Wall-Sized 3D Displays: The Ultimate Gaming Room - Page 4

Sounds good.

No need to remove the apparatus, just flip up the mirror and hold it with a catch.

You can also run 2 screens at the same time and double your desktop space , so it isn't a total loss.

Have you been to Barry Aldous and Planar websites? Barry makes it look as easy as it is.

You don't have to make a box out of the monitors, you can just have them on an arm like the Planar setup.

"so far I am only basing my information on what scraps I've figured out from posts in this forum", doesn't sound promising, as I have linked to some really good sites full of DIY setup info.

So you want the link to the guy from Spain who made his own setup?

On Lumenlab forums right now is a guy called "tescorp" He will make a fully-loaded enclosure (just add the LCD panel) for $400 in the 15" size (1024x768), or $425 for the 17" size (1280x1024), that is surely one way to do it, get two of those.

Mirror one of them, project both onto a silver surface, put on the glasses, enable the mirrored Dual output mode on the video card driver panel. Enjoy the 3D.

Enjoy, I hope you find a setup that matches you, and of course do some work on Google and make sure you are doing it right, whichever option you choose.

Any panel you can get to fit, the guy with the 19" panels from spain (plog section of lumenlab forums) has 1440xsomething display, really HD.

That is the beauty of DIY, you can make anything.

No I haven't tested it. I think you may be right, I may have been quoting input refresh rates. Where would I get the output frequency specs for a projector. I've never seen those listed in a manual (or if there in there I don't know what to look for)

I have never seen "maximum display refresh rate" or "time-sequential 3D compatibility" listed on the spec sheet of any consumer DLP projector - just on the 120Hz 3D capable projectors from DepthQ, Barco and Christie.

The only way to find out so far is to test it. I have even asked the distributors or manufacturers on several occasions and they don't know.

that's pretty pathetic the manufacturer does not even know the specs for their product. I just love when manufacturers omit specs or even give you useless specs like voltage/wattage for a vacuum, when amperage is what determines the motor's power. You'd think they would at least make the effort to ask someone to check it out for you at the manufacturer.

No one has answered this one in 157 posts

I'm particularly interested in what EveOnline would look like.

Q

I play WoW with shutter glasses. The only thing is that you have to turn off the vertex shaders (all vertex shaded objects get rendered at 0 screen depth) and on some machines the fullscreen glow effect (not sure what the delineator is for that). You lose a few frames of performance from the vertex shaders but it looks great. With the settings I use the interface is at 0 depth an it looks like you are looking down onto a live, toon battlemap. I was surprised that by far most of the spell effects are actually fully 3d rendered. The exceptions to this being "bubble"-type spells. The weather looks ok... but feels like it is also rendered at 0 depth... still gives 3d illusion by rain/flakes disappearing at different virtual depths. Water looks really nice, but after a bit you might notice that it's a pixel shader on "cloth." Boss creatures look phenomenal... particularly of recollection is Hakkar (can't get over the sheen). For the few who play WoW in 1st person, it is also possible to set the frustrum and spread to get that looking very nice (may require remapping of some keys either in game or for nVidia driver). Skies are a bit of a let down... then again even without shutter glasses they weren't as good as they could have been. I also remember the awe factor the first time my rogue got poisoned when I was wearing shutter glasses... each of the little skulls is 3d rendered. All-in-all lots of eyecandy.

Interesting article.
One thing though. the reviewer does'nt mention stereo convergance keys.
He suggests seperation at 10% to cope with 'near object' focussing.
I find this takes away a lot of the 3d effect.
I prefer to have seperation at 100% and I adjust 'near object' focussing by adjusting the convergance instead , which retains the 3d effect better, but enables me to focus on near objects(such as guns you are holding)


and also, isnt there a piece of software to switch the right/left eye display, instead of the hardware solution suggested?

Anyway, I enjoyed the article. I have used 3d shutter glass from edim for about 4 years now and definatly want to get a projector!.

Can anyone post some stereoscopic screenshots of some of the newer games?
I'd like to see what it actually looks like.
Thanks

You will require some form of stereoscopic viewing equipment to view a stereo image as you have to have 2 images - one for each eye.

