Hello MTBS3D Readers!

Well that was a surprise! Since this blog had been dormant for a few months, I was planning on proving to myself that I could post relatively regularly before I did anything to try and spread the word about this blog, but little did I suspect that the draft article I'd written in January which I recently published would bring some readers this way due to it mentioning MTBS3D and its Game Grades. Certainly I wasn't courting controversy.

Yes, GameGrades regularly being inaccurate was part of what inspired me to start this blog, but the idea behind this blog isn't to be an alternative to the work people are doing over at MTBS3D. Instead its just meant to be my own personal reactions to games in 3D. We all have different eyes, and mine are very different due to a few medical issues, and different things bother different people which I know all too well. That's why I don't personally like the idea of trying to assign a point value to various visual issues, when that issue might have a bigger impact in one game than another, and on one person to another.

Left 4 Dead 2

NOTE: This post was written back in January, and never published. Keep that in mind as I talk about iz3D and TriDef. Those comments are out of date and I recommend TriDef over iz3D here in May. Anyways, on with the old.

I've heard some good things about source engine games in 3D, and have criminally underplayed L4D2 as it is, so it seemed appropriate to spend some time playing the game in 3D. One of the main reasons I wanted another 3D display was because I wanted something I could use at my desk. First person games that offer mouse and keyboard controls, I'm going to play with mouse and keyboard controls, and you can forget the thought of me getting a keyboard tray and wireless equipment to use on it. Wired, no nonsense, high performance input devices, that's what I use, and as much as I love 3D if I have to choose between 3D and mouse and keys, I choose mouse and keys.

So I've got a number of first person titles on PC that I've never tried in 3D, so expect to see a few of those popping up here over the next few weeks as I dust them off and fire them up. Of course, since not everyone has an HMZ, I took a look at how L4D2 looks on my 3DTV also to get a sense of how much crosstalk impacts the experience should your display be susceptible to that.

Four Months Later...

This isn't going to be one of those posts promising to update this blog more regularly, as those almost always herald the end of any blog. Instead this is going to be a condensed update about the world of PC 3D gaming, so that anyone who stumbles on this blog won't be put off by the horribly out of date information previously posted. So lets get going shall we?

First things first, development on iz3D has basically ceased. They're trying to get fans to raise a large amount of money to buy the source code and take it open source, but that doesn't look like it's going to happen. Everything I wrote about iz3D previously then, remains true. What isn't true anymore is how it compares to TriDef Ignition.

L.A. Noire: The Complete Edition

Today we're going to take a look at the PC Version of L.A. Noire. Don't let that picture of the PS3 version there fool you, the game didn't have any 3D support on the home consoles. It doesn't have native 3D support on the PC version either, but since the game runs on DirectX, it should work with IZ3D and TriDef.

I already played a lot of the game on PS3 earlier this year, and you can put me in the camp of people that rather enjoyed it. Seeing it cheap on Steam during the most recent sales got me to double dip, and the hope of playing the game in 3D was part of the reason why I went for it.

L.A. Noire presents some points of interest worth delving into. It's unique way of combining video footage of real live actors with simple 3D animated faces worked great in 2D, but how do they work in 3D? How does playing the game in black and white effect our results?

IZ3D and TriDef 3D Ignition

While some PC games like Dirt 3, Sonic Generations and others feature native support for 3D most games currently don't. There are currently three options that allow you to try and play any Direct X game in 3D. The two we'll be taking a quick look at are IZ3D (pronounced I Zee 3D) and TriDef 3D Ignition. The third is only available to Nvidia owners and isn't something I can currently look into, but I'm hoping to give it a spin in the near future.

Both of the ones we're going to look at today let owners of modern AMD graphics cards (HD5xxx series and newer) output in proper framepacked 3D. In other words, if you have a display that can show a 3D image from a Playstation 3, you can use these pieces of software to play PC games in 3D on that display.

Both cost about the same, and both have their own strengths and drawbacks. Personally I think it's affordable to get both, especially since AMD owners can run a validation tool to get 50% off the standard asking price, so lets take a closer look at why it's worth having both.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

One of the first games I've played on my HMZ-T1 for any great length of time, is also one of my favourite games of 2011. Recently featured in a bunch of Steam sales and the like, there's a good chance you might already have this game in your collection.

If you do, you'll have a good idea of just how immersive this title is, even when played on a regular screen, so it certainly sounds like the king of game that would be brilliantly suited for being played in stereoscopic 3D.

Even more promising, this is one of a handful of titles that currently has native support for 3D. Namely AMD's HD3D technology. What that means, for owners of recent AMD graphics cards at least, is that all you have to do to experience the game in 3D is have your PC connected to a 3D display which supports framepacked 3D resolutions, and turn on 3D in the options.

When the game first released, the promised native support was more than underwhelming. There was little to no depth in game and only really the menus stood out as looking impressive. As a result many of the articles taking a look at its 3D don't focus on the current situation. A few patches later and things are very different to how they were back at release.

Welcome!

I game a lot in 3D. Basically, any PC game I buy, I try to play in 3D. I have a Sony 3DTV and a Sony HMZ-T1 headset. My PC has an AMD based graphics card, and I test out any native support a game has. Failing native support, I have iz3D and TriDef drivers to try and force things into 3D. These can work pretty much flawlessly, but a lot of the time they don't. There are a lot of defects you see a lot, and I think it's worth writing down my impressions somewhere, because a lot of the games I've tried out I've been unable to find anyone else's impressions. On this blog, I'll be pointing out the sort of issues I've run into, how the different implementations of 3D stack up, and just generally let you know exactly how well a particular game works in 3D.

I'll also be chipping in on any 3D console games I pick up on 360, PS3, or 3DS, though there are a lot more places that talk about those experiences, so don't expect it to be the focus here.

Since you're here, hopefully my eyes, my equipment, my games and my experiences can be helpful to you. Hopefully I can help you enjoy 3D gaming nearly as much as I do.