Any tips for avoiding and enduring motion sickness in games?

[the Nightbreeze]

Any tips for avoiding and enduring motion sickness in games?

I just  pulled Temple of Elemental Evil ot of the game closet, and hoo boy I  still got the icks over an hour after I took a break from playing.

It seemed only a slight bit jerky  I typically have the monitor at 75 hz. I think the game was refreshing at 60 or 70, would kicking it up to 75 be adviseable?

Crap, this sucks.

[Zarkon]

I set my refresh at 85, and I don't have motion sickness anymore in any games, including FPSes.

[-Lord Ebonstone-]

Set your monitor to run the highest refresh rate possible in the given resolution if it's a CRT.  It's really easy to get bad eyestrain from low refresh rates -- for me, 60hz is amazingly painful, 75hz is a notable improvement, anything over 75 is silky and painless.

If you have an LCD monitor, refresh rates don't matter, as LCDs by their nature cause next to no eyestrain.  

Some other things to remember:

-Don't play in the dark.  Make sure the room you're playing in is well lit, with full-spectrum lighting if possible.

-Put some space between you and the display.  The more the merrier.

-Calibrate your monitor.  Do a google search for montior calibration -- there are plenty of sites that can help.

-Last but not least, if everything still sucks, or you can't get a high enough refresh rate that's comfortable for your eyes, consider getting a new monitor!

[unbreakable]

Turn off 'head bob', if there is any.

Set your refresh rate as high as it will go (this is also good advice if you are getting headaches), as Zarkon advised.

And as LE mentioned, LCD screens are even better (but cheaper ones 'blur' more in games, so get a good one).

[the Nightbreeze]

Thanks guys  The 85 refresh rate did the trick. I wish they didn't have the world's smallest text font and  whiplash inducing camera controls, but oh well... can't win all the prizes in the raffle I guess...

It looks so much like the Infinity Engine games that I wish they just went with it instead of re-inventying the wheel,  The round character menus suck much butt too

[Fuzzballx]

The only thing that ever fixed the icky feeling and eyestrain for me was moving to LCD, and even then after a while it got to me, but with the faster LCDs out today i can play all day with no side effects.

I've been using this one for the last few months and it's a godsend: http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=318841&pfp=srch1

I played 6 hrs of BF2 on friday, 12 on saturday and about 8 on sunday this weekend and felt like a champ.

(No, I am not a salesman nor do i work for samsung).

[the Nightbreeze]

Thanks for the advice.

The framerate fixed my issues, and  I have no money for new equipment anyways.  Thanks though.

[Xmann]

i cannot continue playing HL2 because of the motion sickness i get.  i'm really easy at getting motion sickness with anything in life, but i've never gotten sick like i have with HL2.
i'll try the refresh thing as well since i've basically written off HL2 because of it.

[Randomayhem]

Well, I guess I'll mention it although I've never tried it...but back in the days of Half-Life, I saw somebody recommend Dramamine for this problem.

[Misguided]

I've never heard of eyestrain being linked to motion sickness. Flicker gives me headaches, to be sure, but doesn't make me nauseous. Glad I don't have that issue. I can see flicker at 85Hz, but it's not bad...anything less is really a royal pain. 100 is beautiful. (Please don't try telling me human beings aren't capable of this...I also hear sounds well above normal human range...I'm a mutant).

With my LCD if I focus on it I can see *something* kind of like flicker but not exactlly....sort of a vague sideways movement of something inside the screen, but it dooesn't bug me.

[CrayolaSmoker]

(Please don't try telling me human beings aren't capable of this...I also hear sounds well above normal human range...I'm a mutant).

Nah.  You're just misguided.  :wink:

[Harkonis]

I also can still see flicker at 85mhz, so I try to take breaks every now and then or I get headaches. With the LCD it seems to vaguely move around independant of the physical monitor at times.  Hard to explain and it can be pretty trippy.

[Fuzzballx]

Back when i was gaming on CRTs, i had to set it for 85Hz, any lower i'd get flicker and extra eyestrain, any higher, and it'd freak my eyes and brain out because it was refreshing so fast, i'd swear my eyes were gonna go crosswise with a hypnotic effect I got out of it.  Freakin weird.  60 Hrtz gave me headaches, but 100+ Htz made me motion sick.

With the slower LCD's, thats where motion probablems came in for me cause of the blur effect.

A fast LCD is perfect though.  (One without hark's sliders effect).

[-Lord Ebonstone-]

Yeah, it's 100Hz or bust for me on a CRT.  I can see a flicker on 85 too, and while it's not an issue for stuff like word processing, it's a big issue for games or detailed graphics.

[Zoyd]

H-L 2 was bad for me too, it was the first game in a long time to make me feel pukey, especially the vehicle driving parts. The only thing that helped was playing for short periods of time, and eventually I adjusted and it didn't bother me any more.