The Stereo Test option is where most time is spent configuring the hardware to your individual computer and personal preference. From here you can specify your monitor size, and choose an individual refresh rate for each resolution. To check the new settings you simply choose "Launch Test Application", put on your glasses and see what the settings you specified look like when translated into true "3D holographic image" stereoscopic mode. Ideally, the refresh rate sound be set as high as your monitor will allow as this gives a better image when using the glasses.

Finally, the last option of concern on this page is the "Game Configurations" tab. This tab shows a list of literally 100s of games and gives each one a "Stereo Value Rating" and a "Stereo Compatibility Rating" from 1 - 5 (1 being best, 5 being poor). The compatibility ratings are a good initial indicator as to whether you can expect good performance or not, however, as drivers are constantly being updated, many bugs are worked out and games may indeed perform well even when rated poorly. eDimensional provides driver updates as they are released on their site, and packages the latest drivers in the box as soon as they become available. Even if a game doesn't score well, it may be worth giving it a shot anyway. (For example Falcon 4.0 has a rating of 5, however plays superbly with the glasses).

I randomly chose about 20 games from the list, and I can say that the majority of them have ratings of 1 or 2 (excellent and very good), and a few having ratings of 5 (i.e. "Don't even bother"). It should be noted that game compatibility with the glasses is down to how the games have been developed and not the quality of the eDimensional glasses, but with a lot of games these days sharing similar graphics engines (take the Quake 3 engine for example), the compatibility with these glasses is good. And with each new release of the Stereo drivers by Nvidia, the quality of the stereoscopic view becomes better in many games.

So, configuration of these glasses takes a while, but I highly recommend taking the time to do this, otherwise game play is not enjoyable and the chances are that you'll just end up with a headache after 10 minutes or so.

How Do They Play?

Once everything is configured it's time to finally test them out in some games!

Initially the experience is odd and takes a bit of getting used to, but I can honestly say that I've never seen anything like it; it's simply amazing. Obviously I can not show you what games look like with them on, but in most games things truly look 3D. A good example would be the "chase mode" from behind the car in EA's F1 2001; imagine looking at a model car from behind - it looks as lifelike and as 3D as that - gone is the plain flat image of before.

I tested the glasses out in many games, and in most of them I had extremely positive experiences, especially in some racing games; as like I just mentioned the cars no longer seem flat and the scenery and tracks look so much more lifelike.

Unfortunately, the glasses do not work with Grand Prix 3 due to the odd way the graphics engine is coded in that game, however they work fine in the EA's series of games. As Grand Prix 4 has a completely new graphics engine I hope that they will work well with it.

Grand Prix Legends works excellently with these glasses, as long as you have all the patches for the game. The game is literally transformed wearing these glasses and with the speakers turned up loud you could be forgiven for forgetting you are only on your PC. If you enjoy playing GPL get yourselves a pair of these now. Pure bliss.

The glasses also seem to work extremely well in flight simulators such as Flight Simulator 2002 and Falcon 4.0 according to other people (I did not personally try the glasses out in these games).

Testing the glasses out in first person shooters is also an amazing experience. In games such as the Quake series, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and Half-Life, enemies and monsters seem to jump out of the screen at you in an almost frightening way, I even found myself playing through some levels of games that I'd completed many times before just to experience them with the E-Dimensional glasses. One small point is that trees and foliage that we've seen so many times before actually appear to be real wearing these glasses. For me, dull single player experiences were a lot more fun with the eDimensional 3D glasses.

There is however a drawback to using these glasses, and that is that you can expect a 10-20% drop off in frame rates in every game. This is due to the computer/graphics card having to do more work to generate the "left" and "right" eye images. This can usually be offset by reducing the resolution; which I know for gamers is not a nice thing to do; but I found that games actually looked much better in 1024x768 resolution with the E-dimensional glasses working properly at a decent frame-rate, than they did in 1280x1024 with a 20% lower frame-rate. To be honest, I don't think the drop off in frame rates is a reason to stop using the glasses.

Another small drawback is that individual games usually need a little bit of tweaking to get the best holographic, stereoscopic image, however most of this can be done in-game via the Hot Keys (see the next page).