| Author | Message | ||
     Sam Fickling Rating: N/A |
Hi, I'm a newbie to Stereo 3D and am looking at buying either the i-Art Eye3D 4-in-1 (premium) or 3-in-1 (Force or PCI) shutter glasses (is the force version still available?) for mainly stereo 3D Gaming. I don't care about wireless models - wired is fine. Since I am about to upgrade my video card, I also thought of buying an Asus video card with shutter glasses bundled. As far as I can see, the main capability differences between the various i-Art 4&3-in-1 Eye3D glasses models are: 1) Method to change 3D modes (hard button or software based) I can see that this could be a little annoying having to switch modes with software all the time, but for $130 less, i think I can put up with it  - What are your thoughts? Is this a real pain? Does it limit the modes available? BTW: Are 'color codes' / 'color line codes' control codes sent to the shutter glasses controller via the graphics card and drivers to switch modes etc? 2) Line Blanking support. Are there any/many games which require Line Blanking? Basically the only old (non-DirectX/OpenGL) game that I want to play that has built in 3D support is Magic Carpet (Hidden Worlds Bundle). So if the 3-in-1 runs Magic Carpet then I think I'm ok. What about MC support for the Asus VR-100 glasses? Just to get this straight, pretty much all new games are either DirectX or OpenGL based, meaning that any shutter glasses which have driver support for either of these two methods (pretty much all of them now?) will allow me to view _any_ DX/OGL game in stereo?? Another question: What is the performance hit on video cards with Stereo 3D enabled? Does it halve the framerate because it is producing twice as many frames per second? So basically, since all but one of the games that I want to play are DX/OGL, is there really any major operational difference between the 4 Glasses that I am looking at? Phew... I hope you guys can answer my questions, I would be most appreciative of any help / suggestions you can give me!! Thanks, Sam. | ||
| Arne Strout Rating: N/A |
I think you're missing one of the better glasses. Edimensional glasses (E-D glasses) while marketed rather gimmickally are quite well supported by NVidia, which is the leading graphics card manufacturer today. As for an Asus video card, if you can afford it, for gaming, these are the specs you want: GeForce 4 TI 4200 (4400 or 4600 are great too, but don't get the MX, it's slower than the GeForce 3 TI) ($250) Good monitor, with a 100hz refresh. ($??) E-D glasses. ($69) The performance hit is a 20% drop in framerate with the glasses enabled with this setup, but then, this setup runs Warcraft III at 60fps in spite of a 1600x1200 resolution, so at 1280x1024 you can run at 60FPS, and it's still higher resolution than many games were meant to be run in. One concern I would like to point out: The asus video card combo is being highly scrutinized and has been reported to have a lot of "Issues" shall we say. I really don't know for sure, but from reading the boards, I get an idea that it's well... problematic? If the cost is your issue though, then go with the $69 E-D glasses (non-wireless) and buy whatever NVidia graphics card fits within your budget, but again, I'd recommend the newest model, in spite of it's cost. I think the two of us will be together for a long time *grin* | ||
| Sam Fickling Rating: N/A |
Cool. But what about the compatibility issue. Since all but one of the games that I want to play are DX/OGL, is there really any major operational difference between the any of the latest Glasses? | ||
| Arne Strout Rating: N/A |
I've been messing with my e-dimensionals all weekend. So far, I'm very very pleased I will outline all of the downsides here though. Firstly, the glasses rely a lot on your monitor being modern. The more modern your monitor the better. If your monitor can support 140 hz refresh rate, and can allow the pixels to clear quickly, then you will have perfect 3D. The slower your monitor clears the pixels, the more "ghost" effect you will see. As it is, on my non-namebrand 19", I can run at 1024x768 with little trouble, and only a minor "halo" here and there for the brightest objects in the games. I've been playing "Alice" and LOVING it. The second downside you will run into is rather annoying. While every game works with these glasses that uses OGL/DX, not every game works WELL with them. For instance, in Neverwinter Nights, the panes will dissapear (your menus) because of how they are set depthwise. The gfx card actually moves them offscreen by accident while trying to create perspective.... but the game is SOO pretty in spite of it that I just turn off the menus when I'm walking around, and view the cities in 3D. It seems the glasses work best with those games that rely least on mouse control and menu support. Allow me to specify.. Neverwinter and Warcraft III both work, but the mouse dissapears in WC III and the menus are gone in NWN. However Mechwarrior 4 and American McGee's Alice are absolutely gorgeous with these glasses on because neither requires an actual mouse cursor or menu. I also hear that flight-sims and racing sims are absolutely beautiful with these glasses. While not perfect, these glasses are a permanent addition to my collection, especially for Everquest (UseUmbra=false trigger must be set in the INI though). The glasses are also lightweight enough to wear them for hours without trouble. Any other questions? | ||
| Christoph Bungert (Admin) Rating: N/A |
In terms of compatibility the e-demensional/i-glasses are inferior to the i-Art Premium due to the lack of buttons. Buttons are real life safers. The i-Art Force is a good budget alternative. I like them a lot. ####Are there any/many games which require Line Blanking? There are some old games which support this, like Descent 2, Magic Carpet 2, Armored Fist 2, Comanche 3 and Terminal Velocity. There is also one universal driver: VRCaddy, which supports line-blanking. Theoretically this comes in handy when you run into troubles with page-flipping on your VGA. The main advantage of line-blanking is the ability to watch pix, anims and videos in line-sequential format on ANY VGA-board without ANY driver software. For games it's not that important afterall. ### Magic Carpet (Hidden Worlds Bundle). For Magic Carpet 1 there was a 3D-Max patch available. 3D-Max had a proprietary ISA-controller card. It should be very difficult almost impossible to get this working nowadays. There was no official patch for Hidden Worlds, this will even be 'more' impossible. MC2 may work with line-blanker, since it has a build-in simple line-sequential mode, but this program crashes on all my newer PC's. Christoph | ||
| Sam Fickling Rating: N/A |
So if I'm only wanting to play OGL/DX games, then in terms of basic functionality, all glasses are created equal? | ||
| Arne Strout Rating: N/A |
I wouldn't say that.. I would say that some glasses have more features, and that only a few like edimensional have the current stereo drivers being written for them to be used... so.. *shrug* =) I'd say the differences are less than obvious, but if you want to see what ones have issues, go read the troubleshooting board. |
