My experience about health

[b4thman]

I would like to express my personal experience about health repercusion when using Nvidia 3D vision glasses, not to worry/bother anybody but to know things better and share my experience.

I have been using Nvidia 3D glasses since the release of the 1st model. I have to say that from the begining I whas shocked with the big immersion, and I was trapped into this magic way to play. But what happens is that I notice some synthoms when playing for some time/hours, and that is something that don't happen if I play the same time in 2D. In the last year I have not played too much, just to prevent this, and specially I try not to play using the glasses when I have to respond better at work. Now on hollidays I have spent a couple of days playing again with the glasses, and again the synthoms occur.

The synthoms I notice are: not while playing, but after, I notice little eye vibration and maybe neck palpitation, and usually the day after playing I notice eye fatigue easily. If I keep playing for some days I probably suffer almost constant eye and brain fatigue (not too much, but it is easily noticeable), and I need to stay away from playing with glasses for some days (or maybe only one day).

I am not too sure, but maybe these are possible reasons:

1) Flickering of the image produced because of the shutter method (60 fps/eye).
2) Use of the eyes to see a "perspective" different than real life. Even tweaking depth and convergence, the result is not the same as real life, so the brain must do an effort to adecuate to this new word.
3) Maybe playing 3D makes me put more interest in looking at small details, and so I make more effort with my eyes.
4) It is very common to play with sttuter beacuse of the hardware limitations associated to this tech, and maybe stutter gameplay for long period of time can increase fatigue.
5) Small visual artifacts and small ghosting can also contribute to fatigue.

Maybe all these reasons make a mix, and the result is what it is. I am just curious about if this is something that just happen to me (maybe my eye muscles are a bit weak), or it is something more common among other people.

[Lysander]

Hm, personally I don't think I noticed anything worth mentioning myself, but I "only" do about 2h of 3d a day, max 3. I play in total darkness and wear binoculars. And this is after a whole day of work at a computer...

People react differently to 3d, just like to VR. Stutter/low fps definitely bug me, that's why I aim for 60fps. It doesn't necessarily cause fatigue but is just unpleasant, especially in 3d. I'm more tolerant of lower fps in 2d.

Why don't you ask your eye doctor, he might be able to better explain your own situation.

[b4thman]

I have visited the eye doctor several times in the past few years, not only for this but to be sure that everything is ok. They tested me everything and aparently there is nothing wrong. But I don't trust them too much about this matter, they just make all the same procedure, and maybe this habbit of playing games in 3D is something "new" for the common doctor.

I think I can play 2 hours/day without apparently too much fatigue, maybe I don't realize about the tyreness until I play this way for some days. It deppend on hte game and probably many other things. But for sure I will notice sooner or later the fatigue. I suspect that the flicker of the active shutter is a big cause, maybe more than any other.

BTW, I have realized that this forum is a complete caos with so many subsections, and this subsection is just about "drivers" (sorry for that, this is not probably the right place to talk about this).

[masterotaku]

I have kind of the opposite experience. Most of my life I remember getting a headache every few weeks. Now, not anymore. And I can pinpoint the moment it stopped happening: when I started playing in 3D regularly (2015).
Also my eyes take longer to get tired in 3D, and focusing at different distances is a good training for the typical problem of focusing at the monitor distance all the time (when people say "look at something far away every 15 minutes").

60Hz flickering can be tiring for some people. Do you remember if using CRTs was equally tiresome for you in the past?

[b4thman]

Yes, I started my 3D experience with edimensional glasses and at that time I was using a crt monitor. I remember exactly the same fatigue using the CRT monitor (using also 60 hz/eye), but maybe even bigger because at that time I used to play using high convergences to experience big deph (more than natural). What I can say is that apparently it seems that I have no harm in my eyes in all this time, and when I feel tyred I know what to do to get better, just to stop playing with glasses for a couple of days. It is a pity because I really love the immersion that I experience playing with the glasses.

