3D

[Patters]

I think I'll wait just because it seems that there's more to adding 3D to a game than just flipping a switch. Since you'll have to be able to render at twice the frame rate, there'll be compromises in quality. How this plays out depends on how hard Sony (and maybe Microsoft at some point) will push and support developers. Currently they seem happy with having announced a couple of titles, which may mean most games won't really support it, which makes owning the 3D part of a 3D TV a waste.

If you want 3D gaming Nvidia 3D vision seems to be a good bet, though you'd have to get an nvidia card 3D kit and 120Hz monitor.

[toblix]

If you want 3D gaming Nvidia 3D vision seems to be a good bet, though you'd have to get an nvidia card 3D kit and 120Hz monitor.

Yeah, my experiences with 3D gaming on the PC have been bad; all sorts of compatibility issues and bugs with it being provided externally, through the drivers, rather than from the game itself. This may have changed recently, though?

[Patters]

Yeah, my experiences with 3D gaming on the PC have been bad; all sorts of compatibility issues and bugs with it being provided externally, through the drivers, rather than from the game itself. This may have changed recently, though?

I haven't played any PC games (or any games) in 3D, the effect makes me motion sick. It seems that there are being more steps to make native 3D PC games, Civ V apparently has some cool 3D features such as the UI standing out above everything, Crysis 2 seems to be going for the big 3D game (on 360, PC and PS3). Again I'm not a fan of 3D, a lot of the figures companies are putting out are complete shit, HDTV isn't standard yet so why would we upgrade again?

The 3DS seems to be the best step to a successful 3D future (holograms) in a way which everyone can enjoy it by making the 3D effect changeable. There are a few theories that Sony have pushed out 3D TV early due to massive loss, which would be the second time this decade they have been part of an unfinished format being launched (Blu-ray).

My major gripe with 3D as an entity would be that those with sight problems of certain capacity cannot partake. Gamers have often had various disabilities rendering them normally unable to play games; there are a variety of controllers available to those who can only use one hand for whatever reason. Accessibility is becoming less and less of a priority which is one reason I'm not the greatest fan of kinect and move, I saw the latter in HMV today and there was a lot of wii waggling.

One could say that prosthetics are becoming more advanced, but the tech for these inputs is accelerating past them, leaving behind a minority. I don't like this at all. I play games and talk about games with people from all over the world, with people with various disabilities, people who like very different music to me, people older/younger than me; I don't want to leave anyone behind without good reason. I know with a lot of you being from mainland Europe your native tongue is not English, again this is something that you have overcome to be able to play more games (watch more movies, read more books, etc); which I respect you greatly for. If you had one eye (major case) and a bunch your friends were going to see a 3D movie, you would have to sit out, which is not fair.

end angry tangent.

[syntheticgerbil]

Can we stop assuming these things cost more than anyone could possibly ever afford now?

I think they were saying the glassesless ones were more than anyone could afford.

Either way, I don't see myself adopting this crap ever even if it somehow becomes affordable for me just because of the glasses issue. I know some people on tech and movie sites say you're just bitching if you hate wearing the glasses, but I seriously can't stand it. In theatres it becomes uncomfortable after 40 minutes, and I play games for hours on end. I don't wear glasses normally because I have good eyesight and I hate stuff like that on my face too long, sunglasses included, also sometimes I get sort of nauseas on certain tracking shots, pans, and zooms in 3D movies. No way that would be fun for me I would think.

I got rid of the CRT TV from the 70s given as a gift finally and splurged on an LCD TV for convenience, space saving, things look much better, and it's good for games (along with having a crazy load of ports in the back). The glasses 3D TV honestly detracts convenience for me.

[Irishjohn]

I got rid of the CRT TV from the 70s given as a gift finally and splurged on an LCD TV for convenience, space saving, things look much better, and it's good for games (along with having a crazy load of ports in the back). The glasses 3D TV honestly detracts convenience for me.

Yeah, I recently opted to watch cinematic classic-to-be Resident Evil: Afterlife in 2D because I didn't see why I should pay an extra four dollars to watch a movie at three o'clock in the bloody afternoon.

3D televisions are good news for people who don't care about 3D because the "regular" 2D televisions will continue to drop in price while the manufacturers try and drain money out of this imaginary market of people who make six figures and are frustrated with the lack of 3D in their living room.

