Siliconmicrodisplay ST1080 review part XVI : Playing Max Payne 3 in Tridef 3D on the ST1080 is the finest 3D gaming experience to date

There was I having purchased my 2nd version of Max Payne 3 on the PC, all 30 gigs downloaded and the game happily running on my X220T, connected to my ST1080. Thoughts began forming in my head, hmmh Max Payne, famous for bullet time, but also all those into and out of screen dives, slo mo spins, bullet shell casing ejections and now thanks to Rockstar amazingly gruesome Peckinpah blood splatter fx ( RIP Ernest !). And true enough the 100 inch 180g wearable display the ST1080 gave me for Max's adventures was easy to get lost in, even in 2D the 1080p res screen where Max was diving into and out of looked stunning,looking over Max's shoulder really looked like you were looking over Max's shoulder, with a 100 inch display the field of view is so large you are there in Rio,as far as you can be with today's tech though not in a virtual reality way! The effects, diving into and out of the screen are amazing when played with the ST1080. And what I always find impressive about the ST1080 is the fact the text in game is razor sharp,the video and game image flatter than Florida.


Great as the experience is,  wouldn't it be great if Max Payne 3  was in 3D after all the ST1080 is a 3D hmd..? But Rockstar have not given us an option for 3D, and  I don't have a Directx 12 Nvidia or AMD 3D enabled card I hear you say. Well I do but what I want to know is can I get a 3D gaming experience using an Intel HD3000 integrated GPU , in my X220T.  And then I recalled  Tridef ....

Within seconds I was experiencing the finest 3D gaming experience I have had using any device. Running Max Payne 3 using Tridef and the ST1080 the 3D is astonishing and the type of 3D is not set in stone by the developers, which is THE disadvantage of the few console 3D games out there, with Tridef 3D you can adjust every aspect of it to suit you and your hardware and by hardware I mean your eyes and brain and the way you as an individual best perceive 3D.


You can get a feel for the effect by setting your 3D viewer to top bottom mode and checking out the pics and videos on this post.   


But to feel the real effect you need to view the videos, see the pics and play the game using a siliconmicrodisplay ST1080 for 1080p cross talk free 3D bullet time heaven! And if you have a Sony HMZT1 gathering dust there is nothing to stop you checking out the efficacy of Tridef 3D in these pictures and videos, playing the game of course will be quite difficult for long periods of time. Using the ST1080 I have blogged about, taken pictures, recorded videos you see here and am playing Max Payne 3 in 3D ... this is what you call versatility and because the device is so light weight I can go at it for hours...

With Max Payne 3 though I just used generic settings, with Direct 3D 60hz. To add a game to Tridef you just point it to the exe of your desired game ...simple. And it shows you love whether you are an AMD , Nvidia or Intel GPU owner...


Running Max Payne 3 through tridef on the ST1080 the user experiences totally cross talk free 3D, with layers of depth, we are not talking the gimmicky console 3D of the likes of Uncharted 3  or PC  Crysis 2 side by side where your gun and HUD is on one layer and everything else is background. You know that pop out story book effect only with 2 effective layers at best. With Tridef and the ST1080 I can see into the background, so the first stage in the Rio apartment, I can see its size spreading off into the distance, a hall way creates the perception that it is a hallway not just a tunnel of polygons drawn with perceptive. The moving characters seem to occupy their own layers within the world so characters actually appear nearer and further from each other.

The ST1080 I am using has no light blocker attached, this is the way I prefer to use it, I can keep in touch with my surroundings , and don't worry I am in a bright sunlit room  , but the picture on the ST1080 display does not wash out, unless of course you look directly into sunlight! Once again my two 30  inch monitors and my laptop screen are off saving power...


Let me explain more about how crosstalk free 3D changes the game. All bullet time sfx are enhanced so bullet casings fly out, empty magazines are thrown out, and when Max leaps back you move back too.  During his escapades Sam likes to leap a lot ,hit slomo and Sam is outside the screen ,  when airborne you now feel height , so in a gun fight on the helipad where you leap over 2 ruffians  you feel the height in your stomach , you feel the time it takes for Max to hit the ground again. This is what led me to leap off the building just to get the rush of Rio underneath... 


