Full stereoscopic 3D hitting Xbox 360

Full stereoscopic 3D is set to hit the Xbox 360, Eurogamer can reveal.

This stereo 3D support works exactly like the PlayStation 3's 3D effect. In other words, full-on HDMI 1.4 stereoscopic 3D in the 1280x1470 twin 720p framebuffer configuration.

[green]

""They'd be mad not to do it, is all I can say," said our source. "The machine is not only very capable, it's more capable than the PlayStation 3 of doing stereo, assuming you don't have one of the old crappy ones with the composite leads... assuming you have a HDMI Xbox. "

I taught the problem the 360 had with steroscopic 3d was the fact that it was using hdmi 1.3 not 1.4 like the ps3.

[sack_boi]

X360 is 1.2 (not even 1.3) and PS3 is 1.3 (not 1.4)

[zootang]

I thought 1.3 struggled? How are they going to do it with only 1.2?

[MaxXAttaxX]

HDMI 1.2 more capable than HDMI 1.4 or even 1.3?....yeah....

I wonder why they suddenly decided to support 3D.

[aceitman]

in anycase . ps3 or 360, u need a 1.4 hdmi wire in order to be able to play steroscopic 3d .on a 3d . tv.it will not work on a 1.2 or 1.3 . trust me it doesnt work i have a 3d tv. no 1.4 no steroscopic 3d.

[digimau]

New PS3 Slim 320GB and 160GB from October 2010 have HDMI 1.4!

[nycredude]

aceitman

WTF are you talking about.

I've been playing alot of 3d games and watching 3d movies on my launch fatty for months now.

[kneon]

If you want 3D at full 1080p then you need 1.3 or higher, older versions will only support 3D at reduced resolutions and/or frame rates.

[Active Reload]

I got a feeling n4g members won't let this article get any shine, lol. Anyway, it seems that MS has found another reason not to release a new console.

[darthv72]

they just dont enforce it or promote it like sony does. there is reason sony pushes it...they have lots of $$$ invested in the tech from their tv's to movies to games.

MS offers a use it if you like but its not a requirement attitude. There was a company a few years back that was beta testing 3d support on the 360. I signed up but was not picked. Basically you had to have a 3d tv and an hdmi equipped 360.

Why is it so hard to believe that the HDMI in the 360 ISNT capable of 3d? Because sony says so? The better the spec the faster the throughput but it doesnt mean it wont work at all.

3d and kinect.....interesting potential.

[gcolley]

it can do it because it is 720

[DarkCharizard_]

Well, he's not lying either

[green]

ANyway it does not bother me because i have no plans of buying a 3D TV anytime soon.

[Zir0]

Considering 3D will likely be a big focus for Sony at E3 this could certainly be a huge hit for them.

But to be honest 3D gaming it pretty irrelevant anyway, next to no ones makes use of it.

[hennessey86]

I've just bought a 3D TV and even call of duty is a better experience in 3D. Its well worth the money you pay. GT5 is underwhelming but i'm looking forward to more 3D games to play.

[darksied]

If you're looking for one that will stand out, from what people are saying (people who actually even dislike 3d) then Uncharted 3 will blow you away. According to everyone who has seen it in 3D, they say it's the best looking 3D game ever.

[jetlian]

thinking of getting a 3d tv for uncharted hope l can view it. avatar had me sick

[Boody-Bandit]

Yeah Zir0 is right. If MS implements this feature that could really hurt Sony because all us gamers care about are features, NOT GAMES! /s

Man how fall down did you have to dig/drill before you hit that ample supply of BS?

[nycredude]

hennessey86

Get Motorstorm Apocalypes and Socom 4. The 3d in them are better than Gt5 and Killzone 3. Also Tumble, Super Stardust HD and Hustle Kings is real good also and is cheap on PSN.

For anyone who hasn't seen it or used it or hate on it, please try it first. It makes a difference when playing shooters and racers.

[LiamIRL82]

Fantastic....if I had a 3D capable TV, ah well.

[Istanbull]

Author needs to educate himself, does he even know what 1.4 HDMI is? For 360 to support 1.4 they would need to release a Xbox with 1.4 HDMI. In the article it says Xbox will get 3D via a firmware update, wich is like the PS3's. PS3 uses 1.3 for stereoscopic 3D.

