14 DAY TRIAL // The NVIDIA 3D vision technology has been in existence for a while now, but making a PC capable of taking advantage of it was mostly a DIY (do it yourself) process. This changed today, when ASUS made the official introduction of its 3D gaming notebooks. With this as a start, NVIDIA is ready to expand its technology to other notebooks and desktops, fully configured for 3D Vision support out of the box.
This will be possible thanks to the broad industry support offered by PC suppliers and display makers, such as ViewSonic, Toshiba, LG, Dell, Acer and ASUS, among others. These companies will start to offer full-featured 3D Vision PCs, complete with the necessary 120Hz certified display, shutter glasses and pre-installed drivers.
Such configurations are expected to cost as low as $1,500. Furthermore, for those who already own a 3D TV, or plan to buy one, the HDMI 1.4 specification will make it quite easy to stream videos from the computer.
Mostly, this project is intended to make it easier for the casual end-user to set up and enjoy a 3D system. This is also why such machines will come with pre-installed drivers and all necessary settings made beforehand.
There is one final element that may have contributed to the setting up of this plan. In short, Microsoft announced that its web development platform known as Silverlight would be fully compatible with 3D Vision. In other words, it will be fully capable of streaming 3D content over the web to PCs that support this technology. This adds an extra reason to go for a 3D system, provided the end-user does not hold any particular aversion to the controversial 3D glasses, of course.
Fully-configured 3D PCs should begin showing up later this year, with starting prices, as already mentioned, as low as $1,500. This is half the price of a 3DTV, making them one of, if not, the most affordable means of enjoying stereoscopic 3D games and multimedia.