is anaglyph right for me?

[nebbish]

Hello. As a 3d noob myself, I would like to thank all of you -- and cybereality in particular -- for your many contributions to the community. Cybereality: it appears from your sig that you have some nvidia hardware, and I am also aware that you recommend pro-ana glasses for cheap entry level 3d.

I have an nvidia 8800gtx gpu, which I purchased as part of my entire pre-built system. I believe I purchased before nvidia began bundling 3d glasses. I also have a Viewsonic widescreen lcd, but it is not 3d ready. Would the pro-ana glasses be a good match to my hardware?

Thank you.

P.S.

I have been considering the DLP/3dVision route for some time. With so much new hardware coming to market so quickly, I'm now thinking it would be better to get a taste of 3d at a cheaper price point while waiting to make that more substantial purchase.

[Likay]

Hi and welcome!
You're quite right and anaglyph is a good way to get familiar with 3d over all. It's also true that it for obvious reasons doesn't give the best experience.
Anaglyph works with probably every stereodrivers and displays so compability is excellent though. The iz3d drivers will work for you and if you have vista or above you can also run nvidia 3d-discover (i think red/cyan will work good with that as well). It's also a good choice to wait and see what 3d-hardwaresolutions that gives the most bang for the bucks or at least for the bucks you're willing to pay.

I'm quite sure Cybereality will chime in with more info as well.

[cybereality]

Hey, welcome to the forum!

Anaglyph is a fine way to get your feet wet with very little investment. Although the color experience can be pretty bad, you can get a taste of what depth can add to gaming. You can also get familiar with the 3D drivers. Some games work better than others in anaglyph due to the different color palettes of the game but most games will be playable. Of course you are not going to get the same experience as you would with a high-end solution, but that goes without saying. I'd estimate that anaglyph is probably about 30% of the experience, which is not bad for the price. Personally I would recommend the Pro-Ana glasses due to the low ghosting, however certain games will work better with other glasses due to a different color experience. For example, I think the Pro-View (Pro-X) glasses look better on Call of Duty 4. Overall I think the Pro-Ana are a pretty good choice though. You will probably want to run the IZ3D drivers, which are free in anaglyph mode. That should be enough to get you started.

In terms of getting a real solution, I certainly recommend saving the money to get something better. Both the Zalman Trimon and IZ3D monitors sell for under $300 these days, which isn't so bad. However there will be a lot of new displays coming out this year, specifically 3D HDTVs and some projectors, so you may wish to hold off a bit if you are unsure about it. Even so, you can pick up a 3D capable 720P projector for under $700 (in the near future from Optoma) so there are options if you are interested.

Definitely get the anaglyph glasses for the time being while you decide what you want to do. For the price you can't really go wrong.

[nebbish]

Thanks for the info and warm welcome, guys! I suppose I should have also mentioned I'm running Windows 7 32-bit (recent upgrade from XP). I also seem to have the 3d vision discover software, and it appears functional -- I guess I'll know for sure once I get the glasses. I think I downloaded it along with some nvidia tools when I updated my driver. I'm not sure where that leaves the iz3d driver option.

In any case, I'm putting in my pro-ana order.

Thanks again.