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Journeyman

3D Stereo glasses ...

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There seems to be a growing interest in virtual 3D and stereo glasses for PC gaming these days and some companies are getting more noticed than others. There are still a lot of do’s and don’ts, ifs and buts and better information and support I feel is needed to assist us all in making the right choices in hardware and for matching different PC configurations etc.

I speak from my own immediate experience, that of  eDimensional.com where there apparatus has yet to deliver a result for me. Of course we all have different experiences of different devices and most of the time it will be down to different PC configurations etc., but all experiences I think should be shared so that we can have some impact on consumer choices in this growing marketplace.

The much acclaimed Edimensional 3D wireless glasses have had zero impact on me so far as the device has simply not functioned on my system. I followed the instructions to the ‘letter’, but all I got was screwed up games that in most cases would not run at all, crash to desktop or show either blank or un-viewable screens. The drivers for this device are a mess! For example if you have nVidia drivers you cannot use the eDimensional ones if you have a CRT monitor and cannot use nVidia stereo drivers if you have a LCD/TFT monitor! I use nVidia drivers for my Gforce 6800GS but because I have a LCD monitor I was loaded with the eDimensional stereo drivers!

… If it worked I would probably not have cause to complain but unfortunately for me these drivers don’t work on my system or on another system that I have, and the only thing in common with the two is a similar monitor! I even tried nVidia stereo drivers but these won’t make these glasses work on my systems either! …What a mess! But wait … Just phone the tech support number given on the website! We all know what that means for many companies … the usual recorded message pretending that ‘all available technicians are currently dealing with other customers’!  It’s the usual copout from having to have support staff on the end of a phone ... we all know that!

OK so I try the email support! …. Well I’m still waiting to hear back as of yet so I will report back here when I have had some ‘hopefully useful’ assistance!

Meanwhile any other 3D stereo glasses experiences and advises would be most welcome!  Wipe-Glasses.gif

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I`m waiting for your review m8, especially the glasses combined with the fresnel lens (you have TIR aswell right?)... thumbs-up.gif

I hope guys from eDimentional solve your problem soon confused_o.gif

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I thought I read somewhere that if you have an nvidia card you should NOT install their drivers (they are called wicked3D or something).

Right?

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I thought I read somewhere that if you have an nvidia card you should NOT install their drivers (they are called wicked3D or something).

Right?

A quote from their website knowledge base and instruction booklet:

"If you have a LCD screen and a Nvidia graphics card then you will need to make sure you use the eDimensional drivers. You can NOT use the nvidia stereo drivers for the LCD screens. You have to use the eDimensional drivers only. The eDimensional drivers are sometimes called the ATI drivers and is an icon that runs in the bottom right hand corner of the screen."  

This is what applies to me, but so far I have had no results!  sad_o.gif

The other strange thing is that the driver version that you get shipped with the device is Version 5.0, whereas on their website their latest driver to download is Version 4.0!  eh.gif

In an attempt to self sort my problem I went back to a previous PC restore point to remove all traces of their shipped drivers and tried there website Version 4.0 drivers. Alas though these drivers are not any better and although they now allow me to load some of my games normally they still won't give me 3D stereo!  mad_o.gif ... Other games like GR just freeze on loading screen.

At the moment I have currently cleaned all traces of their software from my system and am awaiting some useful support from them sometime soon!   tired.gif

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Well, I don't think you will get any before Monday / Thuesday.

I would like to help you on this but I have a ATI card and can't give you any ideas on what might have screwed your system then.

I suppose you ordered the Wireless 3D glasses and not the ones with the cable? (Of course there wont be a difference, just wondering).

However, usually the contact with eDimensional is pretty sound. So I guess they will sort your problem by the begining of the week. Sure is a shame to get a new toy and not being able to use it right... sad_o.gif

Hopefully you be able to post the solution here soon...

