3D Vision Blog » stereo 3d gaming

Toshiba Qosmio F750 and F755 3D Laptops Get S3D Gaming Support

Bloody — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 18:12:14 +0000

Toshiba has released a BIOS update for their Qosmio F750 (EU, Asia) and F755 (US) 3D-capable autostereoscopic (glasses free) laptops that adds support for gaming in stereo 3D mode, a feature that was not available initially at the release of the products. Up until recently you could officially only play 3D movies on these laptops, or use a workaround for getting stereo 3D support for other things thanks to the Screen Activator software. But after updating the BIOS of your Toshiba Qosmio F750 or F755 laptop to version 2.00 you should also be able to take advantage of Nvidia’s 3D drivers to get the full set of stereoscopic 3D features.

You need to download and install the following updates in the order listed:
- Nidia Display Driver version 8.17.12.9039 (290.39)
- Super-D IC Driver version 1.0.1613.809
- Toshiba Blu-ray Disc Player version 1.0.1.299
- BIOS version 2.00: for the F750 or for the F755 model

Have in mind that you need to have the resolution set to 1920×1080 in order for the stereo 3D mode to work, although the actual resolution in 3D mode is lower. You need to enable the Nvidia stereo 3D support form the “NVIDIA Control Panel” under the “Set up stereoscopic 3D” pane by clicking on the “Enable stereoscopic 3D” check box. Have in mind that some games might not work in stereo 3D mode and others may not work correctly to ensure a problem free experience. Also note that due to the not so powerful video cards used in the Toshiba Qosmio F750 and F755 3D laptops some games may not have high enough fps for comfortable usage, and even lowering the detail levels may not help in making them playable. Still being able to play games in stereoscopic 3D mode on these autosterescopic 3D laptops is nice to have as a feature finally, even though they are not targeted at gamers. If you have already updated yours and tried the new feature you are welcome to share your feedback…

The Game Gatling Gears Looks Great in Stereo 3D Mode with 3D Vision

Bloody — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 21:24:44 +0000

While checking out some of the latest games I’ve found out about an interesting top-down shooter that has turned out to be a real gem for playing in stereoscopic 3D mode with 3D Vision. The game I’m talking about is called Gatling Gears, developed by Vanguard Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts, and besides working well in stereo 3D mode it is also fun to play if you like this type of games. It renders almost flawlessly in stereoscopic 3D mode right out of the box, although there is no official 3D Vision profile for the game available yet, all you need to do is do some convergence adjustment and then you can play with very high depth levels for a really nice experience. Everything renders well in stereoscopic 3D mode, even the in-game crosshair is rendered in 3D, although the cursor in the game menu is in 2D that is only present at the menu, so it shouldn’t bother you. The only thing that is rendered in 2D are some HUD elements, but these are not a problem considering that the game needs to be optimized for more depth and just some objects sticking out for best experience (but you can play with convergence to make it suit your preferences best). The game is a fine example what you can achieve by making things properly, even though you haven’t planned the game specifically for stereo 3D gaming it turns out to be almost perfect. So I would recommend you to definitely try Gatling Gears in stereo 3D mode with 3D Vision.

- Visit the official Gatling Gears website for more information about the game…

Electronic Arts Moving Away From Stereo 3D Games Due to Small Profit

Bloody — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 10:43:39 +0000

EA CEO John Riccitiello has announced that Electronic Arts is planing to move away from stereo 3D games and go more towards social and online gaming. The reason he states in front of the company’s stockholders is that there are poor returns from these games as compared to other titles.

“We see really high returns in these markets and very poor returns focusing on 3D, so we are allocating our resources toward new innovations.”

“Frankly we have not seen a big uptake for 3D gaming. We have not seen a big uptake in 3D TVs in the home, at least not yet. We are not here trying to drive a market. We are here to react to what consumers are looking for.”

But don’t forget that in order to attract gamers you not only need to make a hit title game, but also ensure a proper stereoscopic 3D support, so that instead of gamers complaining all the time from very basic issues in stereo 3D mode they will be happy right from the start and spread the work to other fellow stereo 3D gamers about the game. This however is still a problem not only fro EA, but for most other game makers that want to implement stereoscopic 3D support and instead of attracting the stereo 3D gamers they are driving them away. Remember the fiasco that EA has with the hit title “Battlefield: Bad Company 2″ it was constantly being fixed in terms of stereo 3D support, but the new patches broke other things that worked properly with the older ones.

A more recent example with a hit game title that should’ve been 3D-ready right from the start, from another developer, is the game “The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings”. Instead of becoming a hit stereo 3D title it is getting a lot of bad feedback from gamers due to various issues in stereo 3D mode and patches for the game that are supposed to be fixing things are not doing what they should.

