Alright, now on to the good stuff. DTI provided us with a nice demo to run through to give us the general feel of what this unit was capable of. The first few minutes of this demo got us acquainted with how this unit works, as well as the proper way to view it. Located in the lower left hand corner of the display's front bezel is a small L.E.D that can only be viewed at certain angles. Only when one's head is positioned in accordance with it can he/she see the L.E.D illuminated and be able to view this monitor's 3D capabilities correctly.
We found that we were only able to see the three-dimensional effect properly within about 5-10 degrees to the left or right of the unit. While what we saw when properly positioned was impressive, we would love to see this unit be able to tolerate movement of one's head more than it is capable of now.
Further into the demo, DTI demonstrated how truly remarkable this monitor really is. The first 3D image was that of a cannon that seemed to pop-out of the screen and point right at our heads! A number of other even more remarkable things were displayed, furthermore, such as a 360 degree panoramic view of a shopping mall that was displayed in full 3d. DTI also showed us how well a display like this could be used to demonstrate a product to potential customers, as we were later greeted with an interactive 3D image of a Sony mini-disc player.
Games powered by the GeForce3 were simply astonishing. Nvidia has already taken the extra step necessary by supporting stereoscopic devices in their newest detonator drivers (OpenGL and DirectX). While there are performance drops when switching from normal to stereoscopic modes, with the GeForce3 and a powerful CPU they are hardly noticeable. And because this monitor's native resolution is 1024x768, anything over a GeForce2 GTS should suffice.
Watching this monitor as the system ran through Mad Onion's 3DMark 2001 was amazing. But it sometimes became a little difficult to play more intense games such as Quake 3 or Tribes 2 because moving your head out of the correct position leaves you unable to see the images correctly.
The real joy of this monitor would be for businesses, research, and simulations. The ability to get a nearly realistic 3D display from a 2D image can have great uses in the fields of medicine, and even architecture. NASA and other government agencies have been using technology similar to this for quite some time as it is great for more realistic simulations.
The DTI Virtual Window is a remarkable technology that I'm sure will take quite some time to catch on. We were only given a week to play with this bad boy, so we were only able to scratch the surface of its true capability. But we had no choice but to send it back, as their asking price for it is just a bit out of what we were willing to pay. Their 15" version, while notably more expensive than other 15" LCDs, at $1700 a pop, is nowhere near as expensive as their 18" version, which weighs in at a hefty $7000! There really is no need to run out and buy one of these. And at $1700, if you aren't using the 3D option proficiently, then you're really just getting a basic, though good 15" TFT LCD at around three times the price.
- It's 3D
- No funky glasses needed
- Games look great
- For $1,700 for a 15" display ($7,000 for the 18" version), we don't want images to jump out... we want to be able to jump in
- Having to sit in the exact same position can be tiring when you're trying to frag