my very first VR experience

faluc · Mar 27, 2015

Yesterday I finally tried Elite with the Oculus DK2.
I'm writing down my experiences just to add another data point for those interested.

Some background info: I've been eyeing the DK2 and reading a lot about it for a long time now. I didn't want to buy before trying it and finally I found a simulator gaming company nearby who had a DK2 and also Elite.
I went with a friend who is also a simulator fan. We both are susceptible to motion sickness in moving vehicles, e.g. can't look down at a map or phone screen without getting a little nauseated, can't travel facing backwards, such things. We have never tried any kind of VR system before.

I did the testing with the travel training mission.
So my first impressions:

Sitting in the cockpit, docked

The positional tracking felt perfect for me already with the current technology. Looking around, leaning, looking behind me was very natural. I did feel I'm really in the pilot's seat. The sense of space around me was very real.
The resolution of the display: Yes, you can very much see the black grid between pixels. No, it was not bothering me at all. A higher resolution display will certainly help with text readability, but the game looked totally playable to me as it was.

Take off

OK, now the ship is moving in a straight line. Going up the elevator, still all feels fine. Liftoff, approaching the slot, need to align the ship, rolling ... ooohh boy! That was weird. Felt like I'm falling off the seat. So it turns out, rolling the ship even slightly upsets my sense of balance a lot! Outside the planet felt properly huge. I did a close flying around the station, that was fun. Hyperspace jump, arriving to a star was awesome! Now to dock at the other station. In the end I did not even manage to land. I had to roll the ship left and right to align with the pad, I ended up yanking the DK2 from my head, cold sweat all over...

After this my friend took over, and to my surprise he was rolling happily all over the place. No nausea.

Conclusion:
Definitely try before you buy!
You can't know in advance if you'll get sick or not. My friend who does get car-sick like me had no problem. Meanwhile I still feel a bit weird 24 hrs later, having spent mere 15 minutes in VR.

So now I'm half sad, half glad. I certainly I won't be enjoying VR any time soon (if ever), but at least now I don't have to figure out how to scrape together the money for a new gaming rig and a DK2, haha. Had I not gotten so sick from it, I would have ordered a DK2 for sure.

I'm wondering if future developments in VR can help at all with this simulator sickness I've experienced. I have a feeling that no amount of improvement around resolution or tracking precision will help with the fact that there is a fundamental disconnect between the visual input and the stimulus of the inner ear.

CMDR faluc signing off, back to exploring the Milky Way on my suddenly-all-too-flat screen.

Commander Pew Pew · Mar 27, 2015

I've had bad nausea in the beginning. Like after 20 seconds of a rollercoaster I felt bad the rest of the day. However, in Elite I found the nausea was much less and once I got into the habit of using the ship as a reference and not everything outside of the ship it was gone. Now, after playing for hours and hours I don't get any nausea anymore. It's something your body has to get used to. VR legs so to speak.

If you get the chance, try again. I'm sure with some experience it will get better and you'll have a blast. Don't write it off after your first try.

drkaii · Mar 27, 2015

Commander Pew Pew said:
I've had bad nausea in the beginning. Like after 20 seconds of a rollercoaster I felt bad the rest of the day. However, in Elite I found the nausea was much less and once I got into the habit of using the ship as a reference and not everything outside of the ship it was gone. Now, after playing for hours and hours I don't get any nausea anymore. It's something your body has to get used to. VR legs so to speak.

If you get the chance, try again. I'm sure with some experience it will get better and you'll have a blast. Don't write it off after your first try.

I can certainly echo this. While my nausea wasnt bad at the beginning, it was definitely present. Especially when the game juddered. It took time, several hours on and off but eventually my brain kind of clicked and now nothing I do, not even extremely bad judder can cause me to feel sick. I play sometimes for 7 hours straight.

I definitely didn't experience the level of nausea you described, so I don't know if your ever get over it. If you are like my mum, then not a hope in hell. But she wouldn't even be able to handle 30 seconds so...

Frank · Mar 27, 2015

Hugh? Ralph?

Getting VR belly after only 15 minutes is going some. I feel sorry for you, but there is hope on the horizon. The folks who made VIVE say they've got the VR collywobbles thing sussed. You should try their helmet when it hits the market.

If your friend decides to spring for a DK2, tell him to go easy with it. It's better to build up a resistance to VR multi-colour yawning by taking it in small timed gaming sessions to begin with. He doesn't want any mental relationships established between sticking on the DK2 and having a queasy stomach.

Soda Popinski · Mar 27, 2015

Yeah, when my wife tried rolling, she got instant motion sickness. Pitch and Yaw were fine, though.

I suspect it's also because she doesn't have a lot of Elite / FlightSim experience, so her body didn't know what moving the stick side to side would do. My brother, inadvertently turned Flight Assist Off in an asteroid field, and I didn't notice for several minutes. He got a bit queasy too.

Faluc, do you play Elite on a regular basis (obviously, non-VR)? That could also be an issue.

I bought Alien Isolation to play in the DK2, but get motion sick after a few minutes in that. Maybe I just need to get use to it, but I only have time for one game at a time anyway.

Distance · Mar 27, 2015

When I first got the DK1 I was really sick. Had to sleep for 8 hours. After a few more sessions I could happily stay in some games for hours at a time. I think with vr different people experience it differently. It could have been something simple as bad calibration that gave you nausea.

Don't rule out vr forever just from one bad experience.

faluc · Mar 27, 2015

Soda Popinski said:
Yeah, when my wife tried rolling, she got instant motion sickness. Pitch and Yaw were fine, though.

