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Is Nvidia 3D worth it?
Pablo the Penguin
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
As a long term pet project I am considering making my PC 3D and fancy. But before I undergo the effort, I just want to know if it wil be worth the time/money. So does anyone here have this fancy 3D stuff? If so, how good/bad is it? And should I buy it?
Pablo the Penguin on
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I ran games with eDimension 3d LCD glasses a few years back and it was a headache, literally.
The glasses were cheap enough (About $50), but there are plenty of problems with individual game incompatibilities, and overall, the effect wasn't worth it.
It may have been my eyes at fault, but the 3d effect varied from um-noticeable to headache inducing after a few mins viewing (there was a slider in the 3d driver control panel that allows adjustment of the stereo separation from little to lots, and finding a happy medium proved impossible)
2d elements in games ( like huds/maps/text boxes etc) don't get 3d treatment and can produce weird artifacts even in games that are claimed to be 3d compatible.
Oh and the glasses only worked worth a damn on a BIG CRT monitor that could output 120hz refresh rates or better.
It may be all solved now, but I'd wait or try and get a hands on demo if I were you.
Good luck with it though, it has the potential to be fun, I'm just not convinced its quite there yet.
That said, be aware that it's at the minimum like $400 for the monitor and glasses, and that it literally cuts your framerates in half
Always pop in these threads. My take on it is if you're going to be playing FPS games/WoW it's fun in bursts. It's not something you're always gonna have on, because your eyes will hate you. The 3D effect varies from game to game, but the Support for this newest revision of 3D Technology is pretty nice, as new games will constantly have the drivers tweaked to support games.
Remember that you need to render games in 3D practically twice, so you need a beast of a machine if you want all the details on in 3d. L4D2 works perfect on max settings in 3d with my current setup:
2 ghz Core 2 Duo
4 gigs of ram
Geforce 260 GTX
But newer games, or Crysis will need to be tuned down a decent bit to enjoy 3d. Obviously a newer computer will do better.
If you have a bluray drive on your computer you can do the whole 3d movie thing. http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d-vision-3d-blu-ray.html
There are some 3d video demos here. http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d-vision-3d-movies.html
Here is the list of games and their 'rating' as far as 3d goes. http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d-vision-3d-games.html
Excellent rated games general have very few or no elements that don't blend well with 3d, while the lower you go the more crap you get that doesn't work in 3d (UI, Skys, water). Best games that have worked for me are L4D, WoW, Painkiller, Crysis.
For me it was worth getting it just to have zombies run down a hallway at me in full 3d. Before I blew them up.
Do you still need to buy anything else? Or do you just download some drivers and you're all set? This seems like it would be cool for a while.
E: Actually this wouldn't work for me because I have an ATI card. Damn.
Red/cyan is reportedly bad though, my only memories of it are from Spy Kids 3D years ago, so I can't remember how bad it is.
Nothing's forgotten, nothing is ever forgotten
I've had chance to use a couple of 3d set ups, one with the PS3 and one using the Nvidia offering (playing Batman and some racing game) and I absolutely loved them. Being a horror fan there's a whole wealth of old field sequential films waiting for me to watch even before this years blurays hit the shelves.
However it's not the right time if you're wanting a painless 3d experience, I'm sure I'll meet many headaches trying to get everything set up in 3d, but that's the kind of thing I enjoy.
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
Nothing's forgotten, nothing is ever forgotten
You've had some pretty dodgy experiences then, I've sat all over the place in the cinema and haven't had a problem with 3d. It depends (iirc) if circular or linear polorisation is used. If circular is used then the angle really shouldn't be an issue.
But yeah, I agree that I really can't see affordable glasses-less 3d tv screens (monitors maybe, as has been pointed out you only generally have one person looking at it, but if that's the case do you really mind wearing glasses whilst being sat on your own?) coming out for quite a number of years. The technology is just crazy expensive.
I don't quite have the issue others do with wearing the glasses, I already sit in my living room either clutching a joypad, swinging a wii-mote around or clutching a replica steering wheel. Having to wear something on my head really isn't too much of an effort.
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
Rohan might only be familiar with the IMAX 3D, which does use linear polarization. It's got a pretty narrow sweet spot in terms of seating in the theatre, and isn't very tolerant of things like head tilt. ReadD uses circular polarization, and is greatly more forgiving of viewing angle.
Some people who have particular vision problems (amblyopia, strabismus, etc.) will just have problems with 3D in general.