Today the demo of the anticipated Mafia 2 game was made available to the general public with the full game becoming available a bit later this month – August 24th in North America and 27th in Europe. Mafia II takes advantage of Nvidia’s PhysX technology and is going to be a 3D Vision Ready title, working well also with triple monitor 3D Vision Surround setups. What you need to we bell aware of is the fact that the game is quite demanding in terms of graphic power needed if you want to play it with maximum detail level and PhysX set to high, let alone in stereo 3D mode on top of that. The recommended to have GPU is a GTX 260 without using PhysX and 3D Vision and for more you better have a Fermi-based video card ready and SLI with at least 460s would be good to have in order to crank up the PhysX level and play in stereo 3D mode with comfortable framerates. For 3D Vision Surround Nvidia recommends you to have GTX 480 in SLI and an optional dedicated for PhysX graphics card which may be a bit overkill just for a single game, but Mafia II might as well turn out to be “the game” that is worth upgrading your PC for. I’m not yet sure how well it will work on ATI-based GPUs, but then again there you will miss the additional details provided by the PhysX support along with most likely no stereo 3D mode support, although you might still have some options for that.

The demo for the game is available on Steam and it includes support for bot PhysX (off, medium and high modes) as well as 3D Vision, so it can give you an idea on what to expect from the full game when it comes out. There is also a heavy benchmark mode that can show you a bit disappointing framerates even on hig-end configurations, because there is a lot of physical calculations going on in the scenes rendered in the benchmark and with PhysX set to high you’ll be out for a surprise, especially if you test in stereo 3D mode with 3D Vision even on GTX 480. Anyway, you better try the demo yourself, it is available now, than to just read impressions from it, just be prepared that you might finally need an upgrade for your PC to fully enjoy the game. Below you’ll also find some screenshots in stereo 3D mode that I’ve took inside the demo of Mafia 2, they are in 1680×1050 resolution, with maximum details, AA on (2x SSAA only) and PhysX set to High, so you can get an idea on what to expect. You may notice a bit of ghosting in specific scenes (it is a monitor-related issue, and not the game being responsible), but in overall the game looks great in stereo 3D as expected from a 3D Vision Ready title.

- Download Mafia II stereoscopic 3D screenshots…

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The developer of the game Mafia II has announced a partnership with NVIDIA to bring PhysX technology to all versions of Mafia II, the epic mobster crime drama taking place in the 1940s and 1950s in USA coming to the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC. The Windows PC version will feature a thorough integration of NVIDIA PhysX and 3D Vision technology into 2K Czech’s Illusion Engine, so we now have a new 3D Vision-ready game title coming quite soon. Mafia II will also be the first Windows PC game ever to utilize the NVIDIA APEX Clothing and Particle modules to enable the city and personalities of Empire Bay to truly come alive, so Mafia II should really look quite impressive in stereo 3D mode…

The NVIDIA APEX Clothing module allows for more dynamic movement in clothing, making in-game characters even more realistic and reactive to environmental conditions. With the implementation of NVIDIA APEX Particles, players are engulfed in lifelike explosions that are bigger and brighter, including weapon fragments, in-game debris and destructible environments that are amplified in both quantity and realism through the integration of APEX Particles. For example, a pistol fired into a glass pane will emit hundreds of glass shards; a shotgun blasted through a wooden landing will splinter the wood; and a Tommy Gun will chip into a brick or stone wall to methodically fracture and break it into pieces.

Mafia II will be available in North America on August 24, 2010, and internationally on August 27, 2010.

- The upcoming game Mafia II is already available for pre-order for $49.99 USD…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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Lately there is a lot of talk about the game Darkest of Days, because the game is officially available for a few days, looks very good and is even fun to play. And thus a few questions arise, because this is one of the still rare games that come with Nvidia PhysX support and this makes the game look much more realistic for all Nvidia-based video card owners (if they VGA can handle PhysX of course). The next big question is if the game works in Stereoscopic 3D mod with Geforce 3D Vision, but here unfortunately comes a little disappointment – the game uses OpenGL and thus is not compatible with 3D Vision. So we should do with PhysX only for this title and here is a little something that will show you what you can expect if your video card is PhysX capable and if it is not…

- Get the game Darkest Of Days here if you don’t have it yet…

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Today’s hot topic is definitely the demo of the game Batman: Arkham Asylum, it supports PhysX and is 3D Vision-ready… and the game itself is quite good, at least from what I saw in the demo playing it. And before going to 3D Vision in more detail, lets say something about the PhysX support… or better yet just watch the video above. Having an Nvidia-based video card that supports PhysX technology gives quite a few additional visual features when you play the game (these do work out nice even in Stereo 3D), but you need a high-end VGA to really enjoy all the additional effects. But still… how often do you find yourself looking at the floor for flying pieces of paper while you wall over a dark corridor and expect every moment some enemy to jump on you? Or you just start of breaking stone pillars or tiles on the floor just because you can…? Nevertheless the waving cloth (that you can actually tear?!) the volumetric fog (steam) and flying sparks do look kind of good and really improve the atmosphere of the game while you actually can normally see and enjoy them, without having to look specifically for them (like the tiles and paper). I was a bit disappointed by the PhysX in the demo before seeing this video, because I could not see many differences with PhysX effects on and off. But after watching the video above… and learned what exactly I should be looking at my opinion changed a bit, but just a bit, because I actually had to look for information on what and where to expect from PhysX to get lets say impressed by it, otherwise I kind of missed half of the PhysX advantages. So should this be happening in such a good game with official PhysX support… I don’t think so, but what Do You Think?

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Good news coming out from Nvidia and Eidos Interactive/ Rocksteady Studios today with the release of a demo version of the upcoming game Batman: Arkham Asylum. Now what is interesting for this title is that it is going to support PhysX, which should be a good one, having in mind that the previous game with PhysX (Terminator) wasn’t very good. But with the demo released today comes another good news and that is that Batman: Arkham Asylum is also 3D Vison Ready, meaning that it should play in Stereo 3D without any major problems and it is supposed to look great (I do hope that it is true). So now you can head over to Nzone to download the 2 gigabyte demo of Batman: Arkham Asylum and try how the games does with both PhysX and 3D Vision. I’m already downloading the demo of the game at the moment and when I have some personal feedback about it and especially on the 3D Vision part I’ll write about it.

Update: Ok, the game is nice… PhysX is not that impressive as I expected, but still adds a nice touch in the atmosphere… now I have much higher expectations when the full game is released. As for 3D Vision readiness… the game looks good with minor to no ghosting at default depth level, but you cannot increase it a lot without having visual problems. More 3D Vision feedback coming a bit later…

- To download the Batman: Arkham Asylum Demo…
- To download the Batman: Arkham Asylum Stereo 3D Screenshots pack…
- To get the full game Batman: Arkham Asylum if you don’t have it already…

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