So eurogaymer, educate yourself.

[xAlmostPro]

3d tv's stereoscopic ones atleast are relatively cheap now, in another year they'll be affordable like HD TV's when they first came out..

I mean currys are doing a 50" full hd 600hz 3d tv for £700(around $800 ?) so it wont be long until they become even cheaper

[Bigpappy]

I am not buying a 3D TV any time soon. So this goes over my head.

[green]

Exactly. No interest in it at the moment. Already decided to skip 3D TV's that require glasses and will only make the plunge when the glasses free TV's are very good and reasonably affordable. SO i guess a few more years.

[Boody-Bandit]

So both of you basically dropped by to contribute that you don't care about the articles topic because you're not interested in the technology at this time? Very insightful and thanks for sharing. because I learned a lot from the both of you.

I'm going to have to go back to bed now and wait for tomorrow. Too much knowledge can cause overload and give me bad headaches or increased levels of anxiety and frustration.

Good night.

[Bigpappy]

Brutallyhonest : Just felt the need to let the masses know that not everyone is ready to put up the cash to watch TV special glasses. Like 'green' has posted: "Already decided to skip 3D TV's that require glasses and will only make the plunge when the glasses free TV's are very good and reasonably affordable." That is exactly where many of us stand. But I am not faulting anyone for buying it now. Some one needs to test this stuff out and encourage the manufactures to keep at it.

[Nes_Daze]

I still think 3D is too young right now, maybe not for companies that wanna get a head start on it, but for the average gamer, yup. In regards to MS and 3D, awesome kinect casual games and 3d! >_>

[Denethor_II]

I still can't afford the 3D TV, but I've heard tis awesome.

[montyburns000]

isn't the 3D fad over now? I haven't seen an article about it for 6 months

and don't get me started on the tripe that floods the theaters these days. any movie with 3D in the title is guaranteed to be shit.

[CrimsonEngage]

Too bad i don't have $2000 to shell out for a 3DTV...

[RankFTW]

Don't spread that crap here, 3D TV's can be picked up for less than $1000.

[CrimsonEngage]

Yea maybe a small ass 26". You aren't going to find a high quality 3DTV for under $1000.

[TheGamingArt]

@randftw, that's crap. I bought my beautiful 3D 42" full 1080p panasonic for $800. Don't fill people's heads with your uninformed bias crap.

[Venatus-Deus]

@ crimson

$1,099.98 and for a 46in…

http://www.amazon.com/Toshi...

An extra $400 and you get 55in

That’s from a 5 second internet search.

[Baka-akaB]

dear god that crappy urban legend wont ever die ...

You can pick various 3dtv for cheap , especially panasonic plasma ones .

Mine (46")was 1300 dollars , and that was more than 6 months ago

[RankFTW]

I got my 40inch 3D TV for £600, that's less than I paid for my HDTV 5 years ago.

[Adva]

Yeah, Uninformed people spreading crap about cost.
$1,000 gets you a 40 inch minimum with a well know brand.

[CrimsonEngage]

But not in 3D.

[Baka-akaB]

sigh ... actually yes in 3d .

[Tired]

You can pick up a 3d projector and convertor box for the ps3 for £750.

It's awesome btw 120" of hd goodness. Films look better than at the cinema too coz your getting hd quality.

[dragon82]

Can you post a link? I have been looking for a new projector.

[Tired]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Opt...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/...

Hunt around though, could prob pick up cheaper than that....just picked amazon coz it was the fastest search

[Captain Tuttle]

meh, 3D

[corroios]

But i thougth that Microsoft told that 3D was a gimmick, failure...

[awiseman]

It is, and they are not using it as a marketing tool like Sony did/does...Its just available for customers who want it..

[DA_SHREDDER]

its cool, i already have a 3-D tv and a ps3 so if this is true i will get to try out how good it is on the 360 now.

[frelyler]

How is it going to work though, does the newer 360 have 1.4 HDMI? If it does not I don't see how it will be any good or true stereoscopic 3D, unless companies have been lying about the need for the more expensive 1.4 HDMI's. Anyone know the ACTUAL answer to this?

