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My First Experience with the Rift and Motion Sickness

Syaoranoni
Honored Guest
Wow. That was really something.

Let me first say that I am saving my dev-kit until Christmas (counting the days, 119), so this was just testing that everything worked, as it would really spoil Christmas to unbox it and find... I didn't have the right cables / my copy was defective. Anyway, everything worked out fine and I had a great five minutes in Tuscany.

Since I was doing this quickly, I didn't mess with many settings (I hastily measured my IPD in the mirror, didn't adjust the distance from the display, didn't change the cups) , but here are my first impressions:

• The quality isn't that bad, everyone. After reading so many whiny forum posts, I expected the worst, but it's fine. It doesn't look like real life, sure but it's really not that bad.
• I didn't get at all motion sick; hooray! I normally get 'car-sick' if I do anything in a car that means my eyes are open. This isn't as severe in planes and trains, but I still feel nauseous if things get turbulent. However, with the rift, it seems my brain was aware enough that I was looking at a screen that it didn't really bother me (let's hope this is the same on the higher-res consumer version). Note that the Tuscany demo is a lot more tame than other demos I hope to try out.
• The screen-door effect is noticable at worst. Get over it.
• I wouldn't say the Rift fills your entire FOV, but it's pretty damn close. Imagine you've put your fingers vertically at the sides of your vision. Like that.
• The most notable bug are some little bright pixels crackling around my vision. Has anyone else experienced this?

Anyway, thanks, Oculus, for the experience. Only 119 days, 8 hours and 35 minutes to go 🙂
Oh, the brutal wait until Christmas. Downloading leagues of demos to make the wait less agonising.
18 REPLIES 18

jweaver
Heroic Explorer
"Syaoranoni" wrote:

• I didn't get at all motion sick; hooray! I normally get 'car-sick' if I do anything in a car that means my eyes are open.


Just because you didn't in a quick wander around Tuscany, don't think you won't.. I dont suffer any kind of motion sickness and OR had no effect on me at all in the first few hours, until I got to "Museum Of the Microstar" and for some reason, that kicked me right off.

Then, as I discovered more apps which allow you to 'bank' (such as the Heli Heli 2 simulator), I found that pulling fast turns, kicks me off.

I can't put my finger on it, but there are some apps which start me off, and the horrible thing is that once you take it off, the feeling doesn't stop... So don't assume that it won't affect you.. I have only showed my Rift to 3 people so far and they have all felt decidedly ill when using it, to the point where they want to stop..

So I am still not convinced VR in the mass market, until someone defines (And fixes) the cause of this.

Jon

Syaoranoni
Honored Guest
"Syaoranoni" wrote:
Note that the Tuscany demo is a lot more tame than other demos I hope to try out.


I'm not saying that it won't affect me in the future, but I had assumed I would feel sick right off the bat, so having at least one demo be fine for me was a pleasant surprise.
Oh, the brutal wait until Christmas. Downloading leagues of demos to make the wait less agonising.

Walky
Explorer
"Syaoranoni" wrote:

Let me first say that I am saving my dev-kit until Christmas (counting the days, 119)


The force is strong in you 😮

"Syaoranoni" wrote:

The most notable bug are some little bright pixels crackling around my vision. Has anyone else experienced this?


Could be bad pixels or just dust in the screen, might be better to check this out in case you need to get it replaced. Also compare with your monitor to make sure it's not a PC-side (software, video card) artifact.

SimonV
Honored Guest
I had similar reactions today when I had the chance to try out my Rift for about 15 mins before work.

Tried Tuscany at first after using the Oculus config utility to measure IPD. Didn't adjust screen or eye-cups yet, screen seems to be set to farthest away from the cups out of the box. I feel if you tell yourself where you're going before you press w, it's easier to not get motion sick. The most conflicts in your mind seems to come from mouselook + moving your head. It's a bit confusing at first.

