id Software Boss: 3D Isn't Ready for Prime Time

[Andy Chalk]

id Software Boss: 3D Isn't Ready for Prime Time

id Software [http://www.idsoftware.com] CEO Todd Hollenshead asserted today that grass is green, the sky is blue and 3D technology is still too damn expensive to be of any real interest to mainstream gamers.

The third dimension is all the rage these days. 3D movies, 3D television and of course 3D videogames promise a whole new level of immersion for media consumers. But while some companies, like Sony, are pounding that drum with all the fervor they can muster, there are others who think that maybe we're all getting ahead of ourselves just a bit. The technology is still on the rudimentary side of things and, more to the point, it's expensive as hell, too.

"My most recent, 'Oh, okay, this is really cool' experience with 3D was with the movie Eurogamer [http://www.amazon.com/Avatar-Two-Disc-Blu-ray-DVD-Combo/dp/B002VPE1B6/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1282747917&sr=1-1].

"I know the stuff in your living room is different. You can get higher quality glasses that fit. But you still gotta sit in your living room wearing these glasses," he said. "And then if you're playing games and move your head then it can get out of phase, which is a major issue."

"And also, the TVs are f**king expensive," he added. "Is there enough content to justify?"

That's the problem facing the industry and consumers alike: Nobody wants to sink a few thousand bucks into a decent 3D setup if there's no content, and nobody wants to invest in creating 3D content if there's no market for it. Right now, according to Hollenshead, the market is still too niche to have a real impact on the industry.

"At the very uber end of the videophiles, those guys are going to adopt that. But that's not going to be wide enough adoption to create substantial change within the gaming market. It has to be more pervasive and more widely adopted before it makes sense for videogame development companies to invest," he said. "To have really meaningful differences is going to require some more time. The price is going to have to come down and you're going to have to have more widespread adoption."

id is currently at work on Rage [http://www.amazon.com/Rage-Pc/dp/B003ICGL7I/ref=sr_1_3?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1282748281&sr=1-3] and Doom 4 and thus far there's been no indication that either will support 3D.



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[dnadns]

I'm really tempted to get the small Sony Bravia. Several tests so far have found out the the 2D-to-3D conversion seems to work really well with movies and games.
Only downside is the slightly darker image.
But for 2 grand (Euros), it's a tough call, although I think that a TV that can convert older material is the perfect solution to introduce the tech without having the content problem.

 

[Jaebird]

Ah ha! A voice of reason and common sense. Only the stupidly-insane rich will want to invest in this crap.

 

[Jared]

Well, I hope others will listen to these words of wisdom...we dont all want it, or need it...I certainly dont anyway

 

[tiredinnuendo]

Remember when 3D was going to change everything back when they came out with it in the goddamn 50's? And then again when it came back for a bit in the mid 80's? It's the stupid fad that just won't die.

- J

 

[Generic_Dave]

Toshiba has "no-glasses" 3-D TV's due out the end of the year...

http://gizmodo.com/5620310/three-glasses+less-3dtvs-expected-by-toshiba-before-years-end

 

[konor77]

i really like 3d. i wouldn;t pay infinity-two euro to buy a 3d tv but i like 3d as a whole.

 

[righthanded]

It's hard to say whether or not 3d will have any sort of meaningful impact. I just highly doubt it. With a handful of exceptions, gameplay hasn't changed all that much in the last 20-30 years--Is there really that much of a difference between strafing out of cover to pop off a few ships in Space Invaders and strafing out of cover to pop off a few terrorists in MewTwo? Pole Position and Gran Turismo? Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe and IL2 Sturmovik? Yeah, things are a bit better--but fundamentally, games are played pretty much the same as they ever were.

 

[Tiamat666]

I don't understand why the focus in the article is so much on "lack off 3D content". You don't necessarily have to create content specifically for 3D to have 3D. Almost all the games out there are 3D. All you have to do is render the image twice from slightly displaced viewpoints and wear 3D glasses. This is how nVidia 3D vision works, and in principle it works with all 3D games.

 

[Delusibeta]

It's hard to say whether or not 3d will have any sort of meaningful impact. I just highly doubt it.

Well, I would be saying pretty similar things about HD about six or seven years ago. Ultimately, Sky is betting that they'll be enough people in the short term to take up their 3D channel, and who knows? Certainly, 3D is a bigger step than HD in my opinion (if it works and if it goes glasses-free), although right now it's a bit like Blu-Ray a few years ago: early adopters are liable to get their fingers burnt (unless you bought a PS3, which is a problem for 3D since there's no equivalent escape route).

 

[Dioxide20]

I just like knowing that some of these games are 3D compatible, so that when I go back to play these games later, when the price of 3D isn't so staggeringly high, I will be able to play them in a new way.

 

[righthanded]

I don't understand why the focus in the article is so much on "lack off 3D content". You don't necessarily have to create content specifically for 3D to have 3D. Almost all the games out there are 3D. All you have to do is render the image twice from slightly displaced viewpoints and wear 3D glasses. This is how nVidia 3D vision works, and in principle it works with all 3D games.