Max Payne has always been crying out to be played in 3D and all those dives into and out of the screen will floor you  when playing using the ST1080 in Tridef 3D just like they do to Max in the game ...

There is a laugh out line later in Rockstar's Max Payne, where Max's slo mo diving is mocked by a friendly character, you will know when you hear it , and it is nice to see a softco mature enough to mock their own work , as a result Max is a far lighter character than he was in his black leather jacket days. But his penchant for slow mo diving gives us one of the finest 3D gaming experiences yet. 

there are the Max Payne dive into screen moments


The first time I got to a roof top the first thing I did was jump off  in slo mo to feel the rush of the 3D, as you pan the camera to view the city underneath you will feel the height ...

dives back out of the screen

dives through glass into the screen

dives to the right  side

dives to the left

 The biggest jaw dropping moments come with the slo mo bullet cam ,

close ups of characters honouring Mr Peckinpah 

 and close ups of Max  , also all in game engine cut scenes are 3D too , characters occupying different layers so you notice they walk behind or in front of each other.

When it comes to 3D most people think of objects flying out of the screen, you get these moments with Max Payne 3 using the ST1080 ( even in none 3D they are more pronounced than on normal monitors), but it is foreground and background depth effects are what makes this one of the finest 3D gaming experiences  I have had. 

Distance perception is something you start to weave into your gaming when you play in 3D using the ST1080, as there is no cross talk and the image has a far larger sweet spot than with the HMZT1. On the HMZT1 the 3D works and image is clear in a small sweet spot only attainable after hours of Tony Stark esque experimentation and once you move the illusion is gone. With the ST1080 I see clearly from edge to edge and I can even bob my head along to the music . Back to the game:  Max has a unique CQC mechanic where he must close down enemies to take their ammo ...and so on, with the added depth perception you have with 3D on the ST1080 you feel the depth of any room or environment .Say you just emptied all but 2 bullets taking out the first 3 guys in the Rio appartment, there is another running behind the open plan kitchen, you need to close him down before he draws, in 2D you percieve this as a a bunch of polygons moving behind other polygons which you point at and shoot, in 3D on the ST1080 you feel every inch of that distance, can you make it to the cover of the kitchen?  Hit the slo mo and you feel the distance between you and the bad guy, and suddenly bits of kitchen are going John Woo in 3D all around you . Every little CQC encounter is enhanced when playing in 3D on the ST1080.  And the image is clear across the display so the illusion of 3D is maintained , you see into that Rio apartment ,as a result it feels more real than the smaller sweetspot laden HMZT1. 

With the ST1080 and Tridef looking at Max his coat tail is on a different layer to his back and head , when he pulls up a gun his hand IS further away , and the gun is yet further away. Behind him the hall stretches into the distance , you can feel it's length , so when you dive  you are diving into a hall not just into a gaming screen. If you leap above characters you feel the height too. 

As I said before this is way beyond the feeble 2 layer cut out and pop out fx of some 3D console and PC games. 


All in all I have never experienced 3D this impressive in any other game and that is thanks to Tridef and the ST1080. 


Now Nvidia and co would have you buy large LCDs , wear active shutter glasses , play at extreme resolutions but melt your face when you sit down in front of your 3 30 inch LCDs with 24 fans cooling your dual GPU, dual CPU rig and you would still get cross talk, still see the bezels. 


This is why for me the ST1080 is a godsend , we have all learnt to use more portable lower power latptop form factor and now tablet form factor computers in place of our giant Rigs. The game you see me play here is with just an Intel HD3000 integrated GPU, on a X220T , a year or two ago it would be on my desktop with dual GPUS and monitors. A portable HMD like the ST1080 frees you from all that , you no longer have to sit in your gaming dungeon , you could be anywhere .. so if you want a dose of 3D gaming and do not want to shell out 3k on Alienware or the next Macbook Pro, know that with Tridef and even an integrated GPU you can have an excellent 3D gaming experience with the ST1080.


These days I cannot be bothered to play the 6 month rig upgrade , and millions out there do not even know what a rig is, L33T is dead baby, L33T is dead.


Currently smd are about to announce something relating to PC gaming 3D on the ST1080.


