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Games Entertainment

eDimensional Wired 3D Glasses Review 210

Posted by michael from the motion-sickness-bags-mandatory dept.
Julio writes "Today at TechSpot we have reviewed eDimensional's Wired 3D Glasses, based on the original 3D Stereo technology that became popular a few years ago, these revamped version of the glasses seem to offer much more value and compatibility to the table. Adding amazing effects to games we tested which include Jedi Outcast and some other racing and flight simulators, this item could easily make it into your holiday shop list... "The images looked very cool, and I spent about 10 minutes gawking at my new surroundings. After playing around with Jedi Outcast, I was ready for more. I checked the supported game list, and just about every game I had was listed there.""
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eDimensional Wired 3D Glasses Review More

eDimensional Wired 3D Glasses Review

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  • But what about.. (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by inteller ( 599544 )
    ....I can't even get my asus glasses to work wth anything....can this be that much better?
  • These things always give me a head-ache. Also, how do people with glasses manage with these?
    • Two things.

      1. Higher refresh means less headaches. You want at least 120hz so that each eye gets 60+.

      2. Some people have one eye that is weaker then the other. Using steroscopic shutter glasses will in fact improve or reballance your eyes. If you can deal with your head pounding in the mean time.

    • Re:Not for me. (Score:3, Informative)

      by grub ( 11606 )
      I have some glasses from Elsa [www.elsa.de] which work great. The arms are designed to stay well away from your head so the arms of your regular glasses dont interfere. Unless your lenses are the big goofy ones worn in the 80's these types of glasses should fit over them well.

    • Nor for eye (Score:2, Funny)

      by Rareul ( 537940 )
      As a one-eyed freak since about birth, I have to tell you that I am
      amazed at the amount of time you multi-eyed folks have wasted on
      3d perception.

      About the only problem I've ever noticed with the 2d world is missing baseline jumpers, a few tough pool shots,
      and a lack of desire for huge breasts .)

      Hell, they even had a Seinfeld about multi-eyed folks wasting time on those darn 3d pictures.
      Remember George coming out of the bathroom with his shirt off in the middle of that party?

      ?sp

  • But... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Will it let you see the fnords?


    "My God, it's full of trolls..."

  • I'll only buy these if... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mr_gerbik ( 122036 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @04:59PM (#4762591)
    I'll only buy these if they support my favorite porn sites and virtual girlfriend games...

  • Headaches? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by masonbrown ( 208074 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @05:00PM (#4762596) Homepage
    I worked at SGI for a while - they had stereo goggles years ago, even had a couple of pairs lying around. No one used them at all because they gave people SEVERE headaches....

    • Re:Headaches? (Score:5, Funny)

      by fobbman ( 131816 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @05:04PM (#4762650) Homepage
      Those older SGI glasses were twin 14" monitors strapped to the persons head. That might explain the headaches.

      • When I was working in Intel's game lab I had a 52" plasma display that was going to replace the large TV in the corner of the lab for demo's.

        before we put it up I had it on my desk for a little while as my monitor. I never had eye problems or headaches until I tried sitting 2 feet from a 52" monitor running quake off the brand spanking new GF2 64.

        talk about eye-wobble.

      • Headaches. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Catskul ( 323619 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @07:32PM (#4763904) Homepage
        Stereo vision is only noticeable to about 30 feet out. This isnt very impressive when using a pair of 3d glasses looking at objects that are typically farther out, so I would assume that makers of 3d glasses would exaggerate the effect.

        What this means is that disparity of two correlated points in the two images is greater than it should be. Your brain determines the distance more based on other cues than stereo disparity. So when it gets confliciting signals about the distance of an object your eyes have a hard time adjusting their inward tilt(to increase the overlapping visual area), this is sometimes called "eyeball lock in".

        The conflicting messages of inward tilt(Brain: "Somthing is close to you Eyes!"), outward tilt (Brain: "Something is farther away Eyes!") make the eye muscles try and do the same thing at once and cause strain. Its the same strain of when you put your finger really close to the bridge of your nose and try to concentrate on it. I think this is what causes the headaches.
    • for 2d glasses so long as they can be used independantly without headaches (I'm on a multi-year anti-hangover from caffeine so headaches are few and far between.)

  • I own these glasses (Score:5, Informative)

    by esac17 ( 201752 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @05:00PM (#4762604)
    But I currently have them up for sale. After purchasing them, I tried to get them to work with my ATI Radeon, and it had limited support.

    It worked great for browsing the 3D pictures on their website, but when it came to games, nothing I did could get it to work properly.

    I then tried it on my friends NVIDIA card, and we got quake3 working, and I have to admit, it is a lot better than the previous 3d glasses (ie; asus). After playing with them and being amazed for about 30 minutes, all I could really think though was 'novelty'. They didn't enhance game play in any way, and it actually took relearning some of my trained reactions in quake3.

    Unfortunately my main goal was to get it working in Dungeon Siege, and I could never accomplish that.

    2.5 stars/5

    • Re:I own these glasses (Score:5, Informative)

      by Gojira Shipi-Taro ( 465802 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @05:10PM (#4762712) Homepage
      Well that certainly puts me farther away from considering ATI in the future. Nvidia's 3d support is excellent.

      NVidia's drivers work with Stereoscopic LCD shutter, and Red/blue (can't remember the technical name). Red/blue doesn't cause the headaches, but takes a long time to get used to, and is like playing on a computer indoors with heavily tinted sunglasses on (which is essentially what the glasses used for the effect are). After a while, you do adjust color perception to ignore the tint, but it still makes things far too dark for my tastes.