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I thought I’d try this thing out with my old Iiama CRT monitor in case I happen to have the one TFT monitor that hates this device! I installed the nVidia drivers it supplies on the CD and boy are they old! Version 78.01! eh.gif  The 3D dialog box did not appear either with this version, so I reinstalled the latest nVidia forceware drivers (91.31) together with the compatible nVidia 91.31 stereo drivers! I followed the instructions carefully from the booklet and tried it in several games.

Well with these drivers at least all games load properly and can be played in normal mode using the hot keys. However, toggling the hot keys for 3D effect gives you a flickering screen with a double image … great … except the glasses don’t decipher them! Still a double image with or without glasses! I tried many different settings in the nVidia 3D properties box but nothing worked! … And yes I press the little button on the back of the glasses many times! …. So still no 3D even with a CRT monitor and Nvidia’s own 3D drivers!  tutut.gif

If there is anyone out there who uses these eDimensional 3D glasses with an nVidia Gforce card …. I really would like to hear from you!  Investigate.gif

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Setting up 3d glasses to work can be a bitch. Just search this forum and you'll find the old 3d glasses thread which had a lot of postings on this topic. Basically 3d glasses are great whenever they work (and if your screen supports high enough frequencies to allow the use of an acceptable resolution with the glasses).

Unfortunately it's seldom as easy as the ads promise, and even Nvidia only supports 3d quite half-hearted. Therefore those toys are a pain in the ass to set up - and if you finally get them working don't even think about upgrading your drivers ever again! I even had to cut a few pins in my monitor's cable to get mine working when I tried my luck a few years ago (to block a monitor signal that was interfering with the signal controlling the shutter glasses...)

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Whereas I pretty much understand what you’re saying, I’m not so convinced that we should talk this stereo 3D thing down too much. I did a search before I made this thread and to be honest I only found two vaguely on topic as the first is very old and mostly discussing VR glasses, the second was a very short thread about support for 3D in ArmA! You have obviously had experience with 3D glasses and it seems it didn’t work out too well for you either! It’s very easy to get stuck into a rut of scepticism when this happens, but I think this is a bad approach. Don’t forget that this technology is moving very quickly!

I only ever try things that I have researched and seen good reviews and reports of. These latest eDimensional glasses have had several glowing reports form people with all kinds of set-ups so I am holding my hopes up still with this as I believe I am just plain unlucky and am at least half certain that I have a duff pair of glasses anyhow, as the usual tests using TV remote controls etc. have not worked and at one point while messing with the set-up these glasses actually started to work for a while and then stopped again while viewing the test screen. I have a 8ms response time on my Acer TFT this might make the software think it’s a CRT! It certainly has defaulted to it occasionally when checking the settings.

Technology is moving along incredibly quickly with these kind of devices and what failed one year will always get sorted the next!

I will get 3D to work on my PC and that’s a fact! You need to have a positive outlook not a negative one IMO! I also will always update drivers as new ones come along! If they don’t work I just restore a previous set-up. You should not let a few rocks on the road stop your progress forwards!

Also despite my previous posts I don’t think that eDimensional is a crap company either! They are faced with an arsenal of incompatible set-ups and conflicting software and hardware at present. Like all new technology it takes a while for compatibility standards to be set. I am expecting this to be sorted soon!

Watch this space …. there will be a result!  wink_o.gif

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Don't take me as being a sceptic on 3d glasses (which is exactly what the eDimensional glasses are, and what that old, very long thread was about - even if it was discussing other brands glasses, too). While my experience was not too well the reason weren't the glasses themselves - I had them working in OFP and gameplay was improved quite a bit.

