Nausea while playing HL2?

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Wintergreen

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Aug 6, 2004
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I've been playing FPS's for years now, ever since the first Doom, and this is the first game that has literally made me sick. After only about 30 minutes of play, I just can't take it anymore and have to stop playing, and I usually feel bad for up to an hour afterwards. I'm not the only having this problem however, as it appears to be plaguing thousands of HL2 players:

http://www.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=176796

http://www.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=177550

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=51442

Some gamers are starting to believe that the POV (Point Of View), which is the field of vision displayed on the screen, is the culprit. CS:Source's POV is set at 90, whilst HL2 runs at 75. Humans have a field of view of approx. 180 (degrees). This means that running around playing HL2 is like running around with tunnel vision. If anyone else is experiencing this problem or knows how to fix it post here...
 
Played through HL2, no headaches or nausea....however I'm of that lucky few who don't get motion sickness (Carnival cruise HERE I COME!)
 
My friends and I have the same problem. I get so nauseous it's absurd.


I also changed the FOV, but it didn't help much.


Maybe it has to do with the gun bob, or possibly since the draw distance is so huge, my eyes are trying to deal with seeing far distance but focusing on the actual screen, which is a couple of feet in front of my face.
 
I haven't experienced nausea while playing but I have gotten bad headaches. I think it has something to do with the movement. The movement in HL2 is a little different than in counter strike source. I can play CSS for a couple hours with no headaches at all.
 
Played for hours on end, no sickness. Eyes start to hurt a little bit after a few hours so I take a 30 minute break. Playing on 1280x1024, everything jacked up, refresh rate on 75hz (i think its hz)
 
This is very strange. I've played NFSU2 for hours and hours straight with no ill effect cept hunger and lack of sleep :D

I play HL and 30 mins into it, my stomach is up in my throat wtf...?

Doom, doom2, doom3, quake , quake 2, HL, CS, no problems here. cept hL2... double wtf?

Carmack = god.
 
I had that same problem, but it's less severe now, barely noticeable. I didn't do anything to fix it, I just got passed the first few chapters and it was gone. Weird.
 
Come to think of it. It's funnier than fuck. all these kiddies eagly awaiting HL2, playing it then starts to projectile vomit ROFL.
 
I was going through the area with the hoverboat and all of a sudden my stomach started to feel really weird and I felt sick so I stopped playing and went to bed. I've played through quite a few games and have never gotten nauseas while playing, so this might have just been a coincidence, but there you go.
 
The whole thing is really crazy. I hope Valve figures out what is wrong and releases a patch or something to fix it...
 
It's most definitely a problem that a lot of people are experiencing. I've played many, many hours worth of video and computer games in my life and never had a problem. However, I did start feeling a bit sick when I played HL2 for the first time.
 
It would be so ironic if we reach a point were the human body couldn't handle viewing/playing these graphics yet computer equiptment could run it fine..
 
Wintergreen said:
The whole thing is really crazy. I hope Valve figures out what is wrong and releases a patch or something to fix it...
Click to expand...

they did, it's called Alka-seltzer. Download now at a Walgreen's near you.
:p
 
I never get nauseous, but some sequences with the gravity gun, placing/balancing boxes, created a bunch of super-fast jittering that literally made me run to the sink. Blegh.
 
Wow. I thought it was just me. Yeap, I get motion sick playing it. I've gotten that way in a few other shooters but only when I was really tired and played for an extremely long time.
 
I remember buying Doom 2 when I got my first PC at Sears, years ago. It was a 75 Mhz Pentium. I didn't eat dinner that day since I was so excited and instead setup the PC and played Doom 2. After about half an hour I was so sick I almost puked. I thought it was because I had eaten much, but it became clear that is was the game. It's a very uncomfortable feeling and takes as long or longer to shake than it does to get.

I'm not a FPS player, but I have tried most and some make me ill, some don't. Half-Life and Counterstrike don't bother me, but RTCW does. I don't know why.

I used to belong to the Civil Air Patrol in my youth and we flew in small planes. We even practiced stalls and it never affected me.

Edit: Diablo 2 in 3D mode messes me up too. I thought I'd mention it since its one of my favorite games of all times.
 
Ive never gotten sick playing computer games before, and ive been playing a long time. HL2 did make me sick in one spot...Im not sure why. It was late and I was tired so I just stopped playing. Next day...no problems. Weird.
 
It's definitely the field of vision. Whenever I would start up HL2 I would notice that something was fishy and it felt like I was zoomed in. I pressed Z a few times and realized it was the normal view. I would feel a little sick after playing too. Kinda a headache, kinda just didn't feel right.
 
The original Half Life did that to me, too. I couldnt get out of the first room after the explosion (or what ever) I got so sick. I was hoping this one wouldnt do that.

I guess I will have to try it and see.
 
I have never experienced nausea playing any gam..until hl2...driving that motorbike/hydroplane thingy makes me want to puke for some wierd reason...unsettling
 
CS:S is fine. Go play HL2, you'll notice something is funny about the field of view. After 30 seconds you'll be used to it, and likely after 30 minutes you won't feel the same.
 
I give up. I simply can't put up with the nausea I get from playing HL:2 anymore. I can't play it for more than 10 or 15 minutes without feeling like I'm going to throw up if I keep playing.

I'd sell it, but I love CS:S too much to... Sad too, because HL:2 was a pretty good game.
 
Yea, I know how you feel. I'm really wanting to finish the game, but I can't get very far without getting sick as a dog. It wouldn't be so weird if it hadn't been the first time in ten years this has happened to me. Almost regreting the decision to buy it; good thing there's CS:S.
 
