My 3D Experience...

Post by **Neil** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 10:10 am

Thanks go to Eli Fihn for writing about his first S-3D experience.

Share some ideas you would him to write about HERE. It's good to have some new eyes trying S-3D for the first time, and I'm hopeful he can teach us a thing or two about what makes S-3D interesting to young audiences. Would you like him to review specific games? All ideas welcome.

Regards,
Neil

Post by **LukePC1** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 4:12 pm

Thanks for joining forces with us

I'd like to have some Reviews of Racing games. There are none in the official Reviews jet, but Racing games are the best games for S-3D, because they can get amaizing depth and don't need an acurate crosshair.

I like Flatout2 and the forerunner of Racedriver Grid best. NFS series isn't bad either, but they have some more flaws and are somehow to... unrealistically & easy...

If you don't have any of the games or don't like them, just review anything. The more reviews the better

Post by **Freke1** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 6:32 pm

If You could review the Battlefield Heroes game when it comes out?

Post by **Elfihn** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 7:19 pm

I managed to register today, And I decided that the first few games I review will be games I already have. Sorry guys.
Anyways, LukePC1, I thought about that for a while, and I realized that the only Racing game I have right now is TrackMania Nations Forever. I'll mess around with that and see how it competes against First Person shooters.
Freke1, I've played Battlefield 2 Demo, And I enjoyed that. It might even tempt me into trying Battlefield Heroes when it comes out.

Keep posting,
Eli Fihn

Post by **cybereality** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 7:41 pm

Hey Eli! Welcome to the wonderful world of stereo 3d!

Post by **LukePC1** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 8:19 am

Elfihn wrote:I managed to register today, And I decided that the first few games I review will be games I already have. Sorry guys.
Anyways, LukePC1, I thought about that for a while, and I realized that the only Racing game I have right now is TrackMania Nations Forever. I'll mess around with that and see how it competes against First Person shooters.
Freke1, I've played Battlefield 2 Demo, And I enjoyed that. It might even tempt me into trying Battlefield Heroes when it comes out.

Keep posting,
Eli Fihn

Battlefield Heroes is supposed to be completly financed by comercials afaik. I like the concept and think it will be sucessfull, if it has no too bad gameplay.

Welcome to the forum

Post by **Elfihn** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 10:07 am

Hmmm... That sounds interesting. I most definently will review it when it comes out.

Post by **Sabre2552** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 11:30 am

LukePC1 wrote:
Elfihn wrote:I managed to register today, And I decided that the first few games I review will be games I already have. Sorry guys.
Anyways, LukePC1, I thought about that for a while, and I realized that the only Racing game I have right now is TrackMania Nations Forever. I'll mess around with that and see how it competes against First Person shooters.
Freke1, I've played Battlefield 2 Demo, And I enjoyed that. It might even tempt me into trying Battlefield Heroes when it comes out.

Keep posting,
Eli Fihn
Battlefield Heroes is supposed to be completly financed by comercials afaik. I like the concept and think it will be sucessfull, if it has no too bad gameplay.

Welcome to the forum

Well, advertisement and cosmetic/experience microtransactions. Nothing will be sold that would affect gameplay between people in any way. The only things that are sold are different clothes for the characters or things that give you double experience for a while so that if you're not a hardcore player you can still keep up with your friends who are.

Post by **nubie** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 7:57 pm

Be sure to mention what video card you are currently using.

The 256mb isn't that great, but it is also important to get GDDR3 memory and a proper 3D card, the minimum card for any newer game is likely a geforce 8800 or ATI/AMD 3850, available on ebay for around $90 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0231020060 (or around $140 for the AMD card http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0272740795 ).

I would recommend however a nice newer card for $200, such as the new AMD 4850, or the competing nVidia 9800GTX (but only after they drop their price to $200 as well, which they have announced, but so far the street price isn't changed to reflect this.)

One common misconception is that DVI and HDMI are different, aside from the physical connector they are the same. The physical connector can easily be changed for less than $4, so you likely didn't need a new PC, just a connector:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/produ ... 1&format=2

Don't forget that you can get demos of many awesome games, such as Half-Life2, Bioshock, Prey, Lost Planet (I like this demo), etc, see http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_demos.html for quick downloads with no ads (you don't need to register or even have an nvidia card to play these demos).

Welcome aboard, I hope to enjoy reading more reviews from you

Post by **Elfihn** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 11:13 am

Well my Video Card is currently an ATI Radeon 2400XT. Not the best, but not too bad.
I have 3 Gig of RAM, And i've been wondering if it is possible to switch some RAM over to Video Memory? That way I could probably get some games working better in 3D. Could someone notify me if this is possible?

Post by **Neil** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 11:43 am

Hi Eli,

I'm afraid that would not be possible. However, there are very inexpensive AMD cards coming to market. The 4850 for example is proving very competitive. Wait until iZ3D confirms the compatibility though.

Regards.
Neil

Post by **crim3** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 2:39 am

Elfihn wrote:Well my Video Card is currently an ATI Radeon 2400XT. Not the best, but not too bad.
I have 3 Gig of RAM, And i've been wondering if it is possible to switch some RAM over to Video Memory? That way I could probably get some games working better in 3D. Could someone notify me if this is possible?

DirectX 10 is supposed to do just that. Look at the end of the article: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/1 ... c_gaming/1

Post by **nubie** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 2:50 pm

crim3 wrote:
Elfihn wrote:Well my Video Card is currently an ATI Radeon 2400XT. Not the best, but not too bad.
I have 3 Gig of RAM, And i've been wondering if it is possible to switch some RAM over to Video Memory? That way I could probably get some games working better in 3D. Could someone notify me if this is possible?
DirectX 10 is supposed to do just that. Look at the end of the article: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/1 ... c_gaming/1

No, it does not make your system memory into video card memory, it just eats your system memory so that it can load it back into the video card later. If you like gaming at 10fps this is a great invention.

The problem with your video card is not the RAM size. The whole video card needs to be bigger/better/faster/stronger ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgBgnoEY4iM&hl=en ).

The card needs more processing power, then it needs more RAM to store all of those pixels in (1650x1080 x 2 ?), then that ram needs to be very very fast because it is accessed multiple times to get the picture drawn. It may finish the picture and then reload part or all of it to apply a special effect or multiple special effects.

The video card RAM should be GDDR3 (sometimes just called DDR3), and it should be 2,000Mhz or faster (desktop ram is not that fast, and even the ram that is close does not have as wide a bus, so moves less than half the data per clock speed).

Just to clarify, see the charts here of tested video cards: http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desk ... tml?p=1591

Add your card at the bottom by choosing "Add a Product", you will notice the memory specifications for the 2400XT show up as 800mhz DDR2 on a 128-bit bus. This is not a good video card if you want to play video games, as evidenced by the performance of Halo, a very old game.

The bus width multiplied by the clock rate will determine the memory bandwidth, you want it high (near or over 2Ghz, 2,000Mhz) and a minimum of 256-bit wide bus. If you get a card with 128-bit memory it will naturally only have half the memory bandwidth.

All the memory in the world is useless without processing power, as mentioned the recently released AMD 4850 is going to be an absolutely stunning card for $200, if your budget is less I recommend an 8800 or 9600 card (just don't spend more than $150 and get one with 512MB of RAM, not 320 / 256 / 640 / 368 or 768). If your budget is really tight there are $90 8800GTS 320MB cards on ebay, and they are pretty decent, especially compared to the card you currently have.

Post by **crim3** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 12:31 pm

I wasn't talking about performance, just informed about the video memory virtualization available with directx 10 :/