Hey, not exactly fresh news, but I've had the same problem with HF-2 and at least one friend of mine... Had to stop playing original HF-2 because of that... :) I wonder how did they achieve such a glamorous effect :))
I've always had the same problem with any FPS. After awhile, I start to get a headache and nausea, sort of like when I read in a moving vehicle. Eyes telling the brain one thing, inner ear saying another. Those are the only times I've ever experienced it. Any other time, I'm perfectly fine....flying, sailing, whatever. If changing the game settings doesn't work for you, what I've found, is that if I'll be spending a decent amount of time doing either of those activities, I'll take some dramamine (generic equivalents are cheaper) about 1/2 hour beforehand. Problem solved.
I thought Halo 1 had a decent story, I enjoyed it. I've actually read all 4 of the Halo books. I think Eric Nyland did a great job with the 3 books that take place outside of the games.
* Halo: Fall of Reach (Novel)
* Halo: First Strike (Novel)
* Halo: Ghosts of Onyx (Novel)
There is also a novel based on the game, and it reminds me of a lot of the game I didn't like; it got very repetitive quickly, esp when it covered the Library level of the game. I did like the backstory it gave on what happened during the events of the game however. If you are a fan of the game, or would like more on the storyline, I would highly recommend reading them, I was more then surprised personally.
I used to get nauseous after playing half-life 2 or source engine games for 30 minutes or more... but I fixed it by changing the default_fov (field of view) from 90 to 120 in the command line and it's much better now.
The Orange Box was my opportunity to finally play through the whole HL2 game (previously, I had only played the demo). Although I don't recall any motion sickness playing the demo, after playing the full game for several hours and getting to the airboat portion, I experienced the nausea that many people have described. Apparently, HL2 uses a field of view setting of 75; most games use a FOV set to 90. Changing the FOV to 90 seemed to help enough that I could finish playing this game, which included some fairly long stints at the keyboard. I also turned on vertical synch; so, this may have helped some as well.
I haven't checked the FOV setting for the HL2 Episodes One and Two; so, I don't know if they also are using a narrow FOV or not. Portal didn't give me any trouble; so, I assume it uses a more normal FOV setting.
Your pretty much on the money with Halo and it's story but the hype surrounding the game & the fact that it is a great multi-player game gloss over the fact that it has a terribly confusing story that tries to be more complex then it needs to be as it is essentially American space marines kick alien ass & thats about it. It was funny to see that Africa (one of the games settings) was populated largely by Americans too, I think I heard one human foreign voice in the whole game which was British.
The game single player element is so utterly ridden with cliche's that in many ways it is the video game equivalent of the movie Independence Day though that was a lot easier to follow.
As for Gears the graphics in the set pieces are very impressive indeed but Epic use a lot of tricks (with lighting/shadows/motion blur) to hide the low visual fidelity and draw your eyes to the set pieces. I definitely would not give it the title of most visually impressive game overall. Personally I cant think of anything that really shines and blows everything else out of the water.
The thing about benchmarking HL2 is: most mid- to high-range hardware will chew through the Source engine like candy. Even an 8600 with a Core 2 E6300 is plenty for this game at 1600x1200.
So, your plan to benchmark integrated graphics is probably more "interesting" from that standpoint, in that the competition won't be between 100fps and 120fps.
I'd also be curious to know if a low-end dual core (say, a Pentium D 805) would take advantage of Valve's multi-threaded optimizations in those scenarios. Benchmark an 805 against a 3.8ghz P4?
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Iger - Friday, October 26, 2007 - link
Hey, not exactly fresh news, but I've had the same problem with HF-2 and at least one friend of mine... Had to stop playing original HF-2 because of that... :) I wonder how did they achieve such a glamorous effect :))eetnoyer - Sunday, October 21, 2007 - link
I've always had the same problem with any FPS. After awhile, I start to get a headache and nausea, sort of like when I read in a moving vehicle. Eyes telling the brain one thing, inner ear saying another. Those are the only times I've ever experienced it. Any other time, I'm perfectly fine....flying, sailing, whatever. If changing the game settings doesn't work for you, what I've found, is that if I'll be spending a decent amount of time doing either of those activities, I'll take some dramamine (generic equivalents are cheaper) about 1/2 hour beforehand. Problem solved.Syran - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
I thought Halo 1 had a decent story, I enjoyed it. I've actually read all 4 of the Halo books. I think Eric Nyland did a great job with the 3 books that take place outside of the games.* Halo: Fall of Reach (Novel)
* Halo: First Strike (Novel)
* Halo: Ghosts of Onyx (Novel)
There is also a novel based on the game, and it reminds me of a lot of the game I didn't like; it got very repetitive quickly, esp when it covered the Library level of the game. I did like the backstory it gave on what happened during the events of the game however. If you are a fan of the game, or would like more on the storyline, I would highly recommend reading them, I was more then surprised personally.
Ne0 - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
I used to get nauseous after playing half-life 2 or source engine games for 30 minutes or more... but I fixed it by changing the default_fov (field of view) from 90 to 120 in the command line and it's much better now.Spacecomber - Thursday, October 25, 2007 - link
The Orange Box was my opportunity to finally play through the whole HL2 game (previously, I had only played the demo). Although I don't recall any motion sickness playing the demo, after playing the full game for several hours and getting to the airboat portion, I experienced the nausea that many people have described. Apparently, HL2 uses a field of view setting of 75; most games use a FOV set to 90. Changing the FOV to 90 seemed to help enough that I could finish playing this game, which included some fairly long stints at the keyboard. I also turned on vertical synch; so, this may have helped some as well.I haven't checked the FOV setting for the HL2 Episodes One and Two; so, I don't know if they also are using a narrow FOV or not. Portal didn't give me any trouble; so, I assume it uses a more normal FOV setting.
Here's one reference on HL2 and its FOV setting.
[L]http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Field_of_V...[/L]
Spacecomber - Thursday, October 25, 2007 - link
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Field_of_V...">http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Field_of_V...Operandi - Thursday, October 25, 2007 - link
A friend of mine had the same problem with HL 1 & 2 and only HL, not other FPS. Strange indeed.werks - Wednesday, October 17, 2007 - link
Your pretty much on the money with Halo and it's story but the hype surrounding the game & the fact that it is a great multi-player game gloss over the fact that it has a terribly confusing story that tries to be more complex then it needs to be as it is essentially American space marines kick alien ass & thats about it. It was funny to see that Africa (one of the games settings) was populated largely by Americans too, I think I heard one human foreign voice in the whole game which was British.The game single player element is so utterly ridden with cliche's that in many ways it is the video game equivalent of the movie Independence Day though that was a lot easier to follow.
As for Gears the graphics in the set pieces are very impressive indeed but Epic use a lot of tricks (with lighting/shadows/motion blur) to hide the low visual fidelity and draw your eyes to the set pieces. I definitely would not give it the title of most visually impressive game overall. Personally I cant think of anything that really shines and blows everything else out of the water.
jebo - Tuesday, October 16, 2007 - link
The thing about benchmarking HL2 is: most mid- to high-range hardware will chew through the Source engine like candy. Even an 8600 with a Core 2 E6300 is plenty for this game at 1600x1200.So, your plan to benchmark integrated graphics is probably more "interesting" from that standpoint, in that the competition won't be between 100fps and 120fps.
I'd also be curious to know if a low-end dual core (say, a Pentium D 805) would take advantage of Valve's multi-threaded optimizations in those scenarios. Benchmark an 805 against a 3.8ghz P4?