New players, please take note: Don’t attempt to do guardian mat grind in VR if you get motion sickness

[Ganogati]

Let me be your cautionary tale. I can normally do some SRV runs around planets without issue; some well timed thruster boosts and I can avoid most rocks. So of course, after having put off going to a guardian ruin for so long I absolutely had to experience it myself in VR for the first time.

Huge mistake. I regret everything.

There are rocks all over that site, and it’s too cramped to avoid them all. The total mat gathering run will take some time your first time, and you might miss stuff, so there’s a lot of riding around. I was seriously getting ill about 1/2 through but didn’t want to waste the work I’d already done on the run by risking a reset, so I kept going. That was a miserable 15-20 minutes.

If you are about to hit a guardian site in VR and haven’t done it before, I warn you ahead of time to be prepared. And if you already know you can get motion sick in VR then do yourself a favor and go back to pancake mode for this.

 

[Faded Glory]

Yep. That and farming bio sites are the only times I got motion sickness in the SRV.

Always best to stop for a bit as soon as you start to experience it. You do build up resistance. (I also find driving the SRV with drive assist off far more comfortable in VR.)

 

[aXeL]

Yep. That and farming bio sites are the only times I got motion sickness in the SRV.

Always best to stop for a bit as soon as you start to experience it. You do build up resistance. (I also find driving the SRV with drive assist off far more comfortable in VR.)

I think, I'm not 100% sure, it's to do with the old latency problem in VR when rendering busy areas. Have you checked this?

I've never had a problem with ED per se but when I first started playing SkyrimVR ( the real version not VorpX ) I used to get terrible motion sickness after 5-15min running around Tamriel. Not surprising really, as I child I got motion sickness in anything that moved which wasn't my own legs.

However, just bearing with it in VR, two things happened. I became much more sensitive to the precursors even before motion sickness started; shallow breathing and beginning to perspire. Also just as Faded Glory said, my tolerance grew and grew so I could stay in the game longer and recognise early symptoms and stop before I got sick.

Now, years later, I can play SkyrimVR till my eyes fall out.

@Ganogati. Might I humbly disagree... ok, not disagree but perhaps offer an alternative which involves a bit of temporary discomfort. If the Guardian Mat sites are your zones of extreme discomfort, perhaps keeping coming back to them in VR, grind as long as you can bare it without actually waiting till you're sick but getting the early warning signs. If ( and I'm totally guessing here ), you're anything like me - you will build up a tolerance such that you never have a problem with such sites.

I really was the motion sickness king when I started out years ago but by the time ED came along and I went to grind these sites, I was sufficiently tolerant that it never occurred to me that I might get queasy much less have it happen.

I'm not saying we're the same and it might not work for you though.

P.S. my PC is cr@p a 4690K - how's that for challenging

 

[Faded Glory]

I think, I'm not 100% sure, it's to do with the old latency problem in VR when rendering busy areas. Have you checked this?

I'm pretty sure this is the culprit. The Guardian sites and bio sites have a huge number of interactive items. It's a while since I did the Guardian site, but I did bio sites only a few weeks ago and the stuttering is very noticeable. I actually didn't check the framerate, but I imagine it was poor.

I have a decent rig for VR (Rift), an i7 processor and GTX1080. ASW typically cuts in at stations and on planet surfaces and framerate drops to 45 fps, and tbh I don't notice this and it doesn't give me any issues. I suspect it's lower at Guardian and bio sites.

 

[Ganogati]

I'm pretty sure this is the culprit. The Guardian sites and bio sites have a huge number of interactive items. It's a while since I did the Guardian site, but I did bio sites only a few weeks ago and the stuttering is very noticeable. I actually didn't check the framerate, but I imagine it was poor.

I have a decent rig for VR (Rift), an i7 processor and GTX1080. ASW typically cuts in at stations and on planet surfaces and framerate drops to 45 fps, and tbh I don't notice this and it doesn't give me any issues. I suspect it's lower at Guardian and bio sites.

Interesting... this could be the case; I'll have to check and see. I did feel like sitting in the turret was a bit of a reprieve from it, so I'm not entirely sure that's the situation, but since I never actually checked my FPS I certainly can't discount it! More than anything, if felt like the constant up and down of the cockpit, rocking all over the place, was what was making me sick. Sitting in the turret felt a lot less so, since the bottom body was moving but I wasn't.

 

[Arioch]

Interesting... this could be the case; I'll have to check and see. I did feel like sitting in the turret was a bit of a reprieve from it, so I'm not entirely sure that's the situation, but since I never actually checked my FPS I certainly can't discount it! More than anything, if felt like the constant up and down of the cockpit, rocking all over the place, was what was making me sick. Sitting in the turret felt a lot less so, since the bottom body was moving but I wasn't.