And this is my advice to smd, do not aim the 3D gaming aspect of the ST1080 just at the L33T crowd , this is where AMD and Nvidia have failed, with the likes of Tridef, and even in game 3D like the kind you find in Crysis 2, aim 3D gaming at the masses.The great advantage of PC gaming is there are 1000s of games ready to be enhanced by 3D.


I am hoping that smd can bundle the likes of Tridef with the ST1080, as this nifty little programme allows you to turn any game , or piece of media into 3D . And you can do it with Intel HD GPUS , which is going to be very handy for future Windows 8 Surface users.


Max Payne 3 in 3D is the finest 3D gaming experience I have had in all my testing across consoles and PC over the last 5 weeks of using the smd ST1080.


Hats off to Rockstar, they really know how to immerse you in any culture , be it Nico's Liberty City, the Wild West, or Max's Rio all through the medium of extreme violence of course.. If you are a PC gamer I recommend getting Max Payne 3 , Tridef and of course a ST1080 and trying the whole experience for yourself.  


I am going to concentrate on reviewing Tridef 3D with the ST1080 as I was not expecting this kind of experience , coming from all those console 3D enabled games , PC 3D gaming is in a league of it's own and now that I have covered all the console 3D games on the ST1080, it is time to get back to real gaming on the PC . 


And just think what actual gaming pc hardware could achieve with the ST1080.. if this is what you get with an Intel HD3000 and a X220T!




this content is © and originated from thegameveda http://the-games-veda.blogspot.com/  if you are reading it from any other site that has not provided a link back it has been leached 

Preparing for VR : CRYSIS 3 1080P 3D HMD GAMING WITH HEADTRACKING ON THE SMD ST1080 AND CINEMIZER OLED HMDS

This is Crysis 3 at 5120 by 1600, this the res I typically play PC games at, happily upgrading hardware along with the rest of PC gaming kind .. the next move was to add two more or four more 30 inch screens ... until some semblance of sanity was returned to me ...

The problem with ultra high res PC gaming is those monitors not only cost , they require power , space and that you be chained to your gaming rig.  At a point where I was about to create a wall of 30 inch 2560 by 1600 screens ..thereby negating the need for central heating in my house or ever leaving it .. the consumer hmd revolution started.. with the HMZT series for me which was quickly replaced with the smd ST1080 and Cinemizer OLED hmds ..

These have kept me busy over the last year , especially since the arrival of the Cinemizer OLED headtracker and LEAP Motion prototypes..  

I have till now purposefully been testing hmds on igpus like the Intel HD3000 , to show among other things that you do not need quad gpus or Nvidia or ATI gaming gpus to use hmds , game in 3D or add headtracking, voice recog, LEAP Motion VR leaning controls to your game..But I also want to explore how the difference in 720p 3D to 1080p 3D changes HMD gaming ..

Today we are going to be using the smd ST1080 and the Zeiss Cinemizer OLED to game with headtracking at true 1080p res in 3D . Both these hmds are next gen, they produce a perfectly flat screen of 100 and 40 inches respectively . Both weigh in at around the 180g mark WITH the headtracker attached and are thus the only hmds you can actually game on ..anywhere ..use or develop for now..take off and put on with one hand ..... So let us do so with one of the most gpu and cpu optimised games out there  and also one of the coolest engines .. Crysis 3 and Cryengine 3

With the ST1080 and Cinemizer OLED hmds we can game with VR leaning control and  do this at 1080p in 3D with... a gaming GPU ...my ageing HD5970 Black Edition and 5 year old gaming machine , consisting of a Skulltrail Mobo , 4gb RAM  and a QX9775 CPU ... This should mean anyone out there on average hardware should be able to reproduce what I am about to show you even without resorting to going through a major upgrade ... 

With the smd ST1080 and Cinemizer OLED we achieve this in different ways. And each has different strengths. Frankly I do not see any negatives to being able to play Crysis 3 on 180g hmds with 100 inch or 40 inch screens powered by a usb cable .. if you are reading comments to the contrary by industry or AV blog luminaries ask them how much time they have on these devices and what they have actually tried to do with them ... and ask yourself if they have a rival product to plug ..

I am also going to control the game using VR leaning controls .. namely the Carl Zeiss Cinemizer OLED headtracker and LEAP Motion .. to show ...again that you can have lag free and latency perception free multiple VR leaning controls in your game now ..whether you are a developer or a  gamer ...