Making a game that makes people motion sick is like making music with a pitch so high humans cannot hear it, yet it gives people splitting headaches or making gourmet food and adding ex-lax. Who does that? Valve... you seriously need to fix this. When people can't play your game because it causes health problems, you've done something wrong.
 
Research needs to be done in a scientific lab to determine what exactly causes this. Games could have a safe mode that complies to this human shortcoming. They could even have a little logo to signify that it's x-compliant.

x being, "this software is not likely to make you puke"
 
It's offical... even the PROGRAMMERS vomited to the airboat! I bought the DVD collector's edition, and have the little book that has artwork, and comments from developers. I typed up what it said about the airboat. Here's what it says:

"One of the major problems in developing the Airboat was motion sickness. If the player's view was tightly connected to the Airbooat, every slight bump was magnified, making some early playtesters nauseous - in particular programmer Adrian Finol, who actually threw up after an extended playtest. It was eventually determined that overly rigid roll and pitch view adjustments were to blame, so these were relaxed and careful redesign of the handlebar, pontoon, and roll-cage visual cues could communicate surface feel better much better than tight player view adjustments. - David Speyrer"

So there ya have it! :p I personally never experienced ANY motion sickness
 
i didnt get sick on the airboat scene..but maybe thats because it was only doing like 10fps because of the damned water shaders owning my 9600
 
Duckzilla said:
Research needs to be done in a scientific lab to determine what exactly causes this. Games could have a safe mode that complies to this human shortcoming. They could even have a little logo to signify that it's x-compliant.

x being, "this software is not likely to make you puke"
Click to expand...

I wouldn't call it a human shortcoming, if anything the people most likely to puke are more sensitive to contradictory sensory inputs....as games visuals get better and better, the brain has a hard time trying to differentiate between whats real and what isn't...sensitive brains are seeing all this visual input saying the body is moving on this boat thing bouncing around, but the inner ear is saying, nope, aint moving
 
omega-x said:
i didnt get sick on the airboat scene..but maybe thats because it was only doing like 10fps because of the damned water shaders owning my 9600
Click to expand...
Funny, ran beautifully on my 9600 ( SE that is :( )

Back on topic, has anyone who has this problem tried the medications for preventing motion sickness? Just curious.
I personally have not experienced this at all. I even had the flu the day I played thru the airboat part, and was generally nauseaous already. Didn't notice it getting any worse while playing.
 
Gibzilla said:
This is very strange. I've played NFSU2 for hours and hours straight with no ill effect cept hunger and lack of sleep :D

I play HL and 30 mins into it, my stomach is up in my throat wtf...?

Doom, doom2, doom3, quake , quake 2, HL, CS, no problems here. cept hL2... double wtf?

Carmack = god.
Click to expand...
I totally fucking agree with this guy no sickness on other games cept HL2 I've played it for 30-40 mins I get a lil sick like I'm gonna go puke... still played and yeh I almost did puke in front of my comp.. fortunately I was able to prevent it from coming all the way out. It was up in my thoat and I can taste the puke. That's when I decided to quit the game for a while. As of now I'm still kinda dizzy. All I can say is the boat ride is so stupid it like goin round and round and round and round......
 
Dramamine has helped me with it some .. I usually have to wait about an hour after I take it though or it doesn't work well .. still need to try changing the FOV and see if that helps ...
 
That boat part was bad... I couldnt play it for more then 20 minutes with feeling nauseous.
 
*spoiler*

I didnt get sick playing the game, but my stomach came up to my throat when i fell off the bridge, almost felt like I was falling =o

Damn that was a good feeling...
 
I think there is placebo in effect here or bullshit one of the two

I played the whole way theough the mudskipper levels non stop and never felt a thing apart from AMAZMENT and "omfgZ THAT IS TEH UBER l33T" :D
 
I get this a little bit. About 2-3 hours of playing and I start feeling sick to my stomach. And yup it doesn't seem to happen in CS:S or any other FPS I've played. And actually I was fine on the airboat. With me it just seems based on pure duration of playing HL2, not necessarily a particular scene.

My friend also gets this more severely, like 30mins or something and he just can't physically handle it anymore.

At least with my friend and I, it's not a placebo effect. We mentioned it to each other way before I ever read anything about others having it in forums.

Something is definitely weird and needs to be addressed asap.
 
Amra said:
*spoiler*

I didnt get sick playing the game, but my stomach came up to my throat when i fell off the bridge, almost felt like I was falling =o

Damn that was a good feeling...
Click to expand...


Same here....I've never got Vertigo from a game before, but that level with the bridge really screwed me up.



Quote:
Originally Posted by Neural Interface
I think there is placebo in effect here or bullshit one of the two


BTW "Neural Interface", I think the word you are looking for is psychosomatic.

psycho refers to mind and somatic refers to body; the term psychosomatic means the mind making the body ill or illnesses which have been created physically within the body by derangement of the mind.

If your going to flame, at least get your "big words" correct. ;)
 
Sanctus said:
I get this a little bit. About 2-3 hours of playing and I start feeling sick to my stomach. And yup it doesn't seem to happen in CS:S or any other FPS I've played. And actually I was fine on the airboat. With me it just seems based on pure duration of playing HL2, not necessarily a particular scene.

My friend also gets this more severely, like 30mins or something and he just can't physically handle it anymore.

At least with my friend and I, it's not a placebo effect. We mentioned it to each other way before I ever read anything about others having it in forums.

Something is definitely weird and needs to be addressed asap.
Click to expand...
I don't think it can be addressed. Games are just getting more realistic now and like someone said earlier, your brain is struggling with that blurred line of reality.
 
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