Anyone going to go for the 3D thing?

[Sam DeathWalker]

Here is the requirements, and the glasses are $199:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/GeForce_3D_Vision_Requirements.html

Also you need 100Hz plus monitor.

I can see what it does easy, they take a screen and send left eye info to yur left eye while blanking the right eye then they display right eye and blank the left at 120HZ (would be best instead of 100HA). So thats like 60HZ each eye. In theory there should be np with it.

Anyway if someone trys it Id like to hear if its good or not. Also if you have the glasses on and you look at a normal monitor (60HZ) that dosnt have the 3d drivers what happens lol ...

[-silencer-]

We're heavily testing this technology in R&D at work - it's impressive on our military simulators. That's about all I can say.

That said, I'm seriously considering a 3D monitor & the nVidia glasses when they're out in April. I like my current setup for multiboxing, but I can definitely see how the solo game would be vastly more immersive in 3D. :)

[Lyonheart]

We're heavily testing this technology in R&D at work - it's impressive on our military simulators. That's about all I can say.

That said, I'm seriously considering a 3D monitor & the nVidia glasses when they're out in April. I like my current setup for multiboxing, but I can definitely see how the solo game would be vastly more immersive in 3D. :)

this

[Jafula]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2009/01/09/nvidia-geforce-3dvision-review/

I'd be all for playing with this one of these, if I had a 120Hz monitor. Maybe in a years time. I'd love to play Left 4 Dead with this 3D system. Drool.

[Multibocks]

from some of the WoW testers I have read that it is very straining on the eyes. That said I still want to try it out, too bad I'm running 2x 4870x2's =(

[Basilikos]

My video card(s) is(are) just barely too low to support this. Eventually, I'll have to upgrade to keep up with things, and they'll be the first things I upgrade (everything else is quite fine). I wasn't aware of the 100Hz monitor issue, I certainly don't have one and I don't think I care to spend the money on that any time soon.

[-silencer-]

from some of the WoW testers I have read that it is very straining on the eyes. That said I still want to try it out, too bad I'm running 2x 4870x2's =(
I don't know about WoW, but some of us at work have used 3D shutter glasses for up to 12 hours at a time (with short breaks every now and then).. some people are strained by it and some aren't.. just like sitting at a computer all day.

[algol]

The strain thing would depend on the person - the same way some people get headaches from florescent lighting or are more sensitive to low CRT refresh rates. It is also likely mitigated by using a higher primary refresh rate, giving higher secondary refresh rates for each eye.

[Molt]

One thing worth remembering is that this won't work well for multiboxing, each display'll have it's own perspective and the brain won't like having six diifferent perspectives messing up things, at best it'll look like each of the characters is in their own artificially foreshortened box.. the normal 3d problem of the screen having a different a different perspective to the real-world is bad enough but give it five display regions and watch the brain trickle slowly out of your nose.

With regard to what happens when looking at a normal flatscreen 60Hz display in 120Hz goggles- the answer is not much, if anything it dims it a little. What's actually happening is you're just seeing the one frame either first through one eye then through the other (if the goggles sync with the display properly- not guaranteed), or through one eye, then the other, then back to the first for a moment before the frame switched. An old CRT viewed through this could be curious though, it may well make the point where the raster scan operation was very obvious- may have to have a play with that.

Personally I'm going to leave this technology alone at playtime for now. Whilst the problem of getting viable 3d displays working with games is a lot easier than it is with film it is still the case that most of the programmers won't really understand the requirements of making psychologically-acceptable 3d where the separation between the two virtual cameras is right based on the content to avoid either nullifying the 3d effect or making massive things look tiny, things don't appear too close to the camera and break the effect, and a number of other things.

This is ignoring also the fact that a lot of modern games use billboard techniques as imposters and they won't work- you're not looking at a lot of individually rendered blades of grass, you're looking at a much lower number of flat billboards with multiple blades of grass rendered on them; you're not looking at true smoke or fire, you're looking at a lot of flat billboards with a smoothly-faded blurred shapes on them. These kind of tricks work well in the forced-perspective of a single view but would rapidly start to break down in a stereoscopic environment as the edges either get quite obvious or the entire thing looks flat. Getting rid of these and replacing them with actual geometry/volumetrics is going to cost a lot of GPU power.

[Xar]

I can't wait to afford a big 120hz panel, probably in 6-months or so. I'm playing now with my main screen at 24" so I don't want to downgrade to a 22" that they bundle with the package.

I played around with the older lcd glasses a number of years ago that would plug into the video card and used my crt at a lower rez to have a higher refresh rate. Still 3d images were amazing to look at.