      The major problem with shutter-based glasses is that most monitors don't support a refresh rate high enough for the trick to work without perceived flickering (which causes the headaches). A minimum of 120 hz is required to get a somewhat reasonable 60 frames/sec/eye. Unfornately most current displays don't support that high a rate at anything much over 800x600, which isn't really all that great for game play.

      Given the choice between high-res, high quality graphics, and comparitively low-res stereoscopic displays, I'll take quality over stereo every time. Hope this improves soon.


      Disclaimer: These appear to be the same glasses I already have, but since I can't get past the first page of the article, I can't tell if there has been some new breakthrough with them that I'm unaware of. Can't see how the glasses, being shutter based, can get around the Display Refresh issue, though)

      • Re:I own these glasses (Score:3, Interesting)

        by FrenZon ( 65408 )
        "Nvidia's drivers work with Stereoscopic LCD shutter, and Red/blue"

        These drivers also work with proper VR Head Mounted Displays (Such as the relatively cheap i-o SVGA 3D glasses), making them their cards the perfect CHEAP choice for homebrew VR developers.


        Ugh, I had to post this message by VNCing to my home machine because /. seems to have blocked my entire IP block from posting.

        • making them their cards the perfect CHEAP choice for homebrew VR developers.

          Great, can you tell me where to download libraries then? I looked and looked but couldn't find a thing. Now my glasses sit unused in the original box. I would prefer Linux libs but I might use Windows 9x if there is no other choice.

          My experience with these glasses (i-o glasses) was not very positive. The drivers wouldn't work worth a damn. So I downloaded drivers from their competitor and those worked somewhat. I also downloaded the Nvidia drivers. Between the three I kept ghosting my machine and reloading because once a driver was loaded it never seemed to uninstall clean so I could load a different driver. That caused the sequence of loading the drivers to make a difference and the original drivers would work after I loaded one of the other sets of drivers over the top. I had both a 3dfx banshee and a GeForce2 Mx400. The drivers seemed to want a monitor capable of unimaginably high refresh rates. I tried several monitors and they all cost plenty but could only get 3d at the lowest refresh setting. So what kind of Buck Rogers monitor do you need to buy to make the things work right?

          On the other hand, I did get several games to work using various combinations and loading sequences of the drivers. Re-Volt was extremely cool in 3D and I didn't get headaches either.

  • Not quite 3 dimensional (Score:4, Funny)

    by product byproduct ( 628318 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @05:01PM (#4762606)
    eDimensional means 2.71828dimensional.

  • One flaw... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Cyclopedian ( 163375 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @05:01PM (#4762608) Journal
    This device needs stereoscopic vision, which some people don't have.

    It could be as simple as one eye with a cataract (cloudy vision), so you begin to rely solely on one eye.

    Wake me when they start to have glasses that can fire lasers into your eye to display images. It could possibly bypass the cataract and other ocular anomalies.

    -Cyc

    • Are you saying there are 3d devices that DON'T require stereoscopic vision?

      Also, those that are dominant in one eye, even severely so, still have a sense of depth perception better than if they only had one eye.

      • Actually yes, the coolest 3D source that doesn't require stereoscopic vision is the .... museum.

        Now I know that is a large stretch for some of us slashdotters, getting out from behind our monitor to go look at static (still, not noisy) pictures.

        Anyways go find some good Renaissance art, or anything else that is done with persepective. Note: not all paintings are done in persecptive. Stand close to the painting ... as close as your eyes can tolerate (or the velvet rope/guard lets you) say 18", although this completely depends on the size of the painting.

        Now here is the trick ... cover you DOMINANT eye. Your brain will in fact adjust for the missing information from that eye ... and will begin recreating it for you, and actually generates the 3D information as if you were seeing with your good eye.

        Now, this might not work if you have lost your depth perception from too much gaming ... but if that is the case we don't want you getting in a car to drive to the museum anyways ... so just go back to looking at your 2D porn :)

        This trick is really cool ... and makes going to the museum considerably more fun for a techhead, and is great for impressing your date, who is inevitably in the liberal arts, b/c we are indesperate need of more female gearheads.

        Having done research with modeling applications for use with 3D shutter glasses, I can firmly tell you that this "trick" is much cooler than any glasses I have seen.

    • Wake me when they start to have glasses that can fire lasers into your eye to display images. It could possibly bypass the cataract and other ocular anomalies.
      Bypass? Sounds like that would get rid of the cataract. Might even fix your near/far sightedness as well.
    • what, like the Virtual Retinal Display(VRD [google.com])? I was following this for a long time, back in 92. Looks like they partnered with Microvision [slashdot.org] to make the actual product.

  • It's great to see military tech trickle down like (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Hairy_Potter ( 219096 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @05:02PM (#4762624) Homepage
    this. These were originally developed for helicopter sims, when you're flying a 10 ton bird 10 meters off the earth at 200 knots, depth perception becomes very important.

    Of course, now they cost a lot less than $10,000 a pair.

    The funny part is just how many anti-globalization peaceniks who hate the militray would just cream their Guatamalen pants to play with these, I guess military stuff is bad, unless you find it entertaining.
    • The funny part is just how many anti-globalization peaceniks who hate the militray would just cream their Guatamalen pants to play with these, I guess military stuff is bad, unless you find it entertaining.

      It's not the technology itself, but the use, I think.

      Using this kind of tech to train people to kill other people more efficiently is possibly objectionable, while using it to "enhance" people's experience in a game, killing simulated digital avatars of other people is okay ;P

  • And how... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Dark Lord Seth ( 584963 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @05:02PM (#4762625) Journal

    ... would these glasses make my bash prompt look any better? Or emacs, for that matter.