With such level of efforts (clearly not enough) from game developers to provide proper stereo 3D support and moving the focus from S3D PC gamers to the still not that much console 3D gamers I’m wondering what were game developers expecting. Probably the same thing that Hollywood wanted to do with 3D movie ticket sales, but you know, you cannot push higher sales of more expensive tickets for the 3D version of the movies and provide the viewers with crappy 2D to 3D conversion or bad quality movies and expect that to last forever. The entertainment industry should learn from their mistakes, but clearly they are not doing that and in the process they are hurting the 3D industry. Somebody has to drive the stereo 3D gaming market with a good example and not necessarily with the idea to make high profit in short time, but clearly this is not EA as apparently this has never been their intention.

Stereo 3D gamers are looking for quality games that work as they should in stereoscopic 3D mode and not for games that have a 3D logo and some kind of crappy stereo 3D support, because some game developer decided to profit a bit extra by advertising a game 3D-ready when it clearly is not. If a game developer does not understand this simple truth and does not follow what the customers actually demand in terms of stereo 3D support, then he has no right to complain from poor returns… it is as simple as that.

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Console To Officially Support Stereo 3D Gaming?

Bloody — Mon, 23 May 2011 17:55:50 +0000

With the E3 Expo right around the corner there are rumors starting to appear that Microsoft is going to introduce native stereoscopic 3D support for their Xbox 360 game console. According to the unofficial information Xbox 360 may get a firmware update that will introduce HDMI 1.4 stereoscopic 3D support for native 720p gaming. But unlike all owners of PlayStation 3 consoles, a firmware update for the Xbox 360 will not introduce S3D support for all consoles, due to the fact that the first Xbox 360 consoles did not feature HDMI video output. This may open up the doors to much wider stereoscopic 3D adoption for the Xbox 360 console as currently there are just a few titles that support stereo 3D output and all these achieve it through a native engine supporting different output modes. Getting S3D support on a console level will make it easier for game developers to add that feature, but don’t forget that it is only a rumor for for now…

The 1080p 3D-capable Projectors and Gaming in Stereo 3D Mode

Bloody — Mon, 09 May 2011 14:16:29 +0000

There are a lot of people that expect this year to finally see 1080p 3D-capable projectors on the market with more affordable prices, thinking about upgrading their current 720p 3D projectors or directly going for such a solution with gaming in stereo 3D mode as one of the main things to do on a big screen. Currently one of the most affordable 1080p 3D projector is Sharp XV-Z17000 available for about 3-4K USD, but even this is considered high for more mainstream users not looking to build a home movie theater, but instead planning to use the projector for gaming. Especially considering that there are some mainstream 3D-capable 720p projectors such as the Acer H5360 available for just about $600 USD, so paying 2-3 times that price for a projector supporting 3D and 1080p resolutions sounds reasonable, but more not so much.

Leaving the still higher price for 3D support and 1080p resolution as features available together in a projector, there are some other important things that you should consider if you are looking to buy an 3D Full HD projector for gaming. Having an industry standard such as HDMI 1.4 is good for a lot of things, but can also bring some issues because of some limitations it implies on hardware that is using it. And you can expect pretty much any 3D-capable 1080p projector for consumers that is expected this year to be based on that particular standard. For movie lovers that should not be a problem as the HDMi 1.4 standard supports high enough bandwidth to push 1080p at 24Hz in 3D mode, but for gaming in stereo 3D mode this is simply not enough and you should go back to 720p resolution where you can get 50 or 60Hz per eye in 3D mode. So what is the point in going for a 1080p 3D projector using HDMI 1.4 if you plan to use it for gaming – absolutely no point in doing that. You better stay with a much more affordable 720p model if you have one or go for such 3D projector for playing games in stereo 3D mode, and you can of course play 3D movies in 1080p resolution on it without very significant visual quality “loss”.

In 720p resolution you would have to use some Anti-Aliasing to smooth the jagged edges in games, something like 4xAA should be quite close to what you get at 1080p resolution without AA in terms of edge smoothness, although there would be still some difference in the level of details you get. But in general playing at lower resolution may also help you get by in stereo 3D mode even with not a top-end video card with a decent framerate as compared to playing with the same hardware on 1080p display for example. And having a bigger projected screen helps a lot for the immersion as compared to a much smaller 3D monitor for example that may have higher resolution, not to mention the fact that 3D DLP technology is practically crosstalk/ghosting free in 3D mode.

