- Joined
- Aug 24, 2007
*Work in progress*
So after 2 weeks I've got enough of a feel for the thing to go ahead and put my impressions down in bits. I'm going to skim over some things you can find in the 'pro' reviews, and try to focus on actual game performance. Feel free to post up questons if you have them.
The bundle kit comes with 2 parts, a Samsung SyncMaster 2233rz 120hz LCD, and the glasses/IR transmitter package. As far as I know, you cannot buy the monitor seperately yet, and the Viewsonic 120hz 22" LCD hasn't been released yet. The bundle price for now is pegged at $600, and is available only from Nvidia themselves, and Tigerdirect. I'd highly recommend purchasing from Tiger, as Nvidia's store is outsourced to Digital River, and the service, frankly, sucks. You can buy extra glasses packages for $200 a whack, though I expect that will come down once they figure all the early adopters have parted with their cash.
The monitor
-----------
The monitor looks exactly the same as the 2233bw, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824001306 for some pictures and specs and such. I do rather like the design of the thing. The power light is blue, but not an obnoxious little 'blue sun' like my last monitor. Rather, it's a soft blue diffused by a clear acrylic accent piece across the curved bottom of the monitor. The bw series monitor is available at $190 AR from the Egg, so right now the price premium for 120hz in an otherwise identical monitor is about double, plus you have to buy the glasses.
Take note that the only input is a single dual link DVI connector. No VGA at all. It does come with the required cable.
2d performance in normal games is rather nice. Every game I've tried so far has had no trouble displaying in 120hz, as long as the monitor was set to that rate in Windows. Maybe it's in my head, but motion, especially during fast action, does seem smoother compared to my old 60hz (Samsung 220wm, I believe) monitor. Other than that, there's no real difference or effect. It looks fine to me. It's a TN panel, but I've never had an issue with that, since I don't play hanging upside down from the ceiling at a 170 degree vertical angle. I sit in front of the monitor
The glasses kit
--------------
This includes the glasses, a few extra nosepieces which I didn't try, and the IR emitter. They both attach to the PC with a mini-USB cable, the emitter 'permanently' and the glasses just when you need to charge them. Both cables are included in the package. There's also a driver CD but it's already outdated by a few updates, so might as well just download the new drivers.
The glasses themselves are very light, and comfort is really not an issue at all when wearing them alone. When combined with full over-ear headphones, they can pinch a bit around the ears, but that's true with any glasses. The battery is claimed to last 40 hours of use, and I see no reason to doubt it. I haven't had to recharge once since I got them, after the initial charge. You can charge while playing.
First impressions
----------------
Once all the software is installed, and the IR emitter is plugged in and within line of sight of the glasses, there's a few tests they have you do to make sure you don't have some kind of dominant eye disorder that prevents you from safely using the system. I passed, and moved right on to some of the 3d movies available from Nvidia's site. Knight's Quest 3d (or was it 4d?) in particular looks great. My wife actually recoiled from the screen when the slime monster splashed drool towards her.
Moving on to gaming, the first thing you'll notice is.. Nothing.
Most games have certain settings that need to be enabled or disabled for 3d to work. Many require some post processing effects to be disabled, bloom effects disabled, and other such things. You can use a hotkey during play to bring up the suggested settings for each game. There are also hotkeys for messing with convergence and depth settings. I could try an explanation of how these work, but I'd probably get it wrong, and must instead just refer you to http://www.mtbs3d.com/cgi-bin/newsle...gi?news_id=44/ for more information
Once you get things dialed in to a setting that's comfortable, and the game configured right, it works well. If you reach towards the screen, it's actually surprising when your hand hits the monitor glass.
Ghosting is a minor issue, most evident when bright figures are against a dark background, or vice versa. This is when you can see a slight shadow or highlight to either side of an object on screen. Holding down the power button on the glasses causes them to stop flickering, locking one lens closed, and the other open. You can still see through the closed lens, if only slightly. They don't go completely opaque as I had expected. I'd love if they could fix this in a future version of the glasses, or allow use of better aftermarket shutter glasses, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. It's only a minor annoyance as far as I'm concerned.
The monitor automatically goes to full brightness during 3d mode, in an attempt to compensate for the loss of brightness caused by having each eye 'shut' half the time. It works fine during the day, if a little dim, but at night, with the lights off, it really comes to life. I do suggest getting a backlit keyboard. I'm a touch typist and still get a bit disoriented with the glasses on. I'd say if you can type well with your eyes completely shut, you should be fine.
