BlueSmoke - Review : Wicked3D eyeSCREAM Light

Date

: May 5th, 2001

Category

: Video

Publisher

: Wicked3D

Author

: Jin-Wei Tioh

We've come a very long way since the emergence of 3D accelerators such as nVIDIA's RIVA 128 and 3Dfx's Voodoo. Each successive generation brought more performance and features (trilinear filtering, FSAA, 32-bit textures, etc.) to the table, in part spurred by nVIDIA's aggressive 6-month product cycle.

However, for all the improvements made, the resulting 3D images are painted onto a very 2D surface, your monitor. Thus, while looking realistic, the on-screen action just doesn't seem to be in your face. One (admittedly old) technology can readily solve that, steoreovision. In real life, this is how we see things with two eyes. Our depth perception stems from the fact that each eye sees an object from slightly different perspectives, which serves as depth cues.

How do we get past this limitation? Implement stereo vision in the virtual world, which is exactly what Wicked3D did with the eyeSCREAM light. Unlike other attempts on the market so far, the eyeSCREAM light is not a hardware-based stereoscopic solution. Rather, Wicked3D has done a 180 and implemented stereovision in software. First off, how it works. The eyeSCREAM light tackles the task at the driver level, forcing compatible applications (more on this later) to render two separate images. When done correctly, your mind would do some fancy processing (no idea how many MIPS) to combine the images in such a way that you actually perceive yourself to be "in" the virtual world. As you can imagine, this would definitely increase the immersiveness of games.

Being a software-based solution, the eyeSCREAM costs a lot less than competing hardware-based solutions, at only US$14.95, so don't expect too much in the package. You essentially get a CD, an instruction sheet, and two pairs of black cardboard red/blue color filter glasses.

The CD contains only the application itself on it. Installation is a snap. Put in the CD, follow the on-screen instructions, and you're presented with a control panel with following options :

Monitor size

Stereo effect strength

Enable/Disable stereo driver

Game selection

Enable/Disable 3D aiming help

Resolution override

This is quite obvious, and remember when it comes to monitors, size does matter.

This allows you to set the "strength" of the stereo effect produced by the eyeSCREAM light. The instructions suggest 50% for new users and 75% for experienced users. 25% is the minimal setting and 100% is the correct stereo effect. The stereo effect does take some getting used to, and 50% is a good starting point. However, like the instructions say, anything other than 100% does not produce the correct effect, and surely enough, I got confusing visual cues in Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament and Alice. Gunning the setting up to 100% gave me a much better impression, and the 3D effect produced was pretty convincing. It is best that you have a pair of red-blue filter glasses to view the screenshots below.

Again, pretty obvious. You can either enable or disable the stereo driver using this option.

The game selection dialog contains a complete list of supported games. It scans through your registry to find compatible games and the detected games are marked with an asterisk. One problem with this arrangement is that if you reinstall Windows _without_ reinstalling your games (Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament do not have to be reinstalled to work), the game selector would not be able to detect it. Other than that, it works very well.

This options enables or disables either a laser pointer or a crosshair. It helps you to aim in "true" 3D, but for the most part, I did not need it.

This option overrides the in-game resolution when using the eyeSCREAM light. Available resolutions : 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1152x864, 1280x1024, 1280x720, 1280x960. The main purpose of this is that you have to run at least 800x600 to get a decent image. More on this later.

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. :)

So what's the verdict then? At its price point, there is no other product to match the eyeSCREAM light. It works remarkably well, brings stereoscopic gaming to the mainstream, and is also an excellent way to test the waters. However, it only supports OpenGL and the glasses are rather cheap. Hopefully, Direct3D support will be added soon and perhaps Wicked3D should consider having another bundle which includes a more proper pair of glasses. Despite its bad points, quite frankly, I am very enthusiastic about my experience with stereoscopic gaming using the eyeSCREAM light, and whole-heartedly recommend that you at least give them a try. Recommended.