3D Gaming

BUZZIN_NICE

BUZZIN_NICE

BUZZIN_NICE

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Joined
8 Feb 2011
Posts
284
Recieved my Alienware 2310 and nvidia 3d vision kit arrive yesterday and after setting it up... WOW, just WOW!

tried to test a few games and find out what works well and what doesnt work well. Overall I am simply amazed from what 3d brings, its feel like a whole new level to me.

Good:

Test Drive Unlimited 2 = Amazing (max depth setting)

Fifa 11 = Amazing (min depth setting)

Battlefield BC2 = Good but worse than expected (min depth setting)

mass effect 2 = Good but need to alter setting, ie shadows etc (min depth)

Trine = Excellent (thanks to ewarwoowar)

Starcraft 2 = Very Good (thanks to Hank Marvin)

Witcher 2 = Quite Good (thanks to Cat_In_Pyjamas)

Crysis 2 = excellent (lower depth than normal but no ghosting and everything on screen has correct depth levels - HUD included. No setting up needed (thanks to Chevens)

Dragon Age 1 = excellent, just play with convergence to get comfortable effect for your level of camera zoom. (thanks to Chevens)

Left 4 dead = epic, however some glitches around water (wrong depth) (thanks to Chevens)

Just Cause = very good, just get the right depth. (thanks to Chevens)

Mafia II = epic

Witcher 1 = fantastic (thanks to Doggie2k)


Fixable:

Dirt 2 -= fixable (thanks to topdog@OC)

Deadspace = fixable (thanks to topdog@OC)

Mirrors Edge = fixable (thanks to topdog@OC)

Batman AA = fixable (thanks to topdog@OC)

Everquest = fixable (thanks to topdog@OC)

DCS:A10C = fixable (thanks to topdog@OC)


Pants:

Shift 2 = pants

Crysis 1 = pants (thanks to topdog@OC)

Crysis Warhead = pants (thanks to topdog@OC)

Assassins Creed: Brotherhood = pants (thanks to topdog@OC)


I am interested to find out what else works well and what doesnt.

Please give your experiences of games and your setting so we can try and compile a 'must try' 3d list and it would be nice if we could share our experiences.

regards,


buzzin
 
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Dirt 2 is fixable, locate your equivalent of this file:

C:\Users\Topdog\Documents\My Games\DiRT2\hardwaresettings\hardware_settings_config.xml

Change these entries to match:

<directx forcedx9="true" />

<dynamic_ambient_occ enabled="false" quality="0" />

I may also be setting dirt/dust particles down a bit as they are rendered at screen depth - not a problem under most circumstances but when you get caught up in traffic (and clouds of dust) it's bewildering.

A damn good blast once you fix the shadowing and image burning issues with the XML changes though.

Oh - you also should set your convergence properly. In the nvidia control panel, enable the advanced hotkeys for 3d vision, then in-game and in-car, press and hold either ctrl+f5 or ctrl+f6 to force the view of the steering wheel and dash/pedals area to display correctly. The range of these hotkeys is several seconds, don't be surprised if with a few taps or a couple of seconds holding the keys, no changes seem to occur, soon enough the image will warp and adjust and you kind of want the sweet spot for you just prior to that taking place (so I usually over-do it, then under-do it to the desired level). Once happy with it, ctrl+f7 to save.

I've also gone with the advice to generally have the 3d vision depth to around 1/3 of the bar (30-40% is the general recommendation).
 
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Meekal said:
don't think i'd enjoy the gaming as much with a big silly headset on lol
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by headset i presume you mean glasses?

you may think that headsets are silly and are a pain, and 3d is probably not for everyone. however, i'd suggest actually trying it before making assumptions as you might be suprised just like i was.

in my opinion the glasses are soon forgotten about when you become emerged into the games, and i have never been so emerged in any game as i am now.

if 3d glasses are really not your cup of tea, fine, but what can you possibly add to a 3d thread asking for positive feedbacks and personal experiences?
 
