And so the 3D Vision Surround was running on non-final drivers, we are waiting for the official ones to be available any time now, but the performance was Ok and there were almost no issues considering these were still beta drivers. Of course two GeForce GTX 480 Fermi cards were used to provide optimal performance and you’ll really need that in order to play the latest games on 3 displays and in stereo 3D mode. You can of course go for the bit slower GTX 470 or even high-end models from the previous generation, but you might have to consider lowering some details or the resolution in order to achieve optimal performance in the most demanding games. The setup steps and usage of the Surround looked easy to use and the bezel correction worked just fine with about 100 pixels correction needed for the left and the right side, but that also depends on the monitors being used. I also saw a demo using ViewSonic VX2268WM monitors instead of the Acer GD245HQ/GD235HZ displays and the experience did not differ much between the two.

If I have to rate the games in terms of immersion with the 3D Vision Surround setup than I’ll start with Need For Speed: SHIFT that looked simply great with the camera from inside the cockpit of the car (less impressive with an outside car view camera). Then it was the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 that also looked great and actually might give you a bit of a competitive advantage while playing with the additional two displays (at least in single played mode). And although I was least impressive with Just Cause 2 in general, it also had some scenes that were really impressive in 3D Surround and in general was more immersive than when playing in stereo 3D mode on a single display. I just hope that the 3D Vision Surround will be able to provide the same level of immersion in all other games, already available and new, and not just in the ones that were demonstrated.

Besides the stereo 3D Surround the new feature also supports the usage of 3 displays in 2D mode for work and for gaming in lets say “plain 3D” mode on all the displays, there is no need to go for 3D-ready displays if you don’t intend to play games. You can also use even 30-inch non 3D-ready monitors with resolution of up to 2560×1600 into a 3 display setup to achieve 7680×1600 or 4800×2560 resolutions (if you rotate them in 90 degrees), but most impressive is of course the availability of the stereo 3D mode with three 120Hz displays.

I hope to soon have a 3D Vision Surround system prepared for more testing and with the final 3D Vision drivers and a newer GPU drivers that would be able to squeeze even more performance from the new Fermi architecture. So stay tuned for more information about the 3D Vision Surround soon…

From the 3D Vision Blog