[gcolley]

720P does not require as much bandwidth. HDMI 1.4 is for 1080P which is the 3D movie standard not the 3D gaming standard which is 720.

[frelyler]

Cool. I did not know that. Thanks for the well thought out mature response. A rarity on here nowadays.

[longbug]

Yeh, HDMI 1.4 only added the ability to stream twin 1080p signals for top notch high res 3D. Using twin buffer 720p, HDMI 1.2 will be fine with a necessary firmware update.

[OC_MurphysLaw]

If true, its good for down the road for me but honestly ... I have my PS3 and my 360 and I dont watch 3D on either. Why? Because I have a 2yr old 50" Plasma that looks great but doesn't support 3D...and I am ok with that...for now.

[bacrec1]

No Red/Cyan love?

[Krakn3Dfx]

Sweet, please, keep adding more features that I could care less about. ESPN, Kinect, 3D, social avatar bullshit. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-eat.

[Trroy]

The 10MB eDRAM can't hold that large of an image at once without doing tiled (i.e. slow) rendering, for the same reason it can't hold a 2X MSAA buffer at 720p. The reason Black Ops works so well in 3D, on the 360, is due to the fact that it's rendering a smaller image that will fit in eDRAM (600p, I think?).

Couple that with the fact that televisions won't respond to any sort of "custom" HDMI signal, and the 360 uses HDMI 1.2 hardware. No firmware update can change that. This rumor is false.

[Shaman]

Thats why MS programmers from Lionhead helped Jorge Jimenez to port MLAA on 360,meaning no overhead on memory for eDRAM,same like 720p frame that fits in eDRAM without need to tile.You will just have two 720p frames,one in eDRAM one in main memory.In comparison with PS3 that will give you ~8 megs of memory more since in PS3 both frames will be stored in main memory taking more from it.

But in the end,it won't need even that much memory since resolution gets seriously cut down with 3D so I think it can even fit alone in eDRAM.1440x720 right?

BTW alot of games tile...RDR and GTA IV probably 2 times since they have 2xMSAA plus they are deferred renderer engines.Shift 2 even 3 times since its DR and 4xMSAA 720p...Tiling will cost you extra overhead of vertices(polygons) and performance hit going by MS papers is 2-6%.But now with 360 having MLAA(2 weeks ago it was ported) and its only post process taking 1.2ms(3.5% of rendering time,in comparison 2xMSAA is about 2x to 3x in DR engines costlier) of you rendering time and no memory since you will apply it to already stored frame in memory it can't get better for Microsoft.No more MSAA fitting in memory and tiling,plus better AA.

[Trroy]

I'm surprised that a MLAA port would be so speedy -- presumably, to be so fast, its on the GPU, and not the Xenon. And doesn't it also require a 2nd framebuffer? Are you sure this was 720p MLAA, and not 600p?

I suppose the GPU might be idle for many games, for the beginning of the CPU game frame, and thus some time for MLAA might be available?

That's pretty exciting if its true.

[thespaz]

I can't imagine the kind of input lag 3D causes on 3DTVs. I mean, I can't even take my TV off game mode without getting frustrated... add yet another process and the lag must get worse right?

I don't believe in all this 3D crap.

Also, nobody is going to want to watch you game if they can't experience the same thing. Everyone else in the room is just going to see a blurry screen unless you have glasses for everyone. Even then, if they're not playing the game, why would they wanna wear goofy glasses just to casually watch you play?

[Baka-akaB]

why do you care what spectators see you plays so much ? It's games not movies .

And even so , you do realize you can turn the 3d off on both the game and tv ?

Funny thing actually , i've even seen friends buy a few 3d glasses so they could play at the house beyond the two pairs i got .

[thespaz]

Why would you wanna turn 3D off? The point of buying a 3DTV is to watch movies and play games in 3D mode right?

What I'm saying is, the input lag is probably pretty high due to all the processing that the TV is doing when running a 3D game.

[edhe]

I think you're missing the point - the processing is done on the console and is split down the HDMI so that the telly doesn't need to do much processing, if any, to display it according to standards.

It's why the console output needs to support certain factors.

But if you're concerned about input & display lag you're playing on the wrong platform.

[Frak]

Full stereoscopic NEw Type of RROD hitting Old Console also if this happens