Getting you VR legs

[rupy]

So I'm trying to get used to the nausea, playing HL2.

Until I reached the boat-thing section everything was ok (except loading screens that almost makes me barf every time).

How is it going for you long timers, does it get better?

[Machinima]

Well I wouldn't call myself a long timer, only had the Rift for a week and a half; but at the moment I simply can't use the Rift, even just putting it on and looking around makes me nauseous (for days afterwards), moving is instant motion sickness, even just moving a few meters forward or turning.

However i'm putting this down as a side affect of my hayfever, with is pretty bad at the moment. Apparently histamine plays a role in motion sickness, so I'll just wait until the pollen count is down before trying it again.

Edit: by the way, anyone else experienced problems with hayfever and VR before?

[blazespinnaker]

That's intense. My wife gets pretty bowled over as well, though, so I can believe it.

I get zero motion sickness doing anything with the Rift. Which is really peculiar, because I'm a total wuss when trying to read or use my iPad in a moving vehicle. I get sick very quickly.

I do notice a bit of an odd feeling here and there sometimes though, especially if the iPD and stuff is out of whack.

Question for you: what's it like standing up with the rift? Are you in any danger of falling over?

My wife seems like she's always about to tip and has to use the rift sitting down.

[Machinima]

Question for you: what's it like standing up with the rift? Are you in any danger of falling over?

My wife seems like she's always about to tip and has to use the rift sitting down.

Balance is fine, I can stand up with no problem, though a slight tinge of motion sickness where what I'm seeing doesn't correspond to my action.

To be frank though I think most of my problems are related to the hayfever; I feel nauseous right now yet I haven't used the rift since Sunday. I think its just hit me really hard this year (either that or simulator sickness lasts a whole lot longer than I expected).

I tried HL2 on Sunday, I got off the train and up to the turn style, then had to quit, and for the next several hours I couldn't even watch TV without feeling motion sick, all I could do was lie in bed and read.

I get zero motion sickness doing anything with the Rift. Which is really peculiar, because I'm a total wuss when trying to read or use my iPad in a moving vehicle. I get sick very quickly.

This gives me hope, i'm the same with reading in a moving vehicle (except a train).

[bobv5]

It takes a lot to give me motion sickness IRL, but Rift can do it quickly.

For HL2 I find using a Wiimote + Motion plus + nunchuck is far better than a non motion controller. I posted a glovepie script on here somewhere. Digital movement controls are no good. Analogue is better, but the player character needs to accelerate, not instantly change velocity. ich bin attempting to include this in the script, but as I have said many times on this forum, I suck at software.

The display settings ich war using seem to be pretty bad, you don't want to duplicate displays for Source engine spiels it seems. I certainly noticed what I thought was poor tracking, apparently actually caused by display settings, but have been too busy to try with recommended settings.

Motion sickness pills work well for me. Most of them are anti-histamines, relabeled to promote side effects as features. I won't give more details because the admins here seem to frown on such things. PM if you want.

[Okta]

I am another sufferer, i can only use the RIft a few minutes in most cases, sometimes a few seconds will make me very unwell for hours. Damn shame.

[Marulu]

The first few days with the Rift had me suffering quite a bit of motion sickness, but over time it went completely away.
I now don´t feel sick at all anymore.

I recommend running against walls, and falling down from high places in VR, to desensitize yourself, it worked for me and for a friend of mine.

[zoost]

The first days using the Rift I felt a strange feeling of being disoriented and sickness. But it slowly gets better. My wife used the Rift for a minute and felt sick the rest of the day. I remember people getting sick of the first FPS like Doom and Quake (in 1993). You will get used to it.

[rupy]

Ok, I'm in good sick company...

About IPD, I used the TF2 tool with C cups and it was accurate, so the wiki is wrong. Luckily since using A cups like they recommend is a fluke.

Actually, the IPD should be changed to left_pd and right_pd, on every face there is a big difference.

I think we need slower pace, less latency and foremost no interruptions.

