Asus VG278H (mini review)

[fiksal]

First impressions.

Summary: took two hours to set up, but the 3D effect is very impressive

Details:
Turns out the driver that my 560Ti card came with is total crap. It took (too) long time to disable SLI and actually make all monitors display. It also was impossible to turn on the 3D/IR Emitter in the ASUS monitor through the 3D wizard. I spent a good hour switching things around until determining that I've no idea whether monitor or the driver are busted. And considering all the fame that this monitor comes with, I was frankly blaming it.
As the last resort, I downloaded the 285 driver. (Whatever happened to the time when everything worked out of the box?). This driver took total of 3 times to install, that's not counting me uninstalling the previous driver. I had two blue screens in Windows7.
But finally, after it was all there, according to Control Panel, I was able to fire up the 3D wizard and turns out, the new wizard identified the monitor as having a "built in" IR emitter. Compared to my old driver that thought it was a "hub".
The test worked.
I also noticed after clicking around in monitor's menu that mine might not be the same as the one that people were having IR emitter problems with. The menus differ. I wonder if Newegg has a different batch now?

After all that everything ran
Onto features then

The tests went fine; the monitor is bright; the glasses arent very dark at all; the shutter speed is sufficiently fast that while I can tell they are on, I cant actually see the flicker.
Ghosting appears to be non-existent.
Every time you start a game you also get an overlay on monitor telling in a few words quality of the 3d effect in game. Somewhat helpful.
The keyboard keys to control depth also trigger an depth scale overlay on the monitor.
I see no backlight issues at all at the moment, and I played games with lights off (as suggested by the 3d wizard).
The demo video and pictures that come with the monitor are silly and do disservice to 3D

I tried playing two games so far:

EVE Online doesnt show 3D almost at all.
Witcher is picture perfect in 3D.

[cybereality]

Nice.

[fiksal]

day 2:

no problems between the driver and ASUS monitor. Glasses sometimes forget to flicker when you turn away from the IR emitter (like looking completely away from the monitor), which is understandable.
Definitely easier to use than the good old days for CRT + ED Glasses.
Forgetting about being careful not to pull the wire off with these wireless glasses, is a plus.

games so far:

Starcraft2 has good 3D but looks quite like a different game in 3D. More fun, but harder to play competitively, I'd guess.
X3Reunion has good 3D, other than the background stars, that appear to be flat and too close.
STALKER works, but has a strange delay/jitter when moving around 3D objects. Not sure who's at fault. Had to turn off dynamic shadows as well.
Next will try GTR2 as I think 3D will be quite useful there.

monitor so far:

2D is crisp, bright and clear. Contrast is fine, though the 5000000:1 rating might be beyond my eyes to distinguish.
Comes with several presets: for gaming, movies and etc. Semi-useful.
3D doesnt appear to require much more tinkering than simply turning it on/off, and following the instructions of the overlay game profile help pop up. For exp: turning off dynamic shadows in a game. Though I am sure nvidia control panels allows to do all other tinkering as well, if needed.
Interestingly enough, it's 16:9 compared to my other two that are 16:10.

I think that probably concludes the mini review. I've tried to cover everything I was concerned about myself before buying it.

[Fredz]

Contrast is fine, though the 5000000:1 rating might be beyond my eyes to distinguish.

Non-dynamic (ie. real) contrast has been announced at 1000:1 by Asus but it has been measured at less than 750:1 by DigitalVersus after color calibration, which is under the 850:1 average for LCD monitors (4900:1 for a Panasonic VT30 Plasma TV for example).

See : http://www.digitalversus.com/lcd-monito ... /test.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[WiredEarp]

The 16:9 puts me off a little. @ 27", i'd much rather have 1920x1200.
Having said that, this sounds like a very nice monitor for gaming!

[cybereality]

The Nvidia glasses work via IR, so line-of-sight is a concern. That is why if you turn away from the monitor, they stop flickering.

If you want to get higher 3D effect, enable the advanced hotkeys in the Nvidia stereo panel, and then you can adjust convergence with Control+F5/F6. It can make a big difference if you want more extreme 3D.

Also, am I the only one that likes 16:9? I would get a 21:9 if they sold it.

[fiksal]

@cybereality
Ah cool, I was wondering where those settings went.
Interestingly enough in SC2 I couldnt adjust the depth, but perhaps I can tweak something else.


16:9 is fine by me. All that is - monitor is a bit wider than my 16:10s. Native is 1920x1080. Though common resolution is a bit hard to find between them.

See : http://www.digitalversus.com/lcd-monito ... /test.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Interesting read