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topdog@OC said:
Dirt 2 is fixable, locate your equivalent of this file:

C:\Users\Topdog\Documents\My Games\DiRT2\hardwaresettings\hardware_settings_config.xml

Change these entries to match:

<directx forcedx9="true" />

<dynamic_ambient_occ enabled="false" quality="0" />

I may also be setting dirt/dust particles down a bit as they are rendered at screen depth - not a problem under most circumstances but when you get caught up in traffic (and clouds of dust) it's bewildering.

A damn good blast once you fix the shadowing and image burning issues with the XML changes though.

Oh - you also should set your convergence properly. In the nvidia control panel, enable the advanced hotkeys for 3d vision, then in-game and in-car, press and hold either ctrl+f5 or ctrl+f6 to force the view of the steering wheel and dash/pedals area to display correctly. The range of these hotkeys is several seconds, don't be surprised if with a few taps or a couple of seconds holding the keys, no changes seem to occur, soon enough the image will warp and adjust and you kind of want the sweet spot for you just prior to that taking place (so I usually over-do it, then under-do it to the desired level). Once happy with it, ctrl+f7 to save.

I've also gone with the advice to generally have the 3d vision depth to around 1/3 of the bar (30-40% is the general recommendation).
Click to expand...

great news, thanks for the advice. as we go along i will try to update the list on the first post and will hyperlink the fix to this post. thanks again i'll give this a bash tonight!
 
Dead Space: Don't think I messed with the settings much even though it leaves a couple of artifacts, just a bit of convergence to get Isaac to be half in / half out the screen was a nice balance (I fine tune convergence in EVERY title actually, then save it, whereas view depth I tend to leave common to all games).

Mirror's Edge: Turn the in-game brightness level way way down to like one from the bottom (most of the ghosting comes from this). Turn off any in-game crosshairs where possible (the game barely needs them anyway).

Batman AA: Tune the brightness as advised by the game's bat symbol gauge and click on its s3d setting after patching the game up to v1.1.

I need to install and configure more of my games, each time I set one of the above to the sweet spots, I played (or replayed) the entire game through again :D

Everquest: Disable the "Advanced Lighting" option (creates a fake ghosting effect otherwise). Shadows too, they're quirky even without stereo 3d anyway :p

DCS:A10C: Registry hack to enable 3d vision (this is for win7 64-bit but can be adapted for other OS versions): "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\Stereo3D\GameConfigs\dcs" create string=value pair: Link1="launcher.exe"

---

On my own current "pants / to be fixed" list (I don't have good settings for them yet):

Crysis 1 / Warhead: Water is a complete shambles, causes troops running through it to grow an extra pair of legs, etc.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood: Too much ghosting particularly between Ezio and the sky. Maybe an over-brightness issue.
 
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topdog@OC said:
Dead Space: Don't think I messed with the settings much even though it leaves a couple of artifacts, just a bit of convergence to get Isaac to be half in / half out the screen was a nice balance (I fine tune convergence in EVERY title actually, then save it, whereas view depth I tend to leave common to all games).

Mirror's Edge: Turn the in-game brightness level way way down to like one from the bottom (most of the ghosting comes from this). Turn off any in-game crosshairs where possible (the game barely needs them anyway).

Batman AA: Tune the brightness as advised by the game's bat symbol gauge and click on its s3d setting after patching the game up to v1.1.

I need to install and configure more of my games, each time I set one of the above to the sweet spots, I played (or replayed) the entire game through again :D
Click to expand...

brilliant thanks, this exactly the kind of thing i was hoping for and is very very helpful to get settings feedback. i will update the list in the first post properly with all these details later on.
 
So, does 3D give headaches? I can't watch a 3 hour long 3D film without getting one.

And I had ago on a Nintendo 3DS and got a headache within ten seconds.
 
SoAdCrAzY said:
So, does 3D give headaches? I can't watch a 3 hour long 3D film without getting one.

