New glasses will help you play Crysis in 3D
At the Consumer Electronics Show 2009 in Las Vegas, NVIDIA followed its new flagship desktop GPUs and notebook GPU releases and its recent Ion platform release, with a new product which aims to bring movie-quality stereo 3D similar to that found in IMAX theaters, to the home environment.
NVIDIA announced its GeForce 3D Vision glasses, which will retail for $199. Over 300 games will be support at the time of release, with many more being added. NVIDIA has worked with game developers to provide tweaked and improved 3D for many of these titles.
The glasses operate based on shuttering method. They can be used exclusively with 120 Hz monitors, and NVIDIA suggests only using them with an 8800 GT or higher. To use the glasses, you first install a special driver. Using the glasses driver, which patches the current NVIDIA drivers to add 3D support you can then play games in 3D. The drivers to include a significant performance hit of about 30 percent. However this is better than NVIDIA's early efforts, which decreased performance 50 percent or more.
The glasses communicate with your PC via infrared at up to a 20 ft range. They alternate shuttering the left and right lenses, effectively cutting the 120 Hz refresh rate into a 60 Hz rate for each eye. While the basic stereo technology driving the glasses has long been around, NVIDIA has delivered some nice tweaks, like a 40 hour battery life on a single charge. The glasses recharge via a mini USB connection.
Some games have so-called "depth effects" like Left For Dead, but other games like World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King deliver so-called "out of the screen" effects, which are even more eye catching, but harder to implement. In the WoW rendition, a dragon will appear to fly out of the screen at the gamer.
The glasses are relatively lightweight, weighing only 50 g. They fit comfortably over most glasses, as well.
DailyTech took an opportunity to meet with NVIDIA and try out the glasses first hand. Several games were played, and the early results were cautiously optimistic. While the glasses are nothing astounding, they do deliver arguably a better 3D experience than even IMAX, and characters and enemies in some games will really look 3D. While not for everyone, some gaming enthusiast may enjoy the experience these glasses provide.
NVIDIA has a list of certified monitor partners, whose 120 Hz displays are guaranteed to work with the glasses. NVIDIA reps say that other uncertified true 120 Hz displays "should work", but that "there's no guarantees (without certification)."
