3D Vision 2 brings a new level of immersion to Batman: Arkham City and Trine 2

3D Vision vs. 3D Vision 2

Since Nvidia first announced its 3D Vision 3D stereoscopic solution at Nvision08, over one-half million gamers are said to be using 3D Vision as evidenced by the more than 500,000 pairs of the active shutter glasses sold.  Nearly 600 games are supported by 3D Vision drivers and 3D fans gather on sub-forums devoted to tweaking games in 3D.  AlienBabelTech will stay at the forefront of this movement as we feature regular 3D driver performance analysis and our forum already has threads devoted to 3D gaming.

As our original 3D Vision Mega-evaluation pointed out,  the main drawback of the first generation 3D Vision monitors is that they appear darker in 3D mode than in 2D mode.  In addition, the active shutter glasses tend to make the environment appear darker to the player which makes it difficult to see anything easily in the room beside the screen; and this can lead to issues with even being able to see keys on the keyboard.

3D Vision 2 uses a new range of panels and glasses that can nearly double the brightness of 3D images.  3D Vision 2 uses a new technology called 3D LightBoost that allows monitors to become brighter when used in 3D mode.  In practice, it appears to be overall about 50% brighter, but it is difficult to tell as our original (non-Light Boost) ASUS display is 23″ and the new ASUS display is 27″.  Size makes a huge difference to experiencing 3D as we shall see.  The other big advantage for many gamers the new 27″ display has is that its screen is matte finish – not glossy like the 23″ monitor.

Nvidia claims: The redesigned glasses block out unwanted external light. They are also more comfortable when used together with gaming headsets.

Wearing the original 3D Vision glasses and using the original ASUS 23″ VG236H 3D Vision monitor is like putting on light sunglasses indoors to play a game.  Everything inside the gaming area becomes darker and it may be difficult to even see your keyboard’s keys (which is not an issue for many gamers, but can become annoying if it is a new game).

The emitter is built into the top of the screen

Switching to the 3D Vision 2 glasses and the new ASUS VG278H 3D LightBoost monitor reveals a significant improvement in brightness over the original setup.  The LightBoost monitor is definitely brighter and the images are more crisp.  Being able to easily see keys on the keyboard is a real plus and one no longer needs to remove the 3D Vision 2 glasses to look about the room.

Best of all, the 27″ ASUS LightBoost display is significantly larger than the original 23” ASUS display that we have been using for the past 9 months.  This expanded display greatly improves the players peripheral vision, and enhances the 3D experience.  Larger size alone makes a real improvement to the 3D gaming experience.

The original 3D vision glasses are closed in both eyes during the near-instantaneous right-to-left and left-to-right transitions which makes for a darker environment. However, now the LED backlight of the new LightBoost display is switched off during frame transitions and the glasses stay open longer to brighten up not only the image but also the room.

LightBoost is made possible by pulsing the LED backlight at double the brightness in synchronicity with the LCD lenses of the 3D Vision 2 glasses.  This was impossible to do previously with the older 3D displays such as our 23″ ASUS monitor that uses cold-cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL) because they cannot pulse with consistent brightness as quickly as LEDs can.

Since these older monitors have CCFL that are on all of the time, both lenses in the original 3D Vision glasses shift into a black-out phase in between the image shifting from eye to eye, thus producing an even darker image.  Now that LED backlights can switch on and off in-between frames in synch with the glasses,  the double dark phase is eliminated and you get more ambient light to see your keyboard keys with the 3D Vision 2 glasses.

As you can see from the above photo, the 3D Vision active shutter glasses have been redesigned with 20% larger lenses. The new design slims down the width of the earpiece, making the glasses more comfortable to wear with gaming headsets. A light blocker has been added to the top side of the lenses to reduce unwanted light.  And they weigh just about the same so that you do not notice then when gaming in 3D.  They are quite light considering the electronics that are embedded.

Although Nvidia has attempted to incorporate “style” into these glasses, they are nothing you would probably want to wear outdoors or as regular sunglasses.  Nor should you as they provide no protection from UV and are designed only for 3D Vision gaming.  However, they might be even more popular if Nvidia partnered with an eyeglass designer to offer style choices for an even more cool factor with their “look”.

One thing that we do not care for in the new glasses is the location of the on-off switch.  The button is now located on the left side-piece – on the side instead of on top.  It is easier and more natural to press down on the older glasses than it is to press inward on the new ones.  However this is an incredibly minor nitpick.

