Meant to be Seen

Hello to all! This is my first post here. I just got an Acer GD235HZ, Geforce 470 and 3D Vision glasses into the office. I'm grabbing whatever demos, games and movies that I can find that really show off stereo 3D (even if a game has just a single moment in it). What I'll be looking at tonight:

Avatar PC game
Medusa Stereoscopic 3D demo
Stone Giant Demo
Supersonic Demo
Unigine Heaven Demo

Look forward to reading your peoples posts about learning about S3D from you veterans here.

Hi and welcome!
Nothing really beats avatar the game when it's about 3d. There are quite some other games which are really good though:
3'rd person adventure games are almost always a safe bet. Tomb raider anniversary, legend and underworld are quite ok. Assassins creed 1 and 2 is a must play.
Racing games are almost also great in 3d. Left-4-dead is also a must try.
Just dig out what you have and begin testing. Remember to enable the convergence adjustment in the nvidiastereodriver since it's the key to finetuning the settings and really enjoy gaming in 3d.

You can also try Devil May Cry 4 for PC, there is a free demo (2nd level of the game) that looks amazing too..
The Avatar game demo has a level that is not in the full game (human gameplay only) but looks just as stunning as the full game (but unfortunately plays just as dull as the full game on the human side, Navi gameplay is just a bit better but it's not great either). You should give it a try if you haven't bought the full game.

I don't like the implementation of the Unigine Heaven benchmark. It's a beautiful benchmark in 2D but the 3D implementation is seriously flawed. The developers used toed-in cameras instead of using proper off-axis cameras : it hurts my eyes a lot when increasing the 3D effect.

Welcome to MTBS!

Take a look at http://www.mtbs3d.com/m3ga" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

This is a gamer driven database of 3D compliant video games. Feel free to make submissions based on your findings, though it's better to rate full release games rather than demos.

Regards,
Neil

Of course Avatar and also FEAR2 was nice.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Avatar was the best example thus far, I played it for about an hour. The demos were all nice to watch as well, but these were more graphics demos or dx11 demos with stereo add in rather than the demo being built to show stereo off. I played (10-15 minutes) COD:MW2, Left4Dead, Team Fortress 2, EVE Online, Company of Heroes, Crysis, Trine, Dawn of War 2 and Torchlight.

Trine seemed to work well (the stereo 3d effects), I'm going to assume that games that don't have objects moving along the z-axis are able to create the best effects. I'm in the process of snatching up some second hand copies of the 3D Vision Ready certified Nvidia games and see if these games have any moments to share among those recommended like Assassin's Creed.

Thanks for all your suggestions and if you guys have anything else to recommend I'm all ears.

One thing I knew about but really didn't consider until I ran into ACII and Metro 2033 with the extra GPU requirements:
Assassin's Creed II runs on average about 30FPS in the city at 720p max settings 4x MSAA. With 3D off, at 1080p it runs around 60fps.
Metro 2033 is similar at 30fps avg 720p, high settings, depth of field effects off. With 3D off, 1080p runs around 40fps.
Most other games don't flinch at 1080p, max settings, 3D on, but these are games that may be like a year old or more like Mass Effect 2, Left 4 Dead, COD:MW2, Avatar and Street Fight IV.

But for those with Nvidia cards and wanting to upgrade to 3D vision, keep in mind that you'll need be losing about half your FPS or resolution.

One thing to note in COD:MW2, I'm a pretty decent player, but I found it harder to play in 3D, pick out details in the environment, such as player movements in the distance and people hiding seemed more difficult. So, while it is a better visual experience, I need to turn off the 3D to play at peak performance.

I've had a chance to play around with some games I had like Metro 2033, Bioshock 2 and Assassin's Creed II. What I've seen is simply the 2D HUD on top of the 3D which is pushed back for depth. When I'm moving around things in motion kinda loose their 3D, like in most FPS, the 3D effect is only realized if the object maintains its z-position. Which is why I'm guessing third person games which have there character in the same z-position most of the time probably are the better games to demo. Is there any games that like use the pop out effect much? The Nvidia test application program does a pretty good example of that but I haven't seen it used in any games.

MykC wrote:I've had a chance to play around with some games I had like Metro 2033, Bioshock 2 and Assassin's Creed II. What I've seen is simply the 2D HUD on top of the 3D which is pushed back for depth. When I'm moving around things in motion kinda loose their 3D, like in most FPS, the 3D effect is only realized if the object maintains its z-position. Which is why I'm guessing third person games which have there character in the same z-position most of the time probably are the better games to demo. Is there any games that like use the pop out effect much? The Nvidia test application program does a pretty good example of that but I haven't seen it used in any games.

Try to change the convergence setting, ctrl+F5 and ctrl+F6, but be sure to enable them first.

Yeah, I have been using that. Not 100% sure what it does compared to depth, but it does reduce the eye strain and sharpen up the image if I play around with it a bit. Although its tough, because there is no onscreen indicator telling me what the convergence values are, and I'm not quite sure what to be shooting for so its more of a feel thing.

edit: Ok, so its affects whether things will be popping out at me or if it will be all in screen. If I set it to popout at me like a gun in a fps, I seem to only go a little bit of popout before I start to feel the eye strain where as pushin is easier.

Are these things that I would have to do with say a PS3 and a Bravia 3D TV?

http://users.atw.hu/readalert/asdasd.zip

Mass Effect2 screenies, select and drag & drop into 3d vision video player, once there, use F2 - F3 buttons to toggle screens -

Game is actually better once you turn off that lousy HUD

Usually, in FPS's the weapon is a bad reference for convergence. What I do is to ignore the weapon and get as close as possible to a wall. Then I rise convergence until the wall seems to float at 40/50 cm of my face. Then I begin to play and the 3D use to be awesome. Although often I have to lower a bit the convergence first after using the wall as reference.

The convergence sets the distance at which objects in the game will NOT appear doubled, often referered as screen depth, because those objects will be seen at the same distance that the physical screen.
Without glasses you can see how the convergence setting works.

Thanks for the tips, I'll give it a try and see if it makes a difference.