Witcher 2- giving me a headache (literally)

[dmoney1980]

Disclaimer: I've never had motion sickness or headaches while playing games, ever!

So, I purchased Witcher 2 a few weeks ago on steam. At the time I had a Radeon 6850, and I ran the game on medium settings for the most part. I played through the prologue and all was well. Going forward, I immediately noticed that while running around in the game caused eye strain and headaches. I messed around with graphical setting (higher/lower) but I still had the symptoms in certain areas- mostly forests and towns during the day.

I installed a Radeon 6970 yesterday and I wanted to test out Witcher 2 to see how it would run. It was a noticeable improvement in visualy quality, but the headaches came back! I dont sit very close to the monitor, about the normal distance. Is there a way to change the view in W2?

I don't wear glasses, but I know that I need them, could that be it?

 

[Elcs]

Unlikely (I'm guessing) but possible. I believe most headaches/motion sickness in my case comes from Field of View settings or camera bob (headbob or gunbob)

The Witcher 1, Borderlands, STALKER: SoC and Half Life 2 are cases which have given me motionsickness and headaches just by playing them.

Borderlands was 'fixed' by amending the FoV to something appropriate.

Another issue I can have is when things move too fast in front of me or constantly shift angles. Running around the corridors in a cramped environment (Crysis on the ship) and playing as the Alien in AvP with the fishbowl vision and moving along walls are examples of what's triggered me off.

 

[dmoney1980]

Unlikely (I'm guessing) but possible. I believe most headaches/motion sickness in my case comes from Field of View settings or camera bob (headbob or gunbob)

The Witcher 1, Borderlands, STALKER: SoC and Half Life 2 are cases which have given me motionsickness and headaches just by playing them.

Borderlands was 'fixed' by amending the FoV to something appropriate.

Another issue I can have is when things move too fast in front of me or constantly shift angles. Running around the corridors in a cramped environment (Crysis on the ship) and playing as the Alien in AvP with the fishbowl vision and moving along walls are examples of what's triggered me off.

Yeah, one thing I liked about the first was the choice of camera angles / views.

 

[PrayForDeath]

The Witcher 2 doesn't have any head-bobbing associated with running like Witcher 1. Your headaches is probably being caused by the motion blur in the game. Whenever you move the mouse (camera) there's blur all over the screen except on your character and the ground beneath him. Try turning that off.

 

[Martimus]

Borderlands is the first game that gives me motion sickness. I just started playing Witcher 2 so I wonder if it will do the same.

 

[CrystalBay]

Yeah it's FoV problems .
This game is weird ,because it runs with DX9 plus hax .It appears to look very advanced graphically .It does have very good textures support or it did have. I finished through the RTM release playing the Iorveth path . I am still wanting to do the Richleu or Ruoqeforts path but steam is blowing support wise.

 

[chavo12345]

the bloom lighting made me queasy still a great game tho!

 

[dmoney1980]

Thanks for the input. I never had the motion blur enabled, but I will mess around with the other settings to see if it helps.

 

[HeXen]

i read motion blur in this game caused some people headaches.

 

[Kristijonas]

Could be depth of field, bloom or motion blur effects. Often they decrease video quality too (my opinion). I even believe that these effects can even ruin ones sight. It's the same as reading in a vibrating train - what you view is blurred and your eyes have to focus every fraction of the second and are very strained doing so. I'd search for a way to disable these effects if there's such options in game. I remember I disabled depth of field in Mass Effect 2 by editing an .ini file. (made the game look better)

 

[The Green Bean]

I get motion sickness easily from games (HL2, Stalker, AvP) but I didn't have an issue with the Witcher 2.

 

[theb144]

i know this is a couple days old but would like to put my input it could very well be that u do need glasses i had headaches for weeks from games and computer screens at work and went to the eye doctor and got a stronger set and havent had a headache since