Conclusion/recommendations:
s3d works with a usable bad HUD. Suggest 1-eyed Help-text setup. Details below.
This game is often dark so you'll probably want to turn up the brightness in both hardware and software.
Shutterglass modes should work on modern systems.
Game notes:
Camera - a 3rd person game with temporary 1st person and far-away views. Normally good camera mouse-control but sometimes limited and frustrating.
This is the one where he starts in a battle in a castle wearing baggy white pants.
During combat, move sideways while holding block to get into a better psoition. You can also hold block and choose 1st person view for a nice 3d attacker view but you can't fight in 1st person mode.
Game has cool acrobatic combat moves and is sometimes pretty violent. Other times it's just a climbing/jumping platform adventure game.
iZ3D issues: tested with 7800GTX-162.50 + iZ3D-1.10
1) HUD - bad depth - no real fix yet but usable if you don't need on-screen help-text or use the 1-eyed Help-text work-around.
Details: Help-text offscreen, Health-bar too close but visible.
Workaround-1: Use smaller 3d settings with big-screen projector to help solve HUD problem.
Workaround-2 (preferred): use special feature of iZ3D's driver that only shifts the right-eye view and keeps the left-eye view in-place w/o moving it so that you will always have the left-eye's HUD on-screen no matter what your 3d settings are. In this case I use "separation mode: shift right" (Value=1) and I put it in this profile so that you don't have to change your default. This tries to push the right-eye view of the HUD off-screen so it doesn't bother you. Change it back if you want to see the difference.
2 ) Autofocus: I can't get autofocus to work well but there is a great workaround... manual-auto-focus.
Workaround: use the game's 3 view-keys as your 3d preset keys. This really works well and is already setup for you in the profile below. Just use the standard game's "F" "X" and "Q" view keys to switch views and never use them as on/off toggles. This way, when you change views, your 3d settings get adjusted with the same keystroke and it works really well. These 3d preset hotkeys are set to apply only to this game-profile so it does not change your defaults. If you want to use different keys, you have to change both the game setup and this profile's 3d preset hotkeys to match.
3 ) in-game graphics settings:
Shadows and Special Effeccts on max gave me no problems during the time tested.
I generally keep Anti-aliasing (FSAA) and Fog off.
4 ) Shutterglassable? Yes, framerates are usually well over 80 with my 7800GTX.
3d profile settings notes:
Your profile data, for XP users, is in:
C:\Documents and Settings\"windows login name"\Application Data\iZ3D Driver\UserProfile.xml
and for Vista---> C:\Users\"windows login name"\AppData\Roaming\iZ3D Driver\UserProfile.xml
In order to use these settings, insert/replace the following block of text in your UserProfie.xml file.
If you want to save your original settings, save them in a backup file beforehand.
3d Presets are set from least 3d to most:
Preset 1 is for 1st-person view and 3d cutscenes.
Preset 2 is for normal zoom.
Preset 3 is for long-distance area-views.
Code: Select all
<Profile Name="POP">
<File Name="POP.exe" />
<ShowWizardAtStartup Value="0" />
<SwapEyes Value="0" />
<!-- 0 = symmetric, 1 = right shift, 2 = left shift -->
<SeparationMode Value="1" />
<LaserSightEnable Value="0" />
<Presets>
<Preset Index="0">
<One_div_ZPS Value="0.035626" />
<StereoBase Value="2.710149" />
<AutoFocusEnable Value="0" />
</Preset>
<Preset Index="1">
<One_div_ZPS Value="0.023305" />
<StereoBase Value="5.093448" />
<AutoFocusEnable Value="0" />
</Preset>
<Preset Index="2">
<One_div_ZPS Value="0.009043" />
<StereoBase Value="11.098902" />
<AutoFocusEnable Value="0" />
</Preset>
</Presets>
<Keys>
<!-- "F" 1st-person key doubles as preset 1 key -->
<SetPreset1 Key="70" />
<!-- "X" reset-view key doubles as preset 2 key -->
<SetPreset2 Key="88" />
<!-- "Q" distant-view key doubles as preset 3 key -->
<SetPreset3 Key="81" />
</Keys>
</Profile>
miscellaneous notes:
You can get 3 PoP games in "The Two Thrones - Special Edition" version. (Sands, Warrior, Thrones)
I haven't played this game much so it's possible that more s3d issues show up in later levels.
DX9, 1.25GB hard drive space, from 2003
--- iondrive ---