Having a 3D-capable projector using HDMI 1.4 has the advantage that it should be compatible with much wider range of hardware, not only PC (Nvidia’s 3D Vision and AMD’ HD3D technology), but also standalone consumer electronic devices with support for 3D such as the PlayStation 3 console, or a Blu-ray 3D player. The disadvantage when using HDMI 1.4 is that it only supports 720p 50/60Hz 3D mode and 1080p 24Hz 3D mode, the rest is only in 2D mode and you cannot use the projector at 120Hz in 2D mode like you can do with projectors using HDMI 1.3 or VGA interface for example (this can vary greatly on the specific projector).

So if you are waiting for an affordable 1080p 3D-capable projector to become available in order for you to use it for gaming in stereo 3D mode and not for 3D movies, then you should probably reconsider your decision…

More on the Upgrade to Sandy Bridge and Overclocking for S3D Gaming

Bloody — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 18:11:56 +0000

A few days ago I’ve written that my second GeForce GTX 580 video card has died, but now thanks to support from Nvidia I got the issue resolved and a replacement card, so I’m back with a working SLI setup and thus I was able to finish testing with the new Sandy Bridge platform. In the previous article Intel Sandy Bridge Plus SLI for Stereo 3D Gaming with 3D Vision I’ve compared the older Asus Sabertooth P55 motherboard with an Intel Core i5 750 processor overclocked at 4GHz along with the two GTX 580s in SLI to the newer Asus Sabertooth P67 (Sandy Bridge) motherboard with Intel Core i5 2500K running at 5 GHz. In the previous tests however the focus was the CPU and motherboard and what benefits are there in terms of performance increase for gaming in 2D (plain 3D) as well as in stereo 3D mode. But I’ve went further by overclocking the two GTX 580 video cards and repeated the tests to measure the additional performance increase you can get besides just overclocking the processor and changing the platform…

The two GeForce GTX 580 video cards in SLI were with GPUs overclocked from 772 MHz to 950 MHz or that is 170 MHz increase of the default frequencies for both. And the working frequency of the memory was overclocked from the default 4008 MHz to 4850 MHz which is a bit pushing it, but is easily achievable when using water cooling, because operating temperatures remain quite low even under high load for long time. Of course the system is already with an overclocked Intel Core i5 2500K processor running at 5GHz and in the tables below you can see a comparison between the results achieved with the processor at default and at 5 GHz with the video cards not overclocked and with 5GHz with the VGAs also overclocked.

Starting with popular synthetic benchmark 3DMark 2006, the performance increase here is quite small after overclocking the GPUs, but that is to be expected as this test is more CPU dependent than GPU limited. The newer 3DMark 11 that is heavily relying on the video card is showing much better performance increase as expected…

After overclocking the video cards in the game tests in 2D mode (plain 3D) the increase is not that significant, but here we already have high enough average framerate with about 100 fps for the more demanding games and even more with not so heavy titles.

Moving to the game benchmark in stereo 3D mode, after overclocking the two video cards and with the processor at 5GHz almost all games are hitting average framerate of 60 fps per eye, except for Just Cause 2 and Metro 2033. These two titles that are a bit more demanding when played with high detail settings do show much higher performance increase after overclocking the GPUs as compared to overclocking the CPU only. But still with them you may need to sacrifice a bit of extra details or effects to get an average fps of about 60 frames per eye in stereo 3D mode, not that with an average of 40 fps per eye these games are unplayable, on the contrary, but yo would expect a bit more with such a high-end system that is also decently overclocked to get the maximum performance out of it for stereoscopic 3D gaming in Full HD resolution with maxed out detail levels and even some AA enabled in games to smooth out the edges…

Still I can say that I’m pretty happy form the additional performance increase after the upgrade to the new Sandy Bridge platform, and now the new B3 revision of the Sandy Bridge chipsets are becoming available, so you can safely do the upgrade as well. The new K-series i5 and i7 processors offer better overclockability than the previous generation, but still when talking about gaming, you may be able to get better performance increase with a higher-end video card, or by adding a second video card in SLI, than by just pushing the CPU frequency or increasing the number of cores. Because the truth is that still most of the latest games still cannot yet take advantage of more than one CPU core, but they can fully utilize the additional video performance that a more powerful video card can offer. So if you are just gaming in stereo 3D mode, then it may be more worth to upgrade your GPU than to go for a Sandy Bridge upgrade, but if you already have a high-end GPU or even more than one, then upgrading the processor and the motherboard can still be a good choice. And although most games can’t fully utilize the total performance that a new multi-core processor can offer, there are a lot of applications that can do that and you are probably using quite a few of these as well, for example software for video editing and conversion.