Yes, just to let you guys see my first Dual LCD Planar setup (this is actually two OEM Planar units badged as Hitachi CML175SX and CML174SX, one has speakers).



Check out this awesome effect, if you can cross your eyes and focus on the two screenshots below of my actual monitor (through each lens of my polarized glasses) there is a 3D effect! It is like seeing my actual desktop!



I basically cross my eyes until they are lined up, then "relax" my eyeballs to allow them to focus, otherwise the muscles pulling them cross-eyed deform my eyes and defocus the image. Note that it is easier to do if you are a foot or two back and are used to viewing cross-eyed stereo pairs. Either way the proof is in the pudding, no ghosting and high contrast for direct view. Even with a picture, (hey, there weren't any pictures in that article, how do we know what DLP 3D looks like?)

I set it up in a horizontal setup to check the effect. Unbelievably brilliant, high res (1280x1024, x2), ZERO ghosting, lightweight comfortable glasses. It kind of helps that these are top of the line monitors though. I got them for ~$50 apiece on ebay, I had to get 3 and swap parts around, I had a broken LCD, a dead Inverter, and a dead set of back-light tubes, so out of $150 worth of junk LCD's I salvaged 2 sweet ones.

I wasn't prepared for the effect to be visible from many angles, but as you see from my screenshots the effect works anywhere you are looking through the mirror. I need to put back in my hard drive with Oblivion and Tomb Raider: Legend and World Racing 2, Serious Sam 2 etc etc.

I do plan on mounting them eventually in a Planar style mount: http://www.planar.com/products/fla [...] reoscopic/ Note the $4,000 price tag and I get the same effect (with the same screens) for under $300 .

All you need to do is get the pictures mostly aligned, it doesn't have to be precise as each eye will see a completely different diverging picture anyway, just having the screens aligned horizontally is enough, and in a vertical monitor arrangement the mirror can perform that alignment, if you look at the Planar monitor(s?) you will see that there is an adjustment screw for that purpose.

Don't forget that the source for the mirrors is http://telepromptermirrors.com/

Notice that the Planar commercial jobs have a truncated (short) mirror, that is because you will be looking down at your screen, and the extra mirror is useless because all you would see through it would be your Desk, and a reflection of the ceiling. Take that into account when you measure for the glass.

You can do a mockup too with a mirror or a piece of cardboard, hold it where the half-mirror will go, if you can't see your monitor screen, then it should be big enough, the regular mirror method works if you have the mount already made and you want to see the top screen is reflected.

Best to get an extra couple inches to be on the safe side though, and they will cut it for you to any size, so that is good.

This method will theoretically work on any size screens you can get, I would love to see this in a dual 30" , obviously that would be expensive, but the quality would be absolutely stunning.

Try a dual 15" one for starters, there is a good chance you can borrow a second screen at work and give it a go, or borrow one from a friend to test the waters as it were. Once you are convinced, get a couple sub-$200 19" monitors and enjoy. If you are already using an LCD that didn't cost you an arm and a leg, you can get a second one and be good to go.

If you make the top screen flip up or detach for desk use you can have the luxury of dual screens in normal 2D windows tasks as well, that is how I am typing this up, managing mp Picasa on the left screen and typing this on the right screen.

I think that the dual LCD method offers the most bang for the buck, it is high contrast, high res, Zero ghosting, zero flickering, and can be easily set up for under $500, including a handful of spare glasses so everyone can watch too. If anyone wants to know my driver setup, it is the 91.31 Stereo drivers and the 93.81 Forceware on a GeForce 7900GS. If anyone is looking to do this I recommend a 7900 series with 512MB of ram, I have basically modded my 7900GS up to the GTX clock speed, but I can't double the ram. I got it for $120 so it isn't all bad, but a 7900GT/GTX/ 7950GT etc would be an ideal card. The 8600GTS is about level in terms of performance with the 7900 series right now, so you don't really lose out on playability.

I have some stereoscopic screenshots of Painkiller, Need for Speed Underground 2, and Lego Star Wars that I can upload if people are interested. They're not the absolute latest games but never-the-less display some good stereoscopic effect.

They're in JPS (Stereoscopic JPEG) format.

