Motion sickness is one of the biggest reasons that discourage people from using Virtual
Reality headsets.
And that’s a shame because a lot of people think they are not able to get better.
We have been playing with VR for almost three years now.
And if you’ve followed us for a while, you’ll know that I am prone to motion sickness.
Chary is good, but I have laid on the couch many times before trying to get over that
awful nausea.
But the good news is that you can get better at it.
And I’m saying this from a personal experience; I don’t get as sick as often anymore now.
So I wanted to make a video to explain what I did to make my VR legs stronger and what
I do to keep on preventing motion sickness.
If you’ve ever felt motion sick before, I hope that these tips will help you out as
well.
Subscribe if you haven’t yet to see more VR videos like this one.
And now, let’s get started.
First, let’s talk about what causes motion sickness in Virtual Reality.
Motion sickness occurs when your eyes perceive that you are moving.
However, your body is not.
So for example, if you are sitting down or standing in one spot, but using the joystick
of your controller to move around in a VR game, it causes an inconsistency which can
cause motion sickness.
When that happens, it is the same kind of feeling that you can get from being carsick.
You can feel dizziness, headache, fatigue, vertigo but the most common symptom is nausea.
If you don’t resolve this, you will most likely vomit, or you can feel sick for hours
even after you put down the headset.
That actually takes us to tip number 1.
Learn when to take a break.
If you start feeling motion sickness, immediately take a break.
I usually feel a cold sweat coming or just a general feeling of discomfort.
When that happens, I know that if I continue playing, it will get worse and I will have
a hard time getting over it.
So I take a break before it gets worse and when I recover, I can continue playing again.
Taking breaks is also what has given me stronger VR legs.
VR legs are by the way what the community calls the resistance to motion sickness when
playing VR games.
By taking it slow and playing short sessions first, I was able to play longer sessions
over time.
At the moment, I can play most VR games for hours without feeling sick.
But let’s continue, if you started feeling motion sick in a VR game, I recommend trying
out this second tip after taking the break.
Tip number 2.
Every VR game usually has Comfort settings that you can change.
You’ll most likely find it under VR settings or Comfort settings if you open up a any menu
in any VR game.
Check out every setting to see what works best for you.
Afterward, you’ll be able to apply it to other games.
For example, personally, I cannot take smooth turning or locomotion that is not head relative.
So in every game, I set turning to snap instead of smooth and smooth locomotion to head relative
instead of hand relative.
I also prefer just turning with my body in real life instead of using any snap or smooth
turning, which helps too.
So if you took a break as I mentioned in tip number 1, I recommend checking out the VR
settings after you took that break to see if there is something different that you can
do in that game to prevent the thing that is causing the motion sickness.
Tip number 3.
A lot of newcomers in VR are usually not aware of this.
In every VR headset, you can set your IPD, short for interpupillary distance, to match
your eyes.
Your IPD is the distance between the center of the pupils of your eyes.
My IPD is around 59 millimeters.
This is important because if you don’t match the IPD in VR, then you will not only have
a blurry display, but it could also cause motion sickness.
So if you don’t know your IPD, you can measure it yourself using mobile apps or using an
old school ruler, although this might not be as accurate.
You can get an accurate measurement by trying to get your eyes measured at a prescription
glasses store.
Then if you know your number, you can set it on your headset.
On the Valve Index, HTC VIVE devices, Oculus Rift CV1, and Oculus Quest, there is a physical
slider usually below the headset that you can use to set it.
On the Rift S, you can set it in the Oculus app by going to the settings.
Tip number 4.
Try out a travel anti-nausea wrist band.
I have a pair right here.
What it does is, this plastic stud here, puts pressure on an acupuncture point of each wrist
that has been proven to help against motion sickness.
This point is the Nei-Kuan point if I am pronouncing it correctly 😉.
To find this point, place your middle three fingers of your right arm on the back of your
left wrist.
Your Nei-Kuan point will be right below your index finger.
If you press that point with a finger and you feel a slight sensitivity or tingling,
then you’ll know that you found the right spot.
