Re: New 3D games & videos

[P3D Larry Berlin <lberlin@xxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 
>From: P3D Lawrence W Kaufman  writes:
>...............
>For those interested in 3D gaming & 3D videos:
>
>QUAKE and the H3D PC System H3D's stereoscopic version
>of Quake will be the first H3D-enabled game available 
>for the H3D PC System.  

*****  What is H3D? 

>.................
>Note:  
>With the H3D PC System, there are no drivers or cards to install.
>H3D Quake will work with whatever system you currently play 
>Quake on, irregardless of your graphics accelerator or monitor 
>type. The H3D PC System is resolution independent. That is, it 
>supports any resolution your PC currently supports.

*****  That's the catch!!! *Whatever your PC currently supports* may not be
enough for the quality you really want. It takes optimum equipment to get
best results. Expect that if you don't have a strong video card, you won't
have a high refresh rate available (that means flicker city). This is also
limited by the monitor you plan to use. If you don't already have an optimum
system you have to plan to obtain better components. Those components
usually cost additional money, need installing and frequently come in the
form of a board or a new monitor and they have drivers to install.
Installing boards isn't a hard thing to do and for quality stereo it's worth
doing.


>The method H3D uses to generate stereoscopic images does NOT 
>cut the frame rate in half.  In fact, frame rate will only drop 
>by about 10-15%.

****  Ok, today's games provide somewhere between 15 and 30 fps. A drop of
15% is 13 to 25 fps. A hardware accelerated system such as Total3D offers
more power to maintain the animation frame rates at full speed in games
along with higher refresh rates for stereo flicker reduction. Not to mention
it works with your own stereo images in still mode.

>H3D Eyewear can be worn over standard eyeglasses.

****  Very good feature.

>H3D Quake will work only with the H3D PC System, and not at all 
>with other shutter glasses, such as those included in the Total3D
>package.

****** That's because it's not written for hardware acceleration, which
means less perfomance by comparison. I also suspect it uses interlacing for
it's stereo presentation, but the message you sent didn't specify what is
being used. If so, then Total3D offers more for a number of reasons
including the built in use of page flipping. If they don't write a version
compatible with hardware accelerated systems too, that's their loss.

> 
>H3D TV System:
>The H3D TV System will follow the introduction of the PC System.  
>The System will feature videos such as "It Came from Outer Space"
>and "Creature from the Black Lagoon", with many more titles to come. 

*****  Great, a new video product on the market soon.

It sounds fine if you don't mind flicker and just want a game system. It
*doesn't compare* to accelerated systems which should be desirable for
reasons beyond game play or as a minimum standard for the serious gamer.

Consider the additional benefits to hardware acceleration and it becomes far
more worthwhile as an investment compared to a non-accelerated system. 

Larry Berlin

Email: lberlin@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.sonic.net/~lberlin/
http://3dzine.simplenet.com/


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