3D PC Gaming

[Erkki]

I just got 3D glasses for my projector a couple of days ago, moved my PC to the living room and tried out the NVIDIA 3DTV play thing (14 day trial, I'm unsure how to even buy this SOFTWARE outside of North America since their website only allows selecting from a few countries).

 

Most games didn't look good at all -- objects at wrong depth, shadows and foliage were especially weird in many cases. Also, is it only for Direct3D and not OpenGL? But some games really shined with this.

 

The first one I tried was The Witcher 2, which looked awesome. Everything seemed natural, and the 3D effect seemed to make me notice the details of close things much more than I would staring at a higher res 2D screen from up close (I ran 3D at 720p 60Hz, the other choice is 1080p 24Hz). I noticed how good many of the animations and details of the 3D objects actually are, and occasional misfits like a sword clipping through the shoulder of the guy who is holding it. In rocky areas near flotsam, the shape of the terrain was much more obvious.

 

The next one was Far Cry 2. Not as great as The Witcher, but the fact that you see parts of your body and other things that are close (cars, map etc.) besides a gun in the game makes it look awesome! Aiming with a gun, sneaking through foliage looks impressive, but the guns look even too big. And sometimes they don't mesh that well with the foliage. However, seeing where the enemies are was much more difficult, and I could not very well discern the road from the rest of the terrain. I hope this is just due to wrong brightness/contrast settings and the fact I was not projecting on a neutral surface (brown wall with a lot of texture).

 

Trine 2 was almost perfect! The way the scenes are composed (having 3D objects both in the foreground and background) makes it look very impressive! The only complaint is that the characters looked a bit blurry when moving quickly and the Steam notifications that occasionally popped up were really wrong (only appearing for the right eye, so with the left eye closed they looked normal). But generally, if you think that Trine 2 looks visually impressive in 2D, 3D makes it only more so!

 

Civilization V didn't let me pick a 720p resolution, so I went with 1080p 24Hz. This made the texts so tiny that even with my glasses on I couldn't read them. When I removed 3D glasses temporarily, I could read the text better because it was brighter/had more contrast. And the game seems to have no brightness adjustment. Generally, it looked impressive, but only when you zoom in really close. For a more strategic zoomed out view, I don't think 3D adds much to this, but I will try to play a full game in 3D when I have a proper screen.

 

That's about it for those games I tried that worked really well. Not surprisingly, 3 of these (all but FC2) are listed as "NVIDIA 3D Vision Ready" and seem to have specific support for it, so it seems it doesn't just work for any game, but the game needs to be actively developed to work with NVIDIAs somewhat confusing 3D thing.

 

Some other games that I tried that didn't work at all or were pretty bad: Minecraft (didn't work), Poker Night at The Inventory (bad), Risen 2 (bad), BioShock Infinite (didn't work), Amnesia: Machine for Pigs (didn't work), Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (bad).

 

But I'm rather impressed with it so far, maybe somewhat as my first impression was accidentally randomly a game that worked really well (Witcher 2). Anyone else have any experience with 3D gaming on the PC? I hope Valve will be doing something to make this work on the Steam OS. I guess it must also work on Linux already as NVIDIA seems to be saying that you could get this with a HTPC?

 

Side note: on the PS3, I tried Shadow of the Colossus and Ico, which were so-and-so -- occasionally really shining, but on other occasions seemingly not different from 2D at all). Auditorium HD was a complete disappointment.

[clyde]

The only 3d games I've played more than once have been Gran Turismo 5 and Zen Pinball 2 on the PS3. I've tried using Nvidia 3D vision (which is free and seems that it is different than 3D play, but I'm not sure how) but I haven't had a good experience with that. I haven't been thorough, but on PC I've tried Dirt 3 (not sure if it is working or not) and Battlefield Bad Company 2 (I didn't enjoy it). I might not be having an optimal experience because I'm using the PS3 3D display that Sony was selling a while back, and the free version of Nvidia 3D vision on a 460 SE card. I've just tried it out every once in a while for novelty.