Put the wrist bands on this spot on both arms before you feel motion sickness for it to
help.
I have never known about this solution until a viewer commented about this and so I bought
it to try it out.
Maybe it’s like a placebo effect, I don’t know, but it does seem to work for me.
It might not work for everybody though, but you can find a pair of these for about 5 dollars
on Amazon, so I think it is worth a try.
I’ll link it in our description for those interested.
While you are watching this video, don’t forget to leave a like to show your support!
Tip number 5.
Get some ginger in your house.
Ginger is a natural remedy for motion sickness, so it’s worth trying it out.
There are a lot of forms of ginger; you can get ginger ale or make tea with fresh ginger.
Or you can even find ginger candy to chew on.
It should help during playing or even after you get motion sick, consuming some ginger
can help you recover sooner.
Tip number 6.
Turn a fan on while playing.
This is another tip I got from a viewer, which is to put a fan on me while playing VR games.
High enough so you can feel the wind while playing.
Maybe it has the same effect as when you get carsick, and people open the window for you.
I’m not sure but it helps!
Tip number 7.
Start with comfortable games.
To my surprise, a lot of people who try VR for the first time have tried a rollercoaster
VR experience.
These games are super intense and can cause motion sickness fast.
Heck, after three years, I still don’t really enjoy playing those experiences.
I recommend training your VR legs by playing games that are comfortable first and then
move on to more intense games.
More comfortable games are games like Beat Saber or Superhot, where you don’t have
to move around in-game.
After that, you can move over to medium comfort games like games that use smart locomotion
systems, like Sprint Vector where you move your arms to run or this stealth kayak game
Phantom Covert Ops.
If you can handle all those, you can move on to more intense games like Skyrim or No
Man’s Sky.
The Oculus Store indicates whether a game is comfortable in the game’s description.
Unfortunately, Steam or Viveport does not do this so with those platforms; you’ll
have to do some research like watching a review or gameplay video.
Tip number 8.
Look at your setup.
Check your tracking setup and computer setup before starting a game.
Is your PC able to handle a VR game at a decent frame rate?
And is your tracking setup done correctly, so you don’t get any tracking occlusions?
Loss in tracking causes weird display problems that can instantly cause motion sickness,
so this is something that needs extra care.
I’ve made a couple of tips and tricks videos for tracking amongst other things which I
recommend checking out, these are older videos, but most of them still apply.
I’ll link both below.
This also brings us to tip number 9.
Check your frame rate.
If a game causes frame drops, you’ll most likely get motion sick from it.
So if you just bought a new game and are starting to feel weird, then check the frame rate first.
In SteamVR, you can check it by right-clicking the SteamVR window > Settings > Video > Advanced
Frame Timing.
Here, you’ll see a green area and some other lines.
If the lines and movements stay below this green area, then you’re fine.
If the purple stuff goes above the green area, it means your framerate is not up to par.
You can turn on this checkbox here to show this graph in-game too.
You can also download SteamVR Advanced Settings to check the reprojection ratio.
Basically, the lower this number, the better the framerate.
On Oculus, you can check your frame rate by opening the Oculus Debug Tool which you can
find in your Oculus install folder under Support and then oculus-diagnostics.
Launch it before starting a game, then set the Visible HUD to Performance.
This will show a frame rate graph in-game.
If you see that you are getting frame drops or low frame rates, then check if you can
lower the graphics settings of the game, decrease any supersampling or maybe you’ll have to
update your graphics drivers.
Tip number 10.
If you are prone to motion sickness, do not play a VR game after drinking alcohol.
I’ve tried it before and uhm well; it’s not a nice feeling.
I feel motion sick way faster and before I knew it, I was on the couch again.
So that’s it!
Those were the things I do or did to help me get my VR legs.
Do you have any other tips and tricks for others to prevent motion sickness?
Comment it down below and let’s help each other out!
A special thanks goes to artArmin and a special shout out goes to his Patreon page –
Everyone, thank you all so much for your support by watching.
And as always VR on!