[Lysander]

Also my eyes take longer to get tired in 3D, and focusing at different distances is a good training for the typical problem of focusing at the monitor distance all the time (when people say "look at something far away every 15 minutes").

That's an interesting point, masterotaku. I never thought of that - 3d being more natural than 2d due to forcing the eyes to focus and having a healing effect in your case. Clearly you were destined to be a shaderhacker. You make your own painkillers!

[Necropants]

Used to get massive migraines and Motion sickness when playing video games. This largely stopped once I started primary gaming in 3D. *Shrug*

[skyrimer]

I've been playing for more than 10 years in 3d and no issues, and I'm basically using the same glasses without any sight loss. The only time I notice that my sight is straining is whenever I play reverse 3d (low depth + very high convergence), which had to be used in the old days with games that had issues in 3d, but now with 3d fixes I barely play like that anymore.

[Shift-E]

Interesting. When I first got hooked, I actually googled if it was damaging to use 3D so often...but of course theres no such studies being done. My eyes quickly adjusted, and now its as comfortable as watching 2D (more comfortable for games actually). At one point I thought it might be affecting my vision, but it was just the normal affects of passing 40 years old. In fact my eye doctor told me recently I have much better vision than I should at my age, I was glad to hear it as I don't think I could even stop playing in 3D if I had to!

You might want to see if you can find a used 3Dtv somewhere, as passive would be easier on your eyes than shutter. I'm sure they are hard to find these days, especially the elusive unicorn LG OLED - but sony made a passive LCD 3Dtv series too where you don't have to worry about burn in, so "used" isn't a problem.

[Captain007]

I started gaming with 3D Vision since launch in 2009 with Samsung 2233RZ. Not a single 2D game since and I play regularly. I started with cranked up convergence and depth from the start as it looked more natural to me than low depth image. No issues here.
Now when I try to game in flat 2D I get headache and eye strain as it looks so unnatural and my eyes try to find depth in image which isn't there. I may get used to it if I try but flat 2D gaming sucks big time. For me 2D is done. Worst case is to play in VR. I find Vive Pro with wireless adapter the best VR experience.

[Metal-o-Holic]

yeah i tried tombraider in 2d and i had to stop playing as i was running into things as there is no depth information for eye...3d only.
Atleast dual projector setup with linear passive glasses delivers nonstop 12h gaming sessions with zero eye fatigue

[Grant S]

I got into PC gaming because of 3D back in the Win 98 era. I have never played a game in 2D and now at age 55, I never intend to. Started with Elsa Revolator glasses then eDimensional which if you used their interlaced driver was 30 hz per eye. 20 years of exclusive 3D gaming. I got my first 3D HMD about 15 years Z800. I can assure you your condition is not the case for every 3D head.
I can relate in a way though, when florescent light bulbs were still widely used I often got headaches from that light. Perhaps the flickering of the shutters is what you are sensitive to?
You should try passive 3D if you can. Passive 3D there is no flickering, the downside to passive is when you move out of the center sweet spot, the 3D effect is greatly diminished. There are TVs and monitors out there that support nVidia's 3D play, which was unlocked with their last supported 3D driver. Not a good time to invest in 3D unless you get a great price though.
The other option is of course VR. 3D is just one element of VR but your eyes are seeing two individual images, not one image being filtered. Maybe buy a Quest 2
The only other option is to buy into NVidia's jive about ray tracing and dlss and pretend that's more immersive lol. Salute to all those 3D enthusiasts still digging in and especially the great modders making it possible.

[WZZ]

fake 3d or so called compatible mode，could make me sick

[john105]

I don't have any symptoms even if I play in 3D for the most part of the day. But what I noticed is if I try to play in 2D (at least the same games that I played in 3D), I get a lot of eye strain because of trying to look at the distance in the game when everything is flat.

[SnickerSnack1]

^^^^ Whoa, an INSURANCE APP??? Do I have to run -window-mode-exclusive to get it in stereo 3D? What the fps hit like?