Games

Some researchers did a study several years ago and found that adding a virtual nose decreased motion sickness significantly. However, I don't think I've seen any developers try this. I wonder if it'd help.

Would be nice if the author had done a bit of research on the specific things that had been done in VR since he tried his DK2 to prevent nausea:

An Oculus DK2, a PC that couldn’t quite run a rollercoaster demo at a high-enough framerate, and a slightly-too-hot office full of people watching me as I put on the headset. Before I’d completed the second loop-de-loop, it was clear that VR and I were not going to be good friends.

~~The study~~ the author quotes dates to August 2019!

https://insidescience.org/news/cybersickness-why-people-experience-motion-sickness-during-virtual-reality

For one, non-persistent displays have become the norm. These only show (strobe) the image for a fraction of the frame time and go black in between. Valve discovered that the full 1/90th of a second an image is displayed is enough to induce nausea if the head is moving during that time. So the Vive (and the Oculus Rift) had non-persistent displays.

The stobing effect is so fast you don't notice it.

Elimination of artificial movement is another. The reason Valve focused on games with teleport movement and made a big deal of "room scale" early on was to eliminate the nausea triggers you encounter in other types of experiences.

Valve had an early version of Half Life 2 VR during the days of the DK2, but they removed it as the artificial motion made people sick (myself included).

For many, sims work as long as there is a frame in their field of vision to let their brains lock into that non-moving frame of reference (ex car A-pillars, roof line, dash board, outline of view screen on a ship interior, etc). Note the frame still moves when you move your head, so it's not a static element in your field of view.

Also it helps if your PC can render frames under the critical 11.1ms frame time (for 90Hz displays). Coincidentally, 90Hz is the minimum Valve determined is needed to experience "presence". Many folks don't want to turn down graphic options to get to this. It's doable in most games even if it won't be as detailed as it would on a flat screen. Shadows is a big offender here.

Resolution isn't as big of a factor in frametimes as detailed shadows and other effects. I have run games at well over 4k x 2.5k resolution per eye and been able to keep 11.1ms frame times.

Lastly, it has been noted that any movement or vibration to the inner ear can for many stave off nausea. This includes jogging in place while having the game world move forward. For many years we've had a free solution that integrates into Steam VR:

https://github.com/pottedmeat7/OpenVR-WalkInPlace

Jog in place to make your character move forward in the direction you're facing. Walk normally to experience 1-to-1 roomscale.

I've use the above to play Skyrim VR without any nausea. Good workout too!

For car, flight, spaceflight simulators, a tactile transducer on your chair (looks like a speaker magnet without the cone - or basically a subwoofer without the cone) can transfer the games sound vibrations directly to you and therefore your inner ear and prevent nausea.

I've literally played over 1,000 hours of Elite:Dangerous this way as well as Battlezone VR and Vector 36. All games that involve tons of fast artificial movement.

The main issue is too many people tried out VR cardboard or old DK2 demos with low and laggy framerate, persistent displays, and poorly designed VR experiences and simply write off all VR as bad and nausea inducing.

Edit: added links and trailers to the games mentioned so folks can see the motion involved. The "study" wasn't a proper study. It was a quote from a scientist. No data was given about what headsets or which experiences caused nausea.

It's very simple. The device needs to maintain 90fps at 90hz minimum. Anything below that can cause nausea. We've known this since at least 2017.

Having a fan blow into your face really helps too. I cant play more than 10 or 15 minutes without one, but with I'm fine for hours.

40-70% is quite the confidence interval lol

I just keep getting annoyed when I see an interesting looking game and find that it's VR-only.

I wonder if this 40-70% demographic has actively tried to play it a couple times? My first experience with VR was incredibly disorienting, and yes, made me feel nauseated. But after playing for 2-3 hours across a handful of 15-20 minute sessions (passing it around a few friends for an evening) that just went away. Once the body uses it a bit and learns, even high-movement non-teleport movement games stop being an issue.

I wonder if I happen to be in that upper percent, or if the numbers in question are a matter of people who tried it once in their life and felt sick. Clearly the author has put real time into trying to move past it, but that doesn't say anything for the study he quotes the "40-70% of players are 15 minutes" numbers from.

In 5 years from now, VR will be 5 years away of becoming mainstream. Just like 5 years ago.

There are definitely games that make me more suck than others. But even the "good ones" are kinda weird. Like I can't imagine playing a vr game for an hour or so. That's why i don't even bother anymore

Big reason why I just never understood why Meta bet the farm on VR/metaverse. Such a stupid move, literally everyone knew that VR wasn't ready for mainstream. The only people willing to get it were tech nerds and some gamers, and really that had nothing to do with the metaverse, it was because they could play games in it.

Until it gets stable and doesn't feel like I'm strapping a brick onto my face, it's not going to happen mainstream. It also can't just connect to a PC, average people don't want to be strapped down to something. And I know, that's a lot to ask, but if you want to base your entire company on VR, those are the hard realities. People want something like sunglasses, not something that feels like duct taping a laptop in front of their face

Yeah still have my Rift CV1, but it is sitting in a box.

I've used VR a few times, and I can confirm that the only part that makes me throw up is the price tag.

It also doesn't feel at all like you're looking at something in front of you. It still feels like you've got 2 TV's strapped to your head.

I guess I'm old school and just play games with m&k or controller. DINOSAUR I am.