Overall, the new glasses together with the LightBoost display offers a much better S3D gaming experience over the older glasses and smaller display.  However, we got a excellent experience using the older glasses with the new LightBoost display; much better than using the new glasses with the older display.  In fact, the 3D gaming experience was nearly indistinguishable between the two generations of 3D Vision glasses using the 27″ ASUS LightBoost display except for the larger viewing area of the new lenses.

Crosstalk or Ghosting

As we point out in our mega 3D Vision evaluation, the 23″ASUS monitor exhibits some cross-talk between the right and left images in 3D mode. Nvidia’s 3D Vision system cycles between the left and right images at 120 times per second or 60 cycles per each eye. Using the emitter, the display is supposed to switch back and forth between the left and right images, in perfect synch with the 3D Vision active shutter glasses to create the 3D effect. Unfortunately, this process is not perfect as the pixels do not change instantaneously especially when transitioning from light to dark (which is why the 2ms response time is measured from gray to gray). The resulting artifacts are perceived as a “ghost” image in gaming and ghosting also appears in 3D pictures and moves.

Crosstalk makes the image unfocused and leads to eyestrain as the viewer’s brain attempts to resolve the images back into one.  And of course, display technology is always attempting to improve response time and this is also why TN displays are so popular; other types of displays currently have too slow of a response time needed for displaying stereoscopic 3D.

The above image is one of extremes.  If one had to deal with the ghosting on the left side, one would get quite fatigued and likely get a headache after awhile.  However, even a little bit of ghosting can cause discomfort and it makes sense to get the fastest panel available.  There is a noticeable difference between the 23″ older tech ASUS display and the LightBoost 27″ display in that there is much less fatigue with playing games with 3D Vision 2 using the newer display and glasses that cannot be attributed to size nor to brightness.  There is very little difference between the monitors (except for size), and the smaller display is actually brighter out of the box compared to its newer and bigger brother in 2D.

We noticed that even after manually adjusting the convergence and depth for each game, we would still get tired after a couple of hours of play with the original 3D Vision and the 23″ (non-LightBoost) ASUS display.  Towards the end of a long gaming session, we found ourselves cycling back and forth between 3D and 2D to gives our eyes and brain a rest.  The difference that we found with the 27″ LightBoost/3D Vision 2 active shutter glasses, is that there is much better synchronicity.  We can now play with 3D Vision 2 for about double the time previously – now up to about 4 hours without feeling other than the normal fatigue from an extended 2D gaming session.  Of course, this is with 3D Vision Ready games like Trine 2 and also after fine tuning the adjustments for the game and for the display.

The ASUS VG278’s Image Quality and Brightness

Just like with the 23″ ASUS VG236 display, the 27″ VG278 is way too bright out of the box.  Although the specification is 300 candelas per square meter maximum brightness, our factory unit was set way higher than that – and it had nothing to do with LightBoost whatsoever.  Surprisingly, although the brightness was turned way up, color accuracy was still decent for a TN panel.  And of course, reducing the brightness level made the colors look better.

In gaming, when using out of the box setting, there was still some faint ghosting present in games that benefited by tweaking the display’s settings.  Because the brightness is significantly increased with LightBoost technology, you can afford to sacrifice a bit of it by reducing the display’s contrast in 3D.  That will still leave the image much brighter than with the original displays while diminishing most of the noticeable ghosting.  These kind of adjustments work much better on our new 27″ ASUS LightBoost monitor than with our older 23″ display and even the annoying color ghosting can now nearly be eliminated.  The end result for the player is much longer gaming sessions without fatigue.

Power Usage and Input lag

The OSD menu of the ASUS VG278 allows the user to control the level of the LightBoost technology from maximum to disabled.  You can definitely see the difference between darker areas as the entire image is now brighter; and the gaming environment is also brighter.

Playing in 2D, the display uses about 45W and a bit less in 3D, which is moderately high for a LED backlight display.  Because of having an extremely low input lag and a quick panel response, the ASUS VG278 delivers a great 2D gaming experience for use as a 120Hz panel for fast-paced shooters.

If we are going to name the most impressive feature of this display, it would have to be its matte surface.  Second would be its 27-inch size as that size is a great step up for a 3D display over a 23″ or 24″ display.  Size really does make a difference to 3D immersion and 27″ appears to be very close to the largest size that you would want for a 1080P display.  The only issue that we can find is its price – $659 to $699 is expensive as 2D 27″ displays can be found for much less; and 23″ 3D displays also.  Of course, this display is on the cutting edge of S3D for PC gaming.

Before we head to the unboxing of the ASUS VG278, lets look at our system specifications and the hardware requirements for 3D Vision 2.