  • Headache quotient equation (Score:3, Funny)

    by crumbz ( 41803 ) <<remove_spam>jus ... spam>gmail...com> on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @05:02PM (#4762629) Homepage
    Amount of fun provided by 3-D glasses (1 to 100)

    divided by

    Inverse of number of minutes until splitting headache

    equals

    Headache Quotient Factor

    Hopefully HQF is > than 1000.
  • anyone else ever tired these out? alot of games i play would require a good sense of depth of feild to be playable. if they make the images appear at the "wrong" distances then i wouldn't care if i could reach out and touch the images.... now p0rn sights with this might be interesting....
    • These work with any existing 3d engine... games do not have to be rewritten to use the 3d features.

      The 3d engine (OpenGL, DirectX etc.) knows where each object is in 3D. Usually the video card's rendering engine draws one image per frame. The 3d glasses' engine would draw two - one for each eye, slightly to each side of the viewpoint.

      Some games fake a lot of things, however, and stuff might be drawn in the wrong place. One thing that comes to mind would be 2D sprites drawn at the front of the viewplane, when they're actually supposed to be way in the distance. A game programmed this way would look wrong in the glasses.

      I am a video game developer.

      yo.

  • Gone before its time. (Score:3, Informative)

    by FreeLinux ( 555387 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @05:03PM (#4762642)
    I was only able to get the first page before the Slashdotting killed it. Here ya go...

    Computers offer the best and most impressive gaming graphics, besting any other console found on today's market; however as of late we have the PC losing some ground as a gaming platform due to impressive development efforts from the popular console makers; a relatively new system with a powerful graphics card offers the most realistic graphics you'll ever lay your eyes on.

    Not satisfied with that, PC gamers are always looking for the next best thing to enhance their visual experience. Some might purchase a flat screen monitor; others may choose a faster graphics card which handles higher resolutions. Now that your system is decked out to the hilt, what's next? Well, companies like eDimensional hope you will eventually add some 3D Gaming glasses to the mix.

    3D glasses have been out for some time now, but the technology is getting better with every release. Companies like NVIDIA continue to update drivers to improve the 3D gaming experience, which has many companies believing that some day all gamers will own a pair. So is this really the next best thing, or will this leave you looking like a geek for nothing?

    Today I'll be reviewing a pair of 3D glasses made by a company called eDimensional. The company was founded in 2000, mainly focusing on enhancing the multimedia experience. They call their 3D technology E-D, and promise it to supply you with an amazing submersive 3D environment. One of the main reasons I decided to review this product was to see how it compared to the DTI 2015XLS 3D LCD Display I reviewed not so long ago, if you can recall that expensive gadget costs nothing less but $1700.

    How It Works

    I don't know the technical lingo to explain how 3D works, but I'll sum it up as best I can. Basically, people have two eyes and your eyes see things from a perspective when looking at objects depending on their locations, which is called binocular disparity. One eye sees one side of an object, and the other eye sees the other side. Your brain uses both views to create one three dimensional image. So this means the depth you actually see is just a perception of what the brain thinks it is; it may not actually be the true look of an image. Pretty weird stuff, eh?

    Anyhow, the E-D system shows you a two eye view from your computer monitor. The depth-of-field is simulated using shutter-glasses with lenses that can alternate between clean and opaque (blocks light). While using the glasses, a left eye image is first displayed on a computer monitor, and the shutter-glasses left lens is clear, while the right lens is dark. The image on the monitor is then switched to the right-eye view, and the lens of the shutter-glasses is reversed. This switching occurs many times per second, fast enough for your eyes not to notice it. Your brain fuses the separate images together to create 3D. Yes, it's just your brains perception of what the image should look like. Pretty neat how we can trick the brain, don't you think?

    • Here's Page 2. Page 3 is still /.'d for me Compatibility

      The following cards are compatible with the 3D glasses

      • 3DFx Banshee, Voodoo2, 3, 4, or 5
      • ATI Radeon, ATI Rage
      • Intel i740, i752, i810
      • Matrox Millennium G200, G400, G450
      • NVIDIA GeForce 256, 2, 3, 4, MX, TNT2, Vanta
      • Power VR Kyro
      • S3 Savage 2000, Savage 3D, Savage 4

      Features and function will differ depending on which type of 3D accelerator your system is equipped with. A compatible game list can be checked at the eDimensional home page. Not all games work on all cards. Now let's take a look at system requirements for gaming.

      • Windows 95/98/ME and 2000/XP support for NVIDIA chipsets
      • CRT monitor (no laptops or LCD screens)
      • Minimum 70Hz refresh rated monitor
      [picture of the glasses]

      Setting Things Up

      Installation was very easy, especially with the well written instructions included in the box. Hookup is done through a VGA adaptor that plugs directly into your video card. Your monitor is connected to the output of the adaptor, and your glasses plug into the rear of it. Initial setup took me about 3 minutes, and was effortless. The glasses come in two flavors, wireless and wired version, I've got the latter one.

      Next, it's required to install the software included and stereo drivers for your particular card, which can usually be found on the manufactures website or the included installation disk. If you are using a NVIDIA card, I'd highly recommend using the latest drivers available to make sure you have the latest updates for glasses usage. When using a card other than NVIDIA, you will need to install the 'Wicked' drivers included on the disk. After completing the installation process, a system reboot is required.

      The software installs an applet found in your display panel properties, which can be accessed through the advanced button. Here, you can turn on/off 3D and assign hotkeys that will enable you to define different settings to enhance your 3D experience.

      Here are the specifications of the system I used the glasses with:

      • Intel 2.4GHz Pentium 4
      • Epox 4BDA2+ Motherboard
      • Visiontek Geforce 4 Ti4200
      • Philips 109s Monitor
      • Windows XP
    • Entering the 3D World

      The glasses are relatively comfortable, and seem to be well constructed. The package comes with 2 different sets of bows for different sizes of heads to ensure a good, comfortable fit. I would defiantly advice of wearing in a dark room, with nobody in sight, because they are sure to ignite a little bit of harassment due to the nerdy look (my kids tore me apart). After testing, I dropped them a few times to check for strength, and they didn't break.