The main problem was the bad support by current gfx drivers (in my case by Nvidia) - getting it all set up and configured (required from scratch whenever a gfx driver update was done, and it didn't always work out) was a pain in the ass. Oh, and there was the problem of requiring a monitor capable of supporting >100Hz of refresh rate at acceptable resolutions (i.e. 1280x1024 or higher), but that was just a financial, not a technical problem at the time.

wink_o.gif

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Well don't expect too much in the way of support!  tounge2.gif  ... See this pic from their website ...

contact_us.jpeg   .... I think that this one is more like it :  LaLaLa.gif  

And I quote:

"Sales and support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

eDimensional, Inc. is dedicated to providing our customers with the most comprehensive and efficient support in all aspects of our business. Our trained representatives will respond to all requests promptly."   ....LMAO!

It will be a week tomorow since my first support request! So far all I hear is silence!  whistle.gif

Two more were sent 1st on Saturday and 2nd on Monday .... I might as well have shouted in the street!  snore.gif

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Here's a couple of links that may or may not be helpful. If you don't get any joy from them, try posting with your problem. It's a nice friendly site and if anyone can help, they will smile_o.gif

Post #3

Long & detailed.

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Here's a couple of links that may or may not be helpful. If you don't get any joy from them, try posting with your problem. It's a nice friendly site and if anyone can help, they will smile_o.gif

Post #3

Long & detailed.

Thanks for the links! The threads are quite old though I noticed and four years is a long time in PC land! The main problem I got though is that this thing does NOT work full stop! .... Not in any game or test screen. If you read my posts above you will see how I'm sitting!

I have registered with this forum and I will post some 'Help Me' threads and see what happens! So thanks again for the links.

Meanwhile eDimensional continue to be illusive with there assistance. I cannot think what they can possibly gain from this other than a bad name. Seems as long as 90% of their customers are happy they couldn't give two sh*ts about the rest!  tutut.gif

EDIT: They've now asked me to send the glasses back so that they can test them! No advice about their 'game screwing' software though.  whistle.gif

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well,

I thought that you had a broken pair of them. And weird, but non of us has any problems in any game so far with the drivers... I guess you're the unlucky one out of the bunch of users... tounge2.gif

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Damnit... Mine is just flickerring alot.

I even asked them if 85hz was enough, and i got a reply that it would work fine...

That is the last hardware i will ever buy from edimensional

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Damnit... Mine is just flickerring alot.

I even asked them if 85hz was enough, and i got a reply that it would work fine...

That is the last hardware i will ever buy from edimensional

Seems you're not having much luck either! Could you give us your system specs (graphics card, monitor type and OS) also what drivers are you using (CD version 5/website version 4/nvidia 3D stereo).

With this information I can cross-reference our problems regarding the software issues and hopefully have some possible solutions.  wink_o.gif

Do you get 3D at all? I sent mine back today so hopefully soon I will have a new pair to play with! Wipe-Glasses.gif

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Yea, im getting 3D - but due to low frequeanzy of my monitor (only supports 75 hz, its flickerring alot).

My specs:

AMD Athlon64 X2 3800++

2 GB dual DDR

2 * Nvidia 7600GT SLI

I use the latest drivers from their website (not nvidias drivers since im on TFT screen).

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Are those the Version 4 drivers? Did you get a CD with Version 5 on it? What is the response time of your TFT monitor (ie. 16ms/12ms/8ms)?

You have a good system spec, but it sounds like your TFT monitor is a bit on the slow side. I waited before I bought mine; as I wanted a gaming quality monitor with a good refresh rate, high resolution and contrast/lighting ratio and most of all a low response time. They are definitely up to par now and at an affordable price too, but if your TFT is more than a year old then you probably need to think about an upgrade if your gonna use it for serious gaming. I recommend Acer or Samsung and go for 8ms or less.

I'm still waiting for my replacement glasses and also for some word about which drivers I should be using for my fast TFT monitor, alas though this company is painfully slow with support. Seems they prefer to ignore the difficult sods like myself and just respond to those who say things like: "Hi, can you tell me which way round I should look through the glasses?!"  tutut.gif

There's an old saying which I modified for eDimensional support:

If things are fine support will shine...

