3D Vision Mega Evaluation – Gimmick or Gaming’s Future?

Unboxing the ASUS 3D Vision Bundle:

The 3D Vision/ASUS Bundle consists of a large box containing the ASUS VG236 display and the 3D Vision wireless active shutter glasses Kit.

As you can see, “Trace free” is touted along with 3D and 120Hz and it is clear that the VG236 is accompanied by the 3D Vision Kit inside.  2ms is the quoted specification from gray to gray.  The precious contents is well packed for shipping.

You can see that the bottom stand is solid and heavy to provide stable support for the display.

Putting them together is a snap (literally, and a click) then turn the screw to lock it down.

Here is everything out of the box and ready for the simple assembly.

All of our 3D Vision accessories are here and unpacked and ready to assemble.  Below is the 3D Vision Kit included with the ASUS bundle.

One emitter is sufficient for multiple pairs of 3D Vision glasses.

The screen now tilts back and forth as well as lowers and raises.  You have to rotate the stand, however, to pivot your screen horizontally so that it may match up with two other displays for Surround gaming.

The controls are simple and easy to get to:

Here is the display from another view.

And here is the connection panel for dual-link DVI and HDMI 1.3; make sure you use the supplied dual-link DVI cable which is mandatory to display 3D Vision.  No DisplayPort or HDMI 1.4 connections, however.

It is a beautiful display with a really glossy screen (make sure to dim the room’s lighting) and our images do it little justice compared with seeing it live in 3D and in person.

When you first turn it on, the brightness of the ASUS VG236H is a bit of a shock compared to most LCDs.  It is extremely bright out of the box and it is almost unpleasant for 2D work.  Also, the color temperature is set too high and the gamma curve is set too low, meaning that the colors tend more towards blue with relatively light shades of grey that should be darker. These are not real issues for playing games with 3D Vision as the games tend to be dark using active shutter glasses although colors are reproduced accurately.

To make adjustments that will make the color temperature more accurate, simply set the color to “warm” and turn the brightness down to the mid-40s.  This will work well for all 2D applications. Now that we have our display more accurately “eye-calibrated”, let’s set up all three displays and remember to turn the brightness back up for playing games with 3D Vision.

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Now that we have our 3 displays set up side-by-side, let’s look closely at the active shutter 3D Vision glasses before we install the 3D Vision drivers and hardware on our PC

«1. Introduction2. The 3D Vision movement3. Producing the illusion of depth4. History of Stereoscopic 3D5. How 3D Vision works6. ABT's Interview with Jon Peddie7. HW requirements for S3D/3D Vision8. 3D Vision Performance9. 120Hz Displays vs. 120Hz displays - advantages for 2D gaming?10. Unboxing the ASUS 3D Vision Bundle11. 3D Vision active shutter glasses12. Installing 3D Vision13. First Impressions14. Potential issues with 3D and 3D Vision15. PC Games in 3D Vision16. Eighty Older games17. 3D Vision Surround (5760x1080)18. The Verdict19. View All»