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Background...
I've been very slow to get onto the 3d bandwagon having grown up seeing stuff like Jaws 3D and other old 3d movies that looked crap. The first of the new generation of 3D movies I watched was Tron Legacy and the 3D bits in that were very impressive! Also played a friends 3DS which was good, the lack of glasses was amazing and the 3D quality was still impressive for how low res the screen is. So when picking a new laptop I went with a Dell XPS as it had the option of a 120Hz screen. Was a big fan of silky smooth Windows back in the day on a 100Hz CRT, so to finally get that again on a PC was great. But I didn't initially shell out on the €150 3D Glasses still too expensive, but since nVidia released their USB version for €85, though I'd give it a go...

Experience... so far... the Good
So far I've only tried the demo software and Half-Life 2. The demo stuff is simple and shows off the depth really well, there is a setting on just how much 3D you want to see; from a very small amount, to a lot. Found 75% to be the sweet spot for me. So fired up HL2 and started playing it again. It's very impressive to see the characters in 3D. The close up of the G-Man right at the start is freaky since his eyes are sunken in and the nose pops out. Then when starts, seeing people behind fences or in rooms, it was really awesome, also running down corridors looks great, give the real experience of claustrophobia. Having stuff jump out at you is awesome!

The Bad...
To be fair, HL2 was designed before proper 3D glasses support was available... The cross hair can look like it's behind an object your looking at which leads to your eyes focusing at different points in space, now this doesn't happen a lot but it's noticeable. Another which is a bug, some of the sky-boxes (i.e. the edge of map textures) aren't being displayed at the right depth as other object close to them, so the far away textures look closer then some buildings, this can be a bit sore to look at. But on a hole this is a minor irrational not a show stopped.

Prolonged Play...
After playing for an hour had some brain fusing, had the same problem with the 3DS for the first couple of days and it went away. Can play the 3DS for straight without any problems, longest session 6 hours. Only had the 3D PC setup for a day, so am hoping it goes away also.



Anyone else out there playing games on the PC in 3D?? Any games you'd recommend that are impressive in 3D. Or monitors as I'm now planing a new 3D gaming rig... nVidia have won me back...

Pax-UX wrote:

Background...
I've been very slow to get onto the 3d bandwagon

I just stopped reading from there, i mean what would you call me, i would only consider 3D once they go mainstream.

Well,I am lookin forward to trying 3d vision on my 560ti sli setup.Just need to get a proper display,I have heard that tvs are limited to 24fps,Ill research it more,Once i have the money ill go from there,but Anyone with knowledge on 3d vision on TVs would be appreciated.
Thanks

Jigar wrote:

Pax-UX wrote:

Background...
I've been very slow to get onto the 3d bandwagon

I just stopped reading from there, i mean what would you call me, i would only consider 3D once they go mainstream.

Well for the movies, it kind has gone mainstream. It's now only starting in the games market, next gen consoles will definitely support 3D as an option.

When TVs go 3D as standard not adding much extra cost and we get proper Polarized 3D, not the Active 3D shutter glasses it will become popular. While not a game changer it does add a lot to the experience. The quality of 3D on the PC is far superior to what you see in the movies. Problem with 3D is it's a hard sell has you have to experience it first hand to see what it's actually like. It's not like looking at the last new graphics card with some new rendering engine, which you can see in on youtube.

vargis14 wrote:

Well,I am lookin forward to trying 3d vision on my 560ti sli setup.Just need to get a proper display,I have heard that tvs are limited to 24fps,Ill research it more,Once i have the money ill go from there,but Anyone with knowledge on 3d vision on TVs would be appreciated.
Thanks

I don't know a lot about this, still investigating it. From my understanding it comes down to the connection type's bandwidth... so for a normal PC, for example a 1920x1200 works off a single DVI, but if you had a 2560x1600 then a Dual DVI port is required for that resolution. With HDMI it has to do with the Version, as different versions of the spec have different bandwidth speeds, v1.4 is for 3D. Your TV & Display device both need to be HDMI 1.4, if you're using 1.3 or 1.2 there isn't enough bandwidth to transfer the 1080p * 60fps so it downgrades to 1080 * 24 fps.

It's like steaming a TV show off the web, the speed of the connection affect the playback quality. There should be just one universe data transfer cable UDT that connects all digital decives! But everybody wants there own standard to make licensing money off it! As an example, HDMI could be used to transfer files from a PC to an external device if they wanted to, or a USB cable transfer a TV picture.

Played Portal 2 for a couple of hours last night... falling in this game is scary! Only way of describing it is like a roller-coaster the body expects stuff to happen because it looks real.

While the 3D Vision compatibility is said to be Excellent all the frosted or broken glass gives off crazy reflections and would appear to be a hack in the Source engine as the left and right eye images don't match up and look terrible to the point it's sore. Also it suffers from the same cross-hair problem, there's actually a nVidia fix for this with a cross-hairs overlay that looks right... bit of a cheat for games like CS:S + Sniper gun... hehe... just need to turn off the in-game cross-hair.