3d cuts the frame rate in half since each eye has to have the image rendered and displayed one at a time. Refresh rate also comes into play with 3d working properly. Accidental premature post*** I bet the MS could release glasses that plug into the 360 controller to do 3d without modifying the hardware and all future games could be programmed to render in 3d--It's just that the 360s hardware already struggles with rendering things without doubling the workload. I'm guessing Nintendo could do the same thing but face the same problem.

TVs are an issue because the left image has to be gone by the time the right eye shutter reopens. SD TVs might have an advantage as I believe they run at 60Hz, so if you locked your game at 60 FPS then you could have 3D at 30 FPS. I'm not sure how much flicker there would be but... just speculating.

 

[DTWolfwood]

In marketing, when the consumers are ready for the technology, its already too late. Jumping on board before hand is the only way to get the lion's share of the market

Also what crack is this man on Too Expensive? 3D TV's cost about the same as a Regular HDTV. ok maybe buying them specs will set u back a few more bones. But pricing wise it isn't more than a Regular HDTV. For ppl who still have SDTV's when they upgrade it mite as well be a 3DTV.

p.s. If you consider HDTV's expensive than yes 3DTV's are expensive too. And for some1 who already owns a HDTV, its gonna be a tuff sell for sure.

 

[dnadns]

I don't understand why the focus in the article is so much on "lack off 3D content". You don't necessarily have to create content specifically for 3D to have 3D. Almost all the games out there are 3D. All you have to do is render the image twice from slightly displaced viewpoints and wear 3D glasses. This is how nVidia 3D vision works, and in principle it works with all 3D games.

3d cuts the frame rate in half since each eye has to have the image rendered and displayed one at a time. Refresh rate also comes into play with 3d working properly.

The TVs that do an automatic conversion run at 120hz (2x 60hz in 3D) and it doesn't matter what the game is actually outputting.

When I was looking at GT5 in 3D at GamesCom I was very pleasantly surprised about the effect, although GT5 is supposed to have a sub-par integration only. The darker screen is the only thing that is annoying and on the Bravia, I could tilt my head and watch from quite an angle without any problems.

I guess the greatest showstopper for the mass market is that most people really have to try it out first.

 

[righthanded]

I don't understand why the focus in the article is so much on "lack off 3D content". You don't necessarily have to create content specifically for 3D to have 3D. Almost all the games out there are 3D. All you have to do is render the image twice from slightly displaced viewpoints and wear 3D glasses. This is how nVidia 3D vision works, and in principle it works with all 3D games.

3d cuts the frame rate in half since each eye has to have the image rendered and displayed one at a time. Refresh rate also comes into play with 3d working properly.

The TVs that do an automatic conversion run at 120hz (2x 60hz in 3D) and it doesn't matter what the game is actually outputting.

If the TV is not doing the graphics processing, which currently, they aren't, then you only get 1/2 the FPS in 3d, since the graphics processors have to render the image individually for each eye and output each image one at a time. I think some HD TVs run at 600Hz, if you run a signal that's only refreshing 60 a second, you're only outputting 60 frames a second.

3D isn't two images at once to create 3D. It's one image at a time shone to one eye at a time--hence the halving of a frame rate.

 

[jasoncyrus]

3D is over rated and rather boring in my honest opinion. So what if it seems to jump out of the screen at you. Its still going to look sub par in comparison to the graphical quality of current versions

 

[MasterV]

Hear that Sony? Take notes.

 

[SelectivelyEvil13]

Here's a man with some sense (and bills)!

A big problem that I see is that 3D technology keeps evolving and twisting at every corner. The products being released cannot even keep up with themselves because suddenly something newer is being created that fixes previous issues (while possibly having some new ones). For example glasses-free 3D is coming out, why would I want the one with glasses? Then why not just wait until the technology is perfected and more affordable? At that point the average consumer can afford to adopt to the technology far easier because it is already standing on something. the 3D switch is not going to happen in a couple of years, Mr. Corporation.

Remember when 3D was going to change everything back when they came out with it in the goddamn 50's? And then again when it came back for a bit in the mid 80's? It's the stupid fad that just won't die.

- J

I didn't know about the 50s, but yeah, the whole 80s thing, sheesh. And Jaws: 3D....

 

[righthanded]

I don't understand why the focus in the article is so much on "lack off 3D content". You don't necessarily have to create content specifically for 3D to have 3D. Almost all the games out there are 3D. All you have to do is render the image twice from slightly displaced viewpoints and wear 3D glasses. This is how nVidia 3D vision works, and in principle it works with all 3D games.

3d cuts the frame rate in half since each eye has to have the image rendered and displayed one at a time. Refresh rate also comes into play with 3d working properly.

The TVs that do an automatic conversion run at 120hz (2x 60hz in 3D) and it doesn't matter what the game is actually outputting.

Actually there are HD TVs that can run at 600Hz but it doesn't change the fact that if incoming signal is 60Hz, you're only getting 60FPS. And it does matter that software and hardware can only put out so many images a second because if your non 3d game runs optimally at 60 FPS, once it goes 3D, you're only seeing 30 FPS. Stereo images are rendered individually and displayed individually. Just to the exclusion of the correct eye.

 

[Redworld13]

Has anyone noticed that gaming with 3d makes you nauseas? those glasses are not your friend!!!!