Faluc, do you play Elite on a regular basis (obviously, non-VR)? That could also be an issue.

I do play Elite a lot, with the standard head tracking. Never had a problem. I've been a gamer for 20+ years, played all kinds of FPS, space sims and driving games, so I'm no stranger to fast moving pictures

faluc · Mar 27, 2015

I certainly will try VR again, I'm still hoping somehow it can be made to work for me. But for now I'll wait until the commercial versions come out.

CMDR Holycow · Mar 27, 2015

I am also the kind of guy that gets motion sickness fairly easily. I can only look down and read something while in the car for maybe 20 or 30 seconds before I feel it come on. In games like the rollercoaster demo, I get sick almost INSTANTLY, as the first drop off approaches. But in elite dangerous.... I literally get zero sickness. I can play for hours and hours straight with no issues. The only way I can give myself some vertigo (which is not motion sickness), is by looking out one of the side windows, and doing a roll. And I can also induce it by leaning forward and looking down through the floor windows as I dock my large cargo ship. But those aren't motion sickness, and they go away instantly. This is the kind of thing you would feel for real if you were really rolling, or looking down as you land. It's a welcomed experience in my opinion.

I say go back again, and do it for another half hour. My bet is that it goes away as you get used to it.

neo1874 · Mar 27, 2015

I had motion sickness the first few times I played using DK2. Then my brain adjusted and I'm playing without any issues.

ranix · Mar 27, 2015

I used to get severely motion sick after about 20 minutes, but now I can play indefinitely. Well, I can when the 1.2 judder issue doesn't happen. With 1.2 judder I can go for about an hour.

SlackR · Mar 27, 2015

Pink custard makes me sick... I mean seriously !
CUSTARD IS SUPPOSED TO BE YELLOW!

... Never gotten sick with VR though even back in the DK1 days. Demoed to plenty of people who did though.

Oheck · Mar 27, 2015

You know, staying away from the experience of motion sickness will only prolong your adjustment to that environment that is causing it. You need to get your 'sea' legs. Your brain will figure out how to cope with the change in time.

Caspar · Mar 27, 2015

Out of all of the experiences on the Rift - ED gives me the least nausea. Which is good because I manage to play it for a couple of hours straight if I can help it. It's well worth persisting.

Karnath · Mar 28, 2015

Great write up on your experience, at least you've had the chance to feel and see what it's like.

I certainly wouldn't give up, the key is repitition just keep plugging away at it and eventually the tables will turn and the nausea and cold sweats only happen when your faced with a game update or firmware/driver update not knowing if the next time you launch ED it's going to break your VR experience

BigDuke6ixx · Mar 28, 2015

faluc said:
I certainly will try VR again, I'm still hoping somehow it can be made to work for me. But for now I'll wait until the commercial versions come out.

Have you read the comments where people have clearly said the the sickness goes away with more exposure? In the end, if you want VR you will have to make the effort to adapt and push through the sickness phase. I doubt very much that Valve have found a way to instantly remove VR sickness, which after all is the vestibular system's sense of movement being upset. My advice: man up.

faluc · Mar 30, 2015

Well, I do know it is supposed to become better with practice. Just right now I can not justify for myself the effort and the investment that would be needed to maybe make it work.

drkaii · Mar 30, 2015

faluc said:
Well, I do know it is supposed to become better with practice. Just right now I can not justify for myself the effort and the investment that would be needed to maybe make it work.

Fair enough. I'm with you dude.

Vidicus · Mar 30, 2015

Have you tried gingerale? There are write ups where ginger helps with nausea. Also check your refresh rate, make sure it is at 75. I get no sickness at all with ED. The only game I did feel sick was Alien Isolation, and that was fixed via editing the files for a better FoV.

Jake_blakeson · Mar 31, 2015

Problem is none of the tricks you try that help prevent real life motion sickness will work to help VR motions sickness. They are opposite, RL motion sickness happens when your inner ear tells your brain you are moving but your eyes tell you your standing still. With VR motion sickness your eyes are telling you your moving but your inner ear is saying your standing still. This is why things like Dramamine which dull your inner ear won't work to eleviate VR motion sickness. Of course there is the placebo effect, like putting a bandaid below one of your ears, people think it will eleviate motion sickness, and since it is all in your head it helps, so in some people taking medicine to stop motion sickness will work even though it isn't the medicine that is helping them.
Once you are sick, the best ways to settle your stomach are anything with Ginger in it or anything that is salty like saltine crackers. Ginger snaps work really well because they are loaded with salt and Ginger.
Take my word for it I was in the Navy, spent 2 years on an aircraft carrier, I am hyper sensitive to motion sickness, everyday while we were underway I was motion sick. I was so sick at one point I couldn't even keep water down. Everyday for two weeks I had to be put on an IV.
To put some of the people who are staying away from the Rift because of fear of motion sickness, minds at ease.
I don't get sick using the Oculus Rift, but for those of you who want to get sick in ED while using the Rift, try flying outside of a station near a planet or sun, and then stand up and walk over to a window and look down. Be forewarned bring a bucket with you.
Another note, motion sickness can be triggered thru smell. If you smell something pungent when you get sick, you may get sick when you are exposed to that smell again. So be careful, I read a case where a guy got sick while wearing his Oculus Rift, his Rift had a strong foam rubber smell. Everytime he went to use the Rift after that, even before he started it up in a game he got sick, he said it was the smell that was making him sick, but it turned out that his brain associated the foam rubber smell with being motion sick, so the smell of the Rift was making him motion sick. Kind of like the smell of vomit sometimes makes people sick to their stomachs.
Weird !