      [3d picture of a chess board] [techspot.com]

      The entire installation process was quite simple, and the hotkeys make tweaking the settings very convenient. The first game I tried was Jedi Outcast, which is an Open GL based game using the Quake 3 engine. I checked the game list, and fired the game up. One thing you need to remember is that your monitor might not support stereo 3D with the same resolutions and refresh rates you'd normally use, so try starting low and increase as you go on. I found the 3D effect to be simply amazing; these glasses provide the best 3D images I have ever seen on a PC, including those output by the DTI 3D LCD I reviewed in the past.

      The images looked very cool, and I spent about 10 minutes gawking at my new surroundings. After playing around with Jedi Outcast, I was ready for more. I checked the supported game list, and just about every game I had was listed there.

      [ 3d image of an airplane] [techspot.com]

      There is a very nice selection of supported titles, and also a link to request a game that's missing from the list. I chose Motocross Madness 2 for my next adventure, notably because it's based on Direct3D and wanted to see how that worked. The 3D images looked great here too, especially after a bit of tweaking. Overall, these glasses are very easy to use and offer beautiful 3D environments for every game I launched.

      After going through about 20 different games, my feelings from the beginning have not changed. Racing games look impressive, and flight simulator 2002 looked incredible. These glasses make PC games fun again and actually kept me glued to it for quite sometime (which is not an easy task due to the Xbox sitting right next to my computer). It takes a lot to impress me, and this product really did.

      Final Thoughts

      The first thing to remember is that if you are using Windows 2000/XP, be sure you have an NVIDIA based card, of it will not work. Like I said previously, the glasses are well constructed and are comfortable at first. After a while, they became a bit uncomfortable around my nose, mainly because the relatively hard plastic resting on the bridge. I don't wear glasses, and rarely wear shades so this might just be a getting used to thing. The cord isn't really an issue, but if you have the extra cash for the wireless, it would be nice. The cord could have been a little longer; you might have problems if your tower isn't close by.

      Also notice 3D images on computers are not perfected. As good as they look; they are still a little blurry but that's not to say they don't look unbelievable. The 3D images are amazing, and will definitely add some spice to some of your favorite titles. I'd say if you want 3D, then these glasses are the best thing on the market, hands down.

      In the other hand it's just not something I would use with every game. When playing a racing game by myself, sure, but when playing Quake 3 online, forget it. Frame rates drop considerably, so you end up playing at lower resolutions. Lower resolutions mean graphics don't look as sharp.

      Overall, eDimensional glasses offer excellent 3D, and the $69.00 price tag is pretty reasonable especially compared to 3D monitors which cost in excess of $1500! I really liked them better than the 3D monitor, but I don't know how much I will really use them. For you this might be different, but this is just how I feel. The glasses are also said to work with DVD titles, you just need to purchase additional software to witness this (which I did not). To sum it up, if you're looking to add a little zing to some computer favorites, these 3D glasses will deliver.

  • by closing one eye.
  • I'm really hoping that the prices of Stereo glasses comes down in price, I would really like to be able to watch movies while on the plane. Can standard gaming glasses act as a TV/ DVD viewer?

  • I see lots of comments about people getting headaches, and such from 3D glasses. What about them hurts your head? I know that when I went to see that IMAX space station movie... I had a slight-headache afterwards. I figured it was because of trying to keep the head gear from slipping off my forehead.

    Unrelated sex link that won't make you go blind: Your Sex [tilegarden.com].

  • As an ex-vr geek. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Kenja ( 541830 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @05:08PM (#4762693)
    I used to work for a small company called 3DTV that was a splinter group from Sterographics. I worked on software and marketing for hte first round of consumer shutter glasses, back when you had to use DOS (as in C:\) becuase Windows couldn't do page flipping synced to the monitor refresh rate (one flip per refresh). I for one was allways very fond of this tech', provided that you ran at 120hz or higher so that each eye is getting a full 60hz. In addition you need to turn off any other light source as even a basic light build has a refresh that can cause headaches if it is not in sync with the monitor (imagine every 10th frame being darker in one eye). Its very good to still see this stuff around.
    • That would seem to explain the headaches everybody else keeps posting about in this column. I myself am particularly susceptible to low refresh rates, and get violent headaches after just a few minutes of viewing. When I was researching this problem last year I ran across tales of stroboscopic induced epileptic siezures, so a headache is not the worst that could happen I suppose.
      • I've not heard of it causing siezures. However I don't see why it couldn't happen as it's just a matter of hitting the wrong frequency. Most likly it would be caused by somthing with a low refresh rate like a florescent light interfearing with the monitor refresh.
        • I knew I should have looked it up before I posted. When will I learn? [grin] It's called photosensitive epilepsy and there's several hundred Googles available for reading. I provide cut-and-paste URL for one below....

          http://www.epilepsynse.org.uk/pages/info/leaflets/ photo.cfm
    • In addition you need to turn off any other light source as even a basic light build[sic] has a refresh that can cause headaches if it is not in sync with the monitor (imagine every 10th frame being darker in one eye).

      This is only an issue (mostly) for fluorescent light sources. Halogen and standard incandescent bulbs don't flicker on normal 60 Hz line AC--they emit a pretty steady glow. Fluorescent bulbs do flicker on and off, so you would get a problem with them.

      Sunlight is also fine, since the sun is a pretty steady light source. Rather distracting, though.

