How do you deal with motion sickness when playing first-person games?
I often get motion sickness while playing FPS games on TV. That’s part of the reasons I mainly play handheld. On a small screen I never get motion sickness except with Half Life 2. I can never play HL2 for over 15 minutes, no matter what screen I use.
I avoid those games. I get motion sickness no matter the screen size. As for Half Life 2 I remember when it was first released there were many reports of people getting motion sickness and the recommended solution was to increase the FOV in the game settings.
If I suffered from it, because I'm lazy, I wouldn't play those kinds of games. Otherwise, hypothetically, I'd visit the doctor's to figure out if the cause is biological or psychological. Then, if possible, I'd take steps towards fixing the issue on my end.
Else, the issue might be with the screen settings, such as colours, field of view, motion blur or other unspecified visual effects that can cause such tribulations.
I don't. I just don't play FPS games. Motion sickness aside, which does hit me eventually whenever I give an FPS a shot, I find the first person perspective disorienting. It's difficult to judge where I am and my distance to the game objects around me.
For this reason I have a rule: if I can't see my character/ship, I don't play it.
Some games do give me FOMO though: high-level Dishonored videos are insanely cool and every footage I saw of Titanfall looked fun.
Have you tried using a small screen (e.g. Steam Deck or Switch)? It works for me, mostly.
Games like Fallout 3 and Skyrim were so good they made me try to overcome the motion sickness.
I haven't tried that, but I did try Dishonored with a controller and neither movement nor aim felt right at all. I'd probably have the same concern with a handheld.
Unless I dock it and plug in KB+M, which would probably be too long of a workaround.
That issue has been somewhat inconsistent for me. There was one game where I started feeling sick and stopped playing after a few minutes. But then days later I tried playing it again and was fine for the rest of the game.
Maybe it's just something that gets better as you become more accustomed to it?
It might help if you can reduce the FOV a bit.
I also noticed that I start sweat and feel hot when this happens to me, so I keep a fan pointed at me when playing certain games. Not sure if that actually has any effect though.
There's ways to mitigate motion sickness, but I don't know anything beyond that since it's not a problem for me. Hopefully someone with experience pops by.
Then there's the question of having enough motivation to push through the suffering. My roommate wanted to play VRChat for example badly enough to get some anti nausea meds and powered through it until he got used to VR. He doesn't have this issue with non-VR however.
The usual list:
Highest Field of View setting you personally find comfortable, even if it's fishbowl and wider than most people recommend. Use PCGamingWiki to find ways to change it in less end user friendly titles who don't have it as a slider in-game. Probably start with games that do?
Head Bobbing and Motion Blur. Turn off.
Try to get smooth frame pacing. I'd bet judder when turning the camera in FPS can't be helping the nauseous. Plsy around with frame rate caps. Use Vsync/FreeSync/Gsync and then lower graphics settings until it's running smoothly.
Use a controller. Slower and smoother movements even if inaccurate vs keyboard + mouse.
If you can, sit further away from your display. Sounds like you are couch gaming so that'll help apparently vs at a desk.
If you're console gaming, idk. That's too limiting.
I get motion sickness very easily and there's some games (and movies) that I just can't do. It sucks, but that's life... not every experience is made for everyone.
Two key elements to tinker with: FOV Input method
I grew up playing games so it’s never been much of an issue for me. My partner didn’t and thought they couldn’t. Their exposure had been entirely based on console games, which caused disorientation and motion sickness. That all changed when I roped them into playing Minecraft with me on their MacBook.
The mouse input and configurable FOV wound up being the magic sauce that changed everything.
They’ve since build their own PC, have an ultrawide monitor, and can be found gaming on the couch with their Steam Deck.
For Half Life 2, the FOV was locked to 75 until you got the HEV Suit. I’m not sure whether or not that’s still the case after some of the more recent updates, it might also have been fixed in modded versions of the game like Half Life 2: Update or MMOD. I will say that the Source engine games were built for keyboard / mouse, they can be playable with a controller but for me something will always feel ‘off’ playing that way.
Try playing around with the FOV setting. Its impact greatly depends on screen size and distance. For some people it can be problematic when it's too realistic. For others when it's not realistic enough.