CGR Hardware Review - ELSA "Revelator" 3D Shutter Glasses By Ben Hamilton May 28, 1999 When I received word that I was getting a pair of 3d shutter glasses from ELSA I wasn't to excited to tell the truth. I really haven't been too interested in the 3d-shutter technology at all, but when I tried out the ELSA "Revelator" 3D Shutter Glasses… My opinion on the matter took a total 180. These glasses are a total blast to play with! It was like Christmas day for this reviewer. The Revelator Glasses bring 3d Gaming to a whole new realm. I expected Hardware Installation to be a whole lot of hassle when I opened up the box these glasses came in. It turned out to be even easier than installing most other hardware. If you already have an ELSA video adapter, then it's just plug and play for the most part. I, however, didn't have an ELSA video card but one was provided to me for this review. For this review I used the ELSA ERAZOR II (based on the nvidia Riva TNT chipset). However, any newer model ELSA card is compatible like the Victory II, Winner II, and ERAZOR III. The Glasses themselves come with a pass through cable (similar to 3dfx's Voodoo and Voodoo2 external pass through cables) for easy installation. Once the glasses are hooked into the video card its just a matter of installing the software. ELSA is one of the few computer graphic manufacturers that have their act together when it comes to software. All I had to do was put the CD-ROM in my drive and that's about all I needed to do. Not a whole lot of configuration was needed to go into the installation process. A lot of what you need to do is done in game. In order for the glasses to work properly you need to have a monitor that can handle a 120hz+ refresh rate at a desired resolution. ELSA officials tell me that this is just the safe estimate for the shipping specs. Testing has turned out that even at 100hz and lower works just fine with only minor flickering at times. My Viewsonic 17" G773 only does 100hz and I barely noticed any flickering at all. The glasses really don't have a set 'minimum specification' that need to be there to use the glasses. Basically the deal is that if you can run the game on your system, you can use the glasses just fine. How these glasses work is very innovative. The glasses can be used in any Direct3d game. What It does is gives the wearer the illusion of depth by creating two images on your screen that move father apart the more 'depth' the scene has. The shutter glasses do just that… Shutter. I guess it is more involved, but this is from my observation. I will provide some links to the technical documentation on how 3d-Stereo technology works at the end of this review. However it is done, it is an awesome effect. It really has to be 'seen to be believed'. So now that everything is installed, and you got everything configured for your monitor to operate at the optimal refresh rate. It's time to play! Like I said above, any Direct3d game will work. For the most part I played Half-Life. I set it to 800x600, and using Direct3d as my 3D API choice I jumped into a single player game. First impressions can be summed up in one word "WHOOOAAAA". I continued to say that for the next few hours in 3-second intervals. Even though I had to take a 5-minute break every half an hour or so because I got a headache from the shutter effect, it was still tottaly addictive. I was later told that side effects like dizziness and headaches vary from wearer to wearer. It is understandable that those kinds of results can't be controled by ELSA because of the way our brain processes images. I still believe that the experince is worth a slight headache. It is truly amazing. It takes awhile to get adjusted to playing with the glasses on. Your orientation is slightly off but you quickly regain your balance and you're off to frag. When playing online, the glasses offer a truly unique point of view. When a grenade ware fired off in my direction, I found myself moving my head to dodge it! It was that real. I almost never do this in a normal game. Even in single player mode, opening up a door to reveal a monstrous bad guy towering over you will make you jump back in your chair in fright. When a head crab jumps towards you, it provokes a real reaction to move out of the way. Now that's 3d. I only had a chance to enjoy Half-Life with these glasses, but the amount of games these glasses support goes beyond shooters. Imagine your favorite 3d-golf simulator or fighter pilot game in full 3d. It gives the whole experince of playing video games a new look all together. The only draw back is that if you're a first person shooter fan like I am most of your favorites doesn't currently support Direct3d. It's an OpenGL or Glide dominated market. However, ELSA has an OpenGL port in the works for this summer, and that there are Direct3d DLL wrappers available now for OpenGL games from SciTech (www.scitechsoft.com) for a handy work around till ELSA releases their OpenGL drivers for the Revelator. Games like Quake, Quake2, and Sin all work fine with the SciTech wrapper. I'm also thinking it will probably work with all the other Quake-Engine games just fine. Quake 3 on the other hand was not very pretty to look at filtered through Direct3D. It ran at less than playable frame rates, and looked awful compared to its OpenGL counterpart. Given that Q3 is only a test version, and Direct3D doesn't currently support the amount of horsepower needed to run Q3 like OpenGL has, it is to be expected. Probably the best thing about these glasses is the price. When testing I let a few of my peers have a crack at them without telling them how much these retail for. After they played for a little while I asked them how much did they think the Revelator cost? I got a wide range of answers from $100.00 - $1000.00. They were all shocked to find that they retail for $50.00 for the cord version and $75.00 for the cordless infrared version. I couldn't believe it myself to tell you the truth. That is how cool the Revelator is. Even if you don't own an ELSA video card, ELSA is planning on offering the Revelator in a bundle with their upcoming video cards at a slightley higher price than just the video card alone. Pros: - Easy Installation - User Friendly - Cost effective for ELSA owners - Awesome 3d Experince - Can be used for a number of video card chipsets (TNT, TNT2, and Savage4) and not limited to just Voodoo2 like the MetaByte EyeScream. - OpenGL support coming soon after shipping. Cons: - Limited to Direct3d Games w/o the use of an OpenGL wrapper (for now). - May cause Side effects for a small percentage of users - You need an ELSA video card Overall Grade: 4/5 Final Impressions: I'd say this is a must buy for any current ELSA owners, or anyone that is planning on buying ELSA products. For the price, it is an awesome toy to have. Even if you don't have an ELSA video card, I highly recommend them. The ELSA ERAZOR II out performed my STB Velocity 4400 with flying colors. Great product, I'll be continuing to use mine for some time to come