  • What are the best glasses to use with a Powerbook G4? I want to use the glasses for a molecular graphics visualization under the program Pymol, using OS X. Anybody have any expereince and recomendations?
    • Powerbook uses lcd technolgy for its display. LCDs cannot display the alternating frames for each eye properly and the effet is lost.

      Sorry no 3d glasses for the powerbook.
    • Okay if LCD is out, I could attach an external CRT display. Again what would the best glasses for a mac osX system be? Any experinece with pymol?
      • None. Nothing. Zip.

        Maybe one day Jobs will see it fit to overcharge you for a pair of iGlasses(tm), but until then, in the proudest tradition of Macintosh owners, you will be the last to play with new toys.

        But at least it doesn't go like beep beep beep and wreck your really good paper.
    • Formac makes/made a 3D accelerator called the ProFormance 3, and they offered stereoscopic goggles as an optional accessory. This must've been 3 or more years ago so its probably been discontinued, and likely won't support OS X. You might check their website (Formac.com) or hit ebay.

      These things have been coming and going as fads since the late '80s at least. To be honest, I've never seen an implementation of the idea that was compelling, which is why they never seem to catch on.
  • Your server sure is slow, but thank god the 17 popup and popunder ads you served off of ONE page came up fast.

    Talk about whoring.

  • Virtual Boy (Score:3, Funny)

    by frankthechicken ( 607647 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @05:09PM (#4762699) Journal
    Why on earth would I need a pair of these glasses when I already have the perfect headache inducing piece of kit in this [nintendo.com] ?

    I think later versions came with a free pack of aspirins.
    • Yes, these things could do some funny voodoo couldn't they? I remember playing one in a store kiosk, and not just getting a headache. I placed my face in the mask, and after a few minutes of playing, I began to feel sleepy. After I got up from the VB, I began to feel queasy and my balance was off kilter for a while. I'm not sure what it did, but I didn't like it. Oh well, every company has its follies.
  • Here it is
    ==================


    Computers offer the best and most impressive gaming graphics, besting any other console found on today's market; however as of late we have the PC losing some ground as a gaming platform due to impressive development efforts from the popular console makers; a relatively new system with a powerful graphics card offers the most realistic graphics you'll ever lay your eyes on.

    Not satisfied with that, PC gamers are always looking for the next best thing to enhance their visual experience. Some might purchase a flat screen monitor; others may choose a faster graphics card which handles higher resolutions. Now that your system is decked out to the hilt, what's next? Well, companies like eDimensional hope you will eventually add some 3D Gaming glasses to the mix.

    3D glasses have been out for some time now, but the technology is getting better with every release. Companies like NVIDIA continue to update drivers to improve the 3D gaming experience, which has many companies believing that some day all gamers will own a pair. So is this really the next best thing, or will this leave you looking like a geek for nothing?

    Today I'll be reviewing a pair of 3D glasses made by a company called eDimensional. The company was founded in 2000, mainly focusing on enhancing the multimedia experience. They call their 3D technology E-D, and promise it to supply you with an amazing submersive 3D environment. One of the main reasons I decided to review this product was to see how it compared to the DTI 2015XLS 3D LCD Display I reviewed not so long ago, if you can recall that expensive gadget costs nothing less but $1700.

    How It Works

    I don't know the technical lingo to explain how 3D works, but I'll sum it up as best I can. Basically, people have two eyes and your eyes see things from a perspective when looking at objects depending on their locations, which is called binocular disparity. One eye sees one side of an object, and the other eye sees the other side. Your brain uses both views to create one three dimensional image. So this means the depth you actually see is just a perception of what the brain thinks it is; it may not actually be the true look of an image. Pretty weird stuff, eh?

    Anyhow, the E-D system shows you a two eye view from your computer monitor. The depth-of-field is simulated using shutter-glasses with lenses that can alternate between clean and opaque (blocks light). While using the glasses, a left eye image is first displayed on a computer monitor, and the shutter-glasses left lens is clear, while the right lens is dark. The image on the monitor is then switched to the right-eye view, and the lens of the shutter-glasses is reversed. This switching occurs many times per second, fast enough for your eyes not to notice it. Your brain fuses the separate images together to create 3D. Yes, it's just your brains perception of what the image should look like. Pretty neat how we can trick the brain, don't you think?

    Compatibility

    The following cards are compatible with the 3D glasses

    • 3DFx Banshee, Voodoo2, 3, 4, or 5
    • ATI Radeon, ATI Rage
    • Intel i740, i752, i810
    • Matrox Millennium G200, G400, G450
    • NVIDIA GeForce 256, 2, 3, 4, MX, TNT2, Vanta
    • Power VR Kyro
    • S3 Savage 2000, Savage 3D, Savage 4


    Features and function will differ depending on which type of 3D accelerator your system is equipped with. A compatible game list can be checked at the eDimensional home page. Not all games work on all cards. Now let's take a look at system requirements for gaming.

    • Windows 95/98/ME and 2000/XP support for NVIDIA chipsets
    • CRT monitor (no laptops or LCD screens)
    • Minimum 70Hz refresh rated monitor


    Setting Things Up

    Installation was very easy, especially with the well written instructions included in the box. Hookup is done through a VGA adaptor that plugs directly into your video card. Your monitor is connected to the output of the adaptor, and your glasses plug into the rear of it. Initial setup took me about 3 minutes, and was effortless. The glasses come in two flavors, wireless and wired version, I've got the latter one.

    Next, it's required to install the software included and stereo drivers for your particular card, which can usually be found on the manufactures website or the included installation disk. If you are using a NVIDIA card, I'd highly recommend using the latest drivers available to make sure you have the latest updates for glasses usage. When using a card other than NVIDIA, you will need to install the 'Wicked' drivers included on the disk. After completing the installation process, a system reboot is required.

