Motion sickness - it's 99% to do with frame rate!

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
So this is where lots of people get to say things like ... I TOLD YOU SO! and DUH! and WHY WON'T PEOPLE GET THIS THROUGH THEIR THICK SKULLS!

The thing is, I've had my Oculus nearly a month now. I'm running with a GTX 970 and I've been tweaking graphics settings and playing with the debug tool SS setting (or new in-game equivalent) and experimenting with ASW and I was pretty confident that I'd achieved the best balance between detail and framerate. I was fine flying around in space but I was getting really motion sick when driving the buggy.

Anyway, for whatever reason I ended up with some lower quality settings at the weekend and my SRV motion sickness disappeared.

My revelation is this ... for me at least I'm not consciously aware of the difference between say 50fps and 90fps. Everything "seems" smooth. I don't perceive any judder or flicker and was therefore happily thinking to myself "hey, I can get away with higher graphics settings at the expanse of framerate. These people banging on about 90fps are exaggerating!"

<insert "I TOLD YOU SO's" here!>

But sub-consciously ... wow! Yes, it REALLY makes a difference to motion sickness. REALLY!

If you think you're graphics look fine but are feeling motion sick, try lowering those settings until you get close to 90fps (or 45fps with ASW turned on). You may be in for a pleasant surprise.
 

GMANTOR

G
I think you are possibly right. in real life (I must be old as I didn't say "IRL") I don't get motion sickness at all. In fact if the plane is bumpy or the ship is swaying I quite enjoy it. I experienced my first ever motion sickness in the buggy and I was stunned. I didn't expect that ! I thought it might just be because of the extreme movement without any physical feedback but framerate could be right. Since 2.2 I was having problems finding the right settings and I think I had them lower than I would otherwise set them and I did a buggy run in VR without feeling sick. Will do further investigation.
 

Tiayviel

Tiayviel
Yeah, both 90fps and 45fps feel "fluent" - but the latter gives a slight (double-)vision blur that some notice, some not. When 45fps kicks in I feel that my vision gets a bit delayed, like after a few shots.

There are people who are more prone to 45fps sickness and those who don't mind it at all. As with everything in VR there are two sides. I'm waving the "90fps above all" flag myself.
 

[VR] Frank_G

[VR] Frank_G
Jup, true 90 fps really do the job well. I use a GTX 970 as well and i reverted to VR medium and no ASW. It just feels better and keeps the headswirl away...
 

[HJ]-RedRaven

[HJ]-RedRaven
Yep, agree Alec :)

I'm finding I need to turn ASW off - my mix of details tends to switch ASW on too early and I end up with worse performance with ASW than with simple ATW.
 

mp4x

mp4x
Or, over the period of time you spent changing your settings and getting everything just right, you actually acclimatized yourself to VR.




I'm only taking the     . I don't get VR sickness but I'd agree that it's largely, likely, due to frame rate. Early on I got some vision issues like when you wear someones prescription glasses, but your vision is fine... bit dizzy for a split second, but all that's gone. Yes my settings are better as I've become better at tuning the vive, but I've also become immune to it and the things that used to give me that feeling - the SRV for example, ETS2 - don't anymore
 
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[VR] Frank_G

[VR] Frank_G
I thought i didnt get Motion Sickness as well - and i really dont get the spins... but honestly, the moment you change to a higher FPS configuration, you realize, what you have been through.
I could play 3 or more hours in VR high, but as soon as i switched to VR medium and upped a few settings manually, the increased FPS really gave me a better experience and it is also noticeable, when you take off the Rift. Usually i was exhausted, after a session of Elite. Now its just stopping from a regular game on a monitor.
 

mp4x

mp4x
Same. This has been an almost life long thing for me, it's worked out just swell :)

Incidentally, re the OP, even at 90FPS if I park someone who hasn't used VR in my Vive - they still get VR sickness when I get them to barrel roll, use the SRV, etc. I think for most users, who are running an -okay- system, it only takes a very short time for you brain to adjust to the motion, beyond that sure it's poor FPS.

I can jack settings up way overboard, intentionally make it stutter, and still don't get any sickness... I just have a rubbish experience. Try it, after playing on a smooth system for a bit, go and put your settings how they were when it used to mess with you, you'll likely find out it doesn't do whatever it used to do, to you.
 
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RobLocksley

R
Frank_G said:
I had the money for a 1080, but then the new Titan X showed up... I will go for that one by the end of the year, even if i only play 3 VR games at the moment. I wanted VR since i read Neuromancer in the 80th... Now that i finally have the technology in my living room, i must go all the way.
Click to expand...
I felt the same way. Got my Titan Pascal a few weeks after release, watercooled it and dare not tell anyone what it cost as I don't want to be institutionalised....
 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
mp4x said:
I can jack settings up way overboard, intentionally make it stutter, and still don't get any sickness... I just have a rubbish experience.
Click to expand...

That's interesting, I guess as as been said before, you can get acclimatised to the sensation but it would appear that, until you do so, you can be subconsciously sensitive to lower frame rates. It was the subconscious thing that struck me really, the fact that, although I couldn't "see" any appreciable difference with my eyes between say 50 and 80fps (and therefore thought I could get away with it), I could totally notice the difference it made to the way it made me feel.
 
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mp4x

mp4x
How do you feel about re-projection? I've seen it said a number of times on these forums, to turn it on, but for me that makes ED run noticeably worse. Others swear by it



Alec Turner said:
That's interesting, I guess as as been said before, you can get acclimatised to the sensation but it would appear that, until you do so, you can be subconsciously sensitive to lower frame rates. It was the subconscious thing that struck me really, the fact that, although I couldn't "see" any appreciable difference with my eyes between say 50 and 80fps (and therefore thought I could get away with it), I could totally notice the difference it made to the way it made me feel.
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Alec Turner

Alec Turner
mp4x said:
How do you feel about re-projection? I've seen it said a number of times on these forums, to turn it on, but for me that makes ED run noticeably worse. Others swear by it
Click to expand...

Is that the same as the Oculus ASW (Asynchronous Space Warp) thing that throttles the game to 45fps and then generates intermediate frames to make it seem like 90fps?

I'm not sure. I had some horrible juddering effects with it inside stations (where things seems MUCH better if I used Ctrl+1 to turn it off) but I suspect that's because the high graphics settings I had meant that it couldn't even do 45fps. I need to do further experimentation with it.
 

mp4x

mp4x
Ah, ok, no sorry async re-projection works well since the update to SteamVR, and I leave that on (not that I get anywhere near as low as 45fps,)but I was talking the standard re-projection offering the Vive had/has. If you're on the Oculus I suppose you can disregard !





Alec Turner said:
Is that the same as the Oculus ASW (Asynchronous Space Warp) thing that throttles the game to 45fps and then generates intermediate frames to make it seem like 90fps?

I'm not sure. I had some horrible juddering effects with it inside stations (where things seems MUCH better if I used Ctrl+1 to turn it off) but I suspect that's because the high graphics settings I had meant that it couldn't even do 45fps. I need to do further experimentation with it.
Click to expand...
 
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