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Canofbacon

Headaches While Playing Doom

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When my dad plays Doom, he gets a headache after awhile. I have gotten a headache a few times while playing, but not really. I get them a lot when I play Wolfenstien 3D though. Does anyone else get headaches while playing Doom?

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Maybe it has to do with the refresh rate or the fast movement?

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I used to get nauseous from playing some games--particularly 2.5d games like classic Doom and the BUILD engine games, and even had it happen a few times playing the original Half-Life and Unreal games, but I haven't had that problem in a long time. I'm told it was a sort of "virtual motion sickness," and wasn't all that uncommon in the 90s. I think it also has to do with refresh rates on monitors too because I've never had a problem once I switched to LCD monitor. If your dad is still using a CRT, maybe have him try upping the refresh rate if the monitor supports it, or switch to LCD. I know those older CRTs caused a lot of headaches and eye strain because of the subtle but sometimes noticeable amount of flicker.

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Probably the refresh rate. See if it makes any difference playing with a port like ZDoom that has uncapped framerate.

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I'm pretty sure it's just the fast movement. Maybe the head bob plays a part in it but I don't get a headache from Minecraft so I doubt it.

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My father always had headaches from Wolfenstein. I believe it was from the low resolution and low framerate (on computers of that time). But he didn't have headaches from Doom, RoTT, Descent and other games, which we played together a lot when I was younger.

Then he (and me too) for some time abandoned old FPSs and played games only occasionally, and if, then modern, and mostly non-shooter games. Later my father came back to Doom (like me) - but now he has headaches from Doom too. I believe the resolution is to blame.

I, personally, never had headaches from Doom or any other older FPS game.

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Haven't had one yet, though when I first started using Chocolate Doom I thought I would get one :P

Some people get sick from low FOV values, however if you are playing with GZDoom or Zandronum those ports might allow for higher FOV values. If they do try increasing the FOV to 90 or 100 and possibly disabling head bob.

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Any factor in the display which does not feel under control of the player (Head bob, Auto-run Head bob (worse), monitor refresh rate flicker, frame rate, jerking movement) will cause problems because the player tries to fight it with involuntary muscle reactions, which can lead to nausea or headaches.

I doubt that players develop tolerance in any way we mean the word.
They could stop reacting to it. That would be near impossible with anything that moves the whole view, as that triggers the person's head stabilization and balance.

More likely they mentally couple the screen effect seen to some player input and after that the reaction to control it goes to their player input instead of just cramping up muscles. Same reason that people get car sick when riding but not when driving themselves.

So turn off that head-bob, turn off auto-run, use a smaller display resolution (to get frame rate over 60). Can try re-enabling each later on, depending upon player reaction.

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i got headache from shooters (not just fast ones like doom) because of those 60 hz refresh rate of lcds that made fast motion look blurry. usual 120 hz displays were clearly better, but only managed to delay the point at which i got nausea. finally, the lightboost hack eliminated this, making movement as clear as on crt.

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The only headache of mine ever caused by Doom was the aftermath of playing Terry wads.

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MegaTurtleRex said:

Haven't had one yet, though when I first started using Chocolate Doom I thought I would get one :P

Some people get sick from low FOV values, however if you are playing with GZDoom or Zandronum those ports might allow for higher FOV values. If they do try increasing the FOV to 90 or 100 and possibly disabling head bob.

I must be different then.

I've never got headache or motion sickness from vanilla or Chocolate Doom, nor Wolfenstein 3D. Maybe it's because I've set a low mouse speed combined with pretty high acceleration. But when I first tried PrBoom+ with the default mouse settings, I got motion sickness immediately. The sensitivity was way too high for me so that I had to tweak my settings for quite a long time.

Head bobbing is no problem for me. I even like it, it was Doom's trademark years ago :)

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Feniks said:

But when I first tried PrBoom+ with the default mouse settings, I got motion sickness immediately. The sensitivity was way too high for me so that I had to tweak my settings for quite a long time.

I once became sick and furious for a massive lag. My normal pace was interrupted by repeated freezedown actions, which came to me as spring would do to a snowman. I remember now having a wet tissue on my forehead, because it was sooo impactive I couldn't handle over fast.

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Feniks said:

I must be different then.

I've never got headache or motion sickness from vanilla or Chocolate Doom, nor Wolfenstein 3D. Maybe it's because I've set a low mouse speed combined with pretty high acceleration. But when I first tried PrBoom+ with the default mouse settings, I got motion sickness immediately. The sensitivity was way too high for me so that I had to tweak my settings for quite a long time.

Head bobbing is no problem for me. I even like it, it was Doom's trademark years ago :)


Yeah I suppose there could be a motion sickness thing caused by speed of movement. If I spun myself really fast around in an office chair I would puke out :\

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I don’t have headaches while playing Doom, I just feel motion sickness while looking at Doom lmp or playing Wolf3d (and sometimes Duke3d).

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I never get motion sickness from doom these days, though I do from other fps's. I used to from doom back in the old days if I played too long, so I guess that must have been to do with old monitors/lower framerate (and before discovering wasd controls). Having no mouse acceleration type stuff helps. I also find that games where player movement is slower is worse, I had real problems with half life 2 but found that playing in a smaller window helped, so it was like I was sitting further away I guess.

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Canofbacon said:

Wolf3D seems to be a game we can all agree will give you a headache if you play too long.

I don't :)

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Yeah I'm surprised so many people do get motion sickness.

If you are up for an experiment you could plug a gamepad into your PC, play Doom from 6 feet or so distance and see if it reduces the effect.

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When I play Cube (infrequently).
The Cube OpenGL graphics slow down the display so the frame rate and delays are longer than Doom using native drawing.
I don't play it enough to be good at it, so I am also fighting that.
After a couple hours my stomach is about to tie in a knot from trying to adapt Doom trained reactions.
And a bit of a headache too.