The coolest first impression is when you realize there's actually stuff behind you, and you can see them by turning your neck (I was impressed by the setup room with the human model and the car model behind you) 😄 It's hard to describe, it's not something you're used to when gaming. Very cool indeed.

I got nauseous after about a minute in the roller coaster demo, but I can't say what induced it. I might try adjusting the screen and eye-cups, and also I didn't use any console commands that I read about somewhere. Also, when going down the first steep fall, I looked down and my view suddenly flipped 180 degrees so I was looking backwards. Not sure why this happened, head tracking seems to be accurate otherwise). About 5 hours since that demo, I still feel slightly queasy, like having been in a rocking ship the previous day. Normal things like focusing on fast moving objects require more concentration and can feel a bit nasty, a bit like being hung over. I do think there might be something to the theories that motion sickness is all in the head, since reading posts here in anticipation of the Rift almost made me a bit nauseous already :P.

From a lot of videos and posts I've also read about the bad resolution, and while I'm used to a 2560x1440 monitor, it's not as bad as many would have you believe, although looking into the distance in the roller coaster demo, for instance, it actually is quite a horrible pixely mess. Apparently it's dependent on application though, since Tuscany wasn't nearly as bad when looking into the distance.

The screen door effect is more apparent in screenshots than in a game. I guess you could compare it to one of those advertisements that are printed on surfaces with really small holes next to each other. Look at them directly and it's obvious, look through them and soon you forget they're there.

The FOV is good in my opinion, although a bit wider would be perfect. When not in-game, it's more noticeable, but in-game you tend to focus on things in the center (just as in real life) and you quickly forget about it.

Going to try Outerra with the Mig tonight or tomorrow, depending on nausea :). I think having a cockpit to orientate yourself might feel more natural than just "hanging" there in the 3d space. Having heard great stuff about Lunar Flight I'll have to give that a shot as well.

The Rift seems to be pretty much what I expected. The greatest challenge seems to be getting over the motion sickness, but hopefully that's something you can exercise away over time.

Syaoranoni
Honored Guest
"Walky" wrote:
Could be bad pixels or just dust in the screen, might be better to check this out in case you need to get it replaced. Also compare with your monitor to make sure it's not a PC-side (software, video card) artifact.


Ah, and now I'm getting all worried. I don't think it's a hardware problem, since the weird pixels are moving around like film grain.

I'm not really a developer, just a Rift enthusiast, so my tech knowledge is shamefully low, however, I know it's not dust, and if I remember correctly, bad / dead pixels don't move around.

Maybe I should have plugged it in harder; the cable didn't quite go in all the way...
Oh, the brutal wait until Christmas. Downloading leagues of demos to make the wait less agonising.

Walky
Explorer
"Syaoranoni" wrote:

I'm not really a developer, just a Rift enthusiast, so my tech knowledge is shamefully low, however, I know it's not dust, and if I remember correctly, bad / dead pixels don't move around.


Sorry, missed the "crackling" part, it might be some other issue then. I hope it's nothing.

Syaoranoni
Honored Guest
"Enerccio" wrote:

whoa man, that is insane. I would NEVER be able to wait that long especially if it is already available.... crazy... :shock:


I'm pretty sure I'll either go insane or go down in history with Ghandi :lol:
Oh, the brutal wait until Christmas. Downloading leagues of demos to make the wait less agonising.

Arizonaroach
Honored Guest
I received my Rift last Thursday and was fine with most games/demos Portal 2 etc, but HL2 messed me up. I had to take it off and for about 20min. I think its the speed at which you glide around the level, especially at the start when being chaced by Combine but I will say, when your on the rooftops looking down into the street it does look awesome (bar the overlookable flaws with the Dev Kit).

Arizonaroach
Honored Guest
If I'm honest, I have found the best game to get people acclimatized to the rift is Minecraft. The 3D translates as everything is block shaped, the simple graphics still look good (you know... for Minecraft) in low res and its fairly slow but still giving the player the freedom to explore at there own pace.