What do Gamers Want When Playing Games in Stereoscopic 3D Mode

Bloody — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 16:57:31 +0000

According to the results from the U-Decide 2011 survey conducted by the S-3D Gaming Alliance almost all gamers do want to get more and more depth when they play their favorite games in stereo 3D mode. As you can see from the chart above summarizing the results from the specific question about what gamers would want to get in an FPS games when playing in stereo 3D mode, over 90% of the respondents want a lot of depth. And almost 40 percent of them want to also get a little pop-out with almost another forty percent what want a lot of pop-out. Getting a lot of pop-out in a shooter, especially if it is a first-person FPS game, is not easily achievable, because of the position of the gun that usually looks best if at screen depth, but that does not stop gamers from wanting more pop-out. Of course gamers do not want to get a lot of depth and some or also a lot of pop-out effects in stereo 3D mode only in FPS games, but in pretty much any game, unlike in 3D movies where you usually get just a bit of pop-out if any at all and moderate depth. This comes to show that the individual needs and requirement by gamers are a far from what the movie makers think should be used in 3D movies in order to be liked by the general audience and also not to make the people new to 3D feel uncomfortable…

Trying the Fujitsu Air Command Plus Air Mouse for Stereo 3D Gaming

Bloody — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 18:19:15 +0000

The concept of light guns for games is something that some of you might remember from playing a long time ago on a console, but still refer as to a fun experience. However this concept has long been gone, due to technological changes and no new suitable games, although there were some tries to revive it. The modern way of doing things is with accelerometers and gyros in the form of so called “air mouse” products that are available by multiple companies. However these usually are either targeted at the business for presentations or for home/multimedia use like for playing back multimedia on your PC while sitting comfortable in your couch. I’ve been working on an idea of mine about a DIY device like an air mouse turned into a more decent gaming type controller for use in stereo 3D as well, but that will take me some more time, and meanwhile a few days ago I’ve found out about Fujitsu’s Air Command Plus. This is an air mouse that has been made especially for gamers, so I took one of these to try out and see how well it will work in different types of games and in stereo 3D mode as well and most of all will it be fun and easy to use…

With light guns we had games that are a bit more static, like for example you get something displayed on the screen with a static scene and moving targets that you need to shoot at. The reason for that was due to the fact that it is hard to operate a controller to move while aiming and shooting at something on the screen with the light gun, but newer games are much more dynamic and this makes it hard to go apply the light gun concept. With light guns you are taking aim through the gun’s iron sights, but with a new shooter you need to move around a big open spaces, interact with different objects and this while shooting at enemies. This calls for a more flexible solution and since you are getting your crosshair on the monitor, you no longer need to take aim with an actual gun. This certainly is not that realistic, or at least not like you should do it in real life, but makes it easier to aim and shoot and in regards with stereo 3D you can actually play without having to close one of your eyes to take aim. The additional flexibility is offered by full freedom of movement for which a multiple sensors are needed to track your hand’s movement and translate it to actual cursor or character movements and/or actions. So a gun type of controller would be suitable for FPS shooters, but what about racing or sport games or if you just want to you the controller as an air mouse in some software in Windows? That is why Fujitsu have thought about making the controller flexible, meaning that you can change its shape depending on what you are using it for. There are two basic positions – straight, similar to that of a Wii remote and a gun type one, however there are multiple modes associated with these two positions of the controller. Like for example having it in straight position you would usually use it as an air mouse in Windows or as a sports controller, again much like you do with Nintendo’s Wii remote. But in gun mode, if you hold it like a gun you can use it as such in FPS shooters, but if you rotate it a bit it becomes a wheel replacement for racing games, and if you tilt it forward it becomes a controller for air simulators.

The software that Fujitsu uses for configuration and control of their Air Command Plus remote uses profiles and it comes with a few of them built in – for some popular games and for some not so popular, but you can also make up your own configurations for different games. You can choose the mode the controller will be used in and map the keys you have on the controller respectively for different functions. Now, as I’ve mentioned the Air Command Plus tracks your hand movement and can translate them into game commands, but aside from that it also has multiple buttons that can be customized for other functions. There is a the all important “trigger” (first mouse key) and another key on top that does what the right mouse button does, these two are very handy and easy to sue, especially in gun mode, and a few more buttons. There is also a directional pad on top that works for movement for example, simulating WASD or the arrow keys, definitely a good idea, but not very handy for some games like shooters for example. The reason for that is that it is quite hard to use the direction controller for movement in a game while at the same time you move your hand to aim and shoot at something, and because of that you usually have to use the keyboard with your other free hand. For other types of games the situation is different as the movement is mapped to the position of the controller like in racing games, so that is not much of a drawback anyway, but a second Wii nunchuk like controller for the movement part would’ve been a great addition for FPS games for example.