Also, I couldn't give a crap about 3D in games, except for the UI thing, which sounds cool, but can't justify the expense or the inconvenience of wearing big stupid glasses over my actual prescription glasses.

[kashwashwa]

Yeah, my experiences with 3D gaming on the PC have been bad; all sorts of compatibility issues and bugs with it being provided externally, through the drivers, rather than from the game itself. This may have changed recently, though?

I used nvidia's 3D vision for about a year. The 3D is handled by the drivers, but I didn't run into many issues. Some games looked pretty wonky (2D interface on a 3D game never worked, unless the developers had 3D in mind).

Overall I had a very good experience with it though. I ended up parting with my video card and glasses because I wanted to go with an Eyefinity setup instead.

(Speaking of which, if someone wants to buy my 120hz monitor - it's on the market)

[Kolzig]

I have never understood 3D.

I hate using the heavy glasses on my nose. They don't seem to fit at all even though I've used normal glasses for almost my whole life.

It feels just like gimmick, especially at home. The 3DS is interesting because there you can at least turn it off and choose not to use it if you don't want to and you don't need to use those damn glasses in any case if you do want to try the 3D.

I tried using twice a 3D tv, glasses and PS3 to play some racing game at a Bic Camera store in Yokohama and I got a headache both times after just 30 seconds of playing. I'd never pay over a thousand euros for a tv anyway anymore, I'm already enough pissed that I wasted 970 euros on a 32" Samsung 2,5 years ago that doesn't even change the channes without waiting 5-10 seconds.

Also I was stupid enough not to return it to the shop in time so I could get my money back.

To derail the thread even more when I called Samsung about the tv, they said that it's not a error or problem that the channel changer and EPG sucks, it's "a feature".

[Thompson]

I'm not a fan of 3D, but i'm certainly a hypocrite.

Those aren't actually my 3D glasses, that's not even my house although it is me.

[syntheticgerbil]

3D televisions are good news for people who don't care about 3D because the "regular" 2D televisions will continue to drop in price while the manufacturers try and drain money out of this imaginary market of people who make six figures and are frustrated with the lack of 3D in their living room.

Oooo, that's a brilliant way to look at it. I'm going to focus on that viewpoint, because it only means regular LCD screens will become more affordable. Maybe at some point I'll get a small one to replace the other CRT TV. Dealing with the old style chunky heavy body plus the coax only input is never fun!

It feels just like gimmick, especially at home. The 3DS is interesting because there you can at least turn it off and choose not to use it if you don't want to and you don't need to use those damn glasses in any case if you do want to try the 3D.

I tried using twice a 3D tv, glasses and PS3 to play some racing game at a Bic Camera store in Yokohama and I got a headache both times after just 30 seconds of playing. I'd never pay over a thousand euros for a tv anyway anymore, I'm already enough pissed that I wasted 970 euros on a 32" Samsung 2,5 years ago that doesn't even change the channes without waiting 5-10 seconds.

In a way, even though it's just the obnoxious butt of every game joke ever at this point, the Virtual Boy seems especially relevant to this discussion to me. It's like Nintendo learned from the mistakes made with the system and has made something completely likable in turn this time. The only thing that's annoying to me about the 3DS is that I was ready to finally upgrade my chunky gray oldstyle DS to a DSi XL, but now I would be better off waiting until the 3DS comes out.

Either way, the 3DS will most likely not be super expensive, and I can even then imagine I will be sliding the games to 2D sometimes just so I don't feel the kind of sickness you feel when playing 30 seconds on a 3D TV.

I know most people who make fun of Virtual Boys have never even used one, but I have one myself with a few games, and it can get exhausting, although maybe not make you completely nauseous. When they put the "take regular breaks during play" and "don't play longer than 45 minutes" warnings at the beginning of Virtual Boy games, it is one time where Nintendo is not kidding about their precautions. It probably won't cause any permanent damage, but the Virtual Boy does not lend itself well to prolonged play without just feeling fatigue or some kind of grossness. To be fair, the red and black graphics could have a lot to do with that as well. It only makes games like Mario Clash that don't save a nightmare.

