Madspace
by
Auric
Vision
page initially released on: September 25, 1998
last update on: -
Madspace is a first person action game in the Doom tradition. The quality
of the 3D-engine is somewhere slightly above Duke3D. System Shock comes
to mind here. Tetratel
offers a custom packaged version for their EyeFX glasses
which should be identical to the full retail version.
The name Madspace comes about since the laws of physics are often defied
in this program. Maybe you know the kind of cartoon-joke where a dog enters
his little dog-shack and inside we see a giant dog-palace with entrance
hall, fireplace and the doors to the 40+ bath-rooms and kitchens. That's
the kind of weird space stuff with which Madspace tries to spice-up the
aging genre.
Madspace 3D-engine scene
Stereo3D support
What sets Madspace appart from all previous stereo3D enabled games
are the Stereo3D videos and animations. Intro-video, cut-scenes and pre-rendered
interactive scenes are all done in Stereo3D!
The first stage of the game is pre-rendered, but still interactive
in "Rebel Assault"-style. You hurl around a giant space station, fighting
off gazillions of enemies. Surprisingly this scenes are also done in Stereo3D
!!! After docking on the space station the Duke-style 3D-engine is used.
Maybe there are more pre-rendered interactive scenes later in the game,
but I only saw the first two stages, due to personal time restrictions.
All pre-renderes scenes are available in page-flipping Stereo3D format
only, while the 3D-engine levels are available in page-flipping and interlace/line-sequential
format. According to Tetratel the pre-rendered scenes may appear somewhat
buggy in Stereo3D-mode on many systems. I can't confirm this. Everything
seemed to work fine on my Matrox Mystique board.
The Tetratel edition features native support for Tetratel EyeFX,
StereoGraphics SimulEyes, i-glasses, VFX-1 and Kasan 3D-Max.
This covers other devices like CyberMaxx, Russian Shield 3D Stereo
Set, VR-Joy and most other VGA-dongle shutterglasses, except the H3D of
course.
The 3D-Max mode behaves somewhat strange on certain graphics cards
though.
Resolution & Refresh Rate
While Madspace offers VESA resolutions of up to 800x600 in mono, the
stereoscopic mode is limited to low-res standard VGA. This is a pitty since
current hardware is more than able to handle hi-res VESA resolutions in
stereo 3D. Another drawback of standard VGA is the loss of control over
the refresh rate. While VESA and Windows modes can be controlled using
utilities like Scitech Display Doctor the standard VGA-modes are stuck
at around 70 Hz on most graphics cards.
I talked to Tetratel about the resolution issues. Let's hope there
will be some changes soon.
3D-Acceleration
As far as I know there is currently no 3D-accelerated version of Madspace.
Copyright 1998 Christoph Bungert
The Stereoscopic 3D Homepage