On a whim, I bought a new monitor and 3D glasses, so here's my review.
This be the monitor I bought:
It's a Viewsonic VX2268WM 22-Inch 120 Hz 3D-Ready Monitor with 1680x1050 Resolution and Stereo Speakers - Black.
I was actually most excited about the refresh rate and brightness, and it hasn't disappointed. My Dell 19 inch flat panel that I replaced was no slouch, but this monitor just "feels" smoother, kinda like those disturbingly clear TV's at CostCo where the blockbuster movies look fake because they're so clear. It's funny, people spend absurd amounts of moneys to get those 120/240 hz tv's and to me movies look more fake. I'm sure it's something due to the algorithms they use to smooth the speed, but I get pleasure out of seeing people spend gobs of money to get something that ends up looking unnatural.
But on games, that smooth motion is pretty fantastic. I'll come back to this thought after the 3D portion of the review.
To get 3D, I had to buy this little kit:
At $99 it was a fairly good deal. I immediately threw out the game code as I hear the Duke Nukem game is garbage, installation was amazingly easy (USB plug and play, if you have a modern nVidia card you're good to go on drivers). If you're running ATI graphics no need to apply, it won't work.
Glasses on, fired up Battlefield 3, and
Holy cow. The only time I've been impressed with 3D in a movie was Avatar, despite the terrible acting/plot. The feeling was the same here, that "this isn't a gimmick, I can really focus in and out on different things" feeling. It took a good 15 minutes to really get used to, aiming down a gun at someone and remembering to focus on them vs. my iron sights was odd. I absolutely love playing co-op and campaign in 3D now.
Skyrim is equally amazing, things just look much more real with the added depth. Throwing lightning at an enemy in all 3 D's is fantastic.
HOWEVER, I find myself not using 3D at all when playing BF3 multiplayer anymore. The multiplayer relies on UI and text much more than co-op or campaign. With the attention required to that, I find it harder on my eyes to play, you look out "into" the world while playing, but have to look closer (12" from your face) to read anything. Try reading your monitor then looking out the window then back at the monitor then back out the window every 2 seconds. Gives you a bit of a headache, doesn't it?
The 3D also taxes the graphics card a bit more than normal. And by a bit I mean up to twice as much. Frame rates roughly halve on the more intense parts, and still drop some on faster scenes. In Skyrim I don't notice it, but in BF3 I can definitely feel a bit of a stutter.
Part of that could be that you're also running at 60hz in 3D (60 for each eye) vs. 120 when doing 2D. The smooth action helps a lot in multiplayer BF3.
All in all, if you've got $200 to toss around (monitor upgrade required for the brightness and faster cycle speed plus the nVidia 3d hardware) I recommend trying it out. If you like it like I do it's well worth it. Otherwise go back to petting your cats and reading AOL News.