Crysis 2 next... although my laptop isn't really going to be up for the job will still give it a good... Also from reading around the best 3D game is Metro 2033, I don't have this but might pick it up at some point.

Refreshing to see a positive review of 3D for once. I believe a lot of the 3D hate is really lame and I've spoken out against it. I'm definitely interested in the technology in general.

For me though there's still a few major sticking points:

1. The glasses - No, not because it "looks dorky" or I dislike the idea of it or whatever, but for the simple fact that I already wear glasses! Big problem.

2. The displays - The 3D monitors just aren't great. Limited to 23", 1080p TN panels. I mean the better ones aren't bad, mind, but if you already have something high end like a Dell UltraSharp it'd be hard to stomach the loss of screen size, resolution, and color quality. Hopefully in the future they bring 120Hz to large, high quality monitors.

3. The flicker? - If each eye is refreshing at 60Hz, wouldn't it feel just like viewing a 60Hz CRT display? i.e. painful on your eyes? I've never used shutter glasses, is this a problem for you?

' Also from reading around the best 3D game is Metro 2033, I don't have this but might pick it up at some point."

Hope your laptop has a killer graphics card metro frame rates are very low to start with,once ya throw 3d in it will probably become a slideshow,mabey they have a demo?

Grape Flavor wrote:

1. The glasses - No, not because it "looks dorky" or I dislike the idea of it or whatever, but for the simple fact that I already wear glasses! Big problem.

I wear glasses to, they sit over them fine and stay on the nose well; it comes with a couple of different nose bridge options. They're also not too heavy, well the USB ones at least since they have no battery.

Normally I would play games with a 5.1 headset for late night gaming, so the big issue with these Glasses, is I can't wear the headset, but have to use iPod style in-eye and the sound quality isn't even in the same league. It's either late night 5.1 gaming or 3d game not both... I do see this as an issue. Wouldn't be surprised to see someone come out with a jeweller's style headband glasses attachment. To add to that dorky look! XD

Grape Flavor wrote:

2. The displays - The 3D monitors just aren't great. Limited to 23", 1080p TN panels. I mean the better ones aren't bad, mind, but if you already have something high end like a Dell UltraSharp it'd be hard to stomach the loss of screen size, resolution, and color quality. Hopefully in the future they bring 120Hz to large, high quality monitors.

Well I'm currently using this on a 17.3" FHD 3D WLED True-Life 1080p laptop monitor. My only other monitor LCD is an old 24" Samsung 244T. So can't really pass judgement on how that compares to a TN. A couple of people I know don't mind the slightly lower picture colour quality on a TN, since the refresh cost $$$ Vs a IPS is a lot better. But that said I've read that IPS 3d is close.

Grape Flavor wrote:

3. The flicker? - If each eye is refreshing at 60Hz, wouldn't it feel just like viewing a 60Hz CRT display? i.e. painful on your eyes? I've never used shutter glasses, is this a problem for you?

I don't notice any flicker and I've tried the demo 3d TVs in shop that had noticeable flicker which IMO isn't very good. nVidia setup is better quality then anything I've seen from a TV manufacture. But since it's shutters it does make things look darker so by default it pumps the back-light to 100%, I'd normally run it at around 45%. Also I do my gaming in the dark as I can't stand any reflections on the screen. I'm things about doing a custom colour profile for 3D since colours are slightly distorted by the Glasses. If nVidia where cleaver they could do this by default or a toggle option and fix the displayed colours based off now the lenses tint the screen. Again not an issue more a case of still working out the kinks.

vargis14 wrote:

Hope your laptop has a killer graphics card metro frame rates are very low to start with,once ya throw 3d in it will probably become a slideshow,mabey they have a demo?

It's a nVidia GT555m "3D" as Dell call it, plays most stuff fine if I don't go crazy with the settings. Didn't get the laptop to be a games DTR system still have a 4870x2 PC which is good enough for me right now. I'm due a refresh shortly... When I the game it won't be being played on the laptop but games PC and then I'll just try it out in 3D.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeF ... 933.0.html

Laptop Spec:
i7-2720QM 2.20/3.30GHz
17.3" FHD 3D WLED True-Life 1080p
nVidia GT555m
16GB RAM Crucial (DDR3 PC3-10600 • CL=9 • Unbuffered • NON-ECC • DDR3-1333 • 1.5V • 256Meg x 64)
256GB Crucial RealSSD C300
500GB 7200RPM (original shipped disk)
Blu-Ray / DVD Burner

The RAM and SSD are after market, since Dell changes too much compared to buying direct from Crucial

Played Crysis 2 for about an hour tonight, the 3D isn't as noticeable as other titles I've played. Not sure why but once you look at something more then 15 feet away it all starts to look flat. This is the only game I've seen this in. Also the cut-scenes that look like there's real-time rendered are very flat when view. For the record I'm running the DX9 mode, haven't downloaded the DX11 texture pack which I will do at some point.

edit... Doh forgot this was a DX9 game!

Great thread.

I'm a HUGE believer in 3D (and have been a 3D user in the past, although I'm not using it currently.)