JPS images can be viewed in 3D using a few different applications: JPSViewer (part of the NVIDIA Stereo 3D Driver), Depthcharge (from www.vrex.com), or ...
The beauty of the JPS format is that it can be viewed using almost any 3D display/glasses that you can get your hands on - including anaglyph (red/cyan), shutter glasses, or even autostereoscopic displays. The JPS viewer application converts the image on the fly.

Actually, I don't have any stereoscopic glasses but I can see the stereoscopic effect just fine if I have two screenshots side by side like the ones found on http://www.stereovision.net/toxicx/start_shots.htm
I would take the screenshots myself but I don't really know how.

Will01:

Yes, the i-Art "Wicked Eye 3D Premium" set is exactly what I use, and yes, with this setup you do not need the stereo projection inverter from 3DFlightSim.com (I'm running with the Nvidia 91.31 drivers-1024x768 native @85Hz, which is the highest rate my projector can stand).

If you select that model from the link you provided you'll see the Eye 3D Premiums include the "TX4000 Infrared Emitter Box." The button at the top center right switches the strobing order of the panels (I imagine you already know this, which is why you have the i-Art setup in mind--good choice).

I'd be surprised if any i-Art combo which includes the TX4000 doesn't work equally well too.

It's roughly a $100 savings over the setup used in the article, offset of course by the higher cost of the two pair i-Art kit. Moreover, it will work with wired glasses too.

So far I've only tried the wired pair here (with the projector)--they plug into the right side of the emitter box, and there are connectors for two wired pairs--but I anticipate no real issues using the wireless set and the switcher button through the infrared sender. The wireless glasses worked just fine together last year when I was using them with a 21" monitor, and I definitely made use of the panel switcher button even back then.

The i-Art combo cost $200 when I bought them several years ago from a US distributor, although back then the additional shipping cost was pretty minimal. Seems to be pretty steep if they must be sent direct from Asia, so I'd look around for a distributor somewhere on your continent....

---------

ADDENDUM: I found my pair of wireless glasses again too just a short while ago, and they have what appears to be another stereo panel switcher button located on the RF receiver unit. Which gives you two ways to switch the strobing order of the panels.

I'd forgotten too that the IR receiver plugs into the left corner of the frame, but is removeable, so in theory you could even flip it over and mount the IR sender unit vertically above your head...or behind your head...and still manage to make them work. Might require some sort of homebuilt extender to the plug, yes, but's it's doable, at least on paper.

For the life of me I cannot remember for sure if I used the swithcher button located on the IR receiver or the one located on the TX4000 unit when I used to toggle the glasses, but I have the vague idea I used to reach for my vest area to toggle the order...which suggests I did use the button on the IR receiver.

It really doesn't matter though--ONE (if not both) of them should, indeed, do the job (so again--you won't need any other inverter if you use the i-Art glasses).

As far as comfort: I use mine over the top of my normal glasses, and while the ear blades are bit thin in vertical cross-section (thus tending to irritate the top of the ears) I don't see any reason they couldn't be "padded" with tape or fabric as required for comfort. Just haven't bothered with that yet here.

The biggest drawback to these particular glasses (over eDimensional or Elsa) might be that the glasses frame surrounding the polarizer panels is solid, and thus opaque--seems to me something manufactured in clear plastic might work better with any surround projection image to further increase the sense of "being there"--you'd see the additional peripheral projection too more easily anyway.

Not a show stopper though, and otherwise, I'm pretty happy with the i-Art glasses (both types).

I do have to wonder also if the TX4000 sender wouldn't work with a pair of the eDimensional glasses (either type)....


C_S

Did anyone tried Google Earth with 3d? I imagine it is nothing less then great but can someone give a feedback?

Guys, all this talk about stereoscopic games made me very excited about aquiring my future 3D rig.

BUT (there is always a but

I am a bit unsafe about the resolutionsyou are talking about here.

To start I am in Brasil and most people (includemyself) still use CRTs, and since I am about to buy a completely new rig I was seriously thinking about to go for a more imersive equipment until I saw this article. My set up was to be 3x 19´ LCD Display with a Nvidia 8800 and triple head to go.

But LCD resolutions always concerned me a little bit because they are fixed instead of CRT that we can choose from a variety of resolutions and they all look great (or almost).

