Widescreen Gaming Forum

Started with me with HL2. I played through it when I still had a CRT, and did fine. But now, with any lcd and my hdtv, it makes me nauseous and dizzy. I play it at 1920x1080 right now and can't last for more than 10 minutes. My tv is forced to run at 60 mhz from what I can tell, as well.

Anyone out there have this happen to them?

I can play BF2 and FEAR just fine, but HL2 and Prey has both made me sick to the point of nearly vomiting.

That's commonly caused by having a FOV (field of view) that's too high.

Since FOV's are typically higher for wider displays when the image is isaplyed properly.

You can change the FOV fpor both games either in the .cfg files in your savegame, added to you sgame shortcut, or entered through the games' console..

for Prey, the command is "g_fov x" - x being the number you want.
enter the command with no value (g_fov) and it will show you the current value.

for Half-Lilfe 2, the command is "fov x"
and again, enter no value will show the current.

Check out http://www.tweakguides.com/ for oodles of spiffy tweak guides, including all the games you mentioned.

Have fun, and put away the bucket. :)

That seems to make sense. It always seems that it hits me when I'm walking somewhere and I need to look over to the left or right to track something. Will messing with the FOV at my current resolution on a 47" tv really jack with the quality?

Also, it made me sick on a 20" lcd that was capped at 800x600. Does the FOV apply there too?

Player bob does me in - I always have to disable it (when possible)

Sitting back the proper distance also helps..

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6831

Certain games do this to me as well. While HL2 does not do this to me, Prey does start to make me sick when I have tried playing it. Deus-Ex 2 for example ALWAYS makes me sick. Thankfully I heard it was nothing like the original and I am not missing much.

I think it is a combination of a few factors (at least in my case).

1. Framerate. If it is choppy and feels slightly laggy, it will typically do this to me. Input lag (bad response times) can also be attributed to this in the same manner.

2. How tired I am. Games have made me sick when i try playing them late at night after a long day, but the next day when i am fresh, it doesn't affect me the same.

3. Head-bob. Like Doug, if games have a lot of head-bob, it will almost always make me sick.

4. Poor controls due to coding. Some games simply have terrible "movement" and when you press the keys or move the mouse to move or look around, the game doesn't respond like your mind thinks it should

It's like how I often get sick when riding in the passenger seats when someone else drives, yet I never get sick when I am driving. I believe it is the same phenomenon.

Also, if you game in a dark room, try turning on some lights in the room so your eyes/mind have the environment to keep as a base of reference. If I game in the dark in a FPS, I will almost always get sick as all I can see and focus on is the moving screen.

Good luck bro. You aren't alone.

EA games usually make me sick, but not because of motion sickness. :wink:

Well, I didn't know how to put in a custom resolution, but found it off the link in the first reply (thanks!). My res is set at 1152x656 at the moment, and when I played HL2 in that last night, I didn't get sick once! But, I did feel a little crappy near the end of my game time but it didn't effect me that much. I played for about 2-3 hours without any problems. Lowering the res either directly fixed the FOV issue or the lower res just helped my eyes see everything better.

Thanks for all the help guys! :P

Oh yeah, I get like between 100-300fps. Atleast, that's what fraps tells me when I have it running while playing, so I don't think the FPS is a problem. :lol:

I find looking at a screen in an otherwise dark room is the only way I start to feel sick. That and a low refresh rate (<100Hz) on a CRT. I have never had a problem on a TFT aside from the bright screen/dark room thing.

EA games usually make me sick, but not because of motion sickness. :wink:

lack of widescreen support and the amazing fov hacks that make things stretched....?

Good post, agreed the same thing started to happening to me after i got a Widescreen monitor and playing at 1920 x 1200 resolution.

Sometimes, not often but sometimes if I look to quickly to the right or left, I get disoriented for a second like I am in limbo, its wierd, lol

It's just a stutter or a pause for like a half-second and then it goes away, but yeah it makes me dizzy as you described.

I think that is a result of too many hours of sustained gaming. It doesn't happen right after I begin my gaming session, it's only after many hours of playing for me.

Just eye fatigue.