Considering Purchase of eDimensional E-D Shutter Glasses

[Uli Barbarossa]

Well as the title states, I'm think about buying a pair of them. However, I do have a few questions I'd like answered before I make the purchase, can anyone help me out?


1. Why has 'true' 3D gaming not really caught on if the technology is ready, and affordable? Monday I went to see Beowulf in 3D (which after I got home, led me to discover the 3D gaming options I never new existed), if shutter glasses can make my games look like that, why doesn't nearly every gamer on the planet own a pair?

2. Most of what I've read so far says that shutter glasses do NOT work with LCD monitors. However eDimensional's website claims theirs do. What's the validity of this statement? Do they just produce inferior results, or do they not work at all?

3. Are they worth the buy, or are there better 3D products out there around the same price range? What's been your experience with them (if you've used them)?


Thanks for the help,


Potentially important personal info:
I wear prescription glasses (Vision without glasses; Left: 60/20, Right: 70/20)
Dual Nvida 512mb 7600's, SLI enabled
19in LCD, 75htz, 32bit, 1280x1024 (1 dead pixel: red)
Intel dual core 3.7gtz (w/ HT)
Games I Often Play:
'Counter Strike: Source' (FPS)
'Guild Wars' (MMOG)
'Civilization 4' (TBS)
'NBA Live 07' (Sport)

[sharky]

hi!

welcome to the board!

here are the answers to your questions.

1) there is no standard in this, so up to now you still need to tinker around with settings to have the game working properly. what we do here is exactly this: try to set a standard to give also to "normal" games the possibility to use this awsome tecnology. (dont be scared, its not AS difficult as it sounds here)

2) they do not work on lcd screens. If i have to be honest as a BUYER of 3dimensional glasses i enjoied them only on the nvidia cards. the drivers they have are old, and the settings are not many. the drivers they give with the glasses, do work with lcds, but with lower refreshrate and not the best results. again this is my personal thought as a BUYER...

3) it depends on you. if you want to play around sometimes, just for fun they i would say thatt they are worth. if you love this tecnology and would like to play it much, then i would go for a better solution.

have fun

sharky

[Neil]

Hi Uli!

Thanks for joining MTBS.

Sharky answered your questions, but I totally have to agree with you that after seeing Beowulf, everyone gets it. I mean, after seeing that movie, if you asked each audience member what they thought of 3D in video games, they would say "what?!?!? I can do that? At home?!?!?"

Have fun with the site.

Regards,
Neil

[LukePC1]

If you want to go cheap and have time and energy (and space), maybe you would better buy a CRT-Monitor for Shutter glasses. If you're lucky you can get both a CRT monitor and Shutter glasses (older ones, not necessary from Edimensional) on ebay.

I see, youve got Nvidia cards, so you could go with Nvidia drivers - which don't work on single LCD. You could test them for free with Anaglyph glasses. Just to see how Games look in 3D and how much (little) work it is to make them do it

Unfortunatly I'm not shure, to what extend you can use your SLI system. Maybe you'll have to run them in single mode

BTW. Anaglyph (Red/blue or red/cyan) glasses also work on LCD, but without colors

[Freke1]

Here are some videos with Shutter glasses in action:
http://www.3d.wep.dk/video.html
You can use them with Your glasses.
They work with a CRT monitor (min 100Hz refresh rate) or DLP projector (min 85Hz refresh rate).
Shutter glasses are cheap and good - I've been gaming with mine for years.

