Wed 17 Oct 2007
For the past week I have been leaving work with a killer head and stomach ache. At first I attributed it to just being hungry combined with not getting enough sleep and leaving work around 8pm. As it built up more and more and happened sooner in the day I realized it was the same feeling I got when playing 3d games for an extended period of time. I also realized that at the beginning of the week I had upgraded to Rawhide and turned on compiz desktop bling. Turning off Compiz instantly reduced my eye strain and my headache subsided.
This sucks for me because besides Compiz being very visually appealing, 3d effects and composition is the future of the Linux desktop not to mention a myriad of other consumer devices with displays. The biggest problem is, it is not just the 3d effects which cause an issue but a static screen where no animations are happening seems to trigger vertigo. However the worst offender was scrolling in Firefox. I wonder if anyone is doing research in this area because I hope it is fixable.
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October 17th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
If you’re getting vertigo, you might want to check with your doctor. You might have an inner-ear problem, or some other issue, if 3-D games and the like (or even simple animations) give you vertigo.
October 17th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
how do you feel with the smooth scrolling option in epiphany turned on? Using that with a flatscreen monitor caused me to feel sick, but it was motion sickness rather than vertigo. Is that what you’re experiencing or is it actually vertigo where the world seems like its moving around?
October 17th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
I had very similar symptoms when I turned on compiz. At first I also didn’t know what was causing it but after turning it off all symptoms disappeared. I also get vertigo when playing openarena. Strangely enough I don’t get those symptoms on Windows Vista with Aero enabled.
October 17th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
That’s the free software way: if you don’t like it, it’s your own fault. Though I’ve never seen somebody actually suggest you visit a doctor to get your head fixed before.
October 17th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
I am prone to motion sickness. Vertigo is just a description of a sensation of dizziness which is a symptom of motion sickness.
October 17th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Can you turn on compiz but turn off all (or most) of the effects?
Is it the cube and/or the wobbly windows that cause the issue?
October 17th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
garrett,
I have cube turned off and use the wall plugin. But as I said even a static screen strains my eyes. It may be a subtle interaction of the fonts and how OpenGL does texturing. Slightly shifting images from frame to frame or unnatural blurring would cause my eyes to strain. I’ll try again later with all effects off to see if it helps. That being said metacity doesn’t cause an issue.
October 17th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
For me text does blur a bit on any animation/move. Quite anoying…
Maybe because the window is rendered on an offscreen pixmap which is then transformed (Might kill lcd freetype enhancements).
I have no clue though just guessing.
October 17th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
Ken,
Sorry you’re offended at my message, but my sister-in-law was recently diagnosed with this kind of problem (inner-ear problem causing vertigo). It can be a real issue.
That’s independent of whether compiz needs fixing; by all means if it literally induces nausea, that’s a real issue.
October 17th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
I appear to be very sensitive to the refresh rates on monitors - less so on LCDs, but on a CRT if the refresh rate is less than 75Hz I get headaches and feel ill within minutes. It’s a very strange thing. I’m not sure if it’s relevant, but you might want to check that out.
October 17th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Joe,
I wasn’t offended. I come from a medical family and it is always prudent to seek medical advice for adverse symptoms.
Michael,
I’m pretty sure they are related. I have the same issues with low refresh rates.
October 17th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Heh, my wife, who’s mom is a doctor, goes to doctor only as a last resort.
Anyway, compiz does show a bit blurry image whenever windows are in motion. I’m not sure if it’s only with cube+wobbly, but they tend to ’snap in sharpness’ as soon as dragging/desktop switch stops. That caused me some confusion until I looked closely and saw it happening.
Also scrolling in firefox works very badly for me, it’s just slow, laggy and does not follow mouse very evenly. So I get a bit of hand/eye coordination distortion when scrolling with scrollbar, sometimes with wheel too.
I hope you find yourself a suitable workaround.
October 17th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
This might sound silly, but do you use a really big screen?
I’m usually very resistant to motion sickness (planes, gliders, cars, boats, whatever), but I’ve had two cases where I had problems: one was using VR-goggles, and the other was playing half-life 2 on a big screen.
Couldn’t do anything about the former, but for the latter, I had to make sure to light the room properly, and sit further away from the screen so it doesn’t take the entire field of vision. (the “bobbing” while walking and vehicle movement in the game also made things worse for me - but once I moved back it was manageable).
Funny thing for me, if I get motion sickness like that, i’m usually ok the first 10mins, and then the nausea overwhelms me very suddenly - nothing gradual like you (or most people) describe.
October 18th, 2007 at 2:55 am
Joe Buck,
I don’t know where you got the idea that I was offended — I loved it. If I was easily offended I would stay away from this hellhole known as the internet!
October 18th, 2007 at 10:09 am
re Firefox, set:
general.smoothScroll
(in about:config)
to false, if you haven’t tried that already.
October 19th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Joe Buck,
Sorry you thought I was offended. I hope I didn’t imply that, because I wasn’t — I loved it!
If one is offended by a couple of words, one shouldn’t go anywhere near the hellhole known as the internet.
October 22nd, 2007 at 5:45 am
I’ve heard of gamers getting this kind of eye strain before with nausea, one fix I’ve heard of is to turn vsync/vblank on. If you’re susceptible to refresh rates and 3D games there’s a chance that its related to a sync issue and vsync and vblank fix that, and limit your frame rates to whatever your refresh rate is.
After reading other comments I’d say that you should also get checked out by a doctor, and maybe an optician just to be on the safe side.