Attaching the Cinemizer OLED headtracker to the smd ST1080 .. I had my crack team of engineers come up with this contraption to enable me to use the Zeiss headtracker , I thought  of Kickstartering the design for my headtracker splint but I am simply not that evil and John Carmack was unavailable to hype my design, you can of course build your own ..using a bbq skewer (wooden) and some surgical tape .. kind of like how I could build my own VR goggles with a LCD screen/phone, optical lenses and a empty box of cornflakes (what people used before 3D Printers) ...

Attaching the Cinemizer OLED headtracker to the Cinemizer OLED hmd is of course elementary .. 

Once you play a FPS game with headtracking , you expect every FPS to move it's fov with your head movements and you are loathe to go back to knuckle dragging a mouse ... Let me be clear , there is no drift , or latency issue when using the Zeiss headtracker that you as a gamer can perceive in any existing game at this point , across consoles and PCs .   

It is the light weight and excellent ergonomics of the smd ST1080 and Cinemizer OLED that make hmd gaming with VR leaning controls like headtracking a reality and elevate these consumer devices beyond rival diy VR goggle dev kits ... the road to VR  being a long and arduous one..

All the following pictures and video are from an actual game session around 5 hours , across both hmds  , for those interested in such things I had to drop the difficulty from Super Soldier to Veteran  ( criminal I know ) in order to be able to show how I can aim using the Zeiss headtracker as there is no  screen cursor using the Super Soldier setting...

I  want to see how the experience of hmd with headtracker gaming change with the jump from 1280 by 720 (720p 3D to  1920 by 1080  (1080p) 3D : and  compare how a scaling 1080p hmd like the Cinemizer OLED compares to a true native 1080p LCOS hmd like the ST1080.. 

Crysis 3 played at 1280 by 720 in side by side 3D using the Cinemizer OLED hmd and Cinemizer OLED headtracker 

With  720p in game side by side 3D in Crysis 2 and 3  you can  see blurring in the HUD text , in game world details are still impressive though ,with every setting at Very High. This is due to to the way the in game 3D is generated and not the res of the hmds being used. 

and here is the play session using the Cinemizer OLED hmd and headtracker , all fov movement and targeting is through use of the headtracker alone :

The Cinemizer OLED does great with Crysis 3 maxed out at 720p side by side using the native in game 3D options . Remember when you play it is OLED colours and refresh rates that you are seeking to exploit as much as the 3D .. And my old 5970 has no problem pumping out this amount of detail

720p 3D on PC is different to consoles in that we can max out every detail even in Crysis 3   , exploit Direct X11 features ...that are not possible on consoles. Crytek famously listened to PC fans,ensuring  this iteration of Crysis would take full advantage of PC GPU and CPU supremacy...   

Both the smd ST1080 and Cinemizer OLED can use the  in game side by side 3D option without the need for any additional driver 

Playing with headtracking is awesome to say the least , on the Cinemizer OLED you have a more comfortable ride with OLED benefits and clear 3D separation ,depth of field effects . The dark really is the dark , using the ST1080 you have a larger screen or fov and clearer hud text ..but  

Using the Cinemizer OLED or ST1080 like this is an excellent way to play, but we are not fully exploiting either the power of the hmds or the PC ...

Crysis 3 played at 1080p side by side  3D on the smd ST1080 HMD with Cinemizer OLED headtracking

The smd ST1080 is technically the most powerful consumer hmd in terms of raw res and it looks like it will remain so until smd release the 4K version . It is also the first hmd that I owned that had a clear flat screen , with text legible from one side of it's hundred inch screen to the other . Each of it's two LCOS screens has true native 1080p resolution . What this is means is not only can we can throw Crysis 3 at it in side by side 3D using the in game settings we can actually read every word of text on the Windows 8 desktop before hand to launch the game,write this blog post on it for instance . With a gaming PC we can run everything at Very High (which is Crytek for insanely detailed) and see every pixel of that detail without any warping or scaling .. When you fill the ST1080s 1080ps worth of pixels that is when it literally shines .. 

Another strength of the ST1080 .. is that it has the widest support of 3D formats of any hmd in existence at this point Frame Packed/ Side by Side /Top Bottom at a myriad of screen resolutions and frequencies  . For Crysis 3 this means we can jump straight in using the in game 3D option for side by side 3D at 1080p with every thing set to Very High.. 

