Submitted 1 year ago by stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to technology@lemmy.world
Why virtual reality makes a lot of us sick, and what we can do about it.
First person shooters already make some people feel nauseous. It’s the disconnect between your vision telling you that you’re moving while everything else, especially your balance centers, saying you’re not.
VR kinda makes it even worse if you’re not on some 2D treadmill
I am a victim of this. It sucks.
So glad I didn’t but an oculus. All of my friends got themselves and their kids headsets and I’ve yet to hear about them being used often. Everyone I know that has a vr headset told me to never buy one. Complete waste of money.
Yeah of all the people I know that rushed out to get vr none of them mention it now, a lot of streamers I watch did a video or two then have never done another one. It’s such a great idea but also so many issues to work around.
I think most people don’t really want to be totally immersed, I like just relaxing watching some YouTube and playing games, having a snack and a drink, chatting to friends on my phone… a game has to be so much better if it’s going to hold my full attention but pretty much universally vr games are far worse than their screen based versions - hitman vr for example, there’s a million videos of people playing and laughing at how bad it is and almost none actually playing properly
IMO, the biggest limitations are the fact that it’s not quite there yet for resolution/graphics, and the devices are still a bit oppressive. If I could read text in VR and the goggles weren’t much more than my prescription glasses, I’d be using it a lot more. Would be cool to even just get rid of monitors and have all my workspaces VR.
But now, I have to don this unwieldy wired thing on my head, fiddle around for the wands blindly, and everything is kinda fuzzy. It’s an exhausting experience.
There are actually very good games that don’t have these problems. For example Beat Sabre and the likes. Or Moss etc.
Today l learned that some people get motion sickness from playing flatscreen games. How do you even survive a car? Let alone an airplane?
Being in a car or airplane is totally different from playing a game, VR or otherwise. The motion sickness is a result of a mismatch between the sense of your own motion from what you are seeing, and the sense of your own motion from your inner-ear (which is basically an accelerometer).
In a car or an aeroplane, as long as you are looking at the window then there is no problem. (But often people get car-sick if they try to read a book or something, because then they can’t see the motion - they can only feel it.) But in a game, you can see the motion but not feel it - so that can also give motion sickness.
Many modern first-person games have an option for ‘mouse smoothing’ (or something similar), and that generally help reduce or eliminate motion sickness.
The problem is in a car, your body is actually moving and your sense of movement aligns with what your eyes are seeing. I’m not an expert but there’s something about fluid in your ears moving?
When it comes to gaming on a flat screen, your eyes are interpreting movement but you are not moving. This, from my understanding is what causes the motion sickness.
I can’t use these VR headsets because they make me sick and give me migraines. I’m just fine playing on a TV or monitor though.
I would get so incredibly sick when playing the original wolfenstein and Doom. But I could play halo for hours. Really weird
Some people don’t. That’s why air sickness bags exist.
I used to get sick but it goes away with time.
So not a problem at all?
Ikr? Lmao
It isn’t a problem with screen technology or processing technology or anything like that. We aren’t going to “tech” our way out of this.
It is a biological problem and as such, I think the appeal of VR will always be rather niche.
Even the best selling VR headset that I found online was the Quest 2 and it “only” sold like 15M units (honestly way more than I ever expected) with everything else being considerably lower volume. Compare that to the number of Nintendo Switches sold (130M) and you start to see how small the VR market is. I am very curious to see how the Sony VR2 will end up selling. I would love to get a pair, but I think all these headsets will be short lived.
VR has been around since the 20th Century. It is still here, and the market is expanding with more options as time goes on.
I wanted to play VR games since I saw the first VR stuff in the 90s. Finally got a Valve Index set this year, and it’s fuckin’ awesome. For all the Quest and Vive users on here saying VR sucks - it’s your gear that sucks.
VR games that are fuckin’ awesome:
HL Alyx (as everyone already mentioned) Into the Radius (S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in VR) Grapple Tournament (UT2004 with grappling hooks in VR) Dragon Fist Kung Fu (kung fu fighting in VR duh) Blade & Sorcery (swords and sorcery) Battle Talent (ripoff of Blade & Sorcery that is also cool) Assetto Corsa (racing sim) DCS World (flight sim) Beat Saber (music chopping)
I don’t know man. Feels like the whole damn field of medicine does just that. It fixes body problems with (medical) technology.
I would not at all be surprised if later we find a certain framerate or fov reduces motion sickness. Or maybe there’s some device that will go over our ears to trick our equilibrium from getting confused. Or maybe really good head tracking fixes it…
I think it’s more likely than not that we do “tech” our way out of it - just in some unforeseen way.
