3D gaming

[Eel O'Brian]

I was wrong.  Burnout Paradise, Batman, COD: Black Ops, Fallout, and Mafia II are all pretty awesome in 3D.  And I'm just using the Red/Blue glasses.

[Himu]

I don't see how it'd make a tremendous benefit. Does it?

[Stoney Mason]

Not knocking anybody into it, but this is a piece of tech I totally have no interest in. But then I feel the same way about 3D movies. About once a year I want to see a big blockbuster 3-D movie and that's it.  I feel the same way about games although I suppose I could get into certain "trippy" styles games that utilize it. Perhaps I'm being a crazy luddite and short sighted but I just don't get this tech.

For what its worth I feel the same about the 3DS. Neat piece of tech. I totally get why others might be into and why it will be a mega-success. I totally have zero interest in it myself.
 

[Eel O'Brian]

It just adds a really cool effect to games you've already played, allowing you to get another playthrough in a different way.  No real benefit to the gameplay whatsoever, but no drawbacks either.  And it was free.

[Eel O'Brian]

At first I was a bit underwhelmed by it, but then I started using the keyboard shortcuts to adjust the settings for each individual game and now I'm enjoying it.  Games that are made for it, like Batman and COD have the best levels of depth, but you can screw around with the settings in just about any game and achieve some pretty cool effects.  There is a loss of brightness and color, though.

[MyNameIsMethodis]

mafia 2 has red/blue 3d?!

[Eel O'Brian]

http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d-vision-3d-games.html

all you need are a pair of those cheap paper red/cyan glasses, just download the free software and install, works on any monitor

[MyNameIsMethodis]

I have a radeon  :'(

[Smooth Groove]

Ha ha, you're not the only one who digs it.  Cormacaroni also swears that 3D vision is amazing (he has the real thing).   

I still haven't get my red/blue glasses.  Are the colors OK in anaglyph mode?   Now I'm all hyped up to check out my cousin's 3D plasma.  I was just planning to bring my PS3 but now I kinda want to lug my PC along. 

[Eel O'Brian]

anything pure red looks a bit off, like the billboards in burnout, and everything is a bit darker overall

i'm gonna buy a pair of those plastic glasses with the diopter correction, evidently they help with the colors and ghosting (although you can adjust convergence through the keyboard and eliminate most of the ghosting yourself)

methodis:

http://www.iz3d.com/driver

i cannot vouch for this program, but others seem to like it

[Dickie Dee]

I can see how the mechanics of 3D would work on a PC (and likely 3DS) with a screen at a somewhat fixed distance - you don't have to feel like a dork for thinking it a bit keen at this point.

Different from evangelizing 3D TV, which begs so much to give so little, we all know it's at least a couple proper years away.

[cool breeze]

I'm still interested in 3D gaming as something between a novelty and nice visual upgrade, but any hope of interesting new mechanics or techniques based around it are gone.  The fact that the 3DS has a slider to turn off 3D and even movies like Avatar play in 2D means they need to be 100% viewable in 2D.  You're basically going to be watching and playing games the same way you were before and that's a shame.  Not that I don't still enjoy the use of 3D in games/movies.  It's like almost like surround sound and how it can enhance a game/film but isn't really critical, if that makes sense.

anyway, yeah, all the games I've played in 3D have been cool.  I tried that red and blue thing with Black Ops a while back and it was depressing to see a Call of Duty game perform so badly on my PC.  I remember thinking about getting a 3D ready PC monitor when shopping around for one (instead I went with an ips one) but then I'd need to beef up my PC because of how taxing 3D can be.  At least it is better than on the PS3 where games can really be downgraded to get the effect.

[Cormacaroni]

Stereoscopic IS the way to go. No color weirdness at all, and the effect is far more immersive and less tiring on the eyes. I don't have much interest in it for movies, but my god, for immersive 3D world-type games, it is just fantastic. I have a 46" HDTV hooked up to my PC but I only ever use it for gaming if 3D is not supported. Once you go 3D, you never go back. So be careful!

[Eel O'Brian]

I like it, but not enough to spend $600 on a monitor and shutter glasses.  Also, it tanks the frame rate in some games, so I'd have to spring for another video card if I wanted to keep the settings high on games like BFBC2.

[Cormacaroni]

Yeah...but I got the glasses for free. The monitor I have is a great monitor all 'round (I use it all day for work as well) so it wasn't a huge extra investment for me. Plus, my friend and workout buddy works for NVidia and is always pushing this stuff. On top of the glasses, he gives me free Steam codes and games that NVidia has worked with the devs on to get 3D Vision running better. So the barriers to entry were low in my case. Having used it for a while though, I'm amazed that more people don't know about how cool this is. It's a REAL leap forward for me. Stuff like Dragon Age and Fallout is just a revelation in 3D.