All that said, Zen Pinball 2 on the PS3 in 3D is phenomenal. Gran Turismo 5 is novel, but Zen Pinball 2 is so good that I can't go back to playing it on the 360. When the tables are laid out in 3D, they don't appear squished and you have an intuitive sense of ball speed and how the ball will react to inclines. The most extreme examples are the Thor table and The Incredible Hulk table. Without 3D the table feels short and I hit a lot of dud-shots. With 3D, the upper playfields make a lot more sense.

I've been trying to get Pinball Arcade to work in 3D on Steam and some people have reported that it works really well. I'm not sure if it's because they are using a better display, a better card, the paid version, or if they just know what they are doing. When I try to get it working, it slows the game down 50% and there is no discernable difference. One person reported that they were able to adjust the settings so that the table comes out of the screen. That sounds cool.

Far Sight has said that Pinball Arcade on PS3 will be getting 3D support, so I'll probably end up waiting for that.

What I really want is to play these games with a consumer-ready Oculus Rift.

[Erkki]

Update: I also tried Sir You Are Being Hunted, which looked awful, and HL2: Ep 2 is so-and-so. Any water or liquid is nauseating to look at due to wrong depth or something, and when you are really close to someone, you feel that your weapon should go through them, but is just overlaid on top and looks really bizarre.

[Erkki]

Found this website that rates games based on how well they work in 3D. Some more games I think I'll be trying: Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl, Batman: Arkham City, Metro 2033, Mount & Blade, FlatOut, Just Cause 2, LIMBO

[clyde]

Ohhh. I'll try Mount & Blade.

[Erkki]

The FlatOut games are not bad in 3D. FlatOut 1 didn't seem to have any objects at wrong depth. FlatOut 2 had ridiculously elongated cars with a high depth setting, and Ultimate Carnage (a more detailed remake of FO2) had some minor things at wrong depth.

I think the initial wow effect is wearing off though. In mid-game I tried switching the 3D on and off and at some point I wasn't sure whether I was in 3D or not. FlatOuts do look a bit more cool in 3D occasionally, but most of the time it doesn't seem to matter a lot. In 3D I find it easier to notice various superficial details, such as the interior of a car.

I still have to try some more types of games, but so far my impression is that 3D is more than a gimmick in games where most of the important details or effects are near screen depth or closer. Trine (2), The Witcher 2, MotorStorm: Apocalypse and Super Stardust HD are great examples where I really enjoy 3D. In MotorStorm you obviously need to look deeper into the scenes to know when to turn, but a lot of the action and various effects happen close to screen.

Games where you look towards the horizon a lot don't seem to gain that much as the 3D effect gets lost the deeper into the screen a thing is. FlatOuts have so many fewer goings on near screen depth that most of the time you might as well be playing in 2D. Far Cry 2 has some close to screen things going on, but I just couldn't get the brightness/contrast right (active glasses make everything much darker) so I gave up on playing it in 3D for now.

I have high hopes for Batman: Arkham Something, as it should be similar to The Witcher 2 in how close/far to the screen the focus of the action is.

[Erkki]

Argh, complications. Even though the Batman games are officially "NVIDIA 3D Vision Ready" or something, I am getting the feeling that "3D Vision" doesn't quite cover the "3DTV Play" thing 100%. Because I just couldn't get Batman: Arkham City to run in 3D mode: the only display modes that work in 3D on my system are 1920x1080@24Hz and 1280x720@60Hz. Batman just picks 60Hz and 120Hz respectively for those resolutions, no matter what min/max values are in the .ini files. I suppose I should report this problem to NVIDIA, but might be too much hassle as I never intended to replay the whole game in 3D, just wanted to check it out.

 

On a more positive note, Far Cry 2 is much better now that I have a proper screen! The contrast and brightness feel more like they should now.

 

And a bit less positive, Miasmata somewhat works in 3D! The terrain, buildings, plants, hands and so on are all fine, but some objects are at wrong depth. Looking at the water's edge is awful, as most of the depth problems appear there, and since there's a lot of water in this game, I'm not sure it's really playable.