Hands On: Nvidia 3D Vision Surround

Posted 07/02/2010 at 11:55am | by Alan Fackler

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Leaps and bounds have been made in the world of 3D gaming over the last year, and Nvidia looks to continue pushing forward with the release of their new driver on Tuesday.  The GeForce 3D vision system managed to impress even the most stalwart of our 3D naysayers (cough, Gordon, cough) and somehow, once again, Nvidia has pushed the envelope with their new open-source driver, 258.69.  What can this updated driver do for your 3D gaming experience?  Display it across three screens, of course! 

Necessary?  Not really.  

Awesome?  You bet your ass.  

In this photo:  A happy nerd.  

We decided to sit down and give Nvidia's 3D Vision Surround gaming the hands-on treatment, and came away thouroughly impressed.  

Setting up the drivers was relatively straightforward, although we learned an invauable lesson while rigging the display panels:  they have to be identical screens.  Initially we only had two Acer 23.6-inch, 120Hz 3D-capable panels, and a single 22-inch  Samsung 3D panel. To put it simply, that just didn't work. (Cross branding aside, the Samsung doesn't deliver 1920X1080 resolution natively--all thrree screens must be set to the same resolution).  

Bummed but not detered, we got our hands on a third Acer panel the very next day, grabbed a fistful of gaming titles--Just Cause 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Metro 2033, World of Warcraft--flung on our lady-repelling 3D glasses, knocked our resolution settings up to a whopping 5760X1080 output, and booted up.  

In the words of one Will Ferrel: Holy Santa Claus Shit. It worked fantastically. All of the staple 3D effects we've come to know and love shined even more so when displayed widely accross the three panels.  The particle effects in games like Metro 2033 and Just Cause 2 (still our favorite 3D game) were breathtaking; smoke and dust in Metro 2033 hung lightly in the immediate forefront of our cornias, adding a great deal of depth to the surrounding environment. Just Cause 2's snowy environment looked astounding in 3D, with beautifully rendered flakes of snow falling gently at and away from you, flowing off to the surrounding screens. And there's just something sacred about being covered in 3D Boomer vomit in Left for Dead 2; a game that utilizes the 3D effects in a way that made us jump back from the screens more than once. The additional panels don't so much add to the 3D effect, they add immersion to gameplay, which is equally as important.   

Aesthetics aside, the addition of two screens could give competitive gamers more of an edge, particularly in online first person shooters like Team Fortress 2 or Modern Warfare 2, where spotting threats even peripherally could be the difference between life and death.  We can't really gauge how much of an advantage three screens could bring about, but one things for damn sure:  Three monitors is better than one.  

All of the games ran without a hitch, with Just Cause 2 running at 32 fps.  This is a particularly impressive frame rate considering that the game actually has to render every frame twice to achieve the three dimensional effect.  Needless to say, you're going to need some pretty strong hardware to be able to keep framerates smooth, but more on that later.

We did have to make a few tweaks in order to optimize our gaming experience. The new drivers attempt to compensate for the bezel space in the panels, and does so pretty well for the most part.  We did, however, notice some warping (made much more noticable when looking at character models, rather than environments) between the panels which was easily fixed by tucking the surrounding monitors slightly behind the center panel. Also, it's important to note that even a slight change in monitor height has a pretty adverse affect on the overall image spread, so adjusting your screens accordingly becomes pretty important.  

It can all be a little overwhelming at first--three screens is a lot to look at when you're focused on gaming--but there are a couple of things you can do to help your eyes make the transition: 

Step 1: Step back. Seriously, if you're used to being up close and personal with your LCD panel, you're in for a headache.  We had to set our rig up in the confines of a cubicle in PC Gamer's office. Our lab is stuffed to the brim with products we'll be featuring in our upcoming Maximum Tech issue that we had to take what we could get. Ultimately, the farther back you sit, the easier it is to take it all in, and the higher you can crank your 3D Vision dongle. 

Step 2:  Be mindful of your 3D Vision dongle.  It may seem practical to crank the 3D settings to their maximum output all the time, but if you're sitting relatively close to the screen, it's much more practical (and easier on the eyes) to dial down the effect a little bit.  We tried sitting in as many different positions as possible (which isn't saying much in the confines of a cubicle) and found viable 3D settings for pretty much all locations. Just remember in this case, more is not always better.  Cranking up the 3D if you're sitting inches from your screen was eloquently described by online managing editor Alex Castle as "too damn 3D".  

As cool as all this is, if you're looking at jumping into multi-panel 3D gaming tomorrow, you're going to need to make some pretty big purchases today.  Aside from the 3D Vision kit (glasses and dongle), you'll need dual Nvidia GPUs running in SLI.  For peak performance we definitely recommend running the GTX 400 series, though the 200 series can be used in conjunction with the new driver as well.  And again, as we learned the hard way, you'll need three 3D-compatible displays, all of which must be the same make and model).  

Overall, this new driver really has us excited for what's to come.  It seems, this time anyway, that 3D is emerging as a viable platform in gaming that could revolutionize how we play our favorite titles.  But, like so many 3D-crazed movies, we're sure we'll be seeing a huge difference in quality of games that were designed for 3D, and games that have it tacked on as an afterthought.  It'll be up to game developers to come up with new and innovative approaches to this new and exciting medium, but for now, we're happy with the progress we're seeing from ATI and Nvidia, and are excited as ever to continue forward on our journey into the third dimension.