NVIDIA pushes ahead with 3D glasses, claims developer support.
At present, NVIDIA doesn’t seem to be doing so well. Not only are its graphics cards being outperformed by AMD’s ATI-branded equivalents – particularly in the bang for buck arena – its stock price is dancing around Earth’s mantle like it’s made of marshmallow. One might think now would be a nifty time to roll a critical saving throw. What we instead see are GPU refreshes consisting almost entirely of renamed older versions, and over multiple supposed generations, which sounds like the opposite of a clever business strategy.
Nonetheless, the concept it appears to be betting on to help pull through the tough times is 3D – and 3D as in the novelty red and blue glasses, not the polygon variety. Although we’ve moved on from the cellophane-coloured spectacles, NVIDIA is pushing an aged technology that’s still based on wearing a pair of ugly shades. In order to separate the two channels, the lenses alternately flicker on and off, using infrared to sync the shutters with the monitor.
Not only is this a successful way to gain a fantastic headache, it requires a fairly uncommon monitor that can spray 120Hz – hence the headache part, as that’s 60Hz per eye. This flickering technology is about as much of an upgrade when going from table spoon to ladle for eating spaghetti – a different approach, but you still end up with a spoon. Or fugly glasses, if we stay on topic.
Still, NVIDIA seems to think people will eat up the US$199 pack it calls GeForce 3D Vision. The company markets it as making “the game literally pop off the screen,” although such literacy skills should be served with a good shower of salt.
Today, NVIDIA announces it has support from a list of developers, now proclaiming that 3D Vision has “received a rousing thumbs up from the who’s who in the game development world.” Certainly a step forward, but the biggest challenge remains: are people really going to buy into such a proprietary, pricey, and entirely optional piece of novelty equipment?
I can’t help but be reminded of Philips’s hugely (cough) successful amBX gaming system. It also garnered developer support.
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