    The software installs an applet found in your display panel properties, which can be accessed through the advanced button. Here, you can turn on/off 3D and assign hotkeys that will enable you to define different settings to enhance your 3D experience.

    Here are the specifications of the system I used the glasses with:

    • Intel 2.4GHz Pentium 4
    • Epox 4BDA2+ Motherboard
    • Visiontek Geforce 4 Ti4200
    • Philips 109s Monitor
    • Windows XP


    Entering the 3D World

    The glasses are relatively comfortable, and seem to be well constructed. The package comes with 2 different sets of bows for different sizes of heads to ensure a good, comfortable fit. I would defiantly advice of wearing in a dark room, with nobody in sight, because they are sure to ignite a little bit of harassment due to the nerdy look (my kids tore me apart). After testing, I dropped them a few times to check for strength, and they didn't break.

    The entire installation process was quite simple, and the hotkeys make tweaking the settings very convenient. The first game I tried was Jedi Outcast, which is an Open GL based game using the Quake 3 engine. I checked the game list, and fired the game up. One thing you need to remember is that your monitor might not support stereo 3D with the same resolutions and refresh rates you'd normally use, so try starting low and increase as you go on. I found the 3D effect to be simply amazing; these glasses provide the best 3D images I have ever seen on a PC, including those output by the DTI 3D LCD I reviewed in the past.

    The images looked very cool, and I spent about 10 minutes gawking at my new surroundings. After playing around with Jedi Outcast, I was ready for more. I checked the supported game list, and just about every game I had was listed there.

    There is a very nice selection of supported titles, and also a link to request a game that's missing from the list. I chose Motocross Madness 2 for my next adventure, notably because it's based on Direct3D and wanted to see how that worked. The 3D images looked great here too, especially after a bit of tweaking. Overall, these glasses are very easy to use and offer beautiful 3D environments for every game I launched.

    After going through about 20 different games, my feelings from the beginning have not changed. Racing games look impressive, and flight simulator 2002 looked incredible. These glasses make PC games fun again and actually kept me glued to it for quite sometime (which is not an easy task due to the Xbox sitting right next to my computer). It takes a lot to impress me, and this product really did.

    Final Thoughts

    The first thing to remember is that if you are using Windows 2000/XP, be sure you have an NVIDIA based card, of it will not work. Like I said previously, the glasses are well constructed and are comfortable at first. After a while, they became a bit uncomfortable around my nose, mainly because the relatively hard plastic resting on the bridge. I don't wear glasses, and rarely wear shades so this might just be a getting used to thing. The cord isn't really an issue, but if you have the extra cash for the wireless, it would be nice. The cord could have been a little longer; you might have problems if your tower isn't close by.

    Also notice 3D images on computers are not perfected. As good as they look; they are still a little blurry but that's not to say they don't look unbelievable. The 3D images are amazing, and will definitely add some spice to some of your favorite titles. I'd say if you want 3D, then these glasses are the best thing on the market, hands down.

    In the other hand it's just not something I would use with every game. When playing a racing game by myself, sure, but when playing Quake 3 online, forget it. Frame rates drop considerably, so you end up playing at lower resolutions. Lower resolutions mean graphics don't look as sharp.

    Overall, eDimensional glasses offer excellent 3D, and the $69.00 price tag is pretty reasonable especially compared to 3D monitors which cost in excess of $1500! I really liked them better than the 3D monitor, but I don't know how much I will really use them. For you this might be different, but this is just how I feel. The glasses are also said to work with DVD titles, you just need to purchase additional software to witness this (which I did not). To sum it up, if you're looking to add a little zing to some computer favorites, these 3D glasses will deliver.

  • I have a similar set. (Score:3, Informative)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @05:10PM (#4762706) Homepage Journal

    I bought 2 sets of wireless LCD shutter glasses when I bought a TNT2 card from Elsa [www.elsa.de] a few years ago. The most important thing with these is to ensure your monitor can do at least 100 hz refresh at the resolution you want. Any less will give you flicker and headaches. Personally I run most things at 800x600@140 hz and 1024x768@110 hz. The resolution isn't as nice as 1600x1200 but the immersion of being "there" is worth it.
    Make sure your room is dark as any other light will make your eyes go goofy, especially the flicker you'll see with 60Hz fluorescent tubes.
    nVidia now has native drivers for their cards and the old Elsa glasses work great with my new(er) GeForce 2 card. The older Elsa drivers and the new nVidia ones just use a DX &| GL hack to shift the axis of your eyes every other frame so the appropriate eye is blocked by the LCD during drawing.

    They're the best thing for gaming, IMHO.
    • ...any other light will make your eyes go goofy, especially the flicker you'll see with 60Hz fluorescent tubes.

      That's 120Hz. Flash on positive swing, flash on negative.

      • That's 120Hz. Flash on positive swing, flash on negative.

        Really? I could swear it was 60.. interesting.
        • Even more interesting to hook up a phototransistor to a trigger and frequency counter, then point it at a flourescent tube. Or remember that current flows both ways in the gas of a flourescent tube, and AC goes through a positive/negative cycle 60 times a second, reaching a ~160 volt peak 120 times per second.

          Ah, those early lab experiments back in school....

  • Great glasses (Score:5, Funny)

    by fobbman ( 131816 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @05:10PM (#4762713) Homepage
    Heard in the basement of the parents house of the guy who houses the Tech Spot server...

    Julio: "Oh man, these glasses are trick! That image of a burning server looks TOTALLY real.

    Franko:Dude, you took the glasses off 10 minutes ago. That IS our server.

  • This site has about as many popunders as a Tripod site. Scary Huh. Too bad I'm stuck using windows at work
  • What excatly dictates whether something will have support for this? The goggles, the card, the game, the OS, two, or three, or all four?