With the Air Command Plus controller you get some free sports games that are quite Wii-like and fun to play with the controller, almost like if you played them on Wii. You also get a software that can be used to translate gestures with the air mouse into commands for Windows 7… kind of multi-touch emulation through the remote which may also be interesting for some of you. Of course you get the controller itself, which is wireless and uses two AA batteries for power and a USB stick that serves as a controller to get the commands from the air mouse to the PC wirelessly using a 2.4GHz frequency. According to Fujitsu the max communication range is 10 meters, a distance that would require you to use a big projection screen and that kind of sounds like a very fun idea to try. I’ve had no trouble with the sensitivity of up to 4-5 meters away from the PC and I haven’t tried with more as there was no point going further from the projected screen. When connected to a PC the controller acts more like a mouse, but I’ve seen some games detect it as a joystick/joypad device, so you should have that in mind.

And now back to the actual usability of the device. I’m starting with shooters, where I had to resort to my keyboard for movement and use the Air Command Plus just for aiming and shooting. And it did quite well with that task, provided that I did not have to move and rotate too much in the game, but mostly move straight and aim with not too much movement of the crosshair on the left and right. The problem comes if you have to rotate more by moving the crosshair, usually you do that with a mouse by lifting it and placing it at another position and then continuing to move it to rotate. This action however is hard to be replicated when you are holding a controller that reacts and moves with the movement of your wrist or your whole arm (depending on personal preferences). There is of course a solution that is similar to lifting your mouse and that is to press and hold a special key at the “pistol’s” handle, just below the trigger, marked as button A and then change the Air Command Pro’s position without this actually affecting the cursor position. The after that you release the button and continue to move the crosshair withing the game with your hand’s movement, it works well, but it takes some time to get used to that. So there are some specifics, it is a different and maybe a more natural way of movement, but it does not follow the way things happen in the real world when you are holding a gun, aiming it and shooting. But precisely as you don’t need to aim through the “gun controller”, you don’t actually need to see it, just follow the on-screen crosshair you can use the controller without any issues to play FPS games in stereo 3D mode as well. I should however let you know that it is more tiring as compared to using a mouse, so you will have to take breaks more often to let your hand get some rest. And as for the precision when aiming, if your hand is not shaking after drinking too much coffee or something else, then you should not have trouble getting used to playing shooters like that. Here the gyro helps you with keeping steady the mouse pointer at a fixed position when you are holding your arm steady to aim at something.

As for using the controller for racing and sports games, even air simulators… there the situation is much easier as most of your controls are translated just to the movement of the controller. Aside from sports games where you will probably (not in all of course) just swing or move the controller, holding it with a single hand, with racing and air simulators you will be holding it with both arms, so it is not as tiring. It of course takes some time to get a hand of things, don’t just expect to start NFS and be a driving pro with this controller as opposed to the keyboard. You may also need to play a bit with the sensitivity in some games of the reaction is too slow as compared to the amount of movement you are doing with the controller. What can be a bit more of a challenge and not suitable for gaming with this controller are some third person action games, or fighters or any not so traditional genres of games where a mouse would be much easier and comfortable to be used. The good thing is that there is no need for you to do something special, other than taking some time to adjust and learn to use this new method of control, it can be quite fun once you get the hang of it. And it will work equally well on both non-stereoscopic 3D games as well as when playing games in stereo 3D mode, so no worries about that. It is fun, but don’t expect that using this controller will make things out just the same like in the real world, it offers something different as a control method, but not necessarily a more realistic one, it is more like a more fun one. And I should tell you that if it gets you out from your chair or couch to play a game on a big TV or a projector, no matter if 2D or 3D, then it is really worth it ;)

- You can find more about the Fujitsu Air Command Plus mouse on the official website…

