oh my

how about:
Stereo disabled and SLI enabled Vsync enabled @1080p
Stereo disabled and SLI disabled Vsync enabled @1080p
(just to be able to compare)

Would consider GTX 590 if it is selling at USD 700. Anyway, there is a new article from Tom Hardware and benchmark on Virtu MVP

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/z77 ... ,3174.html

Yeah, and for whatever reason they decided to benchmark unsupported games. WTF!!!

Sure, can do that when I get home from work

@ donkaradiablo (and everyone else) I dont get it. Why is everyone talking about 690's and 590's? If you are only running one screen @ 720, you can do that acceptably with just a 580. Playing BF3 with everything on max, my bF3 FPS drop to about 45 in some parts. This is 1920x1080. I'd assume you might gain a little speed for dropping down the res to 720P to match the HMZ. A 590 should easily do it sweet, but I wouldn't bother with either of those options if in the market for a new card.

Just get a single Nvidia 680, and you should have performance similar to a 590. This should give you > 60fps stereoscopic in almost any game you want to play right now. If you need more performance, chuck in another 680 and you will be set for a good while.

I'm probably selling my 580 in the next few weeks and upgrading to a 680, simply because its about a 590's speed, without any of the (true or not) problems with SLI, and also it has multi monitor out, so I can do 3D Vision Surround with just one card. Best price/performance out there I think personally.

Well, I do not know what settings you use, but my 590 (Very close to a 680 in performance) sometimes goes as low as 45 fps with all goodies turned on and stereo at 720p in BF3, I wonder what numbers a 680 gets since its can not take advantage of Nvidias SLI support for stereo.

Anyone with a 680? Please benchmark the first 30 seconds of "Going Hunting" with fraps in 720p with everything at max

edit: yeah you can buy one 680 now and one more later, but if you buy one 690 now, you can get Quad SLI later

Hmm, that seems a bit low for you then. It could be because I normally play open maps, especially Kharg (since I fly the helis mainly) but I just did a quick stereo test run through of a metro game from spawn to B while watching the fps. The lowest was a 31 (lots of 30's) around the first flag and entrance, generally it was about 40-45 once inside. Estimating a 590 as about a 75% improvement, you'd think that which would be mean you should be getting 50-70fps in those circumstances. I play in a higher resolution as well (1080).

edit: A 590 is not as good as 2 580's. If that holds for the 6xx series, then 2 680's are going to beat 1 590. Now, you can go quad with 2 590's (or 690's, but we'll refer to the 590's for brevity). However, its pretty widely considered that 3 580's beat 2 590's, at around the same cost, and also without taxing your pci lanes with 4 GPUs, so if you are going to go for a mega killer rig you may as well do that. Not to mention they all have their own full memory, not 1/2 the memory which I believe each GPU on the 590's gets. Pretty sure they don't share, they just split, so a 3GB 590 really only has 1.5GB per GPU.

The single player campgaing has more detail then MP, my benchmark was done in the first 30 seconds of the mission "Going Hunting", try that with fraps and see what you get

edit: My avarage was 54 very close to the v-sync roof of 60

I'm only interested in 690 if the pricing is around USD 700 and able to provide around 70% speed advantage compare to 680. The price/performance ratio would be better and future proof. Note that virtual v-sync will only help if it keep the framerate at least 60hz (display refresh rate).

that's what I thought


But if those are the results you get in BF3 @720p with a GTX 590:

then I guess SLI has it's use But CyberVillain's in-game settings must be pretty high, @720 he gets what others get @1080p, Ultra details, no AA

I wonder what results CyberVillain will get @1080p,

• How 1080p without S3D compares to 720p with S3D, without SLI
• How the boost in 1080p compares to the boost in 720p, with SLI

To give us an idea about how performance scales.

Sorry donkaradiablo my HMZ box is in bits now, and the only other 1080p cabale display I have is my home cinema projector, and I dont feel to carry my computer out to the livingroom (The watercooling weights a ton), youll have to wait until I put together the box again :/

My settings are at max @720p (Ultra for all that has ultra and 4x MSAA, HBAO)

edit: Did a test without AA since that whats toms benchmark is using that you linked to, I get (min max avarage) with vsync and stero disabled (Cant test stereo without HMZ) in 1280x1024 on my trusty old SPVA 19 inch

115, 152, 142.300

Well, you've provided plenty info already, thanks

to recap, @720

• without AA, Stereo disabled, SLI enabled: 142 average, 115 min (well, a little more than that, those are at 1280x1024)
  
• with AA, Stereo disabled, SLI enabled: 105 average 88 min
  
• with AA, Stereo enabled, SLI enabled: 54 average, 44 min
  
• with AA, Stereo enabled, SLI disabled: 30 average, 24 min

So

• it would be quiet playable (over 30 fps min) without AA, Stereo enabled with a single 580
  it would be barely playable (30 fps average) with AA, Stereo enabled with a single 580

but

• SLI would get you a constant 60 fps without AA, Stereo enabled
• SLI would also get you an average of almost 60 fps with AA, Stereo enabled

considering that GTX 680 fares well against a GTX 590,

• a GTX 680 should be fine. For now.
• But if you've got the money, going for SLI with GTX 680 will ensure that you don't drop below 60 fps even with the highest settings and AA in BF3 and also that you have some headroom for more demanding games.