    On a side note, I remember back in the day there was a series of games for win3.1 that was distributed with your old-skool red-blue goggles, and the game divided the graphics into red and blue. This was back in the day, so it wasn't great graphics, but it was a break from the usual. Also, no headaches with red-blue!

  • Peering (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Malicious ( 567158 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @05:13PM (#4762738)
    If they could make 3d glasses, that allowed me to peer around corners in Quake, or other 3D Shooters, i'd Bite... But intill then, i think i'll pass.
    I will however, take enjoyment in watching others bend their necks and lean in funny directions, as their brain trys to look around the 3D corners. Reminds me of my wife playing Mario Kart, swinging the SNES Controller around, leaning into corners....

  • Games not yet made for 3-D (Score:5, Informative)

    by phriedom ( 561200 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @05:14PM (#4762748)
    I bought a set of Elsa Revalator glasses a while ago that use the same basic lcd shutter technology. They do "work" but the effect is underwhelming. You can't really use them for any First Person Shooter games because the crosshairs on your screen are also adjusted for each eye and the real impact point will be directly between them. Also, many games mix solids with planes, so for example the hallway will look 3-D but all the people in it will look like flat carboard cut-outs. The road will be 3-d but all the trees on the side will be flat. It turned out to be a far LESS immersive experience. I played with it for a couple days, then packed it away with other unused computer junk.

    • Re:Games not yet made for 3-D (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      ok, a while ago, meaning TNT days right? ok now lets see... what games were those, Q1? no thats true 3d on everything. So, you were using these 3d goggles on Wolfenstein / Doom? of course it wouldn't be 3d. Technically it was 2.5d anyways. These glasses are faster, and so cause you less headaches. And since now all games use true 3d anyways, it won't be a problem. As for crosshairs are concerned, disable the crosshairs and you are good. If they really want to make crosshairs work, they would only enable the crosshair on your right eye.
    • Not sure what card you are using... The nVidia stereo drivers supply their own crosshairs that are not split with the scene. They float out in front like part of a heads up display. Turn off the crosshairs in your game and use those if you got 'em.

      As for the games that still use sprites, well you're right, they weren't designed for it. But neither was quake and it looks great.

      Truthfully, if these are successful, games and gaming cards will start to be designed for stereo. Low end cards will actually support quad buffered stereo and the games will take advantage of that and we'll start seeing some really cool effects!
  • Now how about getting some servers that can handle the load? Sigh.

  • got a wireless pair.... (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Got a wireless pair, and I have to say that they are the best 3d glasses out there for that price. I have tried several other shutter glasses, such as the crystaleyes, polarised projectors with polarised glasses, stereo projectors (SGI reality theatre type of systems)and so on and they are pretty god for what the price....the screensaver that comes as a demo it's pretty impressive and playing few games it's quite good, although the trick is to set everything to the highest framerate as possible (120 hz so each eye get 60 Hz) and switch the lights off if you can.
    Make sure that the games are enable to support hight refresh rate (such as in quake to have something like seta v_refreshrate "120" or whatever the comand is.

    The stereo effect depends In think of how the game/environment is design. Some games might work better than others, specially if they have artifacts that are extended or connected somehow from the foreground to the background (a wall, road, etc) or objects very close to your viewpoint (such as the gun that you carry in quake or others fps)

    My gfx card (an asus TI4400 deluxe) comes with 3d glasses as well, but they are not as good as these ones and they are wired......

  • How does this look? (Score:3, Funny)

    by bovilexics ( 572096 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @05:33PM (#4762902) Homepage

    Crud, already can't get to the site. Well here is some information not included in the article...

    Here is a image of what the /. effect looks like when using these glasses.

    [begin image]








    [end image]

  • I looked at their website and the conveniently posted text of the article, but I still can't figure out how exactly these work. Do they require special drivers? And if so, is there any possibility I could get these things running in Linux (with standard Nvidia linux drivers)? UT2k3's Ion Cannon Sattelite gun thingy would be pretty nice in full 3d vision :).
  • i purchased a pair after reading the numerous reviews and first learning about them in PC magazine. you simply can't compare these to what was preciously available. pc mag said these are the first 3d glasses that impressed them and I wasn't disappointed. the consensus amongst the reviews seems to be that these finally are a valid entry into the 3d glasses market and their attempt does a far better job. techspot mentioned this as well.
  • From page 3 [techspot.com] of the review:
    "I would defiantly advice of wearing in a dark room, with nobody in sight,..."

    I'm all for this "pubishing power to the people" meme but jeepers, can't they get someone to at least give it a once-over for stuff like this? Sloppy.

    But to be fair, the review is well-done. Just poorly edited.
  • I grabbed a pair of 3D glasses from Comdex from c3dnow.com. I know they are gimmicky and very hard to make work well, but I just played it with Asheron's Call 2 and I cannot believe the effect it gives off. It's truly amazing.
  • I am vision impaired in one eye - I have peripheral vision but cannot focus (the "centre" of my vision my left eye looks like a black amorphous blob becuase of retina damage I sustained). Will this stop me from using 3d glasses ?