The New GeForce GTX 560 Ti is Great for Budget Stereo 3D Gaming

Bloody — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 20:45:35 +0000

Today Nvidia has officially announced another new GPU in their GTX 500 series, namely the GTX 560 Ti. The new GTX 560 Ti (Titanium is back for everyone remembering the old 4×00 series) apparently will be replacing the not so old and quite popular GTX 460 by offering better performance at pretty much the same level of power consumption and with quite silent operation even when air cooled with the stock cooling solution. What is interesting with the new GPU is that Nvidia is advertising it as very overclocker friendly, meaning that you will be able to squeeze up some more performance for free by overclocking the card and getting even better framerates. I’ve managed to take one GTX 560 Ti video card today for a quick spin after the launch as I was eager to test how well it will perform in stereo 3D mode. The cards based on the GTX 560 Ti GPUs are starting with prices of $249.99, so they seem to be a good bargain for people with tighter budget for hardware that want to be able to play games in stereo 3D mode with 3D Vision. That is if they manage to provide high enough frames per second for each eye when playing even the latest games, and from my quick test with multiple games I can say they do. So instead of considering GTX 460, now you can go for GTX 560 Ti as a great starting point for gaming in stereo 3D with a decent 23″/24″ 3D-capable LCD monitor and a pair of 3D Vision glasses. But before going to the tests, lets see what are the specifications of the new GeForce GTX 560 Ti and compare it to the ones that the GTX 460 1GB version has…

Specifications of GeForce GTX 560 Ti:

CUDA Cores – 384 ⁺⁴⁸
Graphics Clock – 822 MHz ⁺¹⁴⁷
Shader Processor Clock – 1644 MHz ⁺²⁹⁴
Texture Fill Rate – 52.6 billion/sec ^+14.8
Standard Memory Configuration – 1024 MB GDDR5
Memory Interface Width – 256-bit
Memory Clock – 2004 MHz (4008 MHz effective) ^{+204 (408)}
Memory Bandwidth – 128.2 GB/sec ⁺¹³
Texture Units (TMU) – 64 ⁺⁸
Raster Operator Units (ROP) – 32
Power connectors – 2x 6-pin PEG
Power consumption – 170W TDP ⁺¹⁰
GPU Thermal Threshold – 97 degrees Celsius ^-7

* The numbers in red and green represent the upgrade or downgrade of the specific parameter in the GTX 560 Ti as compared to the GTX 460 1GB!

And now for some testing… I went for a quick run with 12 different more recent games that work good or excellent in stereo 3D mode. I ran all of them in 1920×1080 resolution in stereoscopic 3D mode with high level of details and no Anti-Aliasing enabled in order to see if all of them will be playable. Have in mind that when in stereo 3D mode you need to have at least 25 frames per eye or total of 50 frames per second in order to get a decent experience in a game. You can see the results I’ve got in the table below, these results were achieved with a system using an 790X-based AMD motherboard, AMD Phenom II X6 T1100 processor (6-core at default frequency of 2.8 GHz), 8GB of RAM, a Geforce GTX 560 Ti video card running at stock frequencies and Windows 7 Professional 64-bit OS. The results in the table are in average frames per second for each eye achieved in each of the games…

You can see that only two out of 12 games are kind of on the edge of the comfort zone, and although you get more that 25 fps per eye in them, they are kind of on the edge. The rest of the games however provide you with around 40 to up to the full 60 frames per second limit for each eye, something that should be comfortable enough for pretty much everyone. Two things that I should note are that in Mafia II I tested with PhysX disabled and in Just Cause the GPU Water setting was disabled, other than that everything else was with the maximum detail settings and represents normal, real world gameplay. You should have in mind that these results are achieved on a non-overclocked system with the processor running at its default operating frequency of 2.8 GHz (being 6-core is not very big plus for gamers) and that the GTX 560 Ti video card was also running at default frequency…

By default the working frequency of the GTX 560 Ti GPU runs at 822 MHz, but you should easily be able to get up to about 920+ MHz with the default operating voltage and up to 1000 MHz or even more with just a slight increase in the voltage (I had not trouble reaching 1000 MHz on the GPU with 1.05V with 1.0V being the default). If you manage to provide good enough cooling of your GTX 560 Ti video card you may be able to go even higher, and that, plus about 100-150 MHz (200-300 MHz effective) increase in the operating frequency for the memory should be enough to get you an average of about 20-25% additional increase of the framerates you are getting in games, making the card even more attractive. So the new GeForce GTX 560 Ti video cards can be considered a great solution for a more budget oriented PC systems that can be used for stereoscopic 3D gaming. And you can add a second GTX 560 Ti card in SLI configuration at a later time to get even better performance, that is if you have an SLI-capable motherboard, as these new video cards should scale the performance pretty good in pairs. Of course it is not like having a single or dual GTX 580s cards in SLI where you can put everything to the max, even have a lot of AA filtering active and not worry about the performance you will get in stereo 3D mode. However not everyone can afford to get the high-end cards, and for people with more limited budget the GTX 560 Ti should still be able to provide very good performance and stereo 3D experience.

