Build Your Own: Wall-Sized 3D Gaming, Just Like Theaters Do It

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Benchmark Results: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Call of Duty is an extremely popular shooter, so we put it through the paces with our 3D stereo drivers to see just how much fun it would be. This game is probably the most serious shooter we use for our tests and the third dimension definitely adds an aspect of situational awareness that we appreciated.

Game Settings:

We set the native projector resolution to 1280x720 and the game's visual detail to the highest-possible settings with 4x MSAA.

Game Experience Using the TriDef Ignition driver:

The 3D effect is excellent. Once again, the TriDef driver does a perfect job. Our only complaint would be that aiming is difficult as the crosshairs didn't seem to line up with exactly where we are shooting. The TriDef developers anticipated this difficulty and programmed an option for a laser sight in the driver.

The Virtual 3D option doesn’t help performance with the Radeon card and, in fact, actually seems to mess with some item perspectives. However, with the GeForce card, we do see a performance boost as demonstrated in the benchmark below.

The TriDef driver delivers flawless output

As with Crysis, the gun sight view works well

No problems or inconsistencies with either perspective

Game Experience Using the iZ3D Driver:

The depth of the scene is well-rendered, but once again we experience some anomalies that distract from the game. In this case, it seems that the images serving as the game’s background horizon and sky are grossly out of sync. Also, looking down the gun sight--a necessary part of the Call of Duty experience--results in an impossible-to-aim situation where each eye is treated with a separate image of the gun barrel obstructing the target. While the iZ3D driver does offer a 3D-compatible gun sight, the view remains obstructed by the gun itself. However, a workaround for this issue exists by changing the game's iZ3D profile and setting the separation mode to left shift instead of the default symmetric. After this change, if you close your left eye, you can look right down the gun sight with the right eye. At best, this is an accurate simulation of how a gun sight is actually used, but at worst it is an irritation. Given the sky texture problem we'd probably use the TriDef driver for this game anyway.

Note the obvious flaw between the left and right perspectives: where did the mountains go?

In the standard symmetrical view, the gun site view is too distracting to use

With the profile setting changed to left shift, the player can squint with their right eye to look down the barrel. Realistic, but a practical nuisance

CoD:MW2 3D Stereo Performance:

The Radeon card gets a boost from the TriDef Virtual 3D mode, but the GeForce takes a performance hit. The iZ3D driver seems to favor the GeForce card by a large amount. Both the GeForce and Radeon cards sport an identical frame rate without any stereo 3D driver enabled, suggesting a CPU bottleneck. In any case, we'd use the standard TriDef driver to play the game, and in this scenario, both cards deliver about 30 FPS.

Don Woligroski
124 Comments Comment from the forums
  • MiamiU
    seems like being a hardcore gamer just keeps getting more and more expensive...
    Reply
  • Don't gives too big an image to try and see it 3d. A monitor can't handle: 800px \00d7 248px!!!! That's just crazy big!!!
    Reply
  • Icehearted
    As for poor folk like me, we'll just settle for those still images where we cross our eyes, and cry because $2,565 is far away from "comfortable".
    Reply
  • winner4455
    I can see this becoming main stream and the next few years... In 3d too.
    Reply
  • tigerwraith
    2.6k now but you know things like this keep getting cheaper and cheaper. Maybe by this time next year, the 1080p 2600 lumens will drop to 500, and the drivers will better support dual projector setups.
    Reply
  • tigerwraith
    But I do have a question would of mattered if you used LCD projectors?
    Reply
  • gti88
    Great article! Thanx a lot.
    But as I can see, 3D stereo is not there yet.
    Almost no movies are available at 3DS, and game developers don't focus on stereo optimisation. Thus, we have some glitches and inconveniences.
    Reply
  • pojih
    ahh, something else to cost an arm and a leg...

    not saying that many people here don't want the fastest and most expensive....

    but it was clearly shown that many people looking at this site want something that performs for what it costs, as seen by the fermi release and the comments .....
    Reply
  • skora
    Whats the next price bracket up for a projector with higher res?

    I like the idea of dual projectors better than the alt-image standard, but they didn't ask me.

    Here's a wild thought, soon, everyone will have their own glasses that not only do the shutter for 3D, but will also be able to be personal monitors. Connect to any computer/phone/TV with your glasses. Displays might even become unnecessary. That will be the next wireless mainstream device. The iShades. Phone, mobile pc and display, earbud is right there. Have pants that have built in keyboard. We'll all just be sitting there with our shades on and never see the person next to us as we get lost in the cloud. And it all starts with 3D glasses. :P
    Reply
  • djab
    IceheartedAs for poor folk like me, we'll just settle for those still images where we cross our eyes, and cry because $2,565 is far away from "comfortable".
    No, you can at least use red/cyan paper glasses with iz3d drivers and a normal display.
    That is not that bad!
    Reply