Over the past week or so I’ve had the privilege of testing two stereoscopic 3D gaming solutions from graphics heavyweight nVidia and a relatively new entrant to the graphics game, iZ3D.

“So what is stereoscopic 3D gaming?”, you might ask. Basically it’s a driver that allows your graphics card(s) to render two views of the same 3D image and display them on your monitor in a way that only the right eye can see the “right” image and only the left eye can see the “left” image.  This produces a 3D effect that gives the game real depth instead of just rendering a 2D picture of a 3D thing.

The first thing to get out of the way is that in my opinion, neither technology is perfect. My first attempts with the iZ3D monitor resulted in game crashes, and the polarizing filters on the panels (yep, the iZ3D monitor uses TWO panels in one monitor to draw a left and right image) and the nVidia one gives me a splitting headache after a few minutes(but there are others in the office who can use it for hours without this issue).

We’ll be covering these on NCIX Tech Tips shortly, so I don’t want to ruin everything, but here’s a rough summary of each approach

iZ3D:
- Uses glasses that won’t have the nerd police banging at your door when you’re eating Cheetos ™ and playing World of Warcraft ™ at 2am.
- Is video card agnostic, but doesn’t allow the use of multiple video cards
- Requires a specific iZ3D monitor that leaves a lot to be desired for 2D
- Allows others to view 3D with you on t3h cheap. The 22″ monitor itself comes with 2 sets of glasses and one set of clip-ons
- 3D effect seems to be less sharp than the nVidia solution, more image separation. The right eye image is often visible to the left eye and vice versa, especially for high contrast scene
- With recent price drops the whole solution is less than $500 which gives it a significant price advantage over the competing nVidia glasses & Samsung monitor.

nVidia:
- Uses incredibly obnoxious looking glasses to achieve the effect
- Produces a flickering pattern in your peripheral vision that is distracting if you are sensitive to it
- Can be used with any 120Hz (input AND output) DLP or LCD display. While there are very few right now, this will be a definite advantage in the future.
- Active shutter glasses are excellent (they better be for $250…) and allow very little light to pass through, but some ghosting is still visible. Far less distracting than the iZ3D in my testing.
- A relatively expensive solution right now at over $600 for the monitor and glasses, but expect that to change as the panels get cheaper
- Has the advantage of using a good quality 120Hz LCD that is EXCELLENT for 2D as well as 3D. I forgot how much smoother mouse movement was at 60Hz. I’ve been using LCD for a long time.
- Works with SLI, which is a big deal because Stereovision is much more demanding on your video card than traditional 2D rendering of the 3D scenes.

Both:
- Rely on driver support from the manufacturer to make sure the games work

Actually that last point is the most important thing. It comes down to who is best equipped to optimize games for their tech. I tested both with Rome: Total War which is quite an old title at this point. iZ3D claims their drivers should work with any game (with some requiring minor tweaks), while nVidia has a full list of supported titles (and assume new ones coming out will be supported through the TWIMTBP program) on their web site. Neither listed support for Rome: Total War, but both worked with it quite well. I can’t find any evidence iZ3D has actually tested the title, but it worked nonetheless, while nVidia actually had a profile present that recommended not using 3D Vision on R:TW due to the extensive use of 2D “cheats” in the game (like the sky and other objects) by the game programmers. That means nVidia actually tested this ancient title despite the fact that it’s not even present in their list.

Well this definitely isn’t everything I wanted to say about these techs, and I still have some more testing to do, but despite the headaches, right now the nVidia solution gets the nod from me. I’ll be working with iZ3D to find out if there’s something wrong with my panel that’s causing the polarization to be so poor, and I will update with more information as I come across it. Here’s me sporting some 3D glasses:

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