Review of the ASUS VG236HE 120Hz 3D-capable LCD Monitor

Bloody — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 16:39:13 +0000

It has been a while since I’ve tested a 3D-capable LCD monitor with the LG W2363D being the last one back in July. And now, finally, I had the ASUS VG236HE available for some time to test, so below you will find the review of the monitor and as usual my focus will be on the stereo 3D performance, although I’ll also cover some other aspects when using the monitor in plain 3D mode too. ASUS VG236HE is the version of the VG236 model that does not come with the 3D Vision glasses bundled, the other available version VG236H comes with the glasses bundled which makes the total price a bit more attractive than buying the two products alone, but the both monitors are exactly the same. So now let’s start with the ASUS VG236HE…

Asus VG236H Specifications:

Panel Size: 23″ (58.4cm) Wide Screen 16:9, TN
Native Resolution: 1920×1080 pixels
Pixel Pitch: 0.265 mm
Brightness(Max): 400 cd/m2
Contrast Ratio (Max.): 100000:1 (dynamic)
Viewing Angles (CR≧10): 170°(H) /160°(V)
Response Time: 2 ms (GtG)
Video Inputs: Dual-link DVI-D (support NVIDIA 3D Vision*), Component (YPbPr), HDMI
Power Consumption: < 60W operating, < 2W in standby
Monitor stand: tilt +15°~-5°, swivel and height adjustment
Dimension (WxHxD): 550.2x419.5x250mm
Weight: 7 kg

* Have in mind that the stereo 3D mode is only usable with a Dual-Link DVI cable and through that interface on the monitor, as neither the Component, nor the HDMI do support stereo 3D!!!

Asus VG236HE is one of the latest 120Hz 3D-capable LCD monitors compatible with Nvidia’s 3D Vision technology, but what sets it apart from all other such products is the fact that this is the first 3D-capable 120Hz LCD monitor with a glossy screen, as all others so far were with matted screens (not counting the 120Hz LCD panels used in 3D-capable laptops that are also glossy). Now this kind of reflective coating over the screen can create some reflections when darker image is being displayed and some people do not like that much, although more and more monitors in general are being made like that, but you can get used to that or just avoid it by choosing another product.

The reflections on the glossy screen are visible only when you have dark image shown on screen and you have some light coming either from the lamp in the room or from the sun outside. However following Nvidia’s recommendations you should play in stereo 3D with no external light and in a dark room for best results and in such case the glossy surface should not be an issue whatsoever. Of course you can get used to it after a while, so the occasional reflections you will see won’t bother you, but it is a matter of personal preference and it is not like you don’t have a choice of other 120Hz 3D-capable LCD monitors with a matte surface. With that said, the glossy screen has some advantages too and these are in the form of more vibrant colors you get, deeper black and brighter white as well as more sharper looking image and these do have their own appeal for the users that are Ok with the side effects in terms of the occasional reflections in some conditions. But how does the glossy screen affect the monitor when you are using it in stereo 3D, well I strongly suggest that avoid playing in S3D mode on a darker games where you have reflections on the screen as it creates a weird feeling and may lead to faster tiring for the eyes. So just keep up with the recommendations to use the monitor in a darkened room with no external lights or best experience when playing in stereo 3D mode. Another thing worth mentioning is that the Asus monitor barely has any backlight bleeding, aside from the top and bottom edges of the screen, where it is kind of expected to have a bit higher brightness.

Now let me just show you how the monitor performs in terms of input lag. I’ve compared it to the LG W2363D-PF, as this model from LG is the last Full HD 3D-capable 120Hz LCD monitor that I’ve tested and that does not have input lag when the special THRU Mode is active. I’ve used a DVI splitter cable I connected both the Asus VG236HE and the LG W2363D-PF and started testing for input lag with the LG in its THRU mode and the Asus set in its gaming mode. As you can see from the photo above, there were moments when the LG and Asus were performing the same, meaning that there was no input lag at the specific moment, unfortunately the situation was not like that all the time. The minimum input lag measured on the Asus was indeed 0 milliseconds, meaning no delay at all from the moment of receiving the image and displaying it on the screen, however the average and maximum delay was more than zero.

The maximum input lag I was able to measure was 17 milliseconds which is not that bad, but for a high-end gaming monitor with 120Hz refresh rate and intended for playing games in stereo 3D mode one would expect to have no input lag at all, right? And the average delay measured was about 8 milliseconds for the Asus as compared to the LG, that has no input lag at all or at least it is much less than one millisecond making it really insignificant and hard to measure anyway. 8 milliseconds was the average input lag measured from the sequence of over the 300 photos, taken in high-speed mode with a digital camera, of the timer you see shown on both displays. So the Asus doesn’t seem so appealing anymore for more demanding gamers, looking to use it in 2D mode with the full 120Hz refresh rate instead to play in stereo 3D mode.

