ReaperAlexEU
06-18-2010, 08:32 AM
EDIT: i've re-written this up as a guide, complete with screenshots! (wow, my marketing skills suck, oh, the screenshots even have red circles drawn on them!)
link to new post in guides section (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=260809)
i hope thats a little clearer than my first attempt here
Intro
Hi all, I've been messing about with playing games in 3D and thought my fellow DDO players might like to try it out too.
The method I use is both free, and works on almost any DirectX game, I'll focus my instructions on DDO.
The results are great depth perception at the loss of colour detail. So maybe not how I will be playing most of the time, but definitely something to tinker with for the "ooooh, ahhhh!" factor.
I've been enjoying the rolling landscapes and the 3D special effects. Oh and jumping off a cliff is now a lot more dramatic!
Anyway, enough of the sales gumph, I'm writing this to help everyone have a tinker.
what you need
What you need is any coloured 3d glasses, like you get from the cinema or a special DVD box. This does not work with the tinted (polarised) 3d glasses, you need fancy hardware for that. If you dont have any then ask around. a friend or family member might have a dvd kicking about with some glasses you can borrow. also the paper ones are dirt cheap if you have to resort to buying them.
one odd thing about this, i borrowed some off a friend, the 3d film they were for sucked, no depth perception, but when i got them working in my game the result was breath taking.
you also need some beef in your graphics card. my FPS sits at 50 normally and drops to 30ish in 3d mode, which is the minimum for a game to be nice and playable. you can drop some settings down if you need a bit more power. press ctrl+f in game to see the FPS counter, it will appear half way up the right hand side, which might be under some quickbars if your using that area. the bigger the number the easier your card will handle the extra overhead of the 3d.
instructions
when you have the coloured glasses browse to:
iZ3d.com (http://www.iz3d.com/driver)
that company sell true colour 3d screens for a large chunk of money, so they are making plenty of cash from their tech. as a result they have decided to allow people to use their drivers for free with the cheap coloured 3d-glasses. what their driver does is plug into DirectX, take the games output, split it into a left and right channel then tweak the output to match the glasses your wearing (or fancy expensive hardware if your thrown cash at it).
so, there will be mention of licences, but thats for other methods. we're interested in the free stuff. 2 methods are free, the one that works with their fancy screen (iZ3d) and the one that works with any old screen and a pair of colour glasses (Anaglyph).
installing
fist close down any game. then click the download link and install the driver. make sure you either pick the full install option or the Anaglyph option. when its done don't let it launch the control panel just yet. it will also complain that you don't have their fancy screen plugged in, but thats fine we will be changing its output to match our glasses then it will be happy.
check the optional step to see if it applies to you:
optional step if you have "Trioscopics" glasses
this bit may look scary, its only if you have green/magenta glasses and it boils down to copying some text into a file. just check the first link to see if you have glasses that need this step, if not skip this bit
once installed you may need to make a tweak to the settings. if you have a set of glassed called "Trioscopics" then the driver doesnt have a setting for them.
check this link for examples of "Trioscopics" glasses:
Trioscopics (http://www.3dglassesonline.com/trioscopics/index.html)
if you don't have one of those then pick up my instructions in the next section. if you do have them you need to find the config file.
it will either be in:
"C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\iZ3D Driver"
or:
"C:\ProgramData\iZ3D Driver\"
depending on your version of windows.
its called config.xml, copy and paste it to make a backup then open the orriginal with a text editor.
now look for the "<AnaglyphOutput>" section, we're going to tweak the custom option.
copy the settings from this post:
Custom settings for green/magenta (http://forum.iz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=2871)
and paste them into the config.xml file to replace the existing settings.
when thats done save the file.
end of scary bit!
settings
ok, so now you should have the driver installed and a tweak done to the configs file if you have them "Trioscopics" glasses, so let the install finish if you havent already.
if the control panel didnt pop up go into your start menu and find the new iZ driver, spark her up and you should get a control panel open up.
click on the DirectX section and select the "Anaglyph" output option. Then in the drop down next to it find the glasses you have and select that. if you have the Trioscopics select custom. DONT FORGET TO PRESS APPLY!