I've been solo raiding more and more and just using my team to do dailies and fund my main solo toons but still multibox in lwg and it's always a blast. Really looking forward to this while solo raiding.

[-silencer-]

One thing worth remembering is that this won't work well for multiboxing, each display'll have it's own perspective and the brain won't like having six diifferent perspectives messing up things, at best it'll look like each of the characters is in their own artificially foreshortened box.. the normal 3d problem of the screen having a different a different perspective to the real-world is bad enough but give it five display regions and watch the brain trickle slowly out of your nose.

With regard to what happens when looking at a normal flatscreen 60Hz display in 120Hz goggles- the answer is not much, if anything it dims it a little. What's actually happening is you're just seeing the one frame either first through one eye then through the other (if the goggles sync with the display properly- not guaranteed), or through one eye, then the other, then back to the first for a moment before the frame switched. An old CRT viewed through this could be curious though, it may well make the point where the raster scan operation was very obvious- may have to have a play with that.

Personally I'm going to leave this technology alone at playtime for now. Whilst the problem of getting viable 3d displays working with games is a lot easier than it is with film it is still the case that most of the programmers won't really understand the requirements of making psychologically-acceptable 3d where the separation between the two virtual cameras is right based on the content to avoid either nullifying the 3d effect or making massive things look tiny, things don't appear too close to the camera and break the effect, and a number of other things.

This is ignoring also the fact that a lot of modern games use billboard techniques as imposters and they won't work- you're not looking at a lot of individually rendered blades of grass, you're looking at a much lower number of flat billboards with multiple blades of grass rendered on them; you're not looking at true smoke or fire, you're looking at a lot of flat billboards with a smoothly-faded blurred shapes on them. These kind of tricks work well in the forced-perspective of a single view but would rapidly start to break down in a stereoscopic environment as the edges either get quite obvious or the entire thing looks flat. Getting rid of these and replacing them with actual geometry/volumetrics is going to cost a lot of GPU power.
This has little to do with programmers. DX9 already supports the tech and the programmers don't have to do anything. The *only* thing that has to be done is for the "camera point" to be split into two, and moved 4-5" away from each other - this is all done by enabling 3D in the API, not by programmers writing new code. Then two frames are rendered based on these two cameras.. the "left" and "right" eyes. The shutter glasses are sync'd to the monitor, which alternates between these two camera at each Hz. That's why 120Hz monitors = 60 fps with shutter glasses.

We're writing programs that are 3D-enabled at work.. nothing "new" needs to be done on our side to be able to fully enjoy this technology. About the only thing we need to do is avoid sprite-based graphics (the billboarding you mentioned), which is outdated anyway. It helps to have everything rendered in 3D - gui, HUD, etc. We're using particle system and shader fire/explosion effects and they look awesome in 3D. Anyway, a sprite-based HUD doesn't look bad though - it looks like a picture frame hung 3 feet from your face, but the 3D effects happen both behind, through, and in front of it.

Also, LCDs don't "dim" like CRTs do.. the Hz with LCDs is how many times per second the screen will refresh, but there's no dimming after each refresh. That's why 60Hz LCDs look clean and clear with no flickering in comparison to 60Hz CRTs. When attempting to use multiple monitors, this technology would be VERY difficult to do because the shutter glasses can only by sync'd to one monitor, and getting the monitors sync'd is close to impossible. Until there's an option on the monitors to sync with another, I don't see multi-monitor 3D being supported any time soon.

[heffner]

I just got an email from Nvidia saying it's available for sale now.

Never even heard of it until today. Looks interesting. WoW was listed under the "excellent" rating for 3D Vision ready games too! Gah, Ijust bought a third monitor the other day too.....

Whoever tries this, let us know how it goes.

[Maxion]

If only this worked with my Vuzix ('http://www.vuzix.com') Glasses.

[Hor]

Bit-Tech.net did a good review on the new 3D stuff
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2009/01/09/nvidia-geforce-3dvision-review/1

[mikekim]

I am looking into getting a couple of sets of these for the gaming PC's I have to support for work (It's a hard life sometimes :thumbup: )
not using the supplied 22" screen, as we use 30" atm -- probably look at using a 120Hz 1080P lcd around the 40-50" size

[Vicker]

This technology has been out for years now. About four years ago I bought a set of eDimensional 3d glasses for the purpose of playing fps. It worked quite nicely with my 85 Hz monitor with America's Army and Call of Duty. It was fun for a while, and was enough of a novelty that everyone on my floor in my dorm wanted to have a turn trying it out on my computer. I also used it with Eve for a while. It was pretty cool to be able to see my rifter floating in front of me in 3d. Eventually the novelty wore off and I stopped using them. I got too lazy to want to have to take the glasses on and off every time I got up from my computer to do something else.

