Oil Rush is pretty much the first real commercially available game based on the impressive Unigine engine that has up until recently been used mostly for benchmarking video cards using the very popular Heaven benchmark. The game has been developed by the makers of the Unigine engine itself, and since the more recent versions of the engine have official stereoscopic 3D support, the game also supports it. Oil Rush is a real-time naval strategy game based on group control that combines the strategic challenge of a classical RTS title with the fun of Tower Defence type of games provide in a vast water world with very nice and detailed graphics. The game is multiplatform, so it is not available only for Windows, but the most stereoscopic 3D features are supported in the Windows version, including support for 3D Vision. Oil Rush is a game that you may want to try playing in stereo 3D mode as it does work very well.
Oil Rush Supports DX9, DX10, DX11 and OpenGL rendering modes in the Windows version that I’ve tried. With the OpenGL support for stereo 3D being limited to only anaglyph mode, while in all DirectX modes you get full support for anaglyph, Side by Side, iZ3D monitors as well as 3D Vision. Have in mind that you will need to activate Vsync in order to be able to use the game in stereo 3D mode with 3D Vision. There is no official 3D Vision profile for the game available in the latest video drivers, even in the latest beta released just a few days ago, but activating the 3D Vision mode from the game launcher does produce very good results in stereo 3D mode. You can also run the game with disabled stereo 3D mode and then activate 3D Vision when the game loads, but then you may experience some issues with setting up the best parameters for playing the game comfortably and also have some visual artifacts.
Activating the 3D Vision mode from the game’s launcher apparently loads different settings and also disables the convergence adjustment, but there is also a stereo 3D effect slider in the game’s options menu. With the 3D Vision mode active and all the depth pushed to the maximum the game still looks a bit flat, especially for people that are used to play with a lot of depth. But as I’ve said not activating the 3D Vision mode from the game menu and forcing it directly inside the game, although leaves convergence adjustment unlocked and allows higher depth adjustment, may lead to having some visual issues and thus resulting in not so good experience, so you may be better off with the official 3D Vision mode activated and a bit flatter image. With the official 3D Vision mode activated from the launcher you will notice that the cursor is rendered in 2D at the screen depth, but that isn’t that much of a bother actually, and most of the HUD is also rendered at screen depth, although there are some elements that may slightly pop-out and that can create unpleasant feeling when moving the cursor over them. Other than that there aren’t any visual issues with the game running in stereo 3D mode with the 3D Vision option activated from the game launcher, so it is something that you may wish to try yourself and if you do you are welcome to share your feedback about the game below. The good thing is that the game developer is quite actively working on improving the stereo 3D support in the game and getting rid of the issues…
Update: Apparently the game runs directly without going trough the launcher pictured above for the Steam version, so if you’ve got the Steam and not the standalone version of the game, then try running it trough the “launcher_x86.bat” file located in “C:\program files (x86)\steam\steamapps\common\oil rush\”, instead of directly trough Steam. Also the game developer has announced in their official forum that they plan to address the stereo 3D issues in the next 1.03 update that should be available next week.
The Polynomial is an interesting indie game that can be classified as some sort of music shooter game, but instead of traditional graphics the game uses fractals generated in sync with the music you listen to while you play. Who said that mathematics cannot be beautiful, because thanks to it the game looks original and different every time you play it. The Polynomial is not very demanding in terms of hardware requirements and although is may feel a bit strange getting the hang of playing it at first, the game is a visual feast that can be quite fun to play for a while, if you like it…
The Polynomial is an indie game, based on OpenGL and available for Windows, Mac and Linux. It also has native stereoscopic 3D support, however since it is OpenGL-based unfortunately you are not going to be able to play it in stereo 3D mode using 3D Vision. The game supports Anaglyph red-cyan 3D mode, Row-interleaved, Column-interleaved, DLP Checkerboard pattern as well as Side by Side mode, although the SbS isn’t working that good as it does not have the left and right eye image squeezed, but instead shows them with their full size. The game has a free demo version available with a limited number of levels, but you are still able to try it out in stereo 3D mode if you are interested.
Do you want a new good game that works well in stereo 3D mode with 3D Vision, well then you should forget about the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 game is it does not play well in stereo 3D mode. And apparently we’ll have to wait a bit more for the proper stereoscopic 3D support to be added with a patch for the latest Battlefield 3 game. And the release of the PC version of the new Batman: Arkham City game that should look wonderful in stereoscopic 3D mode was yet again delayed, this time for 22nd – 25th of November (depending on your location). So what can you play meanwhile that will look good in stereo 3D mode on 3D Vision? You should definitely check out the new PC version of the game L.A. Noire: The Complete Edition that just got released as it looks very nice in stereoscopic 3D mode as the game has official support for 3D Vision. But the console versions of the game apparently will not have support for 3D and they should be released in a few days on November 15th.
The PC version of L.A. Noire: The Complete Edition was developed by Rockstar Leeds and features increased resolution and graphical detail along with keyboard remapping and gamepad functionality. L.A. Noire: The Complete Edition on PC also features support for NVIDIA 3D Vision for an even greater sense of interaction and immersion.
There are already some screenshots in stereoscopic 3D format already available here on the 3D Vision Live portal that you can see. Also there is something very important regarding the proper support for the game by 3D Vision at the moment, as the latest official Nvidia video drivers version 285.62 do not properly recognize the game. You will have to manually make a 3D Vision profile for it with the correct settings and use it for a few days as Nvidia should very soon release a driver update to correct this issue. So here is what you need to do to be able to fully enjoy the L.A. Noire: The Complete Edition game in stereo 3D with 3D Vision at this very moment:
- Browse to NVIDIA Control Panel > Set up Stereoscopic 3D.
- Click “Set Keyboard Shortcuts”.
- Click arrow to “Show advanced in-game settings” and click checkbox to “Enable advanced in-game settings”. Remember your hotkeys.
- Start L.A. Noire.
- Change the default convergence up or down (doesn’t matter) and then press the button to save the Save in-game settings and make sure you see the green text on screen.
- Quit L.A. Noire.
- Open Regedit.
- Browse to these locations:
— For Windows 32-bit: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\Stereo3D\GameConfigs
— For Windows 64-bit: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\Stereo3D\GameConfigs
- Check to see if there is an Entry for “LANoire”.
- In the LANoire folder, create the following registry entries:
— D-word (32-bit), StereoConvergence=3eac4a51
— D-word (32-bit), StereoTextureEnable=00000023
— D-word (32-bit), StereoCutoff=00000001
- Re-launch L.A. Noire and you now are matching our 3DV profile. The in-game text still say its not rated by NVIDIA, but don’t worry about that.
