nauseous for hours.

The worst was growing up and not knowing the cause and effect. I remember waking up, playing Doom for a few hours, getting horribly sick and having to call my boss to say I wouldn't be in for my shift...and then going back (covered in sweat) to playing Doom unwittingly. Finally I figured it out a few years later.

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Re: Nausea from Virtual Reality

Post by Scott 2 »

Sclass wrote:
Sun Jan 16, 2022 11:14 pm
I’m actually getting used to the VR goggle. It has taken daily sessions for a week but I’m feeling less and less nausea.
Did you stick with the VR?

I've just picked up an Oculus from my library. Wow does it make me feel sick. And the feeling lingers. I've tried two sessions so far. I'm queasy the rest of the day. It has to go back in a week, but I'm very hesitant to do any more.

My hope was to experience games / art pieces that are only available via VR. Becoming Homeless. Traveling while black. I'm not sure I can take it.

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Re: Nausea from Virtual Reality

Post by bostonimproper »

I’ve heard the Apple Vision Pro is a lot better in terms of the nausea factor, but obviously that doesn’t drop for sale for another year (plus the price is quite a bit steeper).

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Re: Nausea from Virtual Reality

Post by Scott 2 »

Free from the library is a hard price to beat.

I just watched a walk through of the two art pieces on youtube. Even those videos were making me sick. I'm leaning towards not worth it.

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Re: Nausea from Virtual Reality

Post by Slevin »

Oh I have an oculus I got from a buddy who moved. Skyrim (modded) in VR is one of the funnest and most horrifying things I’ve ever experienced. There is no fear I’ve ever experienced like a 10+ft spider running at me in a dark underground tunnel in VR. The nausea doesn’t like “go away” for me completely (only played a week or two in a row) but I got used to it and would only get a little nauseous and could deal with it for a little while at a time (2-3 hours at max).

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Sclass
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Re: Nausea from Virtual Reality

Post by Sclass »

I gave up on the driving sim. I got tired of heaving into the waste basket and then feeling sick for hours. It is the worst seasickness I’ve ever felt. I’d feel numb for hours.

I have continued to watch tourism videos. Those are pretty mild as far as the motion sickness goes. They are so cheap compared to going to the real location I actually enjoy them. Mainly because I am cheap and hate wasting two barrels of jet fuel to go around the planet. Yeah it isn’t the same as a real walking tour but you cannot beat the experience for the price. The Oculus cost me $299. I’ve already watched the VR of dozens of touristy spots all over the place. I don’t have to get a visa, hotel, vaccinations or pickpocketed. It is a tradeoff for convenience and price.

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Re: Nausea from Virtual Reality

Post by zbigi »

Sclass wrote:
Sat Jun 24, 2023 12:54 am
The Oculus cost me $299. I’ve already watched the VR of dozens of touristy spots all over the place. I don’t have to get a visa, hotel, vaccinations or pickpocketed. It is a tradeoff for convenience and price.
I'm even cheaper and just watch long "walk through X" videos on youtube on my laptop lol.

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Re: Nausea from Virtual Reality

Post by jacob »

It appears that one or two of Randers2052's predictions are already coming through ;-)

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