IMAX 3D for PC gamers - stereoscopic 3D gaming

Posted at: Friday 15th June 2007 by Ben Hardwidge

Promising the illusion of characters jumping out of your monitor and into the room with you, stereoscopic 3D (S-3D) gaming sounds like a truly awesome prospect. Okay, so it might sound like the sort of technology name that should be looming up in huge letters at the beginning of 1950s sci-fi films, but it's actually a clever way of blending the image from the left eye and right eye into a single image with the illusion of 3D depth. You've probably seen similar effects at an Imax 3D cinema, but it can also be used to great effect in PC games. In fact, all you'll need is two monitors and some new drivers.

At least, that's what Neil Schneider, president and CEO of Meant To Be Seen (MTBS), reckons. Schneider demonstrated some new stereoscopic 'iZ3D' drivers at the Dimension-3 Expo in France this week, to an apparently 'enthusiastic' reception, and he's pushing for more PC game developers to look seriously at the benefits of stereoscopic 3D.

Schneider demonstrated the drivers using two monitors and a Dell laptop, and showed the technology running on an impressive array of games, including The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Battlefield 2, Call of Duty 2, Star Wars: Empire at War, F.E.A.R. and Far Cry.

Of course, Nvidia has already had a go at stereoscopic 3D with its 3D glasses that flicker at 30Hz in each eye. However, this method limits you to a 60Hz refresh rate and can make your eyes ache after a while. The iZ3D drivers, meanwhile, are proprietary and only work with iZ3D monitors. On the downside, this limits your choice of monitor. However, as Schneider points out, 'The monitor is LCD based, so it does not work in terms of MHz for each eye like LCD shutterglasses and CRT monitors. However, even though the images are stable and do not flicker between the eyes, the computer still has to process a single image for each eye independently.'

For this reason, Schneider says that 'all stereoscopic 3D solutions will easily benefit from 20 per cent to 30 per cent more processing power than normal. If you can spend a little more on your computer's graphics card, it's worth it.' According to Schneider, the iZ3D drivers work with 'pretty much any dual output Nvidia or AMD/ATi graphics card,' so you really would just need the monitors and the new drivers to get a stereoscopic 3D gaming rig up and running.

Schneider's organisation, Meant to be Seen (MTBS), is what he calls 'a stereoscopic 3D certification and advocacy group,' which covers every stereoscopic gaming device form the new iZ3D drivers to shutterglasses and LCD headsets. As Schneider puts it, 'Stereoscopic 3D has been around for a number of years, but the industry has been needlessly hindered by game developers who fail to follow simple programming standards.'

For this reason, Schneider founded MTBS 'to move the industry forward. In particular, we promote non-proprietary programming standards via our free MTBS Stereoscopic 3D Programming Guide and advocacy efforts,' he says. 'We also certify existing games in the market to determine their level of S-3D compatibility. If the game earns certification, the game developer gets free promotion on our website for their title, and our members learn which games are safe purchases for their S-3D set-up. We also privately inform them of programming changes needed for games that don't meet certification criteria in hopes that they can improve their standing with a future patch. We only announce success - so no one gets embarrassed.'

Some game developers have proved to be surprisingly xxx to the idea of stereoscopic 3D gaming. Schneider gives Crytek as an example in the development of Crysis. 'One of our advocates started a thread on their leading fan website forums, and it exploded,' he says. 'Page after page was about how stereoscopic 3D was going to put Crysis on top. The forum's moderator even went out of his way to buy himself some LCD shutterglasses, join our site, and go nuts on the Crytek programming team.'