Needless to say 100 inches of 3D ghost free true 1080p res Crysis 3 at very high settings is impressive , what really takes you there though is the fact that you are controlling the field of view with the Zeiss headtracker without thinking about it , you already tend to look around a screen when you play a game , with the Zeiss headtracker you are also moving the fov when you do this .

Here is a 2D capture with written commentary of playing Crysis 3 at 1080p with very high settings and using the Cinemizer OLED headtracker for fov movement and aiming .. 2D let's me comment in writing "in video" to show you how the headtracker changes the way you play ..

You can see the Zeiss headtracker is so easy to use, not fussy at all or prone to tantrums , so easy going that even strapping it in a rudimentary fashion like this to a completely different hmd let's you game with ease. Oh and setup? Just connect it to a USB port and leave it still for 5 seconds . 

The Cinemizer OLED headtracker is a beautifully engineered piece of kit , weighing a few grams , easy to set up and instantly compatible with every game you own on PC  and with a little work on your part all your PS3 and Xbox 360 games too.. 

As you can see there is nothing stopping you gaming with it using the ST1080 exploiting the true 1080p res of the hmd and the full power of your gaming rig..

true 1080p 3D is great , but how about using the most comfortable hmd in existence , the Carl Zeiss Cinemizer OLED ..


Crysis 3 1080p 3D played with Cinemizer OLED headtracking 

With the Cinemizer OLED we have two options for 3D gaming at 1080p res. 

1. Frame Packed 1080p  and 2. over under 1080p  .. using the hmds 3D settings you will see the Line by Line and Top Bottom options available to you .. 

Crysis 3 however in game 3D settings do not have over under or Frame Packed options that are compatible with the Cinemizer OLED ..

Why bother with 1080p 3D at all when side by side 720p is available? With Crysis 2 and 3 , in game side by side 720p 3D on consoles and PC blurs HUD text , at 1080p that text becomes clear , crystal and what is interesting is this holds true for the  Cinemizer OLED with it's lower native res as well as the true 1080p res ST1080 . The Cinemizer OLED hmd of course is going give you additional benefits , some of which may not be obvious and you won't find commented on in tech reviews..  Foremost of these is the fact that you really don't feel it when you wear it , it is THE most comfortable HMD with the finest optics to date. 


Frame Packed 1080p with OLED is vastly superior to side by side 720p , the same is true for the few Xbox 360 games that allow this .. Halo AE ... and PS3 games too...

However we want speed too so over under/top bottom is going to be more desirable for some..

to achieve this either your game has those options , or since I have Tridef as an AMD user we can use that to give us 1080p 3D 

Option 1. Using the Crysis 2 profile from Tridef will let you run with the Frame Packed Option ... the problem with this is it comes a high cost in CPU and GPU power . The AMD HD3D driver is latched onto by the Tridef software .. which gives us Direct X 11 framepacked 3D which looks great but is impossible to film : FRAPS just captures it as 2D : So you will have to take my word for how impressive it is on the Cinemizer OLED hmd .. in 3D but this does give me an opportunity to comment in the video . Black is insanely black with OLED displays , for FPS gaming you cannot wish for better colours and refresh rates .  

Option 2 : Tridef over under / top bottom is far better , we want to play the game maxed out and have Tridef do minimal work, I also want to be able to capture the raw 3D gameplay with FRAPs ...to show how headtracking works with Crysis 3.. 

From Tridef go to the options settings , set the display to standard , underneath select the option for top bottom . Then add Crysis 3 to your Tridef app box . Use generic settings, or select a profile for a game that uses top bottom 3D and now you will have 1080p 3D over under Crysis 3 that has minimal impact on performance , so if you are not packing quad gpus , or even if you are you can keep your max FPS intact and still game in Crysis 3 in 3D at 1080p like so : Note the sandbox nature of Crysis 3 is an excellent medium to use to demonstrate hi def 3D gaming with headtracking and hmds and this is several hours into playing 

People will scoff at the lower res of the Cinemizer OLED .. in practice .. go try one .. you will not see the difference between a game at 1080p on the Cinemizer OLED and other higher spec devices ..really it is the most impressive aspect of the hmd . What you gain is that OLED refresh rate , that is essential for FPS and fast PC gaming .And on PC you can tweak aliasing and other details too if you need to adjust the image produced. If you want to work on a 1080 p res desktop then the ST1080 cannot be bettered at this point and I would not use the Cinemizer OLED for that kind of work ..however ..