Has anyone tried to emulate headbob like cymatic bruce did?

[mickman]

Here's a good technique to use to help overcome Rift motion sickness.

Don't strap the Rift to your head.
Instead simply hold the face plate in one hand and press it against your face. Look around for a few seconds and then remove your face from the Rift.

Back in the real world take a few deep breathes and if possible focus your attention on a horizontal plane .. If you can look out a window at the horizon, this is even better.

When you feel ok go back in by simply pressing the Rift against your face again for a brief amount of time.

Repeat this action a few times over and then take a good break... Once you feel ok go back in and repeat the cycle over again.

I won't stipulate how long each cycle should last for as it's different for each individual.

Get a feel for what works best for you.. But the important part is don't strap yourself in... just take brief short hits.

[Mystify]

Ok, I'm in good sick company...
Actually, the IPD should be changed to left_pd and right_pd, on every face there is a big difference.

Wouldn't that be no different from having a camera offset by the error? In which case, you are talking about a centimeter or so of perceived camera position from actual. That doesn't sound like it has any bearing on anything.

[Parallaxis]

Driving the beach buggy in Half Life 2 makes me sick. But I can walk around for hours. Heli-Hell 2 also makes me sick i 2 minutes. Rift Coaster does absolutely nothing for me.

[brainpann]

I have had my rift for a while now and experience very little nausea anymore. When I first got it, I could barely play anything longer than for 10 or so minutes. Now, very little phases me. It gets better! The most I have ever been in is 2hrs but I could have stayed longer though.

[rupy]

I'm trying to play a little each day to see if it gets any better... now I can play maybe 15 minutes without any discomfort.

Before I pushed on even if my stomach was turning which is bad I think.

But there are so many reasons for the nausea; the immersion actually puts me in such a state I forget to breathe. It's like asphyxiation motion sickness...

Edit: Ok, it's getting better... I can even drive the buggy without too much discomfort now!

[przecinek]

It seems I'm quite prono to simulation sickness but it also depends on what I focus at.
Even in the VRcinema if I start noticing latency (moving my head fast left to right, and focusing on purpose on the delay) it will get me sick almost instantly. Walking is still difficult - in MOTM in particular, I have to look down when going up&down the stairs.

Mickman's suggestion seems sensible. Going back and forth between RL and VR seems to speed up the process of getting VR legs.

[MrGreen]

Even in the VRcinema if I start noticing latency (moving my head fast left to right, and focusing on purpose on the delay) it will get me sick almost instantly.

I don't think you should feel that much latency from head tracking. Obviously, there is some but it's quite imperceptible to me.

1- Are you running multiple graphics cards in SLI or Crossfire? The way those work adds at least a frame of latency. I have 2 7970s and I disable Crossfire when playing with the Rift. It's downright unplayable otherwise.

2- Are you mirroring your desktop? Joe from Valve measured extra latency when running this way and said it should be avoided.

3- Make sure the Rift is strapped tightly enough to your head. If it's not, it could slightly move when you move your head and you really don't want that.

4- Try running in native 1280x800 resolution (if you're not already) to see if that makes a difference. There's no evidence of it really adding latency, but the downsampling that's all the rage with the Unity demos obviously has to add an extra step somewhere in the loop.

The screen has pretty nasty motion blur though. Maybe that's what you meant by latency?

[ziphnor]

I have only tried out the Rift on two occasions, at a friends place ( which immediately caused me to regret not backing the kickstarter . Now i am trying to decide whether to wait for a 1080p version.

What i noticed was that games were i controlled the avatar's body using a mouse or keyboard caused problems in that my brain apparently cannot accept that my hand is controlling my viewpoint. For example, if i turn around using the mouse in HL2 i get motion sick almost immediately. However, i went through several loops of the roller coaster demo without noticing anything, i guess because the brain expects to be moved around as you are riding in a cart. I had the same experience with Rift Racer, i could have played that for as long as i wanted, zero motion sickness there ( even when i turned the car upside down in the air etc).

