Motion sickness

[Case]

This is a bit embarrassing to admit, but I get motion sickness from first person shooter games (eg Quake, Unreal, Half Life, etc). Does anyone else suffer from this and have any have any tips on how to avoid it?

I've got a pretty fast computer, so slow screen refreshes shouldn't be the reason I get into trouble.

[aaglo]

A tip to avoid it: don't play such games , at least in long sequences - take short breaks between the missions. But that is not possible in MP... You can also try to change the lighting of your room/office where you play those games.

[Footie Mad]

I've had this problem to but only with some games, and those games had loud colours in them that made me sick. Quake, unreal, half-life etc is no problem but it also depends on how you play them, stop and think sometimes ( this is often good out of pure gameplay reasons to ) and gather yourself instead of tensing up and running all over the place.

[MattyBoy]

Of the people that I know that played Wolfenstein (the original), most experienced this very clearly. I used to get it until I made the screen smaller, which made the experience slightly less immersive, but much less nauseating.

I seem to remember somebody else getting it with doom.

Apparently I am pretty funny to watch too - jumping back and forth and leaning over to peer around corners

[Zkribbler]

A friend of mine also gets motion sickness from first-person shooters. Me, I have no problem with them.

[Case]

Thanks everybody. I've made the sceen size smaller and that seems to have done the trick

[Juggernaut]

*points and laughs* Hah hah!
Nah, haven't experienced it, but when I play a FPS intently for a long period I kinda get flashs from the maps as soon as I close my eyes.

[KrazyHorse]

Keep the lights on when you play. The main thing (as MattyBoy mentioned) is to stop yourself from getting sucked into the game too much. If your brain interprets it as pictures on a screen you'll be fine. If your brain interprets it as the real world you're going to have trouble.

[loinburger]

I had this problem with Half-Life Team Fortress for awhile (multiplayer, so I couldn't very easily take breaks), but was able to avoid the problem by playing a class that pretty much only fired in a single direction (e.g. Sniper or Heavy Weapons Guy). If a Pyro, Soldier, or Spy tried to circle-jerk me (kept running around me and attacking, making it impossible for me to get a bead on them), then I just accepted that my corpsification was imminent.

After some practice I've managed to overcome my motion-sickness problem, and am now able to circle-jerk enemy HW Guys as a Pyro or Soldier. I don't know if I'm unique in being able to get used to the motion sickness, but I'm guessing that I'm not. Stick with it, hopefully you'll get over it.

[General Ludd]

I'm talking out of my ass here, but I think it's how you look at the game that makes some people feel sick. For example, in a FPS you have to look with your hand, rather then your eyes (if you want to look somewhere, you need to move the mouse instead of your eyes) Also, if you focus too much on the graphics and their movement, that can also cause sickness. The trick is having it come natural to you, to not even notice the graphics, or thinking about how to move and see. Growing up with computers, it's second nature to me... but sometimes when I'm looking for chopy graphics or something, I'll start to focus on the graphics and I'll often start to feel nauscious when that happens.

[Case]

I've conducted a few more experiments, and found that wearing my glasses (which are very weak) does the trick.