Do you have the “Maintain Vehicle Horizon” comfort option enabled?

 

[aXeL]

Just a thought, ramp down all conceivable graphics settings in the game to the lowest crappiest settings that still let you see enough to play - yup SS, HMD and SteamVR SS right down as well. In theory the reduction in compute should increase your duration of tolerance for testing purposes.

It maybe that there's a boundary condition below which you're ok and you can test which settings are most problematic.

The other side of all the testing... if you can be bothered with it, is you'll be building your tolerance regardless... in theory.


Or just play SkyrimVR, that'll put hairs on your chest... after you've run around Whiterun three times and finished throwing up

 

[Ganogati]

Do you have the “Maintain Vehicle Horizon” comfort option enabled?

Not purposefully! Perhaps something I just asked for in suggestions already exists and I didn't know it... ...

I'm off to the options!

 

[Ganogati]

Or just play SkyrimVR, that'll put hairs on your chest... after you've run around Whiterun three times and finished throwing up

Aha! I may be able to help with this.

So motion sickness is really just the brain's inability to marry what it's seeing with what it's experiencing; for this reason, games like Skyrim will make you want to die as you walk around the game without moving, because the brain is saying "I'm walking!" but... you aren't.

But there's a very, very easy for fix for this. Even for someone with a weak stomach like me.

games like Skyrim will make you want to die as you walk around the game without moving

Walk in place when walking in games, jog in place when jogging in games. I started playing Skyrim and had to stop until I realized this one day after reading an article about motion sickness, and so I tried it again. I can now play Skyrim for hours upon end without getting sick. Winded? Sweaty? Want to die just walking from Riften to Whiterun? Sure. But sick? Not a bit. My brain can now make sense of the locomotion, and I feel perfectly fine.

 

[aXeL]

Aha! I may be able to help with this.

So motion sickness is really just the brain's inability to marry what it's seeing with what it's experiencing; for this reason, games like Skyrim will make you want to die as you walk around the game without moving, because the brain is saying "I'm walking!" but... you aren't.

But there's a very, very easy for fix for this. Even for someone with a weak stomach like me.



Walk in place when walking in games, jog in place when jogging in games. I started playing Skyrim and had to stop until I realized this one day after reading an article about motion sickness, and so I tried it again. I can now play Skyrim for hours upon end without getting sick. Winded? Sweaty? Want to die just walking from Riften to Whiterun? Sure. But sick? Not a bit. My brain can now make sense of the locomotion, and I feel perfectly fine.

Yes indeed, however it works slightly differently to what you describe, if I understand it correctly - I am no expert. The brain has a mechanism which is designed to reconcile the mechanical sensation of movement, i.e. the vestibular system which relates to the three X, Y, Z canals in the inner ear which basically act like spirit levels - they enable us to feel motion physically in three dimensions. Anyway, these are reconciled with other senses in the body, primarily vision.

Sickness occurs when the brain cannot reconcile the mechanical motion sense with other senses. Since we were never designed to drive, sail, fly, play VR etc, if the brain detects conflicting signals then it must the the result of the ingestion of a toxic substance for which, obviously, disgorging the contents of the stomach is an obvious resolution.

So, in VR, if there is a slight delay in you turning your head and your vision actually registering motion this, depending on your tolerance, will register as a conflict between the two sets of signal processing in the brain which is what triggers the, "Uh oh, I've been poisoned - quick, vomit" programming. The more rendering required for VR, the larger this discrepancy becomes. Like any other type of motion sickness, you can become desensitised to it. The brain isn't stupid - it knows when to give up trying. Doubtless there are outlier cases who're stuck with it though.

 

[Ganogati]

So, in VR, if there is a slight delay in you turning your head and your vision actually registering motion this, depending on your tolerance, will register as a conflict between the two sets of signal processing in the brain which is what triggers the, "Uh oh, I've been poisoned - quick, vomit" programming. The more rendering required for VR, the larger this discrepancy becomes. Like any other type of motion sickness, you can become desensitised to it. The brain isn't stupid - it knows when to give up trying. Doubtless there are outlier cases who're stuck with it though.

That's where the 90FPS number comes from and why I can't handle the Rift S. Anything below 90fps and I feel it, even slightly. But 90 is the magic number where the latency is fast enough to trick the brain.

Ultimately, for locomotion it comes down to the body's physical movement for most folks. If you walk in place with Skyrim, you won't get sick; it's why you see a lot of streamers do it. Combine that with a high fps headset, and you'll be golden. I'm exceptionally weak to motion sickness, but employing things like that to help my brain with what's happening has proven exceptionally useful. If I try to play a game standing still and using movement locomotion, I'll be sick within 10-15 minutes. If I walk with it, I can keep it up for a few hours. If I allow my FPS to drop I'll also get sick, so I have to manage that pretty closely as well.

