being indecisive: is it worth it to get a 3D monitor?

3D works better for games than it does for movies, largely because the actual depth is stored in the Z-buffer and can provide an accurate assestment of depth instead of most movies faking in 3D.

Having said that, both 3D glasses and 3D monitors, arent up to my standards of image quality. All 3D monitors are TN panels and provide inferior colors to IPS panels. 3D glasses also darken the image.

But its really up to you. I think the 3D effect for games is more impressive than the 3D effects for movies.

I just bought a 27 inch 3d monitor :P

Basicly id say they are worth it, but not quite like you would think.

Not all games lend themselves to 3d well, which could be expected, but unlike movies they don't seem to strain the eyes alot, and when 3D works, it works pretty well, crosstalking is a bit annoying when that happens tho, and it tends to happen depending on distance in games.

Now here comes the important thing about the new 3d monitors: They are fast, VERY fast, and some of them have an image that is so much beyond what one expect TN panels can do.

You just have to make sure that the monitor really is 120 Hz. my Samsung SA950 was not bought for 3d, altho it is a fun novelty (and made me replay Oblivion again simply becasue Ive rarely seen any better use of 3D ever.

but we are talking about a 2 ms monitor at 120 Hz, the image is so calm, and good that it is a joy to see, and game on,more impressive in 2D then 3D. It its smooth, calm, and next to no screen tearing. (well 120 fps Vsync is fun). IPS Panels generally have a better picture tho, sadly they have a mortally slow refresh rate.

A bit of an odd answer I guess. My advice is to see the monitors before making up your mind. If you are not interrested in the 120 Hz, and mainly for the 3D I am not entirely sure.3D is usually dark,so they require a bright screen, the crosstalk is a bit of a gamble, and not all peopleget as much out of 3D, the pwople thathave seen my monitor in 3d all have different impressions, and often the glases needed to be configured for eachperson.

If it is for the overall advantages then Id say yes, amazingwarm colors for a TN panel, a nice fastrefreshrate, and little to no delay. and a fluid calm image.

Like others have said, buy one for the 120hz refresh rate.

Like others have said, buy one for the 120hz refresh rate.

sailor232

forgive me, and i'm usually quite the TV home theater buff, but aren't the advantages of the 120hz just a smoothing effect for motion, or am i missing something here?

[QUOTE="sailor232"]

Like others have said, buy one for the 120hz refresh rate.

Scoob64

forgive me, and i'm usually quite the TV home theater buff, but aren't the advantages of the 120hz just a smoothing effect for motion, or am i missing something here?

Yes, but PC games run at more than 24 FPS. So while the fluid effect is still noticeable in movies, its even more so for games. It looks quite nice when you're running 60 FPS or more on a 120Hz monitor.

I feel that color quality is more important, and there are no 120 Hz IPS panels yet :(

I've been using an Asus 24 inch 3D monitor for a year, so heres a perspective from a long term user 8)

At first, 3D effects are cool and all, but if you're doing any competitive online gaming, 3D will put you at a disadvantage. There feels to be like an input lag when using 3D, even with good hardware, and even on low video settings to try to compensate for the loss in frames per second (explained later). It just feels a bit laggy.

3D will make an awesome single player experience though :D. But keep in mind that 3D also does take A LOT more powerful hardware to run compared to no 3D.

I am running a single GTX470 (equivilent to a GTX560Ti). On Battlefield Bad Company 2: On all ultra settings without 3D I get about 50-60 Frames per second. With 3D I get less than 30. So it's safe to say that 3D will cut your performance in half in your games.

There are crosstalk issues. (Right image bleeding a little to the left eye and vice versa, resulting in double images. Sorta like when you try to cross your eyes) Only happens in scenes with dark and bright objects in the same screen, and the effect is very slight, but still noticeable.

The Nvidia Glasses do make everything look darker, but most 3D monitors (well at least mine does) have reallly high brightness settings to compensate for this, but high brightness usually results in crappy black levels.

Both the crosstalk and the darkening could be fixed if Nvidia released newer and better glasses. The Nvidia glasses currently sold are really old, from when stereoscopic 3D was just coming out. All the newer 3D TVs from like Samsung and Pioneer have crosstalk pretty much fixed.

But, on non-3D mode, 120hz is just awesome. And my Asus's 2ms response makes it even more awesome. Cursor movements and everything feels a lot smoother, and feels to me like it responds faster.

And again, the 3D effects are indeed awesome.