Actuality Systems is Working on a 3D Display for Gaming

[iddo]

Hello All,
We recently published an article and an interview with Actuality Systems - the company responsible for one of the more interesting 3D displays which sadly currently used mostly for medical applications.

In our interview with the company founder Gregg Favalora we received a very interesting response when asked about the option of a gaming application for their 3D technology:

"I cannot say much about it at this stage, but we are working on exciting, hologram-like displays for the desktop and arcade. They are very different from the Perspecta display".

We will be happy to hear your comments on the possibility of a future real 3D gaming display technology.

More on Actuality Systems' 3D display technology...

 

[Doughbuy]

Hmmmm, usually I'm kinda hesitant on checking out things by a first time poster that might or might not be viral advertisement, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt...

3D gaming is a very real possibility, especially since games have been pretty much stagnant (as in, all we're doing is rendering better or making things look more lifelike, but the basics have all been the same). Something that would completely change how people game would have a huge effect. However, anything to the order of 3D will cost money (not just a little, not just a lot, but a $hit-ton) that most people can't afford.

At most, I can see this being used in arcades where they already have some semblance of this. Maybe given long enough time, it might migrate towards a house (highly doubtful, this seems way too complicated) but you never know.

However, I'm envisioning the future of gaming to be more and more interconnect (AKA MMORPG ish) with communities being more and more important. I would say the ultimate pinnacle of gaming would be something akin to the Matrix, where we can enter a virtual world and really be able to experience the game. If this will ever happen, I won't question, but thats as far as I can see gaming going...

Just some personal opinons...

 

[iddo]

Real human here - no viral advertisement

Actually to me the biggest problem Actually face is cost - their current system cost around 50K. on the other hand they are talking about a different thing so maybe it will be considrbly cheaper - I guess we shall have to wait and see.

 

[Doughbuy]

Yeah, thats the thing... the medical profession has money to blow on 50k displays... we only have money to blow on 600 dollar graphics card... big difference...

 

[iddo]

B.T.W. I see you have a LOT of HDDs, you will probobly be interested in our article on Samsung's upcoming Hybrid Hard Drive (We shall also publish a follow up on Solid state hard drives by Samsung soon - but I guess this will probobly cost you around 50K with the number of HDDs you have ).

 

[RichPLS]

Yes, but new technology starts expensive to invent then implement and often is buggy at first, as it evolves, prices drop as it is adopted.

 

[iddo]

This is always true, but are you talking about 3D gaming display or the Hybrid hard drive?

 

[RichPLS]

Actually, both fall under my response... although the Gb RAM disk at $120 is affordable, it has to evolve to accommodate more storage and a faster SATA-IO connectivity, since 4GB's is nice, 8GB's, 16GB's or even 128GB's at similar price points are obvious paths in the next few years.

 

[iddo]

The Samsung 32GB SSD should cost aroud >1000$ if you can buy it today. In two years time it might be sub 400$.

 

[RichPLS]

And in 3 or 4 years will probably be an option as a boot drive for major OEM's as part of the instant on series, especially enticing for notebooks...

Seems like a SSD RAM drive would benefit stability wise using ECC RAM...

 

[iddo]

SSD and RAM are two differnt things - maybe in the long run you will see a combination but I belive it will take more than 4 years...

 

[Doughbuy]

I can't see SSD replacing HDD's, in fact, I don't see anything replacing HDD's when it comes down to pure storage (unless there is something totally revolutionary such as holographic storage, but with current techonology...)

But I believe hybrid HDD's will really take off, especially for the performance oriented crowd (I.E. Raptors) and maybe even for enterprise purposes... consumer wise, they might get the basic version or even one without, although I don't see hybrid HDD's costing much more...

At most SSD will help current hardware right now, replacing them in laptops, but not in the desktop/server market, especially with the advent of HD everything and the fact that everything takes up much more room than before...

 

[iddo]

m... I don't agree - I think conventional hard drives will diappear within the next 5-10 years. SSD and other technologies will replace them. In the shorter term Hybrid hard drive will become the norm - but please keep in mind that they only work with Vista and will initially be sold with laptops and not desktops.