-to be continued-
So after 2 weeks I've got enough of a feel for the thing to go ahead and put my impressions down in bits. I'm going to skim over some things you can find in the 'pro' reviews, and try to focus on actual game performance. Feel free to post up questons if you have them.
The bundle kit comes with 2 parts, a Samsung SyncMaster 2233rz 120hz LCD, and the glasses/IR transmitter package. As far as I know, you cannot buy the monitor seperately yet, and the Viewsonic 120hz 22" LCD hasn't been released yet. The bundle price for now is pegged at $600, and is available only from Nvidia themselves, and Tigerdirect. I'd highly recommend purchasing from Tiger, as Nvidia's store is outsourced to Digital River, and the service, frankly, sucks. You can buy extra glasses packages for $200 a whack, though I expect that will come down once they figure all the early adopters have parted with their cash.
The monitor
-----------
The monitor looks exactly the same as the 2233bw, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824001306 for some pictures and specs and such. I do rather like the design of the thing. The power light is blue, but not an obnoxious little 'blue sun' like my last monitor. Rather, it's a soft blue diffused by a clear acrylic accent piece across the curved bottom of the monitor. The bw series monitor is available at $190 AR from the Egg, so right now the price premium for 120hz in an otherwise identical monitor is about double, plus you have to buy the glasses.
Take note that the only input is a single dual link DVI connector. No VGA at all. It does come with the required cable.
2d performance in normal games is rather nice. Every game I've tried so far has had no trouble displaying in 120hz, as long as the monitor was set to that rate in Windows. Maybe it's in my head, but motion, especially during fast action, does seem smoother compared to my old 60hz (Samsung 220wm, I believe) monitor. Other than that, there's no real difference or effect. It looks fine to me. It's a TN panel, but I've never had an issue with that, since I don't play hanging upside down from the ceiling at a 170 degree vertical angle. I sit in front of the monitor
The glasses kit
--------------
This includes the glasses, a few extra nosepieces which I didn't try, and the IR emitter. They both attach to the PC with a mini-USB cable, the emitter 'permanently' and the glasses just when you need to charge them. Both cables are included in the package. There's also a driver CD but it's already outdated by a few updates, so might as well just download the new drivers.
The glasses themselves are very light, and comfort is really not an issue at all when wearing them alone. When combined with full over-ear headphones, they can pinch a bit around the ears, but that's true with any glasses. The battery is claimed to last 40 hours of use, and I see no reason to doubt it. I haven't had to recharge once since I got them, after the initial charge. You can charge while playing.
First impressions
----------------
Once all the software is installed, and the IR emitter is plugged in and within line of sight of the glasses, there's a few tests they have you do to make sure you don't have some kind of dominant eye disorder that prevents you from safely using the system. I passed, and moved right on to some of the 3d movies available from Nvidia's site. Knight's Quest 3d (or was it 4d?) in particular looks great. My wife actually recoiled from the screen when the slime monster splashed drool towards her.
Moving on to gaming, the first thing you'll notice is.. Nothing.
Most games have certain settings that need to be enabled or disabled for 3d to work. Many require some post processing effects to be disabled, bloom effects disabled, and other such things. You can use a hotkey during play to bring up the suggested settings for each game. There are also hotkeys for messing with convergence and depth settings. I could try an explanation of how these work, but I'd probably get it wrong, and must instead just refer you to http://www.mtbs3d.com/cgi-bin/newsle...gi?news_id=44/ for more information
Once you get things dialed in to a setting that's comfortable, and the game configured right, it works well. If you reach towards the screen, it's actually surprising when your hand hits the monitor glass.
Ghosting is a minor issue, most evident when bright figures are against a dark background, or vice versa. This is when you can see a slight shadow or highlight to either side of an object on screen. Holding down the power button on the glasses causes them to stop flickering, locking one lens closed, and the other open. You can still see through the closed lens, if only slightly. They don't go completely opaque as I had expected. I'd love if they could fix this in a future version of the glasses, or allow use of better aftermarket shutter glasses, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. It's only a minor annoyance as far as I'm concerned.
The monitor automatically goes to full brightness during 3d mode, in an attempt to compensate for the loss of brightness caused by having each eye 'shut' half the time. It works fine during the day, if a little dim, but at night, with the lights off, it really comes to life. I do suggest getting a backlit keyboard. I'm a touch typist and still get a bit disoriented with the glasses on. I'd say if you can type well with your eyes completely shut, you should be fine.
-to be continued-
I may be able to throw some anaglyph and left/right pairs up soon. If you got red/blue glasses it'll give some idea what it looks like.
