Looking at super inexpensive entry into S3D gaming

[skora]

Hi all, long time lurker, first time poster.

I've always been interested in S3D gaming and have really ramped up my self education lately. I started my attempt to enrich my gaming experience with a set of anaglyph glasses. The effects were cool when they worked, but couldn't stand the colors. Recently I tried the cross-eyed method and that's really cool and lighting the fire to try and find a solution. I can get my eyes to see the 3D, but it still takes a long time for my focus to adjust and I haven't been able to keep locked with moving pictures along with only being able to hold focus for a few minutes.

So in my continued efforts to 3D game for cheap, found a new eDimensional set on ebay for $35. Don't know which version of hardware it is. I'm sure I can track down a CRT monitor that will fit the requirements of 85mhz+ and don't mind the room it will take up as I have a corner desk. I am only looking at older games right now like Oblivion, Half Life 2, Fallout 3 and New Vegas, and Counter Strike Source.

So my question is, can the edimensional glasses still be used for those games and what would I need in terms of drivers? I still have an old iz3d 1.12 zip from when I tried the anaglyph glasses or should I try and track down a 1.13 RC? Would the tridef drivers work going forward (lots of searches and I couldn't find any current info if they would work with the eDim or not)?

Things financially have been tight for years around here so I really am just trying to skate by. My PC is a dog and in need of replacing, but don't see that happening any time soon either. here's my specs:
E5200 @ 3.6ghz
4gb DDR2 800 Ram
9600GSO (this was a placeholder card after my 4850 took a dump a while ago and haven't had the funds to do a proper replacement.)
Win7 Home

A few upgrade options that might get me by, there is a Q9550 on craigs here for $75. That, an SSD, and new GPU might be enough of an upgrade (waiting till black Friday) to get me by for another year or 2 considering the age of the games I play. I just want to see them in 3D.

Or if there are any other suggestions for cheap solutions, I'd love to hear them. Been looking at Cybers parallax barrier, but finding reasonably price supplies in small quantities seem to be an issue.

[cybereality]

Those old shutter glasses will only work reliably with old (7000 series) Nvidia cards. On Windows XP. So I wouldn't bother with this route.

I have a 22" Zalman Trimon 3D monitor I don't use anymore. I could part with it for cheap, but shipping could be too expensive internationally.

Where are you located? I'm in California. PM me if your interested.

[skora]

Hey CR, thanks much for the offer. I'm pretty sure that me trying to get out of this for under $50 is beyond your threshold even though I'm in the states also. I think I'm going to pass on the entire passive monitor route for now and save my money for an active solution or something like the Occulus a little later. I've seen the HP 2311gt for as low as $180 (iirc) this summer and didn't jump on that because I don't want to lose that much on the vertical resolution. I'm fine with halving my horizontal if each eye gets a rough 900x900 pic or better.

I also wanted to thank you for sharing all your knowledge. You're the first author I look for when sorting through all the post from a search. Your a great asset to this community.

[cybereality]

If you want to go with active on a monitor, the Nvidia 3D Vision is a good solution. Just make sure you buy Nvidia "certified" displays.

You can see compatible monitors here:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d-vision- ... ments.html

Looks like most of that gear starts at around $300.

[skora]

Thanks again CR for the info.

It will be a long while before I'm able to afford an active system. Current thinking is find something cheap now and put my money into a retail Oculus when its released. I was tempted again by the HP 2311gt, its only $153 at the egg right now with promo code. But that and a new GPU would destroy my rainy day fund and thus any hope of an oculus when it does get here.

I have an anaglyph set of glasses and can't deal with the colors. But what about some of those cheap mirror type stereoscope glasses? Something like this:
http://compare.ebay.com/like/2612546482 ... s&var=sbar

Or those bigger bar style for about the same price?


Any other suggestions for a cheap DIY solution? I looked a lot at the HMDs. Thought about using the two droid 2s I have, but from what I gather, the syncing between two screens would be an issue and the real time wireless feed isn't there for gaming yet. Or if it is? An older but capable cheap tablet could work for a single screen display for a HMD without tracking. Just need a way to mount it and a set of lenses.

I've been trying to do as much research as I can before asking, not finding a lot of answers with the terms I'm using. Still a lot of lingo to learn I guess.

[cybereality]

You should make sure your software will support free-view type display modes (needed for stereoscope glasses).

For example, the TriDef DDD driver has a side-by-side mode but it's squished (for use on HDTVs for example).

YouTube does have a free-view mode, but it seems you are trying to play games with this.