B.T.W. it is funny that you mention Holographic storage since... well you guest right - we have another article on that as well (and no we are not a storage orianted web site but we do cover future technologies - here is a link to our Holographic storage article ).

 

[Doughbuy]

Heh... maybe I should read that site more often... but it seems they're only using holographic as a removable medium right now... 20mb/s is kind of slow, so yeah, 2008 to reach sorta mainstream might work, but it definitly needs a faster write speed... I don't think people want to take a week to burn a disc...

We'll probably see about the SSD... I dont think PMR will even go that far, probably max out around 3TB per HDD... if even... I'll find out more about SSD once I take my solid state class (next semester) so I'll see how feasible it really is for SSD to replace HDD's...

Yeah, makes sense they're intially sold for laptops since laptops already have the gimped 5400RPM HDD's.. and flash will also save a bit on power consumption which is always a good thing.

 

[iddo]

Actually there are currently SSD drives on the market with 100GB+ but they are very very expensive - mostly for the militery etc. starting next year you will see SSD drives (8, 16, 32 ad 64GB) as commercial products - they will still be expensive but they will work with both XP and Vista and their price will go down as prices of Flash go down (and they do at a rate of about 100% a yer or so).

 

[Doughbuy]

Another thing is.. flash is also slower than HDD's by quite a bit... although I've seen them with some nice speed increases... one more barrier they face.

And then isin't there the problem of the limited number of reads and writes they can take? Or has that problem been resovled already...

 

[iddo]

I suggest you read the interview with Samsung on the article - it explains why the speed of Flash is less importent in terms of performance (I asked the exact question myself).

As for the number of read/write times - I am not sure if solved is the right term but apperantly their are ways to overcome it.

 

[kamel5547]

This kinda reminds of when I was at E3 and they had 3D goggles (years ago maybe 2001 or 2002).. it looked kinda cool at the time but no one took advantage of it.

 

[burn-e86]

does this mean that there is going to be a resergence in arcades?
since they would (likely) have the upfront capital to buy a system. or atleast more likely then your avrege home user.

 

[Doughbuy]

I spent 100 bucks at an arcade once... and after that, I sworn them off forever...

They're way too expensive for the little things they offer... however... I know Japan has a full Gundam simulation pod where it simulates a cockpit and you go around fighting... I wonder if you can gain levels and eventually bust out as wing-zero and just dominate the field.. shrug

 

[burn-e86]

god...what a looser....who plays gundam wing?!?
seed is so much better!
anyway i was thinking more along the lines of when arcades first had there debut some time in the 60s/70s when they caused a quater shortage in the US and a (coin) shortage in Japan. course the prices would have to change what with inflation and stuff, but yea back to the sort of thing that was going on in the "golden era" of gaming.

 

[Doughbuy]

Thing is... Seed is kinda cheap when you have one freaking gundam with a shield that can block huge ass laser beams like spitwads...

Anyways, gaming at home and lan parties are more and more common because of how technology has advanced and how larger networked games have increased in popularity hundred-fold... Arcades will quickly become a thing of the past since people enjoy playing with people more so than just a computer (WoW anyone?)

This system might spark interest back up in arcades if it can be implemented widely, but arcades really are dieing out... DDR prolonged arcades for a bit longer, but most games you play in arcades can all be done on consoles and computers much easier. I'm waiting for the first Wii gun and then we can play Time Crisis on Wii... no more need to go to the arcade anymore after that.

 

[Doughbuy]

Thing is... Seed is kinda cheap when you have one freaking gundam with a shield that can block huge ass laser beams like spitwads...

Anyways, gaming at home and lan parties are more and more common because of how technology has advanced and how larger networked games have increased in popularity hundred-fold... Arcades will quickly become a thing of the past since people enjoy playing with people more so than just a computer (WoW anyone?)

This system might spark interest back up in arcades if it can be implemented widely, but arcades really are dieing out... DDR prolonged arcades for a bit longer, but most games you play in arcades can all be done on consoles and computers much easier. I'm waiting for the first Wii gun and then we can play Time Crisis on Wii... no more need to go to the arcade anymore after that.