Just bought a Zalman, now need help...

[jcredible]

Hey guys, I just bought my Zalman yesterday after doing Anaglyph gaming for a few months. I'm using a computer I built a couple years ago (5800+ AMD, lots of storage, and a bad vid card...), currently running XP.

I have a few questions:

1.) My current vid-card is a nvidia 7900! I would like to replace it. Having just spent $300 on this Zalman I don't want to spend too much more. I was thinking of going with a Nvidia gx 260, is that decent. What do you think?

2.) What utilities, plugins etc, do I need to fully enjoy this thing? I dl installed the Zalman stereostopic viewer and watched the fishie video Wow that was amazing! I also installed the photo maker on that japanese site. Don't really understand youtube.... is it just some videos that have a 3d option? (for instance I've seen some in anaglyph that have no other 3d option)

3.) I'm thinking of going with the Iz3d drivers. Although I guess with the Zalman I have options. Not sure if I can have all the drivers at once... but if so I'll probably get the Nvidia ones when I get my new card.

4.) I don't really PC game much, but I have a few games. I had heard that Warcraft 3 was like a tabletop come to life (using Nvidia 3d vision)... but I don't see anything using the trial drivers. I'm set to interlaced column optimized. Not sure how I use the profiles already on there. Tried hitting apply but it didn't seem to do anything. Still brought up the IZ3d configuration settings.

5.) What method do you guys use to configure your games? I sorta did it when I was using anaglyph but never had anything very satisfactory. I either saw little depth or major ghosting.

6.) Anyone with the minoru webcam or the fujifilm 3d cam want to shed some light? How cool are they? Taking 3d pictures sounds awesome, but I wonder how much depth there would be...


Thanks everyone Can't wait to use this to its full advantage!

[cybereality]

Yeah, I have the Zalman and its pretty good. Let me see if I can answer your questions.

1. A GTX 260 would be good enough to run mostly all modern games at decent settings. I know I've got an 8800 GTS 512MB and it still holds up for a lot of modern games in 3D (Mirrors Edge, FEAR2, Avatar, etc.). So you should be fine with that.

2. All you need is the Stereoscopic Player (comes with the monitor) and a 3D driver for games. Only special YouTube3D videos will work on the monitor. You can search for "YT3D" on YouTube and you will find a bunch of them. Then on the option drop-down selected interlaced.

3. The iz3d drivers are very good. Well worth the money. If you have a modern Nvidia card (8800+) and Vista/7 then you can run the Nvidia 3D drivers for free. You can also use the DDD drivers, but they are the worst of the 3.

4. You have to adjust the settings for each game. Some will look good with the defaults but usually you will have to toy with it to get a good effect.

5. I usually walk up to the corner of a wall like in the opening of a hallway. I stand so the edge of the wall is in the middle of the screen. Then I adjust the settings so one eye can see the inside of the hallway while the other cannot. This gives a good 3D effect.

6. I don't have either of those but I have my own custom rig and looking at videos I made is cool. However I get much great 3D from gaming.

Hope that helps.

[BlackShark]

#3 :
The Zalman monitor uses row interleave, column is if you ue the screen in portrait mode but i do not recommand you to use the screen this way because of the slamm viewing angle.

When i set my games i usually converge (make the left and right images merge) on the closest object to the camera using the convergence control, then use the separation control to have the farthest object (landscape on the horizon) separate by about the width of my thumb.
This will give an easy all depth setting which won't hurt your eyes : it's a good beginner setting.