But if things are blown your on your own!  tounge2.gif

One way or another I'll get there eventually! Meanwhile in finding my Fresnel lens very reliable, and playing games with a virtual 40" monitor is probably more impressive anyhow. I just want to see how these things will work with a Fresnel lens set-up.  Wonder.gif

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LCD shutters = hz / 2, so 120hz / 2 = 60 hz, 85 hz /2 = 42.5... Persistance of vision = ~70-75hz, Mitsubishi Diamondtron RDF225WG can push up to 160hz ( /2 = 80hz).

FYI. You get what you deserve when you choose LCD shutter stereo systems.

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And so for an update on my experiment with eDimensional 3D glasses! I eventually received a replacement set yesterday so I eagerly reinstalled the drivers from their website to try them out!

OK, first off they didn’t work! All the usual tests (TV remotes etc.) were negative too! Great start! So I unclipped the battery case removed them and replaced them and wiggled them … OH great the glasses working now! tutut.gif

I’ll cut a long and frustrating story short..  I can now get 3D in most games. Problem is the frame rate for one makes them all pretty crappy if completely unplayable. Flickering is unbelievable and this is not just the expected 75hz divided by two but very annoying flickering every few seconds. I tried all their fixes too. FS2004 was worst and frame rates drop from about 60fps to about 8fps! Far Cry was a slide show and right eye was too bright to see properly while left eye was too dark! 3D did not work at all in GR. OFP would not load just hang on start-up same with GTA San Andreas which would just CTD. Ship Simulator (Yeh I know!wink_o.gif looked shit with lines everywhere and was a slide show in slow motion! Live for speed wasn’t bad but double image was visible through glasses and only a slightly better slide show! All games had the usual 75hz divided by two flickering and gamma was right down. nah.gif

There were fine horizontal lines too on all games in 3D. Eventually the horizontal lines were permanent even without 3D turned on and I had to disconnect the dongle from between the PC and the monitor to return to normal viewing! No doubt another malfunction by which time I couldn’t have given a shit, because these things were on their way back as far as I was concerned!

eDimensional claim that these glasses will work with TFT monitors but they don’t! They claim no more than a 50% drop in frame rates! Boll***s! From 60fps to 8FPS is not 50%! They claim they will work on virtually every game too! Well I’ll be blowed! I probably missed the bit where they say that you’ll be happy forever after! walkout.gif

Moral: If you have a TFT don’t bother with these, not yet anyhow! I put my Fresnel lens back up and it looked a hundred times better! …A massive virtual monitor, great depth of view giving virtual 3D, no loss of frame rates or gamma, no flickering, no malfunction, no compatibility issues and no aggravation!

I’ll be waiting for some better products to come along before I try and go 3D stereo again!  fuming.gif  tutut.gif

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Mine aren't working either sad_o.gif

Dell 2001FP 16ms 1280x1024 75Hz

7800GTX 256MB

91.31 drivers + CD drivers (sorry, am not home to check the version)

Enabling Stereovision causes the screen to flicker, get dark and create distortions so the SW should be OK but when I put the glasses on (wired) I see the exact same picture as without them.

Tried F8 to reverse, E-D Activator to check out the glasses (they do get flickery and darker so the HW should be OK as well).

Am using a DVI-VGA Adapter to plug the E-D Dongle to (only have 2xDVI on the 7800).

Tried this on my neighbour's PC without the Adapter on a 19'' 16ms 1280x1024 75Hz TFT - same issue.

We both got terrible FPS drops as well.

Currently I'm waiting for a reply to my E-Mail and am borrowing the glasses to my friend who has a CRT and an ATi 9600.

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Hmm! So it seems the wired ones aren't any better either! I hope you get a reply from them soon, they are incredibly slow at support! I'm still waiting for them to let me know where to send mine back to for a refund!  whistle.gif

The whole thing seems like a complete shambles to me! And yet previously I had read such good reviews of these glasses! .. Clearly not with a TFT though that's for sure!  mad_o.gif

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