Only one way to find out, I guess. But still, a lot of this stuff comes from the high end that eventually trickles down, and I’ve never heard any discoveries that claim to have solved the problem. You’d think that since the military would be all over this tech, their limitless budgets would have stated they have sickness-free headsets. But in all these years, nothing.
I read this as “40-70% of VR developers don’t know what they are doing”. What needs to be done to avoid motion sickness has been known for a long while now.
I’m a game developer who had a chance to create a VR game. I have to admit, VR was not my cup of tea at first. It gave me a terrible headache and nausea for hours after playing for a short time. But I was determined to overcome it and I kept practicing. Now I can enjoy VR for hours without any issues. I think kids will be fascinated by VR as well, even if they have some initial discomfort. They will be amazed by the simple games that make them feel like they’re in a different reality. VR is not about making games that look like real life, like Call of Duty. It’s about making games that let you explore new worlds and possibilities. Imagine playing games that involve sports or exercise in VR, or games that let you interact with 3D characters that have realistic personalities thanks to LLM AI. You could make friends and connections with them instead of fighting them. That would be awesome, right?
You think people forming connections to AIs instead of real people is a good thing?
I think that kids making fake friendships after school instead of fake murdering AIs might have some positives. I hope it can help kids develop social and communication skills.
Real people suck, the world is burning, let them have their AI friends in peace
Maybe we just aren’t built to experience motion in this way.
I only play standing games that stick within the confines of room scale, that way all my movements are natural.
When I play other games, it’s teleport or nothing, no other locomotion form works for my, my sense of balance is to sensitive, and I haven’t had the time to work to get used to it…
Curiously I also get severe motion sickness when I drive go karts, but not when I drive cars. Although, sitting in the passenger seat, especially the rear seats, however can be a problem sometimes if I’m going around windy roads)
I’m young and have played computer games since childhood, I never bought a VR headset cause anything more than 20 minutes and I feel dizzy as fuck.
VR needs an overhaul for me to actually buy into it, I honestly just think the headsets aren’t going to work, I don’t think a higher refresh rate will fix this
I’m not sold on the gaming side of it but I loved my quest for movies. I’m planning to buy another one one day and it’s something that I’ll consider essential for old age retirement.
I can spend hours doing VR, prefer standing but some games are sitting. High paced jumping/spinning/flipping games. Elite dangerous, Sorento (sp), robo recall, windlands. No issue of sickness at any point, even with fps drops and frame hangs
Good for you, I could do all that on a ship out at sea using a laptop with a 1070 and a wired headsetand and could also not get sick.
Doesn’t change the fact that literally like half the people I ever tried to introduce to VR have immediately felt violently sick to their stomach within minutes and some did try to get over it. With multiple attempts.
“… and that’s a huge problem for the companies behind it.”
Thank you for clarifying.
So pretty much like playing Hexen 2 on a P100 in 1997 huh.
The only time I’ve ever felt nauseous playing VR games is when the game has sliding locomotion instead of teleport. When the whole world moves like I’m walking but I’m not actually walking, it feels like everything is slipping and creates nausea.
I tried a VR headset in an electronics store once and I vomited almost immediately.
I bought a box of cookies for the janitor the next day.
I’m in the group that gets violently sick using VR. It also induces blinding migraines. Oddly, I don’t get car/air/seasick.
Maybe I’m just old, but I never want to adopt VR, just like I never wanted to adopt 3-D Tvs.
VR still sucks, but didnt boats make people want to throw up. Then trains, then cars. They still do sometimes, but it’ll be worth it
I think the challenge is that with transportation, there are approaches to reduce the impact such as looking at the horizon, sitting in the front where the motion impact isn’t as severe, etc. With VR there’s less way around it, and fewer ways to redirect your perception (yet). Which is why the percentages are higher than car users
Meanwhile I’m over here still wanting to try it out.
The closest I’ve ever gotten was trying out virtual boy when it was brand new in stores and had one set up for people to try out.
I’d love to try it before buying. Not really interested in buying without it, but that’s not how things work anymore. So I guess I’m just gonna skip it unless it gets massively popular and it’s just everywhere and I’m stuck missing out on something huge if I don’t have it.
Local best buy stores have demos in the US where you can try it out for a bit.
Well apparently mine doesn’t. But I really don’t go there anyway. I went there for something specific a while ago to buy for someone else, but in general everything they would have I can get cheaper online somewhere else. Their online store occasionally has a good deal tho. If they had a demo for it I’d go to check it out tho.
start chewing bubblegum (with mint) if you have issues with vr
Or take a Dramamine - it is identical to sea sickness. Treat it that way.
Your body will eventually get used to being on the sea if you do it even slightly correctly. Same with VR.
But I don’t see why for example my Grandma is gonna do that, or my neighbor.