ok, time for your first sample of 3d. click on help and then the dynamic test image. this will fire up a little test demo and the wizard will run. we're not going to spend much time here. we're just trying to see if you have a feeling of depth. colours will be all screwy, but there should be some depth. if there isnt you've not got the right settings to match your glasses. give me a shout with the colours of your glasses and i'll try and help you get that sorted.
if you see depth then your done with the settings, close the demo down and fire up DDO
usage
ok, the wizard will get in the way, its useful but you can turn it on at any time. press shift+numpad/ (thats / on the numpad, not on the main keyboard, and you dont need to use numlock). get into the game, get some where safe and make sure there is something distant to look at.
hit the game options and go into keyboard controls. scroll down to find the zoom in out parts and nuke them. by default the 3d hotkeys will conflict with the ddo zoom on the numpad, and that makes it a real pain in the rear end to calibrate.
ok, now we want the wizard back, press shift+numpad/ again. walk through the wizard. when its talking about convergance thats when you set which 3d objects are on the screen, as opposed to deep inside it or popping out of it. for DDO i find its useful to match that to the combat area, so monsters names and your health are in focus during combat. for an easy way to match it zoom to your normal playing level then take the glasses off and make the 2 images of your characters head overlap.
pop your glasses back on, things should be in 3d with the 2d text at the same focus as your characters head.
next up will be sepperation, this controls the feeling of depth. you can mess with this a bit, but make a note of the number in the top left incase you fubar it and cant get things back as they were.
finally it will ask you to turn auto-focus on, great for a first person shooter, not so good for a game like DDO so leave it off. then you can press C to stop the wizard from appearing next time you fire the game up.
close the wizard down and have fun!
extra waffle
as my glasses have a green filter i found party chat was black, so i had to tweak the colour a bit. what ever glasses you have you'll find some colours suck, and there is also some ghosting (3 images, faded ones left and right for bright objects). this sadly is the limitations of the coloured 3d glasses. if the game was black and white you'd have pure red and pure blue glasses with perfect depth and mono replication. its not, its a colour game and your stealing some of the colours to make the feeling of depth, so things just wont look as good colour wise.
still, its all for free and a lot of fun to mess with, and at the end of the day you'll probably go back to playing in full colour unless your flush with cash and can get one of those fancy monitors :).
i hope you all have fun with this, i have and after 4 years of playing DDO i've just spent a weekend stopping to look at the crates before i smash them!
link to new post in guides section (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=260809)
i hope thats a little clearer than my first attempt here
Intro
Hi all, I've been messing about with playing games in 3D and thought my fellow DDO players might like to try it out too.
The method I use is both free, and works on almost any DirectX game, I'll focus my instructions on DDO.
The results are great depth perception at the loss of colour detail. So maybe not how I will be playing most of the time, but definitely something to tinker with for the "ooooh, ahhhh!" factor.
I've been enjoying the rolling landscapes and the 3D special effects. Oh and jumping off a cliff is now a lot more dramatic!
Anyway, enough of the sales gumph, I'm writing this to help everyone have a tinker.
what you need
What you need is any coloured 3d glasses, like you get from the cinema or a special DVD box. This does not work with the tinted (polarised) 3d glasses, you need fancy hardware for that. If you dont have any then ask around. a friend or family member might have a dvd kicking about with some glasses you can borrow. also the paper ones are dirt cheap if you have to resort to buying them.
one odd thing about this, i borrowed some off a friend, the 3d film they were for sucked, no depth perception, but when i got them working in my game the result was breath taking.
you also need some beef in your graphics card. my FPS sits at 50 normally and drops to 30ish in 3d mode, which is the minimum for a game to be nice and playable. you can drop some settings down if you need a bit more power. press ctrl+f in game to see the FPS counter, it will appear half way up the right hand side, which might be under some quickbars if your using that area. the bigger the number the easier your card will handle the extra overhead of the 3d.
instructions
when you have the coloured glasses browse to:
iZ3d.com (http://www.iz3d.com/driver)
that company sell true colour 3d screens for a large chunk of money, so they are making plenty of cash from their tech. as a result they have decided to allow people to use their drivers for free with the cheap coloured 3d-glasses. what their driver does is plug into DirectX, take the games output, split it into a left and right channel then tweak the output to match the glasses your wearing (or fancy expensive hardware if your thrown cash at it).
so, there will be mention of licences, but thats for other methods. we're interested in the free stuff. 2 methods are free, the one that works with their fancy screen (iZ3d) and the one that works with any old screen and a pair of colour glasses (Anaglyph).
