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X3D Extreme 3D System
Date: Thursday, December 4, 2003
Author: Jsgolfman
Provided By: X3D
Page: 1 of 2
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Introduction
According to X3D Technologies the X3D System "unlocks the potential to add true, life-like 3-Dimentional experiences on your CRT PC screen." When I read that statement, I had to experience this for myself. I have always enjoyed playing PC games and with the ever-increasing sophistication of video cards, software, and AI; the games are becoming eerily realistic. What better way to increase my pleasure than to add the extraordinary effect of true 3D to my favorite games.
I am sure most of us have, at least tangentially, been aware of various vendors promising to enhance our viewing pleasure by the addition of a 3rd dimension to our gaming, movies, and images. We have undoubtedly also heard the horror stories of how the product failed miserably or caused unbearable headaches after only a few minutes of use. Those factors were the cause of apprehension and excitement for me when I decided to test the X3D System. I wanted to see if the ability to transform our mundane world into one bursting with life was feasible without forcing us to break out the aspirin.
Specifications
As is customary, I won't perform the ol' cut and paste of all the details but I will include some of the highlights. If you wish to see a more detailed description you can check them out yourself at X3D.
You will need DirectX 8.1 or higher and a video card capable of 3D gaming. I wouldn't recommend most on-board video, although the new N-force boards should suffice. In fact, the included installation/viewing guides state "Any X3D Viewing System can be used for 3D gaming provided your system meets 3D gaming requirements and 3D drivers are installed." A nice little blurb on the box, and pretty much all over the documentation, says you must have an NVIDIA graphics accelerator for 3D gaming. I had no trouble running it under my ATI 9500 Pro. Go figure. Included in the package are the glasses (and transmitter if wireless), dongle, installation cd, and game cd's.
Installation
Installation is fairly simple. Included in the package is a video dongle that is used to connect the glasses to your PC. One end sports a VGA connector for attaching to your video card; the other end has a port for the wired glasses, VGA monitor connection, and wireless glasses transmitter. First and foremost, turn off you PC and power down your monitor. Then disconnect your monitor from your PC and connect it to the dongle. Next, connect the glasses or transmitter to the other end of the dongle and connect the dongle to your PC VGA connection. Finally, turn on your PC and monitor, that's it you are done.
Time for the software/drivers. Once you're are up and running, insert the included CD. The software consists of the Desktop Controller (used to adjust settings), TV Gateway (capture card required), PC Gateway (for viewing streaming windows media in 3D), Image Conversion Utility (w/Photoshop allows you to convert your images to 3D) and NVIDIA video and stereo drivers. When I went through the installation I didn't have any trouble other than a warning message saying there were no drivers to install. I thought I may have gotten a bad disk until I realized that my current ATI drivers were sufficient and it was actually telling me there was no need to install other drivers. A slight modification to the wording of this message may alleviate some confusion.
Operation
Now that we have all the software installed, let's get to the fun part, testing. As mentioned above, the package includes several 3D games. A list is below:
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X3D Cycling Manager
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A Tour de France type game, like fantasy football
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Axysnake
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similar to the original
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Christmas Magic
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Help Santa deliver presents
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3D Marbles
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just what it says
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Crazy Minigolf
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Miniature golf in 3D
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Parg
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Wacky Characters race through 5 3D worlds
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Toyland Racer
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Toys race
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Karpov X3D Chess
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Yes, Chess
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Paintball Heroes
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As the title says
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Speed Thief
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GTA it ain't
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Roller Coaster World
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Build and ride coasters from first person perspective
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Ring Riker
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?
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Megacity Challenge
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Another racer, this time taxis
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X3D Model Trains
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Probably the best game of the bunch
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Midnight Racing
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Racing in the dark, Woohoo!
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There are a lot of games included, but most of them are aimed at children. Of the rest, I would say that Paintball is absolutely horrible. Not fun, not visually exciting, just not good. I understand the inclusion was to show off the 3D capabilities of the glasses, but they should have either put more time into it or just left it out. Roller Coaster World and X3D Model Trains were pretty nice simulations and I enjoyed them most.
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