Another cheap setup is the planar type:
http://www.wow3d.de/print.php?threadid= ... 6a9d1329f7
2 LCD's (polarized 45 degrees), a semitransparent mirror and polarized glasses.
However LCD monitors are not as good as CRT monitors allthough the take up much less space:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlLlKrlkp9M

[sharky]

hi.. ok reading your aditional information (sli, glasses and so on) you have to keep this in mind:

sli: only shutterglasses anaglyph and single projector with shutterglasses works. in my opinion it is better to have a single 8 series (AS SOON AS THEY ARE COMPATIBLE WITH 3D!)

glasses: shutterglasses have longer earpieces to adjust them and to place them over normal glasses

dual core: not copatible with nvidia drivers. one core needs to be diabled (SOME USERS GOT IT TO WORK WITH DUAL CORE ACTIVE)

what i would do in your case (i dont know if you have the financial possibility todo ti.. i just give you a hint, then its up to you.. ) is buy some cheam anaglyph glasses, and test to see if the tecnology is actually compatible with you ( i mean if you like it really much likek we all to).. if the response is positive i would think about changing to something with higher quality. like iz3d or dual projection with single vga.

what you get from them is WAY beyond what you get from shutterglasses. one has the advantage of the size giving full immersion, and theother has the advantage of the best drivers in the world, wich support all cards, all systems and much more.

both have also other advantages but these are the most important ones.

have fun

sharky

[chrisdfw]

1) 3d gaming has been around for over 5 years but didn't catch on because the game companies, graphics card companies, and shutter glasses companies won't work together on a standard and won't officially promote or support 3d games. Essentially, the only reason games work in 3d is because "stereo" drivers in either Nvidia or other third party attempt to hack the directX/OpenGL code and show a slightly offset view for each eye compared with the vantage point the game wants you to see. So games like IL2 were worried about this giving an unfair advantage and wrote their code to not allow 3d. Most games do not purposefully interfere with 3d but some poor coding results in objects like crosshairs and scores and icons not being rendered at correct depth.

2) The quality is so poor I on LCD monitors I would not do it. For a single monitor solution without polarizers I would go with a good big CRT monitor (there will be some ghosting) at 100-120 hz or an already tested DLP projector (no ghosting but slight flicker on some) like my Sharp xr10X. The Sharp will do 85hz 1024X768 with no noticeable color changes and you can get them from Ebay or Amazon for under $600 US. I use it on a 60inch screen and love it. Games like RFactor are incredible. Most games and demos that work with Naturalpoint TrackIR will work in 3d. Go to their web site for a list of games with links to demos. The DLP projectors with the lowest time offset is best. See this:

http://www.cmst.curtin.edu.au/publicat/2006-35.pdf

3) 3d goggles (HMD) are almost there but too expensive. See other sections of the forums for them. I like to see my keyboard and mouse so I don't know if I will go that route even when they hit 1024X768 resolution.

[Tril]

chrisdfw said it well. Until now, games developpers never purposely coded S-3D support in their games. To get S-3D working in that situation, the NVIDIA Stereo drivers and the iZ3D stereo drivers (and other stereo drivers) intercept some of the Direct3D function calls made by games and add their own functions at some specific places or modify the shaders of the games to move the camera to get a view for each eye. It's hard to correctly write such a driver that works perfectly for all games. It also has the disadvantage of possibly being detected as a hack by anti-cheat modules like PunkBuster. Hack writers use similar techniques to write hacks (aimbot, changing models colors, etc).

It would be relatively easy for developpers to add S-3D support in their games if they were well informed on how to proceed and if they thought it was worth it. Native support would remove the need for complicated hacks coming from third parties. Games developpers are in the business to make money and to make money they have to please the highest number of consummers. As long as S-3D support is not demanded by a high number of gamers, it's unlikely that games will natively support it.

The bigger the screen, the better the results. You will get nice results with a 21" crt monitor and shutter glasses but it won't come nowehere near what you saw in the theater with Beowolf. The depth out of the screen is what is most impressive to see. You will only be able to get about 6" out of the monitor with a 21" monitor and only in the middle. You need either an HMD or a projection screen and a projector to see the best depth out of the screen. Price are coming down and resolutions are going up. They're still not very affordable but the situation is improving.

I can't talk for the HMD solution because I never tried it. I'm buying a TDVisor and I'll probably get it in a few weeks so I'll be ale to give my feedback about HMD at that time.