Measuring the color accuracy of the display with factory settings revealed that there are some quite high deviations from the reference values of a color calibrated display. That however is to be expected as the Asus VG236HE is a high-brightness display (400 cd/m2 by specifications) and it is designed to be used for gaming in stereo 3D mode. That is why Asus probably have decided to turn up the default settings for higher brightness instead of color accuracy, as when wearing the 3D Vision active shutter glasses some of the light coming from the monitor is blocked. So instead of being optimized for use in 2D or plain 3D mode, the default settings are definitely designed for stereo 3D mode and the colorimeter has show quite high brightness level – 383 cd/m2 with the factory settings. The level of the black color measured with the factory settings was quite high at about 0.44 cd/m2, but that is to be expected with such high brightness, but still the contrast level was quite good with a ratio of 944:1.

You can however calibrate the color accuracy of the Asus VG236HE to a pretty decent levels as you can see from the image above, just compare the deviation (delta E) before and after the calibration and an average of Delta E of 1 you can say that the colors are quite good for a TN panel. However there is a side effect after the calibration and that is the fact that you need to significantly lower the brightness in order to improve the color accuracy. The maximum brightness was just 142 cd/m2, with a black point measured at 0,29 cd/m2 and a bit disappointing contrast level of just 503:1. But this was completely expected as all 120Hz 3D-capable displays are mostly designed for gaming (plain 3D and stereo 3D) and multimedia use and not for working with colors. So calibration is in order only if you need it and will not play in stereo 3D mode, but then again why would you need to buy this monitor, instead of a cheaper 60Hz model?

And now it is time for some testing of the stereo 3D capabilities of the display. I’m starting with the crosstalk (ghosting) as this is currently one of the major issues that all 3D LCD monitors have more or less trouble with. The first test is with the sailboats 3D video that I find great for testing crosstalk as it has higher separation and higher contrast and is thus prone to having more ghosting than usual videos that were shot and post-processed to minimize all possible issues. Looking at the sails of the boat you can barely see some ghosting on their left side (the photo was taken through the right lens of the shutter glasses) and that shows quite good performance in terms of crosstalk. So far things look a bit better than on the LG W2363D and the Acer GD245HQ that I’ve tested earlier this year in terms of crosstalk, it seems that Asus were able to further lower the negatives from that.

Switching to a game in stereo 3D mode and that game being Tomb Raider Underworld I’m going for further testing of the crosstalk exhibited by the Asus monitor. TRU is one of my favorite test tools for that, because the game looks and performs great in stereo 3D mode with 3D Vision, but it also has some great scenes that work perfect for checking out the level of ghosting. Of course in order to make the ghosting more visible the level of separation has to be increased quite a lot. As you can see from the photo above, the ghosting at the top of the screen is not that much as on previous monitors I’ve tested, although it is still present as expected.

The bottom of the display also reveals more ghosting then for example the center of the display, but that is also to be expected. Here the level of crosstalk is pretty much the same as on the LG and there is also some visible color ghosting and the responsibility for that goes to the OverDrive function used to drive the pixels’ response time to a lower value. This monitor does not feature an OverDrive control function that will allow you to disable and enable it at will, although disabling it in stereo 3D mode will significantly increase the level of ghosting, so there is no point for that. In 2D mode you have the “Trace Free” option that apparently can influence the OverDrive function in some way, but changing it hardly makes any visible change int he performance. The good news here for the people that are not happy with the over-sharpening of some other monitors in 2D mode is that here we don’t have that problem.

In general I can say that I’m quite satisfied with the performance of the ASUS VG236HE monitor. It shows good potential and works well enough, with further reduced crosstalk as compared to the competition. The rotating and height adjustable stand as well as the presence of component input also makes the monitor more flexible, although these are not directly related to the performance in stereo 3D mode, they just contribute to the overall picture. I was a bit disappointed from the presence of some input lag even in gaming mode, something that is not desirable for a higher-end gaming product such as this display, but is not actually that much of an issue for stereo 3D gaming for most people. The glossy surface of the screen adds in some advantages, but also comes with a disadvantage and that is the reflections that you may see, but liking that or preferring a matte screen is a matter of personal preferences and following the guidelines for best results in stereo 3D mode that shouldn’t be much of a bother anyway (ie playing in a dark room with no external light). So all in all a ASUS VG236HE is a good monitor for use with stereo 3D with both pros and cons, so whether you like it or not depends more on your personal preferences than on the performance and the results it displays.

3D Vision Blog » stereo 3d gaming

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