Zalman shows off an FPSGUN

ZALMAN HAD TWO goodies at GDC, one brand new, another one a variant of the older Trimon line. To top it off, the older Trimons are now fully available.

The first one is a prototype Trimon 32 incher, obviously made for HDTV and possibly console gaming. It runs 720p video now, but they could make a 1080p if there is demand. As with the older ones, it only works with NV cards.

The key question is how well does it work. The short answer, very well. The pic looks a little blurry, as does the monitor without glasses in real life, but once the glasses are on, it is razor sharp and the 3D is 'deep'. The 32" Trimon has enough of a viewing angle to never lose the 3D effect even while thrashing about in Guitar Hero.

That 3D effect, obviously game dependent, is pretty damn good if the game plays along. The 32" was notably better than the now released 22", but that one wasn't bad by any means. If you want a 22" and have an NV GPU, Zalman will sell you as many as you like for $900 each.

The other Zalman device is really odd, not bad odd, just odd odd. It is called the FPSGUN, and it is a gaming mouse. It has an upright trigger handle, buttons everywhere, and the requisite two scroll wheels.

The maximum rez is 2000DPI and can change DPI on the fly. One really nice touch is that the DPI button changes the illumination color of the mouse so you can actually tell what setting you are at without really looking at it.

With only a brief time to play with it, the FPSGUN worked well enough. It isn't a device that instantly makes you a better FPSer, but there is a lot there to help you along. With more time, it could very well be the proverbial better way, but that is more a matter of preference than anything else. It does look really cool though, and will end up costing $69 MSRP, less in the real world. Well worth a try to see if you like it. µ