- Wednesday, 25 November 2009
- INQ Mobile
- RSS
We've got a number of tools in our armoury [Not weapons? Ed.] - UK government minister
Zalman puts the lead back in the stereoscopic pencil
ZALMAN has finally managed to ship out a version of its 3D 'Trimon' monitor with Nvidia drivers that actually work, according to websites that have started posting 'final' reviews.
First unveiled at Snobit in 2007, the Trimon is a standard 22" widescreen monitor with a glossy coating. For the special 3D sauce, Zalman uses a pair of stunningly attractive polarized glasses (similar to those what one wore to go and see Beowulf in 3D at the arse end of last year) as well as the positively archaic Nvidia stereoscopic drivers that trace their lineage back to the crazy old Elsa days.
Zalman, better known for its cooling supplies than its 3D technology, has had its Trimon hardware up and running for months now, even seeding magazines and websites with devices before Christmas. But Nvidia, we hear rumblings, has been painfully slow getting its stereo driver working with the latest GeForce hardware and Vista.
Well, a new release of the driver - a still-behind-the-times 91.31 - appears to have added support for a few games that people actually want to play (read: Crysis). Zalman also claims that aside from gaming, the hardware/software combo will also add depth to your existing films.
The reviewer at TweakTown seems to be pretty enamoured with the setup, although the praise is a little gushing for us normally restrained Europeans. You can check it out for yourself here.
Is '3D' gaming the new 'XHD'? We doubt it somehow. µ
Share this:
ShareBusiness Intelligence Software
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Enterprise Accounting Software
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Enterprise Systems Management
Sure, the hardware may work, but it's useless without software.

XP support is now frozen, Vista drivers only support 32 bit even though the driver is up to date.

I'd be less than confident about ongoing support, given the existing support.
I own a pair of elsa glasses which I thought were pretty cool. Unfortunately the ghosting, artifacts, and darkening of the entire scene via the glasses made them more of a cool gimmick. Also, almost all games are setup so the 3D effect is "into" the screen, and not out of the screen. Also, I didn't read anywhere in the article where they discussed visual artifacts, so should I assume there are none? I would wait until someone with prior stereo viewing experience gets their hands on one of these before buying. If this screen eliminates the the problems with shutter glasses, and they really did fix the drivers (and will continue to update them), then I would consider buying.
"We doubt it somehow?" 

Have you tried Stereo3d yourself? 

After playing Half Life 2 Episode 2 in S-3D, I cannot ever play it in 2-D again.
Have a look here for some info about 3D holographic films,

http://www.holocinema.com/

I'll be impressed only when they make this type of technology able to actually build real physical objects - like an atomic rearranger that turns garbage into gold. 

It'll just make it even more difficult to find a good seat at the cinema - how will you know what angle you want to see it from? What if your viewing position conceals vital plot points - well, these aren't likely to be plot-heavy films I suppose.