It's a challenge, but definitely doable!

 

[aXeL]

That's where the 90FPS number comes from and why I can't handle the Rift S. Anything below 90fps and I feel it, even slightly. But 90 is the magic number where the latency is fast enough to trick the brain.

Ultimately, for locomotion it comes down to the body's physical movement for most folks. If you walk in place with Skyrim, you won't get sick; it's why you see a lot of streamers do it. Combine that with a high fps headset, and you'll be golden. I'm exceptionally weak to motion sickness, but employing things like that to help my brain with what's happening has proven exceptionally useful. If I try to play a game standing still and using movement locomotion, I'll be sick within 10-15 minutes. If I walk with it, I can keep it up for a few hours. If I allow my FPS to drop I'll also get sick, so I have to manage that pretty closely as well.

It's a challenge, but definitely doable!

I'm going to try the walking approach - I never even thought to try it so thanks for this.

If that doesn't work, I just bought a Primitivo, at least if I'm sick after that, I won't care

 

[Ganogati]

If that doesn't work, I just bought a Primitivo, at least if I'm sick after that, I won't care

lol I googled this thinking it was like some kind of fun new game or some sort of locomotion software or something. The actual result looks much more fun =D

 

[jojon]

Totally agree on the striving to maintain 90fps (...or more, if one's HMD offers it), even if it means occasionally dropping rendering resolution until the game looks like Minecraft. -I'm way past getting simulation sick myself, it seems, but having the environment "strobing" past, instead of "flowing", is still tiring to eyes and mind.

...and make that real 90fps - not 45 with any form of motion smoothing filling in the blanks. I know there are plenty of people that swear they can not tell the difference, but I am sure their brains can... :7

If already trodding along in real life, with walking in games, one could give the "Natural Locomotion" utility (...which costs money) a try. It will make the walking only occur as long as you are physically moving, and align the motion vector with the direction one swing one's arms. (Motion can follow arm swinging, or optionally extra sensors on one's feet, if one have them.)

 

[Ganogati]

Totally agree on the striving to maintain 90fps (...or more, if one's HMD offers it), even if it means occasionally dropping rendering resolution until the game looks like Minecraft. -I'm way past getting simulation sick myself, it seems, but having the environment "strobing" past, instead of "flowing", is still tiring to eyes and mind.

...and make that real 90fps - not 45 with any form of motion smoothing filling in the blanks. I know there are plenty of people that swear they can not tell the difference, but I am sure their brains can... :7

If already trodding along in real life, with walking in games, one could give the "Natural Locomotion" utility (...which costs money) a try. It will make the walking only occur as long as you are physically moving, and align the motion vector with the direction one swing one's arms. (Motion can follow arm swinging, or optionally extra sensors on one's feet, if one have them.)

I would like to try this with the feet sensors, but I'm doing it with the arms only. I'm afraid that as much as I played VR, I'd accidentally retrain myself to walk around like a gorilla with really wide swings and then look like more of an idiot than I already do in public =D

 

[Old Duck]

I got sick because my framerate dropped like a rock. Strange, because I can drive around human planetary bases and not have this problem. I don't think new content is as optimized for VR, because the dust from core asteroid explosions also kills my framerate.

 

[jojon]

I'm afraid that as much as I played VR, I'd accidentally retrain myself to walk around like a gorilla with really wide swings

Maybe. It really takes no wider-, nor more vigorous -swings than when walking normally, though, unless one have one's settings messed up.

Mind you; I have come across some people who have vociferously argued that any swinging of one's arms when walking, is somehow "unnatural". Now, those people must be a sight to behold: Walking with their arms hanging down their sides like limp noodles with weights tied to their ends (...or more likely these days, I suppose: Constantly holding up a phone in front of their faces).

 

[TorTorden_VR]

I got sick because my framerate dropped like a rock. Strange, because I can drive around human planetary bases and not have this problem. I don't think new content is as optimized for VR, because the dust from core asteroid explosions also kills my framerate.

The volumetric dust effects is a real frame rate killer and these are heavily employed as fogging around guardian bases.

 

[Old Duck]

The volumetric dust effects is a real frame rate killer and these are heavily employed as fogging around guardian bases.

Okay, next time I'm in the area I'll have to try this again. I used 3DMigto to turn off dust effects generated by core mining, and that solved my framerate issues there, so maybe I can do the same at the Guardian bases!

 

[TorTorden_VR]

Yup, believe it's the very same effect.