Also, I should point out that it adds some more load to your video card. Rendering the world for the second eye is almost as video intensive as running a second copy of the game.

[Fef]

We use 3D display here at work all the time (pharmaceutical research). We have tested all TFT solutions until now, but none was satisfying. So people still use CRT screen with very high refresh rates. Yes, they are getting harder and harder to find, and they take a whole lot of room ...

120 MHz means that each eye actually sees a 60MHz display. A lot of people (including me) cannot stand that in the long term (say more than half an hour). So if you are interested by this technology, I would advise to try it during a significant amount of time, not just for two "wow that's cool" minutes.

[Multibocks]

I believe you mean 60Hz and 120Hz =)

[Ken]

I used these glasses about 8 years ago, I had 2 pair of them. My first impressions were that it was quite awesome, but after longer usage it starts to get very tiring for your eyes. Also, 60Hz is by itself not very relaxing for your eyes. An additional point is that most people these days don't by CRT screens anymore and that many CRT screens don't support their highest resolutions at their highest frequencies.

So in short: It looks very good, but it's too tiring for your eyes for serious(longer) usage.

[Freddie]

A question for the folks who use 3D at work. How much of the strain is due to strobe effects from artificial lights? I'm wondering if the strain can be eliminated 100% for everyone if there is no artificial light.

[Xar]

We use 3D display here at work all the time (pharmaceutical research). We have tested all TFT solutions until now, but none was satisfying. So people still use CRT screen with very high refresh rates. Yes, they are getting harder and harder to find, and they take a whole lot of room ...

120 MHz means that each eye actually sees a 60MHz display. A lot of people (including me) cannot stand that in the long term (say more than half an hour). So if you are interested by this technology, I would advise to try it during a significant amount of time, not just for two "wow that's cool" minutes.But with a 120Hz panel you would see 60Hz on each eye which is usually what most of our panels are now (60Hz) so I'm unsure what you mean about not being able to stand it in the long term.

[Vicker]

We use 3D display here at work all the time (pharmaceutical research). We have tested all TFT solutions until now, but none was satisfying. So people still use CRT screen with very high refresh rates. Yes, they are getting harder and harder to find, and they take a whole lot of room ...

120 MHz means that each eye actually sees a 60MHz display. A lot of people (including me) cannot stand that in the long term (say more than half an hour). So if you are interested by this technology, I would advise to try it during a significant amount of time, not just for two "wow that's cool" minutes.But with a 120Hz panel you would see 60Hz on each eye which is usually what most of our panels are now (60Hz) so I'm unsure what you mean about not being able to stand it in the long term.

I've used an 85Hz monitor for ages. When I look at 60Hz monitors, I can see the flicker and it drives me nuts.

[Ken]

[...]
I've used an 85Hz monitor for ages. When I look at 60Hz monitors, I can see the flicker and it drives me nuts.
Same here, 60Hz actually gives me headaches sometimes after longer periods of exposure.
75Hz is acceptable, but still noticably not as stable as it could be and 85Hz is fine for me.

[Wilbur]

Wrong forum.

This belongs in the Hardware forum.

[Molt]

This has little to do with programmers. DX9 already supports the tech and the programmers don't have to do anything. The *only* thing that has to be done is for the "camera point" to be split into two, and moved 4-5" away from each other - this is all done by enabling 3D in the API, not by programmers writing new code. Then two frames are rendered based on these two cameras.. the "left" and "right" eyes. The shutter glasses are sync'd to the monitor, which alternates between these two camera at each Hz. That's why 120Hz monitors = 60 fps with shutter glasses.


Getting the 3d engine to support the effect in a basic way isn't difficult- doing it in a way which minimises the confusion on the brain is as it's heavily dependant upon the content being shown. For medium-distance content the 4-5" separation may work, as long as you're careful to avoid outlying items which'll render for one eye and not the other which will confuse the brain, ideally you want to prevent objects disappearing from the left and right frame but often this isn't possible. For content at different scales the eye separation distance will often need adjusting to help maintain the effect of 3d without making the scene look unrealistically tiny, an effect which can also happen if there are problems with the heading of the two cameras which are normally are set to converge at a large distance but again this may need changing based on the content being shown.



We're writing programs that are 3D-enabled at work.. nothing "new" needs to be done on our side to be able to fully enjoy this technology. About the only thing we need to do is avoid sprite-based graphics (the billboarding you mentioned), which is outdated anyway. It helps to have everything rendered in 3D - gui, HUD, etc. We're using particle system and shader fire/explosion effects and they look awesome in 3D. Anyway, a sprite-based HUD doesn't look bad though - it looks like a picture frame hung 3 feet from your face, but the 3D effects happen both behind, through, and in front of it.