I tried with a DLP projector that has a color wheel. 60 Hz is not enough to use with shutter glasses. At 85 Hz, one of the eyes is not exactly the same color as the other, probably because of the speed of rotation the wheel and there is some flicker visible. At 85 Hz with a DLP projector, some people with more tolerance toward flickering will find the flickering acceptable (I don't, I'm too sensitive to it, at least on the one DLP projector I tried).

I also tried with two DLP projectors, polarizing filters and some silver screen samples. I got lots of depth into the screen and out of the screen and I liked it a lot. The glasses are passive so they don't need to be powered so that's nice. Unfortunately, there is a very slight ghosting, probably because it's not possible to make a perfect silver screen.


Nothing beats the price of shutter glasses (apart from red/blue glasses). HMDs, projectors and special LCD monitors that produce S-3D are much more expensive. For me, shutter glasses was the first step to try to see if I liked it since it's not extremely expensive. If you're like me, you won't be satisfied with shutter glasses and after you've tried them you'll want more.

[Uli Barbarossa]

Update:

Made the E-Dimensional purchase, and the glasses arrived a few days ago.

Results:
First let me start by saying they do work with my LCD screen (E-D, not Nvidia drivers of course). The 3-D effect is noticeable and results in a positive gaming experience overall, though it varies with the game. I have experienced depth into the screen, more so than any elevation out of the screen; this is likely do to the games programming having few objects coming at you in game. Flicker is noticeable in some games, but not all (most likely do to my screen, not the glasses/drivers). Over time you do become accustomed to the flicker in the games in which it is present, and becomes it continually less irritating. I have seen a noticeable and sometimes drastic (80%+) drop in FPS. If anyone knows how to correct this massive drop in FPS, that would be very helpful. Adjusting the 3-D drivers' settings can take a little time and some getting used to in the beginning. More is not necessarily better; in fact, in games with huds and menus I have found that leaving the 'close up' setting at 0 is needed to prevent blurring of the huds/menus.

Notes on particular games I've tried them with:
Graphics settings were taken to their lowest for testing the glasses in each game.

'Counter Strike: Source' (FPS): Very little flicker. Moderate drops in FPS. 3-D quality good.

'Guild Wars' (MMORG): A lot of flicker. Huge drops in FPS (Drivers off: max graphics settings= 30-50 FPS; Drivers on: lowest graphics settings= 6-14 FPS). 3-D quality excellent (so long as you don't move, do to FPS).

'Civilization 4' (TBS): No flicker. Moderate drops in FPS. 3-D quality poor (not the glasses/drivers fault, the game map is programed in 2-D, with only units and cities rendered in 3-D).


In closing, does anyone know how to prevent the somtimes enourmous FPS drop?

[thud]

Thanks for the update, Uli.

Adjusting the 3-D drivers' settings can take a little time and some getting used to in the beginning.

True. Took me a long time to finally work out most of the details, but this site is great for the stuff
that I haven't yet figured out or want help with.

does anyone know how to prevent the somtimes enourmous FPS drop?

It's probably not as bad as you think. You get an immediate 50% drop by enabling S-3D (1 left, 1 right,
1 left, 1 right, you get the idea). Enabling vSync (which I think is needed for S-3D) will give a further
drop in FPS - but gives better quality and reduces tearing. I never use AA, but I am pretty sure that
AA will also reduce FPS - try reducing AA to see if you can tell the difference.

If you want to feel better about FPS, double your stated FPS to count both the left eye renders AND
the right eye renders. In fact, this is probably a better way to think about FPS anyway. Movies are
either 24 FPS or 29 FPS, as the human eye cannot really see faster than 25 FPS, but it's probably
the rendering speed of your video card and rig that concerns you.

--- Thud

[Bo_Fox]

In most newer games, disabling the S-3D crosshair will fix the framerate problem.