The undercurrents demo was actually the best for me, i could have continued with that indefinitely as it allowed me to control my direction just based on where i was looking. The absolutely worst was the museum of the microstar demo, which made me feel so bad i had to go home and lie down for the rest of the evening...

It will be interesting to see if my brain can learn to accept mouse look, but it might not get much of a chance because i am definitely getting at least one ODT

I had absolutely no issues with latency or motion blur (yes, there is some motion blur, but not that bad), the latency is so low that i never even thought about it.

[Bleppe]

Still waiting for my Rift to arrive, but I'm just curious about something.
I have never suffered from motion/sea sickness so I hope I won't have any problems using the Rift.
My question is though, those of you that do suffer from motion/sea sickness in real life and have gotten your VR legs, have you noticed any difference in real life? Has it gotten better/worse after using the Rift?

[ziphnor]

Still waiting for my Rift to arrive, but I'm just curious about something.
I have never suffered from motion/sea sickness so I hope I won't have any problems using the Rift.

Don't bet on it, I have never been sea sick or motion sick before in my life, but the mouse turn / strafing messes me up really quick and can make me really sick. On the plus side nothing else could really make me uncomfortable. My point is just that this is a different type of motion sickness.

[przecinek]

I don't think you should feel that much latency from head tracking. Obviously, there is some but it's quite imperceptible to me.

I have a single HD 7850 video card, but I am mirroring my desktop.

Still there's a lot of people who mirror it and don't notice any latency. I actually never noticed it myself until at some point I decided to do an organoleptic evaluation To my surprise it is visible. Look left and right while in virtual cinema (other demos are a bit more distracting) and try to focus in order to see if there's anything off.

P.S Movements are translated almost immediately so I can't say I feel much latency, but I can perceive it if I want to

[Direlight]

Positional tracking and 1080p should help the sickness, some people are overtly sensitive to moving images though, even in 2d.

[rupy]

After two weeks, playing a little almost every day (maybe half way through HL2) I must say the rift does not live up to the promises. the motion sickness destroys all potential. even if you put the best hardware/software to the problem the sensor latency will always be perceived by my brain (i think some brains will collate the images better) and it will make me sick. So you can keep your head straight and use this as a very low res stereoscopic 3d viewer, that's it unfortunately.

Ultimately this becomes just like 3D movies; a gimmick that quickly fades once you realize that it doesn't really improve the game, unless of course you wan't to use this as a 3D modelling tool, there it might have potential.

1080p is not the solution, positional sensor will help, as will removing the loading screens etc. but only marginally, what we need is a custom "sensor -> GPU render -> screen" hardware pipeline (I'm talking sci fi stuff = optical fibers directly from the GPU to the eye and quantum radio transmission of sensor data here, or maybe just have the whole computer in the HMD and build everything custom) that has 10 times lower latency and I don't know if 1) that's physically possible 2) economically viable.

Or maybe something is wrong on my computer, new Ivy Bridge with HD4000, I will buy a Haswell soon, so I'll see if HD4600 fixes anything but other than that I'm out. The tuscany demo has really bad sensor framerate for me (moving is completely smooth, but when I turn my head the image stutters)... don't know why...

[Bleppe]

I think you should go with a dedicated graphicscard instead of the built in 4000/4600.
They will never be able to render the images at the framerate required for VR.
And the jump in performance between Ivy and Haswell isn't that big so I doubt that would help any.

[rupy]

Interesting, can anyone with ivybridge and dedicated graphics try HL2 with both and compare? I cant add dedicated to my ivy bridge setup as its on a mini-itx board without PCIex16... but I tried OculusRoomTiny.exe and that should run fine on any GPU and that's still too slow. So I don't think it's HD4000 that is the problem...

[WiredEarp]

@ rupy: I think you are basing this on too little experience with a properly set up Rift. I actually agree that the nausea is the biggest issue facing the Rifts potential success, but firstly, you need very decent hardware/framerates before you will ever get a good experience.
Any integrated graphics (Intel anything) is not going tobe good enough. I'd improve that first.

