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

Conclusion

The Good

• 3D Vision when it works well is spectacular for some games, far exceeding the experience of the same game in 2D.
• S3D aids in immersion by making the action and the scene much more intimate; you are more easily drawn into the game world in a good game that makes intelligent use of S3D.
• 3D Vision Surround goes triple for the above with the caveat that there are few games that are that spectacular.  However, some racing games, flying games, action RPGs and the rare shooter can be worth the price of entry to someone with the money for a top PC with super-fast graphics and 3 matched 120Hz displays, and sometimes the patience to tweak the game and the settings.
• 3D Vision is Plug and Play.  It is so simple to set up and adjust and there is only one set of drivers to deal with.
• It is easy to turn on and off in game.  And it is nearly instant.
• 3D Vision glasses are comfortable and can be work for extended gaming sessions without issues.

The Bad

• The only technical issue that we have with 3D Vision is that it is relatively dark compared to 2D gaming.  And we understand that the next generation of 3D Vision may have some active light boosting techniques as Nvidia works to perfect their S3D solution for PC gaming.  And each generation of 120Hz display improves over the one preceeding it.
• The cost of entry is still a bit high.  Nvidia’s 3D Vision glasses are $150 for active shutter; compared to Samsung’s where you can buy almost 2 pairs for that price.  Wired glasses for $99 will still give you the same S3D experience and is a good step in the right direction.  However, there are advantages to buying a 120Hz display for gaming besides for 3D and adding the glasses is then not a big investment.

• 3D Vision Surround gets a special mention in regard to bang-for-buck.  It is not.  However, for the gamer with the money who demands the best possible experience, gaming in Stereoscopic 3D is mind-blowing when the game supports it well and the extra expense for top hardware and 3 displays can be easily justified.  If you want the Eyefinity or Surround multi-panel experience and like S3D, it might be wise to get matched displays that support 120Hz, 3D Vision and HDMI 1.4 to keep all of your options open.

The Ugly

There is nothing ugly about 3D Vision unless you are shooting at demons and monsters in 3D.  It is unfortunate that there is no OpenGL support at this time.  Maybe that will change with Rage.

The Verdict

With 3D Vision, the post processing motion and blur effects are turned off and it gives a good visual experience generally – even over playing in 2D. However, the added illusion of 3D “depth” doesn’t necessarily help with the jumping and aiming. Turning 3D Vision on and off is a easy as pressing a button and is nearly instant.  The performance hit is not that severe that someone with a midrange card like a GTX 560 Ti would really enjoy playing in 2D over 3D as few compromises need to be made except for the most demanding games.  The good news is that as graphics processors get faster, you will be able to revisit current games in the future playing them with 3D Vision just as your revisit your older games today.

In this reviewer’s opinion, 3D Vision is phenomenal and will eventually become mainstream and a standard optional feature for the majority of future PC games and console titles.  3D works well and it is a great step in the right direction toward even more immersion and realism in gaming.

What was particularly amazing was that every single one of this editor’s guests – from ages 8 to 86 and including hardcore gamers and non-gamers – all 20 were amazed.  Not a single person failed to say that they were impressed although not every game worked perfectly for every viewer.   The issue for everyone for everyone is cost.  If they have the disposable money, it may well be a future upgrade path for them; and my cousin is already planning for his own multi-panel and eventually stereoscopic  3D gaming rig.  It is that addictive and once you try it, it is true, it is hard to go back to “ordinary” 2D gaming.

During our 5 month adventure which also involved a lot of research, we found that most issues with S3D adoption will be resolved although the glasses debate will run until one technology finally wins out over another.  But that is not an issues as you can enjoy your PC games *now* with the added dimension of depth – even your older game library will reopen to you as it did for us.

You don’t have to wait for 3D content with 3D Vision.  Believe it or not, we barely touched on it and only covered the PC gaming aspect of it.  There is a huge online resource and community that Nvidia sponsors for their 3D Vision users to upload 3D images, photos and videos and you can also use 3D Vision to watch S3D content on the big screen.

There is only one ABT award that fits 3D Vision – a solid, innovative and well-thought out product – our highest award – Kick Ass!

3D Vision is highly recommended!   We will continue to feature 3D Vision reviews and performance evaluations along with our regular hardware reviews for the PC gamer.

Please stay tuned for our upcoming hardware reviews as we took a nearly six month detour with S3D gaming (much to our delight!).  You can still enter our muvee contest to win Reveal 8 (a $80 retail package) by creating a 1 minute video with the demo and posting it on Youtube.  And there are further contest to look forward to here.

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