3D Vision Blog

Recently there are some interesting hings happening around Nvidia’s 3D Vision solution for stereoscopic 3D gaming and movie and photo viewing, so here is what is new in brief…

You know that the game Dark Void has been out for a few days already and it is the latest title to support PhysX and 3D Vision, however the profile in the 3D Vision drivers rates the game as Good and not Excellent as you’d expect from an official (?) 3D Vision title. The game has been developed by Capcom, the same guys that made the Resident Evil 5 – the first official 3D Vision-optimized title that came out (the PC version only).

Some of the issues that Dark Void has are due to the use of Unreal engine ant it is not handling perfectly well in stereoscopic 3D mode, so basically most of the games based on it have some issues that need to be fixed afterwards. A good example for a game that is also based on the same Unreal engine, but has been constantly improved to offer good stereoscopic 3D support for 3D Vision is Borderlands. The developers from Gearbox have been constantly improving the 3D Vision support and they just released a new patch version 1.21 that adds 3D crosshair in the game instead of the 2D one when playing in S3D mode.

After five days or exactly on February 9th the game Bioshock 2 should become available. And this is supposedly to be another 3D Vision-ready title and if you ask me is much more interesting and can look really great in stereoscopic 3D mode if it is done right. And especially after the success of the first BioShock, everyone is expecting a lot from the sequel.

Another interesting game title expected next month, March 16th is Metro 2033. This game is supposed to be something like a post-apocalyptic FPS with some RPG elements, with the action going on underground in the Russian Metro, the year is 2033 and what is left of the humanity is just trying to survive in the harsh post-apocalyptic world. This game should support DirectX 10, take advantage of PhysX and officially be 3D Vision-ready, so you should put it in your to look forward to list of games.

Some other games that might be officially 3D Vision-ready are the upcoming on February 16th Aliens vs Predator with its multiplayer demo just released and available for download over Steam (this one is supposed to be DirectX 11 and ATI Eyefinity title, so official 3D Vision-readiness is a bit questionable). There is also the expected to be released on March 2nd Battlefield: Bad Company 2, another first-person shooter that is currently undergoing a beta testing stage.

Finally if you already own a 3D Vision kit you might complete a short survey that Nvidia is currently conducting regarding the accessories that come with their shutter glasses. So if you have a spare minute you can fill in the few simple questions, absolutely anonymous, providing some feedback on how you use the product and this way maybe help improving the next version of the 3D Vision….

- To fill in the 3D Vision Accessories survey currently being conducted by Nvidia…

Christmas is already very close and everyone is probably thinking about the gifts, so I decided to also make some of you buy giving out 2 full copies of the game Batman: Arkham Asylum for Christmas (digital download to be easily sent). As you probably know this is one truly great game that supports both PhysX and 3D Vision, so that you can enjoy it as if you were really in the Arkham Asylum when you play it in Stereoscopic 3D mode…

The only thing you need to do, in order to be able to win a copy of the game, is to post a link to this page so that other people will learn about this contest and might also participate and win. You can post a link on your Twitter, Facebook profile, MySpace page, a forum you write in, your blog or homepage etc. (no spamming is allowed!) and then post a link to the page you’ve written about the contest in the comments below, along with your name and email (emails are not publicly shown), so that I can contact you if you win.

The contest is not limited to certain countries, so you can participate no matter where in the world you live. You can immediately start your participation – only one link per user, so that everyone can have the same chance to win. The contest ends at 11:59 GMT (am, not pm) on 24th of December when the two winners will be announced here and their prizes will be sent immediately after that. The two winners will be chosen on a random principle so that everyone will have the same chance and the two persons with the best luck will be the winners… ;)

- For more information about the game Batman: Arkham Asylum…

This new game called Scorpion: Disfigured caught my attention and I decided to try it out by playing in stereoscopic 3D with the help of 3D Vision, but I was very quickly disappointed from the results I got. But in order not to get the wrong impression about the game I need to point out that I’m not impressed with it’s performance when playing in stereoscopic 3D mode only, the game is fine and with no issues when it is being played normally. So I’ll be focusing on the S3D mode and what to expect from this title and not on the game itself being good or bad… ;)

With default settings the game, no profile for it, the game looks quite nice at first look in stereoscopic 3D and it seems it also takes advantage of PhysX. The convergence is almost good and the depth level is not needed that much, as most of the objects in far distance get too blurred. But taking a closer look you’ll see that the convergence can benefit a bit with manual adjusting in order to better see the gun you are holding, so you can play a bit with that. But if you try to increase the depth level a bit (it is Ok only at low level), you’ll start noticing a bit of ghosting around some objects and here disabling the Depth of Field option (setting it to Off from the settings) can help a bit in decreasing ghosting…

But then again, when you start playing a bit you’ll also notice some other “bugs” that are only available when you are playing the game in stereoscopic 3D mode. I’m talking about things like completely different shadows rendered for the left and right eye and thus creating a strange feeling when playing the game. Also there are some weird diamond shaped figures appearing from your gun after you shoot or from objects that have smoke coming out of them etc. All these are making kind of weird and unpleasant experience playing the game in stereoscopic 3D mode, but it is Ok if you play it normally. So anyway, my suggestion is to just stay away from this game if you plan to try it in S3D, but if you just want to play it normally it should still be fun for you if you like this type of games. The atmosphere in the game is quite nice too, so it could’ve benefited a lot from S3D if there were no graphical glitches present, but maybe they’ll be fixed at a later time with a patch…