And I had ago on a Nintendo 3DS and got a headache within ten seconds.
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So far, from yesterday my first day of 3d, spent all evening after work playing around. slight headache to start with and a noticable flickering from the glasses. after around 15 mins, i no longer noticed flickering and headaches went. i did notice when i went to bed straight straight from using the 3d, my eyes did feel tired. not as bad as i was expecting because i'd heard of headache issues etc.
 
I never got headaches from 3d but would start feeling really sick within a few minutes of playing. It wasn't so bad if I turned the depth all the way down but that kinda defeated the object of it being 3d in the first place. I spent more time faffing with settings than playing games tbh.

Another downside for me was just how much the glasses affected the brightness of games. Dark games weren't so bad (Metro 2033, Fear 2) but light games ended up looking washed out and dull (BFBC2, Mafia 2), and this was with the brightest Asus 3d monitor.

As for the effect itself, it ranged from horrible to OK, with only one example where I was blown away, which was Metro 2033. As soon as I played that in 3d I was sold, but I ended up sending it all back because £400's a big investment for one game. Other games such as Batman AA and Just Cause 2 were OK, but again I had to constantly fiddle with the settings to get it right. It's also worth noting that there isn't any pop-out unless you specifically force it in the settings, which tends to cause ridiculous amounts of ghosting and strange depth issues with other parts of the game.

Almost forgot to mention the ghosting... this is a huge issue in brighter games, especially BFBC2. The issue is that the image displayed on the screen (which is of 2 overlapping images positioned slightly apart from eachother) comes through the glasses slightly, which allows you to see a 'ghost' image around everything.

One final issue, on-screen hud elements often render at a different depth to the rest of the scene. It's hard to explain, but on BFBC2, the little messages like 'press F to enter' sometimes took me 20-30secs for my eyes to adjust to be able to read them. I kinda felt like I was trying to uncross my eyes to read these messages and they just wouldn't uncross, it was a recurring issue in a lot of games unless I turned the depth all the way down. I did manage to find a happy medium (there are two levels you can adjust, depth and something else I've forgotten the name of :D) by - on bfbc2 for example - forcing the back of the gun to render at screen depth, then turning the depth down to reduce the huge amount of ghosting in the distance. This way my eyes could switch to messages which are at screen-depth more easily.

Sorry for the essay, I just wish someone had told me about all of these issues before I bought it. Unfortunately there isn't really anywhere you can go to try before you buy, so you're taking a gamble if you decide to get it. I've never been affected by headaches or sickness watching 3d films, so I expected to be fine. Watching DVDs with 3d Vision was even worse than gaming and caused my eyes to have weird spasms trying to adjust to everything I was seeing, which again lessened once I turned the depth down all the way. This could all just be me though, other than the brightness issues which are a known downside to stereoscopic 3d and the ghosting issues which seem to affect everyone to an extent.
 
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Crysis 2 - excellent (lower depth than normal but no ghosting and everything on screen has correct depth levels - HUD included. No setting up needed

Dragon Age 1 - excellent, just play with convergence to get comfortable effect for your level of camera zoom.

Left 4 dead - epic, however some glitches around water (wrong depth)

Just Cause - very good, just get the right depth.

Mafia II - epic.
 
Chevens said:
Crysis 2 - excellent (lower depth than normal but no ghosting and everything on screen has correct depth levels - HUD included. No setting up needed

Dragon Age 1 - excellent, just play with convergence to get comfortable effect for your level of camera zoom.

Left 4 dead - epic, however some glitches around water (wrong depth)

Just Cause - very good, just get the right depth.

Mafia II - epic.
Click to expand...

superb thanks, will add to the list shortly.
 
Gackt said:
Is it really worth the money, though? Laying the notes down for a 3DTV/Monitor just so things appear 3D?
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in my opinion, having seen the effects and the immersion i am happy with my purchases and would say it is good value for money.

at the end of the day people have different feelings and values towards things, some prefer budget kit that does the jobs, some people like a little bit of luxury and i believe it is entirely based on the individual as to being worth it or not.

i'd possibly look at throwing this question to give another angle: would you have paid extra to get a colour tv over a black and white one just so things appear in colour?
 
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