Then I saw this new aproach to displaying 3d games but the resolution goes even lower. I mean in CRT we can use very easily 1600x1200, then in LCD goes to 1280x1024 and now the best projectors under $1000 can display maximum of 1024x768.

My question is: isn´t it such low resolution to display such ammount of details in the games? Games are always evolving to display more and more details and the graphic cards are evolving also to keep the run.

Can I get the same level of details with 1024x768 in a projector? will I be missing something compared to 3x 19´LCD with 1280x1024?

This is my first point risen to discuss, but there is more.

1-I thought if I am going to loose details then can I use Triple Head to Go to link 3x Projectors at 1024x768 and use them with stereoscopic 3d games?

2-Well does not need to be 3 projector, 2 can be just fine. But did anyone actually tried it?

3-Can I use 2 projectors WITHOUT Dual head to go BUT with simple two display output from the graphic card?

The only problem so far I see using the triple head to go with 3 projector is the fact that even each of them being 85hz the triple head to go downgrade them all to 60hz, is this really a problem since eyes can get 30 fps?

Is the Optoma EP1690 recomendable? will it work with stereoscopic 3d games?
Thanks again
Felipe

Google earth doesn't work in full screen mode, so it doesn't support 3D with the current nvidia drivers.

"Dynamic Digital Depth" has released a driver which allows Google Earth to be run in full stereoscopic 3D. More info here:
http://www.tridef.com/promotions/google-earth.html
However, for frame-sequential 3D you will need a NVIDIA Quadro graphics card. From memory the Tridef software is only capable of supporting anaglyph 3D on the NVIDIA GeForce cards.
Some screenshots of Google Earth in 3D are also on the page listed above.

You're also getting rude...
Thanks for the tip about NVstrap.

I messed a little around with stereo and treied this planar Systhem with 2 CRT Monitors. This works ok, except with C&C where -if there is any 3d - the mouse isn't mirrored on the 2nd monitor. Now I read Google Earth could be 3d and want to try this.

I installed a quadro driver (96.02?) and one for stereo for my 7900gs, but can't get/choose the classical Controll pannel, to activate stereo...

If stereo with this modification how is eg. Google Earth appearing in 3d? Is the menue still useable?

Greetings LukePC

PS: I read most of the stuff posted here and learnt a lot more about stereo. Go on like this^^

This is my first post here From hard forum . Now to get back to the topic. I would love to see how FEAR looks on this. It really would be like being in a horror movie. Try it out if you can

In my experience so far, you still DO experience a bit of ghosting with a DLP projector, even at 85Hz refresh, yes.

Not really sure why this occurs either--it certainly isn't because of glowing screen phosphers. Might instead be something to do with afterglow effect in the rods and cones of the eyeballs? That same "afterglow" effect you get when you step into a brightly lit room and suddenly shut off the lights....

I will have to say that it's pretty minimal in my view. No showstopper, certainly.

Bigger issues to me might be that some colors tend to shimmer more than others--yellow seems the worst, but there is some of this effect too with red and green.

What causes this sensation, I think, is the fact that the two eyes see some objects displayed with different levels of color (and I would guess it has to do with the rotating colorwheel timings rather than the actual throughput of the signal in Hz). So I'll see one billboard as bright yellow, for example, with the left eye, but only a dirty brown with the right eye.

While the two eyes will agree on the stereo placement of the object in space, they won't agree on the color of the object they are each seeing. Thus they instead agree only on an object that will seem to shimmer and dance to some degree.

I have the idea this problem might be solved by re-engineering the projector so that the colorwheel speeds were all doubled, tripled, or quadrupled, but if we try that we're now heading off into the DIY/experimenter realm. Not really just "off-the-shelf" stuff any more.

---------

On the plus side, I have to say it's the LIFESIZE stereo projection which really makes it all worthwhile for me. I've used shutterglasses in the past for driving, but even with a big (21" ) CRT monitor located right behind my wheel, I just couldn't quite buy into the idea that I was sitting inside a real car--the stereo effect, colors, and resolution were all quite good on my monitor...but everything seemed considerably "undersized" at the same time. Felt like I was driving a large (1/4 scale) RC car instead of a real, full-sized, automobile.

With lifesized stereo projection, however, that fundamental disconnect has finally been bridged over, and my brain buys into what I'm seeing pretty thoroughly at this point.


