Confused About S3D on 360

[Synexious]

I tried Black Ops in 3D on Xbox on a 2D TV, crossing my eyes. Then I tried on my 27" HN274 and thought it would be in fullscreen. I was surprised that the game stayed in side by side. Why does the game say a 3D screen is required? It worked no differently than on my 2D screen. Does BO not work with Nvidia active glasses? Does using passive lenses somehow block out the doubled side by side image, so you see only image? I don't understand. Crysis 2 apparently works in fullscreen 3D on 360, but only because it is realtime 2D to 3D upconversion, right? So what about the other few 3D Xbox games, Avatar, Halo Anniversary, Gears of War 3, possibly Modern Warfare 3? Will they use the split image method as well, side by side or top and bottom? This is really stupid and dishonest, and again, I don't understand how glasses change anything. Won't you still see two images and have to cross your eyes? Is the 360 actually incapable of supporting real 3D? How could that be? Sony made 3D work with a firmware upgrwde, so Microsoft should surely be able to do the same. Finally, how will side by side 3D work with the HMZ-T1? Could one full image be shown per eye? I hope Halo, Gears and others work in side by side if so, not just top and bottom.

[Chiefwinston]

I don't own any of the equipment your listing. It sounds like the monitor is not going into 3D mode automatically. You need to activate side by side mode in all the devices. If that doesn't work through HDMI. Try another set of input cables. My 3D HDTV will only go into 3D through the HDMI and Coaxial inputs. You have a monitor, so you may have more options. Microsoft will probably un-officially support 3D. I believe a large part of their installed base does not have HDMI or a software upgradeble HDMI output. Which might mean some could have HDMI 3D and others would not. Leaving them in a bind with their customer base. I'm interested in Gears 3 also, though the stated resolutions that I've seen were dissappointing. But I'm willing to give it a shot and take a look with my own eyes when it comes out.

Peace

[cybereality]

There are a lot of different formats of 3D, and they are usually not compatible with each other. They are all still "real 3D" provided you have the right hardware. Currently the standard is HDMI 1.4a. This includes multiple formats, but the one everyone uses for gaming is 720P@60Hz frame-packing. This is a special format where both left/right images are included on a single frame in over/under formation (but at double resolution, not squashed). This is used by the PS3, Blu-Ray players, etc. If you have an HDMI 1.4a display device, like the Acer HN274H, then the display itself will convert this to a 720P@120Hz page-flipped image and show it on the screen. The Acer also supports Nvidia 3D Vision, which provides the proper 120Hz page-flipped source directly.

The side-by-side frame-compatible format that the Xbox uses (also broadcast TV) fits 2 images on the same size screen by squashing the image. If you have a 3D HDTV (not a monitor, not a projector) then you can select the special "side-by-side" mode, and the TV will convert this to the proper page-flipped output. The Xbox360 is older than the PS3, and thus does not have the proper hardware to be upgraded to HDMI 1.4a (in fact, a good amount of consoles don't even have HDMI output at all). 3D monitors (mostly) do not support side-by-side, they are either only for Nvidia 120Hz, or some newer ones (like Acer) support HDMI 1.4a frame-packing, not the other "legacy" formats (like side-by-side, over/under, line-interleaved, checkerboard, etc.). I believe the HMZ-T1 may have support for side-by-side in addition to frame-packing, but its not confirmed yet.

[Synexious]

It has to, right? Because HDMI 1.4a devices are required to.