It’s cool but it isn’t that cool, and I say that as someone with 2000+ hours in VR with arguably the best VR headset (Index).
Or take a Dramamine - it is identical to sea sickness. Treat it that way.
I would go with chewing gum, less invasive ;)
VR is like flying cars. It’s a stupid idea that sounds cool.
Let’s see if vision pro holds up against this number with it’s special chip.
I had to Google what this even was, and I’ve been into VR since the beginning…
Real talk: Apple’s fans aren’t into this… They just want the same shit as last year (a phone) with a higher modern number.
Apple stopped selling to people interested in innovation around a decade ago. We moved on, and let me tell you… We were BIG fans after the first iPhone. They sold out. It’s that simple.
Have you watched reviews of people who were allowed to test it? They are mind blowed about how real the AR feels with the fast refresh rate the vision pro achieves. Additionally, they told, that they dis not recognize any drift (e.g. placing something on a table in AR, looking away and looking back, the thing you placed is exactly on the place you put it). Any other AR device yet has this problem according to the reviewers I watched. Many say that too slow refresh rate, too low resolution and the drift are the 3 major things which cause motion sickness. That is way I am looking forward to see reactions of average non techy people. Between, I heard from a lot of apple fanboys (and girls of course) with too much money, that they will buy one (or two including one for the loved ones) and replace the TVs and their monitors with it. And if that really is Working, you may safe more money on those screens, than you spend on a Vision pro.
I doubt the hardware will make a difference. Motion sickness is almost completely down to software design at this point, unless you running 90s VR headset at like 15fps. Low-persistance and 90fps took care of hardware induced motion sickness.
What makes VisionPro not have motion sickness issues for now is that it completely avoids any form of locomotion. Everything they have shown so far is standing/sitting in place with some 2D apps around you. That doesn’t make anybody sick on PCVR or Quest either. What makes people sick is fast action games that have your character running around a virtual space. Apple so far has shown nothing doing that. Once they start having games that require people moving around in virtual spaces, the motion sickness will return, though I expect them to cut down on that with store policy until VR has established itself some more.
Good point, apple is in fact limiting devs to design full VR apps only in a 1.5 meters sphere around the head, until the Vision Pro turns on AR mode again.
Marques has reported that when he tried it, there was a AR presentation where T-rex comes through the a wall and walks towards you even if you move. Like, it adjusted it’s path and turned towards him, but maybe I understood that wrong.
I’m honesy curious about the science behind why VR nakes so.e people motion sick. My first time using VR I never got motion sick once and never have since then. And my sister on the other hand git motion sick instantly when she tried it.
The science is vestibular mismatch and your personal sensitivity to it. There are plenty of options for VR activities with no mis-matched movement. And there are plenty of people that can handle a mismatch without any problems.
Basically your inner ear and your eyes are disagreeing about what is happening, and historically when that happened to humans, it was because they ate the poisonous berries. So eventually the people who randomly had the gene where that mismatch leads to throwing up were more likely to live to procreate.
But the brain can be trained, if you are susceptible to VR sickness, play until you start to feel the first minimal symptoms (varies per person, but commonly; warm face, inexplicably sweaty face, or mild dizziness) then immediately take a break. As you continue to do so successfully you’ll notice the response takes longer to come into play and is milder when it does. And if “the berries” keep not killing you, your brain will assume you know what you are doing and don’t need to be protected. But every time it does get too bad, or worse does lead to throwing up, it will reinforce that your brain saved you and it will start coming on more quickly and strongly. Still totally reversible, but best to avoid it if possible.
There are some people who don’t have the response to start with, in my experience it has a surprisingly strong corellation to people with autism, which was nice for us autistics in early VR. We had the whole place to ourselves, hehe. But hopefully we never have to actually worry about poison berries.
Damn thats really interesting. I don’t have autism myself but have never had issues with VR at any point so I guess I’m just lucky. Apreciate the write up!
I’m just as surprised when people say they don’t get it. Locomotion is the thing that makes me sick. 1:1 room scale walking? No prob. Teleporting, cool. Joystick movement? Taking a ride on the Vomit express.
I almost got motion sickness just trying to read your comment.
Lol I didn’t realize how bad it was until I read your comment, fixed haha.
Clearly they need to understand how… much data they can manipulate at once
How many have the same issue with regular FPS games? Since Half Life 2 on a monitor (pre-FOV patch) was worse than any VR game I played so far.
What we can do about feeling sick is to ignore VR and never use it again.
No motion sickness, but most VR games make me disorientated after a while and I just don’t enjoy them very much.
atocci@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’m super glad I’m not one of them… I will baselessly credit the Nintendo 3DS with developing that skill