Resolution on hmds in a game or video  does not work the way it does on your desktop display , pixel size , screen ratio, optics ,or lack of optical distortion , the quality of lenses or prisms used to magnify and enhance the images all come into play .. 

For long term use though , whether you prefer wearing a device due to it's comfort trumps all , you are more likely to use a comfortable device with lower specs for hours or minutes of gaming over a high spec device that is less comfortable . We are not going to be sitting still watching hi res 3D movies or staring at static pictures , I intend to be moving my head around  as much as I would in a real world game of Crysis ... with the Cinemzer OLED hmd and headtracker ..it is effortless 



Effect of higher and lower resolutions on Cinemizer OLED headtracker function 

There is none ,  the headtracker works just as well at extreme resolutions ( beyond 2560 by 1600 ..like my 5120 by 1600 desktop) as it does in 1080p 3D and  720p 3D .. most significantly it does not require any extra CPU or GPU power or additional code. This is the advantage of using a solution that can invoke both mouse and dof axes ... your game works right now , if you want to take time and optimize dof axes code you can ... gamers your audience ..like me are still figuring out how best to use headtracking in games ...games that we want to play ...all the games we own now across all the gaming devices we own now...

In the next part to this test  I am going to be adding  LEAP Motion into the mix ... oh and it runs fine at 5120 by 1600 too ....

check it out here : 

Preparing for VR: LEAP Motion+Cinemizer OLED headtracking at 5120 by 1600 using Crysis 3 and countering multiple VR controller fatigue

You can find the rest of my VR ,HMD , Cinemizer OLED  and ST1080 coverage here 

UPDATE :! 

Zeiss Cinemizer OLED + headtracker   is available now for purchase , so now you can get in on the fun of playing PC , Console games just like me in 3D with lag free headtracking or develop with the sdk.. and see for yourselves the awesomeness of the a headtracker and OLED hmd combo that just works .. and works now ...these are going to sell out faster than light people ..hurry ..

 Purchase  in the UK/EU the Zeiss Cinemizer OLED 3D iPack including iPhone adapter and in the USA the Cinemizer OLED , 

this content is © and originated from thegameveda http://the-games-veda.blogspot.com/  if you are reading it from any other site that has not provided a link back it has been leached 

Preparing for VR: Bioshock Infinite played with LEAP Motion and Carl Zeiss Cinemizer OLED headtracker

Bioshock infinite is as close as art gets to gaming and gaming gets to art . 

Before launching into how it plays with head tracking and LEAP Motion I need to ponder that  for a few moments, out of respect.. and consider:How did this happen and who is responsible?

Irrational Games are responsible for this and some of the finest games in almost every decade of modern video gaming since a young Master Gates talked IBM into placing a PC running his code on every desk in the 'verse. Unlike their contemporaries iD , Digital Extremes , Ion Storm they.. Irrational Games.. traversed with not only ease, the PC to next gen console shift, they have thrived in it . Nay ..illuminated it ..

From Looking Glass / later Irrational Games we got  Ultima Underworld I & 2,    Terra Nova Strike Force Centauri , System Shock , System Shock 2 , the Thief series , yes even Tribes Vengeance , the Freedom Force series and now the Bioshock series  all of which still have fans and critics and collectors raving about them. A single big box copy of System Shock 2 can go for $200.. this is respect , you can get it from GOG for $10.. but to own that box ..that is kudos..

This is no mean feat : For consider the karmic fate of Irrational's contemporaries...

Where Carmack went coding phone game RAGE , being trounced by Angry Birds and Green Pigs, Blezsinski scored initially with Gears on console and grew steadily tired and now is thankfully free to innovate again and of course the greatest of all PC game designers Warren Spector ended up dumbing down Deus Exs sequel for consoles being duly punished by ending up and hopefully not ending at Epic Mickey 1 and 2....   Irrational Games transcended..