Billboarding is used a lot in the current generation of 3d technology, it's used to impersonate actual modelled geometry in places where it's impractical to render as many objects as would be needed (The game 'Oblivion' used this technique heavily to allow it to have the dense forests.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_(computer_graphics)#Move_to_3D ('http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_%28computer_graphics%29#Move_to_3D') ), and the vast majority of particle systems are implemented by using billboards as each particle instance is a textured quad oriented towards the viewer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_system).

With your use of particle systems displaying well in your tests either you're one of the few not using the textured quad technique, possibly using GPU instancing instead, or the display technology you're using is displaying them a lot better than lenticular or polarized displays are. Viewing content from the Source engine on both of these meant that the particle systems looked great when they were fast-moving such as fire, but really didn't work for the slower moving smoke.



Also, LCDs don't "dim" like CRTs do.. the Hz with LCDs is how many times per second the screen will refresh, but there's no dimming after each refresh. That's why 60Hz LCDs look clean and clear with no flickering in comparison to 60Hz CRTs. When attempting to use multiple monitors, this technology would be VERY difficult to do because the shutter glasses can only by sync'd to one monitor, and getting the monitors sync'd is close to impossible. Until there's an option on the monitors to sync with another, I don't see multi-monitor 3D being supported any time soon.
The LCDs don't dim like CRTs do but the lenses in the glasses you're wearing do spend half their time blacked out. The brain does adjust to this as it does if you're wearing sunglasses, and the sudden brightness spike when the shutter clears will help a lot to prevent the eye from undergoing dark adaption- ultimately though each eye's only getting 50% of the light it would if you weren't wearing the glasses which for some people will result in a notable dimming effect.

[Fef]

We use 3D display here at work all the time (pharmaceutical research). We have tested all TFT solutions until now, but none was satisfying. So people still use CRT screen with very high refresh rates. Yes, they are getting harder and harder to find, and they take a whole lot of room ...

120 MHz means that each eye actually sees a 60MHz display. A lot of people (including me) cannot stand that in the long term (say more than half an hour). So if you are interested by this technology, I would advise to try it during a significant amount of time, not just for two "wow that's cool" minutes.But with a 120Hz panel you would see 60Hz on each eye which is usually what most of our panels are now (60Hz) so I'm unsure what you mean about not being able to stand it in the long term.

My understanding is that TFT and CRT are a very different thing.

On CRT running at 60Hz, the whole image is "redrawn" 60 times per seconds (over simplifying, must be not that simple with interlacing and stuff). If you are sensitive to this kind of effect, you can somehow feel the screen "blinking".

On a TFT, leds that don't change status are just left on or off. The only thing the 60 Hz means is that the screen is able to display a whole new picture every 1/60th of a second. That is why 60Hz TFT are very confortable even to people who consider 60Hz CRT are unstandable.

Now, if you use a 3D system (can be simple obstructing, based on polarisation, or the simple blue/red filters), the strobing is re-introduced either by the goggles, or by the TFT screen that has to re-draw the whole image for each eye. Each eye gets a brand new complete image projected at 60Hz, and the strain is back.

[Moorea]

So anyone got this - is it working well ? any feedback on it ? would you mind posting photos of your setup (I expect it looks blurry when screen picture is taken without glasses?) ?

[ciscokid454]

I'd love to play Left 4 Dead with this 3D system. Drool.
This!

[Crucial]

So anyone got this - is it working well ? any feedback on it ? would you mind posting photos of your setup (I expect it looks blurry when screen picture is taken without glasses?) ?
Looks amazing but after 3 hours the siezure wasn't!







j/k

[X-Ifist]

Tryed it once at a friends house, got a projector set up for 3D.

Its awsome but after a houer of Colin Mcray i got sick. He can play it for houers whitout feeling anny misscomfort, so i guess its something to get used to.
If you got a video card that suport it, i would try it out.

[Skaai]

I've tested it out, single box, at the Micro Center near me for about 20 minutes and had a splitting headache afterwords. It looks amazing, especially in zones where there are particles floating, OS and the Emerald Dragonshrine in Dragonblight are a couple of the best places I went. Another problem with it is the glasses; you've got to have them on constantly, and if you wear corrective lenses, good luck. Not to mention how nice it would be to wear sunglasses indoors for hours on end.

Overall, I'd get it if i had money to burn on a seperate monitor for single boxing. It was definitely more than I expected to see.