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I kinda registered for this thread...

I play Doom since over 10 years, and you may guess it's special game for me. I used to play on regular basis since year, but had to stop.
My problem is, not even headaches but full migraines, complete with visual aura, made playing impossible for me. I decided not to try competetive which was especially straining eyes some time ago, as I could felt strain and soreness after few minutes of playing. II started playing coops. Lately I noticed that ALL migraines ceased when I stopped playing Doom at all. Those migraines, appearing even few times a week and confining me to lying with my eyes covered for hours, were rather crippling, so I wasn't playing for two months now to avoid them.

What exactly makes me feel bad very quick in Doom is:
-fast movement for long time (competetive style)
-low ceilings
-fucking ashwall. I hate ashwall SO MUCH. It caused me for years playing Doom II finishing on The Pit, because of the chamber you gain yellow (iirc) key. Seriously, fuck ashwall.

So, some technical data:
I use small laptop with, obviously, LCD screen. I played on ZDoom-based newschool source port, but in software mode, because OGL has choppy performance.
vidrefreshrate was set to automatic. Head bob was turned off.
When I play on other ports... It's weird, but I feel better on vanilla Doom then on Chocolate Doom (I still feel better in modern ones). I think it may be also connected to mouse movement, because, for example, Odamex and Eternity default settings make me feel bad, too, even if source ports themselves have modern visual possibilities.
And about my personal hardware: I did had migraines from using computers many years ago, when I had CRT. I am also sensitive to eye-raping gifs and other crap, not mentioning broken screens, those make me hurt withing minute. Like I mentioned earlier, I was pretty OK playing Source engine games, even very dynamic Portal. I've never had seizures and I was never diagnosed with neurological illnesses, apart of migraine. Pain is kinda weird though, because it's not head which hurts most, but back side of eyes. I had first pain like that when I was 13, I was scared as hell and doctors weren't sure wtf is happening, but then they found out it's just a migraine. It wasn't happening often though.
I very rarely have motion sickness in vehicles, mostly when I am very tired and not slept well.
When I asked my doctor why do I get migraines if I play video game on regular basis, she answered, "why do you play video games on regular basis then".

So, do you think that there is some solution I'd could try? Anyone had it that severe? Or maybe I should put my plasma riffle to closet and retire?

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Dang man that sounds awful. Anyway, welcome to Doomworld. If you look through this thread people have posted things you can try. None of those have worked for you?

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Ashwall, eh? You wouldn't have liked E3M2 either. But the yellow key area on MAP09 doesn't have Ashwall, more like ROCK1 or ROCK2 I suppose.

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Well, like I said, headbob was on... I don't imagine playing without autorun though, I'd be just a nuisance to my coop partners. Setting mouse to even slower then I have now also would make me play below ITYTD.

All what is left are refresh rate (not sure if it's help since it's LCD so it shouldn't be a factor), using Open GL (which would make me unabled to play any game with a lot of monsters since I have bad PC, but it's better then nothing).
But since those migraines aren't something that happens immidietally, but when it happens it's something that seriously disrupts my whole day, I can't quite experiment on myself blindly, that's why I'd want to see if anyone had problem on similar scale as me...

Or maybe there are some methods to fix the other hardware? Taking aspirin 10 minutes before, meditating in some weird way, praying to Hissy?

@up
yeah... but this is open space level, there's a sky in most places...

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someoneelse said:

Or maybe there are some methods to fix the other hardware? Taking aspirin 10 minutes before, meditating in some weird way, praying to Hissy?


Yeah maybe some pills or something might help.

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30 fps for me is the "magic framerate" because it doesn't strain my eyes or make me feel ill. 60FPS and above in gaming gives me motion sickness horrbily. Watching any game that adds in even more 'fake' motion blur is literally unplayable for me because my stomach turns over... It has always perplexed me, though I can't sit too close in a theatre either without chucking.

I sometimes get headaches while playing older games games (not from Doom in particular) but I find it's just that my eyes need to look away for five minutes before I continue. With Wolf3D, I'd have to assume it's because the colors are far more vibrant than in Doom, or most games for that matter.

Really, we weren't designed to stare at glowing screens as long as most of us do.

XCOPY, those are strange side effects indeed, seems to come straight down to pshycology though: Playing DOOM and Street Fighter for extended periods makes me falsely happy that I'm no longer living in the boring ass real world. (I'm slightly joking, although it is very true.)

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Your eyes are part of your head stabilization. If they see the visible scene move they send signals to muscles to try to stabilize your head. Where those signals go depends on how you have trained yourself to keep control. With insufficient control, you get sick from the misdirected signals instead (they tense small muscles in the head, or tense the abdomen, or other places which are less annoying).

Sitting too close in theatre vrs sitting back.
- Seeing a frame around the moving screen gives your head stabilization system something to fixate upon so it stops trying to stabilize the moving picture.

30 FPS.
- 60 FPS and above exceeds the visual system's ability to distinguish frames.
- Being able to recognize 30 FPS is why that works. It recognizes the context and has more useful trained responses to the motion.
It does not work with 60 FPS games because your trained responses cannot distinguish that from reality, don't recognize the special context, and thus again try to stabilize it.

The pills are habit forming and not recommended.
They are the same as some sleeping pills.
They just relax you.
Try chewing some Fennel seed while playing. It is cheap, available in grocery stores, and I do not know of any risks (as long as you don't chew more than a handful in one sitting).

Anything you can do to let those muscles relax will help.
Tap your feet if you have to. Wiggle you body about until you feel the tense muscles relax. Pretend you are winning, because if you feel you are losing (such having to cheat too much) your body will react badly.

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