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X3D Extreme 3D System
Date: Thursday, December 4, 2003
Author: Jsgolfman
Provided By: X3D
Page: 2 of 2
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So, discarding the quality of the games, how does the system measure up to the hype? In a word, fair. There was definitely a difference in playing the game non-3D versus 3D enhanced, but on most games there was not enough of a difference to truly make me believe I was watching a 3D world. The quality of the 3D animation ranged from poor (Paintball) to interesting (Roller Coaster/Trains). To be fair, I was only running at 100Hz refresh rate and I think the quality would improve with a higher rate. The rub is that the system is touted as being able to run as low as 85 Hz. I tried it at 85 Hz and it was horrendous. The images flickered so bad that I was unable to read any text and made gaming impossible. I tried it at resolutions from 800x600 to 1280x768. It seemed to react better to 800x600.
The PC Gateway worked in a similar fashion, but only in 16 bit mode. It does not run in 32 bit. Quality was comparable to my experience with Roller Coaster, so that's a plus. The TV Gateway required a capture card and I don't have one so I can't comment on that portion, although I don't expect to see much variation from the rest of the package. The conversion utility works just fine and produced 3D images that I would say are almost as good as Xara 3D. The only problem with the conversion utility is that it requires Photoshop to run and not everyone can afford it at ~$600.
The desktop controller was easy to use, simply point and click on the options you wish to use. You can turn the glasses on and off, adjust from normal to reverse stereo, choose interleaved, over/under or page flip mode and test your settings.
Misc.
You may be asking, "Where can I find 3D content in order to use my glasses?" Well, you can surf on over to the X3D homepage and view their image gallery. There are no videos but there is a small sampling of 3D images. Some of the images only displayed the familiar red "x" for missing links, but the shark mouth is a nice one. Also, the recent chess match between Kasparov and X3D Fritz can be viewed.I also tried using the glasses on other games that were not already 3D enhanced like UT2K3, Frag-Ops (drool), Spiderman, GTA III, solitaire (what the heck) and checkers. I didn't notice any 3D effect in checkers or solitaire (darn!) but I could tell a difference in the rest. Spiderman was just plain ugly as was GTA III. Frag-Ops and UT2K3 actually looked very cool although the 3D effect was just noticeable. It made it difficult in some areas to orient myself but it is something I will make adjustments to and hopefully be able to use in the future.
Conclusion
Let's get down to the bottom line. Should you purchase it? That's hard to say. There aren't a lot of games designed for 3D right now that I would consider enjoyable for extended periods of time, but you can still find uses like the PC gateway, TV Gateway, and image conversion. Also, as I mentioned above, even though games may not be 3D games, per se, they can still be fun with the glasses. One thing in favor of the glasses I should mention is that they are only a small portion of X3D technology and application. I urge you to visit the homepage and discover for yourself the possibilities. In the end I can't say I recommend spending $100 or so until there are more applications readily available. It's an interesting concept and I think it will be more mainstream in the near future, just not right now. Of course, that's just my opinion, your mileage may vary.
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