NVIDIA 3D Vision w/ ASUS VG236HE 3D Display Review

[Apoptosis]

NVIDIA 3D Vision w/ ASUS VG236HE 3D Display Review

The NVIDIA 3D Vision gaming solution has certainly matured since we first looked at it back in 2009. Since it was originally released the price has come down nearly 45% and the current 3D monitors offer full HD resolutions and the ability to play 3D Blu-ray movies without any DRM issues. Read on to see what NVIDIA has been doing with 3D gaming over the past couple of years!

So is gaming in 3D worth it? Had you asked me before I would have said no, however after reviewing NVIDIA’s 3D Vision I have to say it truly is. It adds an entirely new level of immersion to your gaming experience that is remarkable. Setting up 3D Vision was incredibly simple, the game profiles cover a positively huge number of games and the added utility of being able to watch 3D movies alone is a huge bonus...

Article Title: NVIDIA 3D Vision w/ ASUS VG236HE 3D Display Review
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1724/1/
Pricing At Time of Print: $128 for the 3D Vision Kit and $314 for the ASUS VG236HE Display

[kzinti1]

What about people that have problems with the earlier iterations of 3D? I'm pretty sure that you know some of them. Is this latest tech just as bad and a painful experience as before? Has it been alleviated somewhat? Is there even a chance that 3D can ever be made to be compatible with the people who are trying to like 3D but suffer headaches and eyestrain from it?
I've never seen 3D. There's no movie theatre anywhere close to where I live. It's a long drive just to get to a store that sells TV's. I've never seen a store that has a properly darkened room in which to judge this technology for myself. I read your entire article and haven't even come close to being convinced that this is anything more than the 3D fad that pops up every 10 years or so and then virtually disappears.
I feel as if this is being directed at children who would never, ever admit to their friends or family that they really don't like, can't see or physically suffers from 3D media in general. In different forums the thinking is about 50/50 as to whether even the relatively cheap handheld 3D gaming systems are worth it or not. I'm certainly not going to spend one penny on 3D until it can be shown to me, personally, that it actually works for me and is even worth any investment in 3D tech at all. It's just too big of a gamble and there are just too many variables involved. Even 3D PC game titles that are listed as being compatible sometimes aren't. As you said in this review.
Some day, maybe. This is certainly not the day that I've been sold on 3D.

[egloeckle]

My very first sentence is about how people have a huge variety of opinions on 3D in general. And to be honest, before this article I was not a huge fan of it. After writing it, my opinion has changed quite a bit overall. You have to remember that this type of 3D is not really designed to have things pop out of the screen as much as it is to add visual depth. I think this is what a lot of people don't realize due to most of the marketing done on this technology. While i am not what I would consider a die-hard 3D fan now, I would say I am a fan of it in several circumstances. Like i mentioned in the article, not all games greatly benefited from being in 3D, those that did however it added a great deal of visual immersion.

The only 3D movie I saw in theaters was Avatar, and had to leave a few minutes in due to getting a massive migraine from it. My biggest fear before starting this review was that I would end up with migraines and be unable to complete the review. I have had several 4-5 hour sessions on the 3D Vision kit (many more shorter) and have not experienced even the slightest headache as I did with the polarized lenses common to movie theaters. Now this is me personally and may not be the same for everyone.

You are correct on a few things, it is something that you need to see and experience to see if you like it. There is a lot of new technology like that, several years ago people didn't think an HDTV was worth the extra money. For many, the investment for 3D vision is relatively minor. Gamer's are starting to buy 120hz screens for non-3d use, many have NVIDIA graphics cards already so that makes 3D vision a fairly minor additional investment.

Maybe 3D Vision isn't for you, maybe it is, the point of the article was not to convince anyone that 3D was absolutely for them and was definitely not 'directed at children who would never, ever admit to their friends or family that they really don't like, cant see of physically suffers from 3D media in general'. The main part of the article was to show how far the 3D vision experience has come in 2 years. Convincing anyone that a visual technology is something that they need when they are unable to see it is silly. Trying to show people that if given the chance they should see the technology for themselves however, is not.

TLDR: Don't make decisions solely based on what you read on the internet. Try to see things for yourself and make your own decisions. NVIDIA uses a technique for 3D that in most cases should not cause eyestrain or headaches like polarized glasses at movie theaters do to some people.

[vbironchef]

First of all I would like to know how old you are, because if your like me, going on 50 the 3D effect just gets old after 10 min.. Not to mention the discomfort of wearing the glasses. I have to take them off after 10 min. Not because of headaches but do to just being a lousy fit and really boring or bad effects that 3D is suppose to make it worth the money. I have a 3D TV and I bought glasses and all the stuff I was suppose to buy. Ok, I did that, and I may have watched maybe a total of 40 min. of 3D TV and that was it. Done, not interested and won't bother putting the glasses on again. Waste of money and time and bad graphics.

[egloeckle]

I am 30, not that I see how that is really relevant. The 3D Vision glasses weren't like I wasn't wearing anything at all, but it was not that far off from wearing a pair of plastic framed sun glasses, not uncomfortable by any means. The exception to this is something I did not find out until after the review though, when wearing a headset that encloses the ears it does get rather uncomfortable. I typically use speakers and a headset that only hooks onto my ear (GN9350) so I did not find this out until a few days ago. Not sure but it seems to me like you were using a different setup and not the NVIDIA one.

I really don't get how this is so difficult to comprehend. I mention it several times throughout the review, 3D is not for everyone, it does not magically make it like you are inside the game/movie/tv/etc. What it does is adds a depth to the game that in certain instances, to me at least, adds a great deal of visual immersion that isn't there normally. I say on multiple occasions that it is something that if given the chance you should try and see if its for you.

I really don't get the 'bad graphics' part. 3D is not going to magically make graphics better then what they were originally. It will however give them, and here's that word again, depth. Maybe this is the problem with 3D, people expect magic to happen by putting on a pair of glasses. The marketing around it does not help this any, but that's marketing for you.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think 3D is the ultimate thing to ever happen to visual media. However coming from someone who up till recently could not stand the effect from their previous experiences with it, NVIDIA does a pretty good job of making it worthwhile as long as you don't go into it expecting miracles. Since finishing the review I have used the glasses on several occasions and have even started playing through some games I had previously beaten just to experience them a different way.

[vbironchef]

Your right, your age really doesn't matter. I just feel that 3D with glasses is not going to be long lived. Nvidia is going after a market that is more cost effective than what AMD is trying to do with multipliable monitors. Toshiba has already come out with 3D without glasses in laptops and soon to be released TV's. Just check out this: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/t ... 750_laptop and http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/r ... d_tvs_2010 Just goes to show you that the glasses are already old technology. Most of the time when I watch TV after about 20 min. I start to go horizontal on my couch.

[egloeckle]

I do agree with you about the 3D tech that does not require glasses. The little I have seen it I am quite impressed. My only concern with it is ghosting, it is pretty bad on the smaller sized screens I have seen it used on already.

What you have to remember with 3D vision is it is not meant for sitting and watching TV or to a lesser extent movies on. It is a nice perk that it can be used for that though, so if you don't have the ability to do so otherwise it is pretty good. NVIDIA is targeting gamers with the system, and for that it is actually pretty good in most cases. There are some things I would change about the glasses, but overall the system does add to most games that I have tried it on so far. About the only game I have spent a bit of time on where it hasn't added much is Deus Ex but that is due to there not being a whole lot of depth added with the registry hack for some reason, which should be fixed in an upcoming patch.