[Lama Himself]

If you are interested in buying a 3D TV set, there is the Samsung TV:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-LE40C750-Widescreen-Allshare-Internet/dp/B003JEVQRK/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1285061420&sr=8-3

The price is reasonable (less than 1000 €$) and overall the TV is good. However the stereoscopic 3D is not the best in town because of the strong ghosting. Because of light leakage, your left eye sees a bit of the picture intended for the right eye. All Tv seems to have this effect. On the Samsung one, it's very visible. After few minutes you get used to it but it can be very visible with very contrasted pictures.

For the sickness due to the 3D, usually this go away after some time watching some 3D content. Some muscle in your eye are solicited more than usual so it gets better over time as these muscles get stronger. But it can be also due to bad 3D content.

Right now on PS3 there is not much 3D game. There is game like wipeout and super stardust. It's nice to play them in 3D but Wipeout is kind of terrible example on how to not make a good 3D game. Pain is only partly in 3D, it's really just a curiosity. In fact the best game at the moment is Motorstorm 3D Rift; it's far from perfect but the game have some really nice 3D moments (some jumps are great).

But SotC and Ico will have the same problem than the other PS3 games compatible with 3D: They were not made for 3D (make a good stereoscopic game is more than thinking how the game could be in 3D, it's very difficult).

I can predict that Ico will probably looks better in 3D than SotC because of the number of indoor scenes and with some interesting camera moves. SotC will probably not be as impressive. The landscapes are too big (which weirdly enough doesn't work so great in 3D if there is not enough layered objects). It's also a third person game which would probably give less good moments. But still I'm very curious to try some scenes like the bridge one or the flying dragon...

[Donk]

I've tried lots of different implementations of 3D, paper glasses against monitor, those expensive glasses, vr goggles, no glasses with special monitor. None of it is "there" really if you factor in costs. If you have money to burn then you could get a decent setup I guess.

[Salacious Snake]

I think I'll wait just because it seems that there's more to adding 3D to a game than just flipping a switch. Since you'll have to be able to render at twice the frame rate, there'll be compromises in quality.

There is a performance hit, but you don't need twice the framerate. That's a common misconception. For a system with shutter glasses, you want about twice the usual refresh rate on the monitor, but that doesn't mean Quake needs to be running at 120 fps or whatever.

I've been playing games in 3D on the PC for years (via shutters, a dual LCD head-mounted display and a monitor that uses polarization) and console games before that (SegaScope 3D, Virtual Boy). I think it's neat, but I never recommend it to others, because it's a pain in the ass and probably not worth the effort if you're not crazy like me.

3D gaming with the PS3 is relatively painless in terms of setup, but we'll see how the game support goes. I've played Motorstorm Apocalpyse, Tron Evolution, Gran Turismo 5 and Killzone 3 in 3D, and they were all pretty nifty.

Crosstalk (each eye seeing things that are supposed to be reserved for the other) is still a problem with shutters, and I think a lot of people are going to be really turned off by that. All in all, I don't think this shit's ready for primetime, but certain parties are trying to force it.

If you're getting a new TV anyway, you may as well get one that does 3D, since that's becoming standard (and doesn't really add to the cost), and get a pair of glasses so you can see what the hubbub is about. It's neat, but it's not going to revolutionize your game experience.

The 3DS is going to be awesome as fuck though.

[Lama Himself]

There is a performance hit, but you don't need twice the framerate. That's a common misconception. For a system with shutter glasses, you want about twice the usual refresh rate on the monitor, but that doesn't mean Quake needs to be running at 120 fps or whatever.

You don't need twice the framerate, you just need to render 2 frames instead of one which is nearly the same (and basicaly what toblix said). OK you don't need to recalculate the whole scene again, it's just the same snapshot of the world but from a different perspective. You also don't need to draw the same surface. But overall the performance is an issue.

Recently somebody of Sony said that it was not a problem. If the game feature a 2 player splitscreen mode, it could display 3D without performance hit. Too bad that PS3 games feature a splitscreen are difficult to find. I just guess that doing splitscreen is also a pain in the ass.

[Salacious Snake]

Oh, I don't mean to underplay the significance of the performance issue. Significant sacrifices must be made to keep thing running smoothly when you're doing stereoscopy. I've just seen a lot of people make the assumption that it'll cut your performance in half, (which at a glance makes sense intuitively), while in practice it's not quite that bad.

Killzone 3 has noticeably lower fidelity in 3D mode than in standard 2D in order to keep things running nicely.