[Stoney Mason]

Not knocking anybody into it, but this is a piece of tech I totally have no interest in. But then I feel the same way about 3D movies. About once a year I want to see a big blockbuster 3-D movie and that's it.  I feel the same way about games although I suppose I could get into certain "trippy" styles games that utilize it. Perhaps I'm being a crazy luddite and short sighted but I just don't get this tech.

For what its worth I feel the same about the 3DS. Neat piece of tech. I totally get why others might be into and why it will be a mega-success. I totally have zero interest in it myself.

Hypocrite alert.

I went ahead and bought that cheap 3-d sony display a few weeks ago. The problem with 3d is the same problem that's always been with 3d. Too much eye fatigue. I can only play in like 30 or 45 minute sessions before I need a break. And my eyes constantly feel like they are crossing. There are some cool bits to it of course. In Black Ops when you aim down sights, it really looks like you are looking down the barrel of a gun. That was really impressive and adds a huge level of immersion. It makes the 2-d version of that seem sterile. Uncharted 3 also had some nice 3-d effects. But ultimately its still a novelty that I can only take in bursts. Also after playing a good part of a day on it last week, I had one of the nastiest headaches I've had in years.

[Eel O'Brian]

Have you tried it as a PC monitor? I've read you have to jump through a few hoops to get it working but after that the Nvidia stuff works okay with it.

[Stoney Mason]

That's the next thing I want to try but for some weird reason, I'm having problems with my computer recognizing it as a valid monitor. I'll spend the next weekend trying to figure out what's going on there.

[Cormacaroni]

I have the weird feeling that next-gen is gonna be half Xbots vs Sfags warring about controllers and half Xbots vs Sfags warring about stereoscopic 3D implementations. Get a head start now I say

[EmCeeGrammar]

The 3d effect is pretty tiring on one's eyes if you're not .... trained to look at it.  When I first got my 3ds I couldn't use it for long periods of time but eventually I 'learned' how to look at it and now can usually do full blast all the time for long periods.  The only exception is when its the end of the day and I'm naturally tired.  My beef with the tech (in all implementations) is that I very rarely get a chance to look at anything that feels optimized for it.  The panorama view doesn't do much to impress me as opposed to stuff that kinda pops.  Stuff that's farther off still seems kinda flat most of the time.

[Bebpo]

It works for certain games where it doesn't detract from the quality of the performance/graphics and just adds a little extra visual flair.

My favorite 3D game is ICO, maintains 1080p, locked 30fps in 3D mode and the 3D effect makes a lot of the architecture of the castle pop out.  It's like moving through a 3D painting.


3D in the 3DS is pretty sucky, but Nintendo wanted glasses-free and all that :|  3D is so much better with nice 3D glasses.

[Dickie Dee]

What are the monitor requirements for 3d? Will my ROG g73 notebook do it?

[chronovore]

I played Arkham City in 3D on a nice 55" Sony with those powered goggles... I didn't like it. Zipping around the city in glider mode, I found that I was trying to look at all kinds of things that the game was making parallax-blurred in the effort to make it 3D.

I've ordered Arkham Asylum, and will try that in 3D. I think if I'm not flying, it will be a more pleasant experience -- but in general I have no driving interest in 3D gaming.

[Stoney Mason]

Got the 3-D monitor working on my computer. Watched a couple of 3d video files and that works perfectly. I have an Ati card though so I don't know how to go about setting up the 3d for that in games. I'll have to do some googling.

[Smooth Groove]

Just a word of caution for those who might be interested in buying the Playstation display for PC purposes.  According to many users, it doesn't work with Nvidia's newer drivers. 

It's a shame because $300 for a 24" and 2 glasses is a solid deal. 

[pilonv1]

I played a bit of Motorstorm Apocalypse in 3D on a big Sony screen last year. Whilst technically it was pretty good, all the stuff flying around the screen was really distracting. NBA 2k12 on my Panasonic plasma has a pretty weak 3D version, and the loss of detail is more noticeable than the 3D.

As bebpo says, it works for some and not for others.

[Cormacaroni]

What are the monitor requirements for 3d? Will my ROG g73 notebook do it?

Does it have a 120mhz refresh rate? If yes...maybe. If not, forget it.

[Cormacaroni]

I played a bit of Motorstorm Apocalypse in 3D on a big Sony screen last year. Whilst technically it was pretty good, all the stuff flying around the screen was really distracting. NBA 2k12 on my Panasonic plasma has a pretty weak 3D version, and the loss of detail is more noticeable than the 3D.

As bebpo says, it works for some and not for others.

It's far too early for console games to be pushing 3D, especially late in development. PC is the only way to go I think....you get 3D without losing frame rate or graphic detail.

[Smooth Groove]

Yeah, PS3 3D is a blurry mess.  I'd get into PC 3d gaming when newer Nvidia compatible monitors arrive.  Most of the currently available models are based off old tech even though they haven't gone down much in price.