That said: ALL of my current hardware purchases were made with the idea of implementing 3D once again in my own userspace, so I've gone "full Nvidia" for my new (and also current) video card as I believe Nvidia, alone, offers not only the best support, but also a literal "faith" in the idea of good 3D that the good people behind AMD still do not. Or just have not (yet?).)

As I'm currently in the midst of a new PC build, my hope is that this commentary will perhaps be understood as more of a truth and less of a simple "fanboy" attitude: I AM, quite literally, backing up this belief (in 3D) with my own hard earned dollars--parts for this next PC (the final parts should arrive early next week) were certainly purchased with the possibility of using 3D (both older and current versions) well in mind.

---------

All that said, I'm also a 3D believer MOSTLY...perhaps even ONLY...when that 3D content is viewed "lifesize(d)." IMO, 3D FAILS pretty quickly when it isn't viewed lifesize(d). Perhaps this is only by a matter of +/- 10% where FOV is concerned.

=============

Some of you might be thinking: HUH? Wtf is FOV or lifesize(d)...and why should I care?

FOV is "Field of View." Whether we realize it or not, all of us humans (those who have vision in both eyes) have a FOV of something like 180 degrees. This means we can (using both eyes) usually see things in front of us...and about 90 degrees (1/4 full circle) out to each side.

Put another way: those events which happen in FRONT of the middle of our heads can probably be seen by us...and those which happen BEHIND our heads probably cant.

We view the world around us in 3D (because of our two working eyeballs) every day and in every waking hour. And we view that world LIFESIZE(D). We see our car keys...our own fingers and hands...our cell phones....and our PC keyboards and mice...lifesized.

EACH of these objects encompasses a certain, given segment of our view (from our own two eyes looking ahead). So I expect (whether I realize it or not...I EXPECT my own mouse to "look" like it's of a certain size sitting in my hand. Neither too big, nor too small.

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PC monitors, however, typically are configured to display within 3D games or even apps...a much smaller FOV than 180 degrees ahead of us...and unless we adjust for this when viewing 3D,
we are thus perhaps likely to be somewhat somewhat "underwhelmed."

I adjust for this in part by using a PROJECTOR...rather than a monitor. And the projected image, in my case, is both BIG, and also quite CLOSE to me too. Just 3 away...but something like 7 or 8 feet wide.

Aka.....HUGE! Unusual? Certainly, yes.


But, this also makes ALL the difference, IMO. It more accurately is able to reflect the way our two (normally sighted eyes) DO see the world around us.

============

IF the image you see is both BIG and CLOSE TO YOU, you are more likely to understand (when you first see it) just what 3D has to offer you. IMO this is because the objects (particularly the close objects you are most familiar with) will seem to be lifesize.

But if you see typical "3D" only on a smaller screen in front of you, then it's likely you will be underwhelmed. Sad, but also, IMO, quite true.

==========

Even 2D images...viewed lifesize(d) are far superior to conventional monitor-sized viewing, IMO.

I should know. I'm currently driving (my simracing)...online....in front of a lifesize (but only 2D) projected image. A nice projector, and certainly a full size image, yes...but still not 3D.

That said, I'm usually/or even often right up at the front of the field too.

Lifesize viewing certainly doesn't HURT me in any way.

Why would it when it truly "rocks?"



simracer

Been meaning to update this... but have been playing Deus EX:HR

So I did a parts upgrade on my games rig EVGA GFX-580 + LG W2363D monitor. The monitor needs a good bit of calibration and the buttons on the front suck so bad it's not even funny. You need a light shinning on them to make out what does what. That said the picture quality, once you fix the sharpening is more then good enough for gaming IMO. Have it side by side with my WLED, of course that's better... but at €180 for a 120Hz monitor it's a bargain!

Deus EX HR was the main reason for the upgrade, while the game does 3d, it's complete crap on nVidia since its an AMD backed title...mmm starting to remember why the PC gaming scene is more complex then it needs be. There are lots of depth rendering issues, hopefully fixed with a driver or game patch. Not holding my breath

Went back and retested stuff like Half-life 2. The issue with the water & glass on the laptop's GT555m isn't a problem for a GFX-580, it works perfectly. Looks like there are driver bugs between the GFX-580 & GT-555m, which is a complete pain in the ass. It's still a little too early to expect good quality 3D out of the box with games. Which leads on to the big upgrade!

The best thing is the 120Hz gaming! This alone is worth it, 3D is a nice to have. But the real bonus is games being uber smooth! Not since my old 100Hz Dell CRT have they played this nicely. If you're in the market for a new Monitor and you're putting together a mid to high-end system you have to go 120Hz anything less is a waste of money. Unless you're anal about your colour quality, the different when playing isn't enough IMO to give up those extra 60Hz for better picture. But I prefer smoothness over vivid colours.

I invested in a 3D vision setup last xmas. While its kind of neat, I find myself rarely using it to be honest. In fact, the thing I'm happiest about most is the 120hz lcd I was forced to purchase..now thats a real upgrade