After that, you need software designed for VR, with intuitive body tracking if its a stand up / move around type of game. Currently, all the games like HalfLife2 etc will give you nausea. However, I've used other applications that don't give me nausea. First Law would be an example of this for me. I put this down to the fact that its a cockpit app, so that its harder for your virtual body to be out of sync with your real body.

Finally, I feel that having no positional tracking also contributes to nausea, probably due to the lack of virtual/real synchronization again. I don't think we will be able to fully judge things until we have used the final version of the Rift, with higher resolution and proper positional tracking.

So really, I agree with most of your conclusions, but I do feel that the problem is not insurmountable. However, it IS the most important issue that needs to be resolved IMHO.

[Bleppe]

Interesting, can anyone with ivybridge and dedicated graphics try HL2 with both and compare? I cant add dedicated to my ivy bridge setup as its on a mini-itx board without PCIex16... but I tried OculusRoomTiny.exe and that should run fine on any GPU and that's still too slow. So I don't think it's HD4000 that is the problem...

I'm at work right now so I don't have time to find any comparisons between Ivy/Haswell, but I'll link some when I get back home if you want. I just ordered a Haswell 4770K myself since I only have the first i7 they made (960 i think), so I have spent alot of time reading and watching reviews and performance tests on youtube. And they all come to the same conclusion that the jump in performance between Ivy and Haswell is almost insignificant and not worth the upgrade, especially since you'll have to get a new motherboard aswell because of the socket change.

[Ziggurat]

After two weeks, playing a little almost every day (maybe half way through HL2) I must say the rift does not live up to the promises. the motion sickness destroys all potential. even if you put the best hardware/software to the problem the sensor latency will always be perceived by my brain (i think some brains will collate the images better) and it will make me sick. So you can keep your head straight and use this as a very low res stereoscopic 3d viewer, that's it unfortunately.

Not to be harsh, but I don't know any milder way of putting this, your argument is pretentious. The way the human body works or rather its faults affect you as well, so within a short while we will surly have VR headset without any problems of nausea.

Of everything I have tried Half Life 2 is the only thing that makes me nauseous, so this leads me to believe that designing a game for the Rift (with option to play without) will be the biggest short term thing we can do against nausea. I cant wait til Adoral84 is finished porting his mod HL2 VR where you can use the Hydra for positional tracking of the head. This combined with a pedometer style walk in place to walk forwards might almost completely eliminate nausea for me in HL2. The loading screens don't effect me much, but I try to hold my head still when they happen.


Anyway, back to hardware and nausea, Carmack (the God of VR) said the magic number for latency for visuals in VR are 20ms is generally imperceptible. Unity measures the Rift to have about 35ms latency. But this is generally towards the refreshrate, the way the screen does pixelswitching might also have something to do with something.

Well here is 5000 words about VR and latency by Carmack its a great read. http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2013/02/2 ... trategies/

[Bleppe]

Here are a couple of reviews of the 4770K Haswell, and as you can see the difference between the 4770K and the 3770K Ivy is hardly noticeble.
For me that has a first gen i7 it will be a huge upgrade but for someone who already has an Ivy it's hardly an upgrade at all.

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/15 ... e-position

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac ... 062/review

And pretty much every review I've read says the same thing. So If I were to give some friendly advice, I'd rather get a new motherboard with pci-e x16 slot and a decent gfx-card.

/edit

Perhaps something like the Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe or ASRock Z77E-ITX motherboard would suit your needs?

[rupy]

@all good feedback all around. yes I will get a x16 port so I can test. btw. sixense tuscany does not have the stutter and speed is a lot better, almost unnoticeable from pixel switching, so it seems not to be a HD4000 issue after all, the issue seems to be my pretentious brain!

Edit: ok, yes sixense tuscany is good, almost no nausea at all after only 5 minutes though... guess that HL2 training pays off, no but seriously the sensors/hardware pipeline are good enough it seems... just need good software then!