What did Irrational do different to all of the above ( who for any trolls out there I consider coding heroes by the way ) ... ? Irrational stayed true to their gaming design  and with the greatest of respect towards the then new gen of console gamers , gave them the same core gaming experience that was in their PC games. When you play a Bioshock game on PC or Xbox 360 or PS3 it is the same experience , they did not dumb anything down as did Spector for Deus Ex 2 , they did not sit down and try to transfer and dumb down the  FPS genre onto a phone which cannot reproduce the FPS gaming experience and thus produce an on rails shooter like RAGE al a Carmack. And they were not constrained or trapped  by  exclusivity in the console gaming design realm as our hero Cliffy B.

This is a shame because we as gamers lost out on what Mr Carmack, Spector and Cliffy B could have given us ....and may still !  If they took a peak through  Irrational's looking glass perhaps....

Irrational also thrive on being a pure design team, exploiting along the way engines that John Carmack and Cliff  Bleszinski were involved in..including the Unreal Engine used in Bioshock Infinite .

 Deus Ex Machina ...but it takes a Michel Angelo to illuminate this for us sometimes ....Irrational certainly seem to have a few of those around who can make art with any engine whether Quake 2 or Unreal ...

Bioshock Infinite also manages to weave a  warning message of the ultimate doom of a society  that turns a blind eye to, exploits and is riddled with prejudice, fascism and narcissism and based around the personality cult of an unflinching tyrant  ..though some may miss the point altogether...of that sentence and the game...more power to the developers for tackling these issues ..

So that is the how , you can make yourself feel good by reading the standard reviews on Metacritic if you need to but really if you are reading this you already have the game...dontcha?

I am on a quest to use and combine VR leaning controls, yes this dappy English kernigghit is on a VR Grail quest too...And on hardware that every one can have access to..

HMDs like the Cinemizer OLED will work with minimal spec hardware . as well as of course traditional gaming hardware. The  pictures and videos you see here of Bioshock Infinite are Intel HD3000 powered.  No nVidia Vision or AMDHD3D  required for 3D gaming or headtracking or handtracking..




I need to test how a sustained headtracking game session works with and changes how I play Bioshock Infinite and as we can we are also going to play in Tridef 3D, which explains these funny pictures you see around this post . Set your 3D viewers to over under to check them out... in 3D! 

Aiming and moving a field of view with a headtracker is different to mouse control in many ways , you are not really conscious you use it for a start, the first 30 minutes of Bioshock Infinite are a very good demo of how gaming changes when you play a FPS , in OLED 3D on a hmd with headtracking . In the video above which is a recording of that 3D gameplay , you will see me move the field of view with the headtracker only and also aim with the headtracker only. I find with the ability to look, you actually spend a lot more of your time doing it than you would with a mouse or joypad..

You can play this way for a significant time without noticing you are wearing the Cinemizer OLED , on which these colours rock of course. There is no better way to play a 3D FPS than using a HMD , absolutely nothing can interfere with you being in the game and with the Cinemizer OLED it can be any game on any device outputting a hmd signal..

If aiming with your head is not your thing , then don't hanker none Tex for you can also shoot with your hand...

VR is never going to be achieved if we just stick to headtracking though, so also I took the opportunity to test LEAP Motions new 1.76 sdk and firmware update which has improved finger tracking ( which was none to shabby before the update!) .Here I play looking for hooks for future   VR control...as explained in the video ...

I have not had time to combine these yet, but that will come more to follow @ thegameveda 

I need to get my blog up and running after recent events ! 

If  VR gaming as opposed to professional grade VR is going to take off and turn profits in an ailing economy , the answers to how we design those VR games do not lie in creating new VR experiences from the ground up alone , they lie in the existing body of the art of video gaming almost 4 decades of it, in gems like Irrational's latest and greatest Bioshock Infinite . Players gotta play and when you do and as you do you will pick up the hooks where VR can enhance gaming and wake up jaded games designers too.  

After all a virtual wheel in your fancy VR  world just needs to turn like the real thing ...no need to reinvent it .. and anyone that tells you different IS trying to sell you something...the question is are you buying?


which reminds me ...

Collectors check out some Irrational and Looking Glass classics here 

 Purchase  in the UK/EU the Zeiss Cinemizer OLED 3D iPack including iPhone adapter and in the USA the Cinemizer OLED , 

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