How to change game settings to reduce motion sickness
Some of the most popular gaming titles are FPS games or first-person shooters. They’re great but the problem with an FPS game is that it can cause motion sickness. Some people are able to play through it and it eventually stops bothering them but for others, the effects are more intense. It prevents users from being able to play-through it.
Motion sickness in games
The graphics in games have improved exponentially. The improvements go well beyond the graphics; the lighting and the physics in some games are excellent. The games look great but these improved graphics and effects don’t really help with the motion sickness. They try and simulate as real a walking/running/jumping/bouncing experience and it contributes to the problem.
Game settings to reduce motion sickness
Games know they can cause motion sickness and some have an option to reduce motion sickness. You can enable it and it will change in-game settings so that they do not cause motion sickness as much. Not all games have this option though but it’s worth checking.
- Launch the game and access its settings.
- Under Graphics, or game controls, look for an option called Motion Sickness.
- Turn it On, or enable it.
Manual settings to reduce motion sickness in games
Most games do not have an option to reduce motion sickness. That doesn’t mean you have to suffer through the game-play. Most of the settings that an automatic motion sickness prevention setting applies can be applied manually in almost any game.
- Open the game that you want to play.
- Go to its settings.
- Look for the player view or view or camera angle option. Set it to ‘First Person’ or ‘front’.
- Next, look for the ‘Field of view’ settings. Set it to 90. Start from there and then reduce it if it still makes you sick. It can help to look up what setting is best for the FOV to reduce motion sickness for a particular game. For some users, increasing the FOV prevents sickness while for others, reducing it does the trick.
- Look for player speed and reduce it to the lowest possible setting. The slower the player walks, the less the motion will make you sick.
- Look for a view bobbing option and turn it off. This option simulates more realistic running and walking and contributes a great deal to motion sickness.
- Finally, reduce mouse sensitivity. This will be tricky since you want to keep the mouse sensitivity high enough to play the game but not high enough to make you sick. The more sensitive the mouse is, the faster everything on the screen will move which will in turn make you sick. Reduce it as much as you can without it impacting gameplay.
Conclusion
There are quite a few settings that you can change to reduce motion sickness but you won’t find them all in the same place. Explore the settings for the game you’re playing and try to change what you can to make the gameplay more comfortable.
