Nvidia 3D Vision Surround: Is This The Future Of Gaming?

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A little more than a year ago, we saw a renewed interest in stereoscopic gaming with Nvidia's 3D Vision technology. Today, the company is following up with 3D gaming across three displays. But has the 3D ecosystem improved since our last look at the tech?

Benchmark Results: Far Cry 2 And S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat

As we know, 3D Vision Surround represents a doubling of the workload seen in Surround (2D). That’s fairly apparent in Far Cry 2, where we see a near-2:1 correlation between the two configurations at 4800x900 and 5760x1080—both playable in 3D mode. The only concession here is that you need to run in DirectX 9 to satisfy Nvidia’s recommended settings.

Of course, AMD’s Eyefinity technology is incapable of stereoscopic game play, so our only point of comparison is a pair of 2GB Eyefinity 6 cards in CrossFire running in 2D at those same settings. They’re a bit slower than Nvidia’s Surround mode—a result that we’d expect given the GTX 480’s superior performance.

Normally, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a graphics beast, taking the most powerful GPUs to their knees. However, when you enable static lighting, sidestepping the DirectX 11 and 10.1 code path, the GPU demand drops drastically. Remember that we’ll never exceed 60 frames per second with 3D Vision Surround turned on. So, the fact that Surround (2D) is more than three times faster suggests there’s a lot of overhead here, since we’re also not hitting that 60 FPS performance ceiling. Nevertheless, having played the game at 5760x1080, it’s fair to say that it’s both playable and attractive at that higher resolution, despite having to disable much of its eye candy.

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Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom's Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.
87 Comments Comment from the forums
  • killerclick
    What are those lines between the screens? Oh yeah, it's the black plastic the monitors are made of! Three monitor gaming = FAIL.
    Reply
  • meat81
    Without sounding ignorant like killerclick, they do need to start producing mainstream monitors that have little to no bezel. If not then i might as well buy a 32-40 inch TV that does 120-240hz and go with that.
    Reply
  • liquidsnake718
    Hell you might as well go all out and connect 3 32 or 42 inch samsung series 6-8led tvs and tri sli or crossfire 5970's..... one would definitly need watercooling systems and core i7 6 core chips, with an ROG x58 board with ssd's max RAM, win 7 64bit, and 1000watts... this machine would then have to played in full airconditioning and with crazy sounds with some amps and extra lighting effects.....

    You would then have total fun playing games like Crysis, Resident evil, left for dead, Dirt, and Cod MW2..... one can imagine
    Reply
  • liquidsnake718
    all for the cost of around $7500... this would last you for about 3years of fun.... then after, youd have to get rid of it
    Reply
  • gxpbecker
    better yet, a single fold out (nearly bezel-less) display.
    As the article says, this is all nice and dandy but the costs are high, to say the least. However as time passes this technology will be more affordable for us average joes. Good too see GRFX companines are pushing new toys
    Reply
  • gxpbecker
    liquidsnake718Hell you might as well go all out and connect 3 32 or 42 inch samsung series 6-8led tvs and tri sli or crossfire 5970's..... one would definitly need watercooling systems and core i7 6 core chips, with an ROG x58 board with ssd's max RAM, win 7 64bit, and 1000watts... this machine would then have to played in full airconditioning and with crazy sounds with some amps and extra lighting effects.....You would then have total fun playing games like Crysis, Resident evil, left for dead, Dirt, and Cod MW2..... one can imagineAnd will cost as much in power to run that machine as an Air COnditioner during the Houston Summer.
    Reply
  • Onus
    The scales are way too big. Too much money, too much power needed (which means more money), and way too much physical space. Cost and power usage may come down, but space? In the mainstream, I'd sooner expect the VR headset to make a return.
    Reply
  • Reynod
    I wish I could afford all of that hardware ... alas not.

    The Samsung 120HZ 24" monitor, glasses and GTX card cost us arond $780.

    Played it for a few days and got sore eyes.

    Gave it to the kids.

    They played with the glasses for a week.

    Now the glasses are in a drawer.

    Not much more to tell really.

    The whole experience with the glasses reminded me of:

    The yoyo
    The pogo stick
    The hat with the beer cans on top of it and the tubes
    The Bling "Gaming" case with neons that I disconnected
    The Superfloppy
    The external CD Burner
    The ex-wife

    All terribly short experiences of delight (dynamic quality) followed by a feeling of bewilderment and a sense that I had been played by a consumerist market.

    C Wright Mills please save me ... from myself.

    Chris ... is there a cure ?
    Reply
  • ravnoscc
    I have a question:

    Could you explain how the bezels are compensated for in 3D Surround mode? I am trying to imagine how having 2-3 inch spaces in between each projected image would look in 3 dimensions... Having difficulty, but maybe a short explanation?
    Reply
  • theroguex
    So long as there is a bezel, there is no point to having surround in games. None at all.

    Well, racing games could get away with it.
    Reply