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I played with a really nicely Oculus set up the other day, it was totally amazing and immersive. In particular this was a racing sim, and when I was headed toward a wall I got the feeling like in a real car when you're about to hit something. It was very cool.

Unfortunately, I lost my lunch after 5 minutes or so and had to lay in a dark room for a couple hours to get over a bout of nausea. Excited for the future though if they can solve that problem for people like me (I also get seasick easily).

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I'm not surprised you got nausea from a racing sim. It takes time to get your "VR legs" and anything with artificial locomotion is absolutely terrible for this. I started with about 2 weeks of games where the only movement was with my own two feet and the VR world always matched up to my real body movements. Then I was able to gradually handle more and more intense artificial movement. Jumping, heights, speed, and smooth turning are the worst of the bunch and still make me a bit uneasy if I overdo it. Jumping right into something with intense movement is going to program you brain to have a very negative association with VR and will take you backwards on VR acclimatization.

I wonder if there is any hangover of this acclimation when going back to the real world? If you get immune to that feeling of danger when driving towards obstacles, will it show up in a real car?

I know that personally I once binged GTA V hard over a week or so, and had to catch myself before I started driving on the wrong (right-hand) side of the road one day out of habit.

There are after effects, but not like you're suggesting. For me I had some weird visual things like things popping out of flat screens, objects momentarily seeming further or closer than they really were, odd dreams, and floaty feelings. Some people describe short periods of disassociation like their hands aren't real or feelings of unreality. There was quite obviously some neuronal re-wiring happening, but it passed quickly and I don't have any urges to put my hands through solid objects or anything like that. It was actually pretty similar to when I've been skiing a lot and I have some after effects of the ground seeming to move.

Interesting. I also just remembered that I've walked around corners a bit too close after marathon FPS sessions when I was younger (apparently I forgot I wasn't modeled a point, and had shoulders that bump into things).

I used to get massive nausea after playing fps games on my 10' projector screen - solved it by using a pair of acupressure wrist bands. Not sure if that would work for VR but probably worth a try. Plenty of studies behind it: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7575310/

I'm curious which Oculus headset you were using. All the ones that plug in to a PC are fairly underpowered even compared to the Oculus Quest 2.

Nausea is heavily tied to framerate and latency -- a really beefy machine with a Valve Index should be a lot easier on your lunch.

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