In conclusion,

• I can't say that one GTX 580 isn't enough for BF3 to be playable with HMZ-T1,
• But neither can I say that there is no use for a second GTX 680 if you're only gonna run the game at 720p
• My personal choice would be to get one GTX 680 and a SSD for a smoother gaming experience.
• But if you don't have a budget constraint, go for SLI After all, you could turn one off if you've come to detect micro-stuttering in a game.

SSD doesn't improve gameplay framerate. It only help to decrease load time of the OS, apps and games. Most game were optimize for harddisk so that it wouldn't impact the framerate as long as you have enough RAM. I mostly install OS, apps and swap file on SSD. Games and Movies are stored on huge harddisk.

CV, why are you running with AA up on max @ 720P? Why not run lesser AA and play at 1920x1080?

The AA setting might explain the performance gap. I can't remember what I'm running on but I doubt it it would be max. I generally prefer to have full res and max frame rate rather than full AA, I dont really notice the difference between me and high AA. Running in stereo you could get away with lesser AA as well due to the 'stereo antialias' effect, so I think donkaradiablo will be fine with a single 680 for the immediate future.

@ pierreye, SSD is useful for some games (BF3) since it can improve your level load times - meaning you get a better chance to get the best vehicles . As you say tho, it doesn't affect in game performance.

SSD doesn't improve framerates. But not only it decreases load times, it also helps avoid glitches. That's what I mean by smoother gaming experience. I have one for the OS and apps, another for games. But I've ofter heard one for the OS (and swap file) is enough to maintain a smooth experience. I think having at least one SSD before you consider getting a second GTX 680 is a good idea. But in terms of peak brute force, nothing compares to getting more GPU power for games for sure


720p is the way to go for HMZ-T1. You either get 720p@60hz or 1080p@24hz over HDMI and 1080p is downscaled to 720p by the external processor unit anyway (as it is the native resolution for the oled screens on the glasses)

Oh of course, sorry, forgot we were talking about the HMZ for a moment there...

Im pretty sure the scaler in the HMZ will do a porer job of scaling down from 1080 to 720 and without introducing any aliasing than going native 720p with AA

But maybe max AA is overkill next time I play in stereo i can drop it down to 2xAA

edit: Wired missed your last post before posting this

I don't know how to get to this mission, think i've restarted from scratch for some reason after clocking it (to do it on max difficulty maybe?). When running the one after semper fi, which seems a pretty complex and busy city level, I get 32-45 fps in 3D mode. Ultra texture, everything else high, deferred antialiasing off, normal antialiasing max. Oh, 90 degree fov and no motion blur.

Definitely smooth enough for gaming, but if those were multiplayer FPS i'd upgrade today haha. Normally I play in 2D for serious multiplayer and get about 90 fps, because I find the 3D is just a bit more visual work to process. I've noticed however that I can play in 3D when flying the helis and still be nearly as competitive.

I'm very happy with my fps, but think I should sell off my card and buy a 680 soon, just for the extra life I'll get out of it, the future expansion possibilities (adding an extra card when needing more power), and especially for the multiple video ports.

When you (Or someone else) get a 680 I would like if we could do a serious benchmark, would be fun to see how SLI holds out to a single card since they are very similar in performance

Yeah its almost like a 680 is just a single GPU 590 substitute.

Just wanted to chime in and say the HMZ is awesome. Disregarding the comfort issues for a second, the image quality is just amazing compared to everything else I've tried. This finally feels like we are living in 2012. Now just to find a decent headtracker...

Agree with that, only used one for a few minutes and it was very hard to not just buy one on the spot. Miles better than the Z800 in terms of colour vibrance etc, and a nice big screen as well (nowhere near big enough but still way better than all the Vuzix crap). Its just so clear and colourful! I thought the Z800 colour was ok until I used the HMZ...

I never got focus over the entire image with the stock design, I really hope I will get it after my skigoggle mod, do you get full focus cyber?

Hi cybereality,
This would only be an idea, if it can even be done, for someone going with a helmet type design for the HMZ-t1.
Do you think the Vuzix 6dof tracker was so good, it would justify buying a cheap wrap920(bad screens maybe) plug the 6dof tracker into it and mount it on a helmet with the HMZ-t1 ?

