1st impressions from l4d and tf2:
Overall it works pretty well with some minor niggles and one major one.
Gave myself 10 minutes or so do get used to the '3dness' of it then dialled up the depth which improved things massively. Cool things where you really get a sense of depth are blood/saliva spatters on the 'screen' and when a horde rushes into your face. Blood spurts are also really nice.
Minor issues are the nametags looking strange (because they are 2d not 3d) because they constantly look closer/further away than the player they are floating above. The crosshair also pops in front and 'behind' things for the same reason.
Also some ghosting issues with some scenery and white/mostly white textures. (The white textures issue seems to be common across all titles)
The MAJOR problem is that the 3d depth perception really doesn't lend itself to frenetic action like l4d and TF2. It's a bit like those magic eye pictures - you have to focus a little (though obviously not nearly to the same degree) to get the 3d effect. When your eyes are scanning all over the place for targets the effect diminishes severely until you focus back on a single object again.
This is most pronounced in TF2 when you have HUD messages popping up all the time in addition to the all the action on screen. Oddly enough, it was the 2D elements in TF2 that gave the most pronounced 3D effect - menus and steam windows look like stickers stuck on the inside of a window - weird. The most impressive bits 3D-wise in TF2 were actually the still images ('you were killed by' screens) Because they're still you get a chance to focus for a second and the depth perception is really good. On a few really close up ones it really looked like they were popping right out of the screen
So I don't think they work amazingly well for frenetic action games (unless someone writes one with 3d support from the ground up) but would really suit RPG and sim type games where you have plenty of time to look around and focus on what you're looking at. Fallout 3 is supposed to be awesome (mmmm VATS
) but I'm having issues with steam recognising my game cache and saves in win7 so I haven't tried it yet.
So for the guys asking about FSX, I'd say you'd probably really like it.
Given that all these games haven't been written with 3d in mind and have been 'retro-fitted' by way of drivers I think it works astonishingly well. Once people start building games from the ground up with 3d in mind we're going to see some really cool ****.
Setup was not the easiest, but got it up and running within an hour.
The glasses are perfectly comfortable and fit over my normal glasses fine.
I don't think I'll be able to live with a 22" monitor. Coming down from a 30" all I can notice is how
small it is, all the time. There should be more 3D screens coming onto the market very soon though. Anyone want to buy a 30" 60hz dinosaur?
Any questions please do ask.
