So, after finishing Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, I had this sudden urge to give Arx Fatalis another try.

Fellow GOGers may or may not remember I sometimes mention that I more often than not suffer from motion/simulator sickness when playing first-person perspective games. That is why almost 90% of the time I only play third-person perspective games, with over-the-shoulder camera being my #1 favorite, followed by isometric, and then 2D side-scrolling view.

Occasionally I do play first-person perspective games, but mostly those are the old-skool varieties which utilize tile-based, step-by-step movement found in games such as the Eye of the Beholder trilogy, Anvil of Dawn, and Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos. Those with non tile-based, step-by-step movement that are not too quick such as the Ravenloft series and Menzoberranzan are also alright. However, modern FPS game simply give me motion/simulator sickness (which is strange because in the 1990s I used to play Doom 2 with no problem).

Two of the first-person perspective games I most often cite as example of those giving me problems are Arx Fatalis and Star Wars: Republic Commando. I want to play these two for a long time, but found myself dizzy and nauseating after playing them in 5-10 minutes. I have given them a try a few times already in the last few/several years, and still is not successful.

Anyway, a few days ago I decided to toughen myself up, and said to myself that this time I will really give Arx Fatalis another try. At first I only played for 10 minutes before getting headache and stopped. Then 15 minutes, then 20 minutes. Well, I am happy to report now that I manage to play the game more than 1 hour at a time. Yesterday even I think I played for more than 2 hours :-)

I will probably post in this thread more later regarding the game, about what I like and what I don't, but for now I'll just post this: I am happy I am giving Arx Fatalis another try.

tl;dr: Wish me luck with Arx Fatalis!

Good luck with Arx Fatalis. I just recently played through it, and it was really good.

interesting read

I wish you all the very best of luck, dude

I really and truly feel sorry for people who have similar conditions and are unable to play specific games without getting "Sick" they really are missing out on some awesome stuff

I read somewhere that a lot of people in Japan are unable to play FPS'es because they get motion sickness, no idea how true this is though

You can take pills to prevent sea sickness.
Maybe they will help against motion sickness from games too?
For some reason the only game that has given me motion sickness was Thief 2.

Maybe take a nap before trying? When I feel tired, I get the sickness easily, but after a nap or short sleep, I will have no problem.
Another thing, lowering the mouse sensitivity also helps

Thanks for the encouragement, guys. I think, at least for this Arx Fatalis game, I adjusted already, and can now play it. Well, we'll see. I plan to play the game tonight maybe for 2 or 3 hours. As I mentioned above yesterday I played for more than 2 hours, so that means I passed the 15-minutes threshold already :-)

If I can "graduate" from Arx Fatalis, the next challenge will be that Star Wars: Republic Commando game. I have never played Thief Gold or Thief 2. I played Thief 3 but strictly with third-person perspective view. I do not really want to take medication just to play games, and since more often than not I only play games at night after work (and only for a few hours as well, so my gaming time is severely limited), I am afraid I can't take a nap either :-)

I suffer from the same problem, though a lot of over the shoulder cameras also make me sick.

I got some great advice from various people when I asked in this thread. Ultimately I didn't find a full solution, but I did find a number of things that helped.

Good luck with the game :)

I remember that thread. In fact I was the one who *raised hands* first there :-)

I bought the boxed version of Arx Fatalis from the store almost 10 years ago, and I still have it. But I also have never been able to play it because of motion sickness. Tthe worst game I've ever played when it comes to motion sickness is Half Life, though strangely enough I've had no problems when playing Counter-Strike.

I think the main reason for motion sickness in first-person games is the angle/field of view. For example, Perfect Dark is gives me some motion sickness in single player, but not in split-screen multipler. Why? Because you can see more at once in single player. If a first person game motion sickness, it is worth checking the options to see if you can reduce the viewing angle.

Other factors to motion sickness include the frame rates and the monitor type. I have experienced slight motion sickness with Duke Nukem 3D recently on my new LCD monitor, but when I played it 15 years ago on an CRT monitor I was fine.

I love Arx Fatalis, when I first joined GOG (not to long ago) that's the only game I wanted. I've purchased three games since then: Arx Fatalis, Die By The Sword, and Enclave.

All three are good, Enclave and Arx Fatalis have yet to be beaten (so many games!!) but I've had a lot of fun with each.

I don't experience motion sickness, ever... but with LCD monitors I get headaches pretty rapidly. And my only computer with internet access is a laptop (waiting on a wireless card for my desktop) so I have to live with it until then. My Sony Trinitron CRT Flat screen monitor is kick ass though, I have no issues with it and the colors are great even though it's about 6-8 years old.

Enclave is worth a shot. Play it with an Xbox 360 controller (Arx too for that matter) using XPadder.. it's awesome.

Now I'm wanting to buy Divine Divinity. Have to save up money though.

Does Arx Fatalis work on Windows 7? Never played before but the screens give it a Morrowind kind of look.

Also Divine Divinity is actually pretty good, especially seeing as it only takes some ini editing to get it work in widescreen.

Do you think the frame rate has something to do with it? Could you play it in windowed mode with a specific, soothing background framing it and maybe force the framerate lower or something?

Really? Not saying I disagree, but what would you rate as top two, Baldur's Gate 1 and 2?

Motion sickness comes from something in your ears, same principle as motion sickness in a vehicle. I used to get it playing first person games. Try not to lean to far forward whilst playing and also make sure you put VSync on.

Sit up straight and try to keep your head still.

Another thing is get your eyes checked out, could be coming from eyestrain