Do you know if that would work, and if so, would it even be worth the money and effort ?

@CyberVillain: Yes, the image is almost fully in focus, enough that it is not a problem. There are two small issues. One, the entire screen does not have exactly the same focus, so some parts a slightly more blurry than others. In games, this is no problem and not even noticeable. But reading text in a website, it could be better. Second, there is an issue ( I think with my eye-sight ) where I see a slight ghost of certain images below the real image. This is most apparent with white text on a black background. Strangely I don't see this in real life, or when looking at a monitor. But something about the optics on the HMD does this to my eyes. But these are small issues. For the most part it is a very clean and crisp image.

@3dvison: Well you can buy the Vuzix 6TC tracker itself for $150 (less on eBay). Someone would just need to figure out how to hack it to interface on USB. Probably easier (and cheaper) to get a stand-alone tracker like from Sparkfun, Hillcrest, etc. The Vuzix tracker is good, but probably not any better than other stuff out there.

Thanks cybereality,
My post was long, but that is all I really wanted to know.

Can never leave well enough alone, don't like exposed electronics, nor the look of the cover I made to remedy that, so tried a different goggle mod approach (using exact same goggles as before). Still a bit of tweaking left, but wanted a better/stronger cover, so just decided to mod the original. This obviously voids the warranty, much plastic cut away to clear nose/lighten/etc.., but I'm extremely pleased with attempt #2 here (though my first mod was functionally just as good/comfortable too). Once final tweaked can show what I did if anyone is interested, but aside from better optic mods (higher FOV) or such, this is pretty much the "ultimate" HMZ mod for me now.

Looking good.

Crap, didnt find any time to work on the unit this weekend.. :/ Will have to try to get some time after work this week...

Not sure if this has already been mentioned, and I'm a bit late with this post, but from the Silicon Micro website it looks as if input lag on the ST1080 is 16.7ms vs the HMZ-T1's 30ms. Sorry I put this in the Sony thread, thought it would be relevant as there was some discussion about input lag earlier.

http://www.siliconmicrodisplay.com/1/po ... t1080.html at the bottom of the comments section.

Thanks rajveer. That sounds like the lag introduced by the sequential display tech they are using however - it may not be taking into account any additional lag caused by the display interface box.

Found out a way to reduce the lens reflection at the edge. Removed the plastic lens cover and paint the edge of the lens with
matte black paint.



Ski goggles mod in progress.

Nice, so even you got tired of the stock design

We're at about the same stages in our mod, I have not had time for a week now, will try to work some on it this week or this weekend. Have you choosen a mounting solution? I will make a baseplate in alu that will have oval holes fizzed into it so you can slide the HMZ eyepiece and adjust the distance to eyes that way, will use L-shaped mountings you can find in hardware stores to mount the baseplate to the glass.

Im thinking of using matte spray paint, sprayed from the inside of the glass to darken it, since light will be able to leak in through the hole im thinking of using some kind of foam and cut out holes for the lensens and attach them on the inside of the skigogles, this way they will follow the lenses if you use the pupil adjuster

Most likely I'll use aluminium L bracket or plastic L bracket for mounting. I'm thinking to design the mount that can tilt the lens up/down for better focus. Reason I go for Ski mod is when I jump few times with the previous mounting, the position of the lens move slightly out of focus.

Is a adjustable up/down mount really necessary? I choose a positon on the glass so that my pupils are centerted on the lens, then I can move the entire goggle to fine adjust until I get a perfect vertically position, horizontally I'll use the built in adjuster, and for Z I use the base plate as described

It's not the adjustment of up/down but tilting the angle of the lens maybe in +/- 10 degrees up/down. Could be useful if you can focus the bottom screen but slightly blur on the top or vice versa.

ah, thats thougher, and to get it to be stable, how will you do that?

Most likely with screws and rubber wedges. I'm still brainstorming on the mechanism.

Have shortened my HMZ about an inch closer to goggle frame vs. last pics I posted (still looks the same in general though). Wanted tilt adjustment too, I used turnbuckles (found in local RC shop). Turn one way, pushes both pieces away, other way moves both closer, hence can not only adjust tilt (more than enough), but also exact distance from eye to lens on each side.

I use no extra mounting plate now by the way, setup is a 4 point mount that uses the lexan edge from goggles atop (to red circled conveniently located/built in mount points in pic below), turnbuckles on each side of lower frame. Assembled unit is VERY stout, as if goggles and HMZ are one/were made as one.

Any way, sorry for dark turnbuckle pic, but hopefully can see how the turnbuckles were used. Zip tie is only on white plastic piece for cable strain relief, will tidy that up a bit now that I've nailed things down final, have the time.

Just did the hole in the glass, i still have to make adjustments for the HMZ to fit, but its a start