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

Before we look at the hardware requirements for 3D Vision and get to the game evaluations, let’s look at an email interview that we had with Jon Peddie at the end of May.  He is one of the leading analysts in the tech industry and he has a lot of experience with S3D, 3D Vision and Eyefinity configurations.

Interview with Jon Peddie on S3D:

ABT had an opportunity to interview Jon Peddie by email.  He is one of the leading analysts in the industry especially regarding trends in stereoscopic 3D HDTV adoption and regarding 3D PC gaming.  One of his own favorite systems is quite impressive with 5 Dell displays running 5400×1920 in a semi-circle running off of a single HD 6990.

[ABT] Have you found 3D Vision-ready games where 3D does not make for as good an experience as in 2D?  I can think of Bulletstorm where it is very good looking and plays smoothly on my GTX 590, however, so much is going on that it is confusing.  No adjustments worked for me and Surround made it much worse.

[JON -] Some AAA title games are designed originally for consoles, with the idea that the screen size will be an HDTV. The designers never considered larger viewing spaces or were restricted in budget from designing and testing for them, so didn’t have larger or more screens, assuming only the lunatic fringe would have such rigs and they didn’t represent much business. That’s not Nvidia’s fault, nor can Nvidia do much about it. In some cases you can tweak a setup file (sometimes called an INI file) and change some parameters but the results are not satisfying, even for the DYI “lunatic fringe.” These games and publishers are well known to the enthusiast PC gamer and they are despised for their business model and abandonment of the enthusiast PC gamer. That creates a self –filling prophecy the enthusiast PC gamers don’t buy the title, the publisher says see I told you there was no business there, no need to invest in that segment. The game publishers and their blind commitment to the Consoles is running PC gaming

[ABT] Have you found older games that you would never ordinarily return to, interesting again because they are now playable in 3D?  I am finding both Oblivion and especially Gothic 3 very playable again – and I never could return to them before.

[JON -] Absolutely. Stalker (all versions and mods), the original FallOut, the original Bioshock, and lots of others.

[JON -] I have tried AMD’s S3D on an HP Envy 17 and it was fine, take a look at: http://jonpeddie.com/reviews/comments/hp-envy17-3d-review-a-3d-entertainment-system-and-more/

[JON -] I have tried almost all the configurations – my favorite is 5×1 in portrait mode, with the screens wrapped around in a semi-circle. Take a look at:  http://jonpeddie.com/reviews/comments/testing-the-amd-hd-6990-with-five-screens-the-more-you-see-the-more-you-lik/

AMD works with partners, so if you got an EyeFinity system with 120 Hz monitors you’d have to find another source for the glasses, and then you’d be on your own to get it running. I haven’t found a company yet that is offering Multiscreen in S3D with AMD.

[ABT] What do you think of 3D’s value for the PC gamer

[JON -] More immersive game play – see stuff you couldn’t see before.

[JON -] It will be adopted as the content (games in this case) get better. The game developers haven’t fully committed to it at the design and development stage – there are things about S3D that have to be learned (e.g., how much to pop out, how much to pop in, how fast scenes can change and things move in them, etc.). Glasses and monitors prices are dropping as all things do. Word-of-mouth will help, and then if anyone sees it and is told they too can have it, it will take off.

[JON -] yes because of content and consumer awareness. Right now only Nvidia is beating the drum for S3D on PC, whereas there are a half dozen big TV suppliers pushing it and riding on the content from the movies.

[ABT] Do you believe that the next generation of consoles will support both multi-display and 3D gaming (across multi-panels)?

[JON -] If there is a next generation of consoles they will have to. However, if there is a next gen console and the design concept is single screen HDTV only then no multiscreen support, but yes to S3D. Sony already does support S3D with the PS3.

[JON -] No – that’s a red herring – almost every user survey shows that consumers aren’t bothered by it – they wear them in movies, and as I’ve pointed out – how many people wear sunglasses for hours at a time? The “glasses issue” is something for reporters and pundants to write about because they don’t know anything about the technology, market, or have any consumer data and feel they have to say something to get some words published and be controversial to attract attention (i.e., advertisers).

[JON -] If an acceptable technique was developed, sure. The small screen handheld devices using parallax barrier are great. Signage with multi-view camera content creation looks pretty good but still suffers from zoning. At the IFA conference in September in Berlin a big TV company will introduce a lenticular lens TV set.  If consumers become more comfortable with zoning viewing then glasses will be abandoned.

[ABT] Thanks, Jon!

In one of the above-linked articles, Jon Peddie mentioned the 3×2 configuration as having some issues with the action taking place behind the bezels which was quite distracting.  For some new games such as Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the devs actually designed the game so the action takes place in the main bottom center screen with the other 5 adding to the field of view and thus to the immersion.  And this game also supports AMD’s HD3D although it appears that in time Nvidia perhaps may have working 3D Vision drivers for it also.

Before we get back to evaluating games with 3D Vision, let’s check out the hardware that we used for our evaluations.

«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»