C_S

A lot of what you are talking about with doubling is usually due to a combination of stereo separation and convergence adjustment. The convergence adjustments are defaultly bound to the F5 and F6 keys (may require holding CTRL... I forget offhand) and are used to determine the Z level at which sight for each eye should intersect. Usually in situations where the menuing is affected in this manner I use the convergence to set the menu at 0 or very nearly 0 screen depth. Then adjust the stereo separation to add/remove depth as necessary for acceptable viewing.

Inversion of the transmitter won't buy you anything. What I mean is that the signal received by the glasses is essentially the same regardless of orientation (with the exception of line-of-sight issues). You could turn the glasses upside-down, they tend to be difficult to wear in that fashion.

Questions for nubie, or anyone else who's gone the dual LCD/planar route:

What refresh rates are you able to get out of the two monitor pairings with your current planar setup?

My assumption (based on the typical 75Hz max refresh for an LCD monitor), is that you are actually seeing ~30-37 FPS at each eye (each eye is refreshed twice for each stereo frame) but I'm wondering if it's just possible one might somehow set things up instead to drive each eye @60Hz (or even 75Hz) and thereby realize an effective "stereo throughput" of 120-150Hz*?

[*Which is actually just 60-75Hz overall, of course]

This couldn't be done with your 6800 video card, I realize, nor with mine (7800GS AGP)...but I have to wonder if something very powerful like a 8800 GTX might just be able to drive a mid-res (1280 x 1024 or even 1600 x 1200) pairing of LCD's somewhere near this range....

[EDIT: Turns out, yes, this powerful single card should be able to drive either of these high rate configurations, although only the 1280x1024 solution will be able to refresh at 150Hz (75Hz x2) in 32 bit color--either color resolution or refresh rate drops off a bit when we move up to 1600x1200--it'll send output at this resolution only @120Hz (16 bit color) or 100Hz (32 bit color).]

--------



The idea then (for me anyway) would be to rig the two LCD's into a DIY stereo projector, instead of pursuing the single DLP projector route.

Thoughts?


C_S

DIY projectors made out of 17" LCD monitors will be 1280x1024 in resolution.

For projection you need a silver surface screen. I have found some killer ones for under $200 (up to 100" diagonal) here:

http://www.onlyscreens.com/versatol.htm

The prices aren't working as I checked it a minute ago, but you can email the guy, my screen was shipped from the factory new for $142 total.

The eBay seller search (this works, upgrade to Silver Matte at checkout):
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZmrm71


Da-Lite calls the surface "silver-Matte", so you can reflect polarized light.

When you make two DIY projectors you must mirror one of them and then project both images on top of each other, since you are building it yourself you can make one projector internally mirrored.

I was helped a lot by the Projector Log of this guy from Spain, he is using 2 19" LCDs (1440x900!!) to make his stereo Polarized setup.

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/ind [...] opic=15333

Quite right, nubie. I obviously didn't understand it. I glossed quickly over it searching for solutions to my own questions, I'm afraid--rather too tightly focused on the connectivity issues the other night, both here and in some other forums I frequent. Error mine, not yours.

Your screenshots do clear things up for me and they also show some big advantages to this method where color reproduction and overall brightness are an issue (as they are with most DLP projectors and the shutterglasses method).

Thanks too for the links--that last one, in particular, has proved invaluable already, providing solutions to quite a few other problems. A very useful blog, that one....

-----

As you point out, this method (as used in projection) does demand a higher "quality" of screen, since it must reflect not just light, but polarized light back to the eye in order to work. This MAY eventually be the one stumbling block that forces me to continue instead down the path of the strobed/shutterglasses projection solution, but I'm certainly not ready to say that for sure until I do some hands on testing of some of these components myself.

In any case, this solution has real potential and some clear advantages over the other method.

Biggest advantage to the DLP shutterglasses route right now (for me) would be simply that I already have a working system in place pretty much "off-the-shelf," and without much fiddling. Certainly nice to have until I can get a better (but also more involved) system up and running to replace it, so I'm glad I tried it...but it probably won't satisfy me long term. An LCD solution will be the way to go instead, I do think.

Very glad you looked into this thread. Thanks again.


C_S