installing
fist close down any game. then click the download link and install the driver. make sure you either pick the full install option or the Anaglyph option. when its done don't let it launch the control panel just yet. it will also complain that you don't have their fancy screen plugged in, but thats fine we will be changing its output to match our glasses then it will be happy.
check the optional step to see if it applies to you:
optional step if you have "Trioscopics" glasses
this bit may look scary, its only if you have green/magenta glasses and it boils down to copying some text into a file. just check the first link to see if you have glasses that need this step, if not skip this bit
once installed you may need to make a tweak to the settings. if you have a set of glassed called "Trioscopics" then the driver doesnt have a setting for them.
check this link for examples of "Trioscopics" glasses:
Trioscopics (http://www.3dglassesonline.com/trioscopics/index.html)
if you don't have one of those then pick up my instructions in the next section. if you do have them you need to find the config file.
it will either be in:
"C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\iZ3D Driver"
or:
"C:\ProgramData\iZ3D Driver\"
depending on your version of windows.
its called config.xml, copy and paste it to make a backup then open the orriginal with a text editor.
now look for the "<AnaglyphOutput>" section, we're going to tweak the custom option.
copy the settings from this post:
Custom settings for green/magenta (http://forum.iz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=2871)
and paste them into the config.xml file to replace the existing settings.
when thats done save the file.
end of scary bit!
settings
ok, so now you should have the driver installed and a tweak done to the configs file if you have them "Trioscopics" glasses, so let the install finish if you havent already.
if the control panel didnt pop up go into your start menu and find the new iZ driver, spark her up and you should get a control panel open up.
click on the DirectX section and select the "Anaglyph" output option. Then in the drop down next to it find the glasses you have and select that. if you have the Trioscopics select custom. DONT FORGET TO PRESS APPLY!
ok, time for your first sample of 3d. click on help and then the dynamic test image. this will fire up a little test demo and the wizard will run. we're not going to spend much time here. we're just trying to see if you have a feeling of depth. colours will be all screwy, but there should be some depth. if there isnt you've not got the right settings to match your glasses. give me a shout with the colours of your glasses and i'll try and help you get that sorted.
if you see depth then your done with the settings, close the demo down and fire up DDO
usage
ok, the wizard will get in the way, its useful but you can turn it on at any time. press shift+numpad/ (thats / on the numpad, not on the main keyboard, and you dont need to use numlock). get into the game, get some where safe and make sure there is something distant to look at.
hit the game options and go into keyboard controls. scroll down to find the zoom in out parts and nuke them. by default the 3d hotkeys will conflict with the ddo zoom on the numpad, and that makes it a real pain in the rear end to calibrate.
ok, now we want the wizard back, press shift+numpad/ again. walk through the wizard. when its talking about convergance thats when you set which 3d objects are on the screen, as opposed to deep inside it or popping out of it. for DDO i find its useful to match that to the combat area, so monsters names and your health are in focus during combat. for an easy way to match it zoom to your normal playing level then take the glasses off and make the 2 images of your characters head overlap.
pop your glasses back on, things should be in 3d with the 2d text at the same focus as your characters head.
next up will be sepperation, this controls the feeling of depth. you can mess with this a bit, but make a note of the number in the top left incase you fubar it and cant get things back as they were.
finally it will ask you to turn auto-focus on, great for a first person shooter, not so good for a game like DDO so leave it off. then you can press C to stop the wizard from appearing next time you fire the game up.
close the wizard down and have fun!
extra waffle
as my glasses have a green filter i found party chat was black, so i had to tweak the colour a bit. what ever glasses you have you'll find some colours suck, and there is also some ghosting (3 images, faded ones left and right for bright objects). this sadly is the limitations of the coloured 3d glasses. if the game was black and white you'd have pure red and pure blue glasses with perfect depth and mono replication. its not, its a colour game and your stealing some of the colours to make the feeling of depth, so things just wont look as good colour wise.
still, its all for free and a lot of fun to mess with, and at the end of the day you'll probably go back to playing in full colour unless your flush with cash and can get one of those fancy monitors :).
i hope you all have fun with this, i have and after 4 years of playing DDO i've just spent a weekend stopping to look at the crates before i smash them!