  • 3D is less important than field of view (Score:5, Insightful)

    by localman ( 111171 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @06:08PM (#4763212) Homepage
    I wish more research were put into expanding the field of view. There's plenty of data to indicate that stereoscopic vision is less important for bringing you "into the scene" than a wide field of view. Here's a choice quote from The Visionary Position [amazon.com]:
    "By experimenting with the display -- moving, by degrees, from a 20-degree field of view to a 30-degree field of view and so on up to 120 degrees, the team discovered that at the "60- to 80-degree point, it was like a switch went off in your head. Instead of looking at a picture, all of a sudden you thought you were in a place. You had a different way of interacting with the display. You brought in a different set of innate capabilities."
    And that was in 1982. But to this day VR seems to mean 3D on a small square screen. I mean, c'mon, we've had 3D TV & movies for almost a century. It's just not that cool. I'd take Omnimax (not to be confused with Imax) any day :)

    Ah well, I can always dream and complain ;)

  • I know that early efforts at 3-d glasses resulted in serious depth perception problems (i.e. 15 minutes of play would take many hours of recovery time). This resulted in a large number of traffic accidents by the beta testers as they went home after testing. Any such problems with these reported? If not, how did they get around them?

  • Linux Support (Score:2, Interesting)

    by RichiP ( 18379 )
    I just emailed sales@edimensional.com asking if they had Linux support. If anyone else is interested, take a few minutes to email them and let them know. I don't think they sell enough of these devices that they can afford Linux users with money to spend. Well? What r u waiting for?

    • Re:Linux Support (Score:2, Interesting)

      by RichiP ( 18379 )
      typo ... i meant I don't think they sell enough of these devices that they can afford TO IGNORE Linux users with money to spend.

      If they DO port to linux, I'd buy two.
      • HA!!!!

        You just used the phrases "Linux User" and "spend" in one sentence..
        I banish you from this forum... :-]

        sorry... its been a SLOOOOOW day...
  • I hate to pick nits, but I've got the karma to burn, and this particular sentence fragment really bothered me:


    these revamped version of the glasses seem to offer much more value and compatibility to the table.


    The correct metaphor would have been "seem to bring much more value and compatibily to the table." I only harp on this because the phrase as it stands doesn't make any sense. "Offer" much more value and compatibility to the table? Is the table your god?


    Don't even get me started on the grammar in the rest of the post. I guess lousy communication skills and making yourself look like a fool are the standard on slashdot.

  • Hi,

    I'm surprised this article was posted. Looking at the website its basically a shopping site -- this is a "editorial" advertisement. Not too mention 3, read em, 3 pop-unders.

    Is Slashdot getting a cut? I sure hope so :-)

    Winton
  • The 3D effects is only possible because the games render two different points of view, and the glasses sync to the monitor and make sure each eye only sees the point of view it should be seeing.

    Some graphics cards come with a 3D-glasses port (which is basically just a sync signal), others sync directly to the VGA connection. Technically it's even possible to sync to the screen, without any connection (but there's no point in doing that here, since the connection is easily available).

    Either way, they work fine as long as your monitor can refresh at a decent speed (remember, each eye will only see half the images, so if the monitor is doing 100 Hz, each eye is seeing 50) and your graphics card can render the frames fast enough (same thing - if the card renderes 100 FPS, each eye will only see 50). Also, these glasses only work if vsync is on (ie, frame updates must be synchronised with monitor refresh), so if you're used to about 70 FPS at 100 Hz, you will now see only 50 FPS in double-buffered games, which means each eye will only see 25.

    So if you really want to use this for games, make sure your monitor can do at least 120 Hz at the resolution you're planning to use (150 Hz or above would be preferable), and make sure your graphics card can surpass that frame rate at that resolution. Otherwise, you're in for some serious headaches.

    Also, your graphics driver must have support for 3D glasses (ie, they must be able to shift the point of view in alternate frames in 3D applications). Fortunately, most drivers do.

    Finally, eDimensional claim you can use their glases to see movies in 3D. This is obviously not true. Or rather, you will see some "depth effects", but they will obvioulsy not match the real depth of the original images. And when the depth effect from stereoscopic view clashes with the depth effect from spatial perception, you are very likely to get a major headache, which is your brain's way of saying "I refuse to process this junk".

    RMN
    ~~~

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I do 3D visualization type stuff at work. We don't actually code the 3D engines however. We just use 3rd party software for rendering the scenes while we concentrate on presenting the data.

    Anyway, I wanted to learn to do 3D stereo with OpenGL so I went out, bought the glasses and here's what I found.

    The nVidia stereo drivers don't work with the OpenGL stereo on the TNT and TNT2 based cards.

    After I bought a GeForce4 4200, here's what I found...

    The GeForce4 (and other gaming cards) don't support the quad-buffered stereo I was trying to learn. None of the OpenGL apps I added stereo support for would run in stereo.

    The nVidia stereo driver seems to take a normal scene and generate stereo pairs for all the vertices before it renders the scene. I took the code I wrote and removed all the "special" stereo code, and then my applications would run in stereo just fine.

    Quake 3 looks great. Quake 2 looks a little better.

    DirectX based applications seem to have the stereo reversed and there is no way to switch it. (that I have found yet)

    I can play cool games and write OpenGL apps but I still don't have a machine at home to learn quad buffered stereo.

  • For those of you that don't want to spend the $... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Erpo ( 237853 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2002 @08:39PM (#4764276)
    ...there's a much cheaper option. nVidia provides drivers that will render scenes in full-color anaglyph so you can dig out your old red/cyan glasses and run the latest 3d (and oldest) 3d games in real 3d. The drivers work for any program that does the 3d math correctly in opengl or direct3d. I have yet to come across a program that doesn't work with them.

    Sure, the image looks a little funky, and the framerate is half what it normally is, but you get this with any 3d scheme that uses a normal crt monitor. The glasses they talk about in this article also effectively halve the frame rate by halving the refresh rate per eye so you'll have to deal with quite a bit of flicker. Unless you can run your monitor at 1024x768 @ 120Hz vertical refresh, be prepared to run at lower resolutions. Oh yeah: page flipping 3d doesn't work very well with lcd monitors, so if you have a flat screen you're out of luck unless you want to go anaglyph.

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