Stereoscopic is funky in a bad way

[beers]

I tried the nvidia stereoscopic eye-candy (red/blue glasses) back in DCS 1.0 and found it pretty nifty. I had to dumb down the graphics settings in any way to save FPS, so it didn't look excellent, but it was quite cool. When LO was upgraded I got it and when I found that I got great frame rates I tried the stereoscopic (night carrier landing is quite an engaging experience in 3d) but something just felt off. I never flew LO before the recent upgrade so I had nothing to compare it to. I just recently drive BS through a mission with stereoscopic turned on and at first found the same, "this is odd" feeling that I had with LO. I reduce the 3d depth and flew some more and by the middle of the mission I think I have defined what is wrong.

 

My determination of the problem is that my head position, relative to the hud and to the airframe, is skewed. If I center trackIR and my head is centered straight down the airframe, the visual 3d offset of the nose, weather-vane, frame of the HUD, all look to be in order, BUT the HUD symbols are squished to the left. The altitude bar (which is to the right of the symbology) is directly over the center line. Also, in this "center" position, the green circles that make up the HUD image are skewed as if my head is to the right of center (but I just centered trackIR in this position). If I them move my 6dof head to the left so that my right eye is looking straight down the center-line of the airframe, the HUD (half or wich is not even positioned on the glass of the hud) appears centered.

 

And I just want to end with a mention that the HMS could be the COOLEST thing about stereoscopic if DCS could just make it appear on one of your eyes, and if it would not jitter back & forth.

 

I guess it will be about 1-2 years before real good 3d becomes affordable, so no hurry, but really, this simulation in real 3d is mind-blowing.

Edited May 24, 2010 by beers
edit-bunch of extra spaces got inserted first post