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Date |
: May 5th, 2001 |
| Category |
: Video |
| Publisher |
: Wicked3D |
| Author |
: Jin-Wei Tioh |
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First, the good. The eyeSCREAM light reasonably good
compatibility, working with pretty much anything that uses OpenGL. I put it to work on Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament, Alice.... under Windows 98SE and Windows 2000, on a P3-700 with an Creative TNT2 Ultra using reference 5.30 drivers. No configuration problems to report. For full list of compatible graphics cards and games,
check here. The eyeSCREAM light works remarkably well, creating a 3D effect that is better than I had expected. If you want to get an idea on how the generated stereo images look, check out the following screenshots from Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament and Alice.
Unfortunately, there are always two sides to a coin. On the flipside, 3D performance took a nosedive. This is to be expected, since now two images have to be rendered simultaneously, one for the red and one for the blue channel. Even with an "old" graphics accelerator, all games were still very playable. Here's a look at how much of a performance hit you'll take when using the eyeSCREAM :
While it is compatible with OpenGL-based programs, it does not support Direct3D, which effectively alienates many good games out there such as Black &
White and MDK 2. I can only assume that it is easier to support OpenGL, since that it is an open standard, and that Wicked3D would have to work closely with Microsoft to develop support for Direct3D. That'll be the day...
Another issue is that the generated stereo images are interlaced, ie. there are alternating blank horizontal lines. At lower resolutions, this makes things look a might jagged and grainy. This is why Wicked3D recommends playing at a minimum resolution of 1024x768. While those with at least a GeForce should have no problems with this, those of us (yours truly included) stuck with older cards might have to downshift into lower resolutions. Not to worry though, since I found 800x600 to be quite alright.
The last quip is nothing major. It's just that people tend to look at you funny when you forget to remove the red/blue filter glasses. :)
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