Gaming
Before we start talking about what type of gaming experience the Z800 affords the user, we better clarify something. One of the big draws to a product like the Z800 is something called Stereo 3D. Stereo 3D is a function that is only available from certain graphics cards, NVIDIA graphics cards. This is because NVIDIA has developed “Stereovision” drivers for their cards. The result is an experience that is quite a lot different than the one you receive when using a video card from ATI or other company. These experiences, as well as a more detailed explanation of what exactly “Stereovision” is, will be relayed herein.

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The first computer we plugged the 3DVisor into was the shuttle system that we spoke of in the installation section. It is equipped with an ATI Radeon X800XT and does not have the ability to produce a 3D Stereo signal.

As you might expect, having a screen right in front of your eyes, even if it is a really small screen, gives the affect that the screen is quite large. When looking through the Z800 3DVisor, it seems like you are a few feet away from a huge monitor because the display takes up the majority of your overall vision. Empirical evidence tells us that such an experience can result in tremendous amounts of eye fatigue, you know, that feeling you get when your eyes hurt really bad because you were too close to the TV.

Compounding this problem is the issue of focus. In spite of being very adjustable, we found ourselves having quite a bit of trouble getting the headset in just the right position to avoid image blurriness. Furthermore, once that perfect position is obtained, it is not very likely that it will last very long, as the cord connecting the visor to the computer will almost certainly cause the unit to move. We kind of make this out to be a really big deal, but the reality is that even when it is a little blurry, the image produced by the 3DVisor is amazingly clear. In fact, we would go so far as to say the image quality that the OLEDs in the Z800 3DVisor produce is greater than that of any other display we’ve ever used. The color definition and clarity is quite simply unrivaled.

Expectedly, these characteristics make for some pretty good game play. In Counter-Strike, everything showed up very clearly through the headset, and the on-the-fly brightness adjustment allowed us to see bad guys in dark tunnels with relative ease. One thing we have not thoroughly discussed so far in this review is the head-tracking capability of the Z800. After using the Z800 for about 20 minutes at E3, we were very excited about the apparent precision that the headset delivered in the head tracking arena. However, once we got the unit back to our labs, we developed a different opinion. While absolutely genius and implemented better than in any other device we know about, the head tracking system in the Z800 goes from being really cool to being a major hassle in no time at all.

While the head tracking sensitivity is very adjustable, we found several problems that no amount of tweaking could fix. One such problem was the seemingly less-sensitive y-axis movement. If we set the y-axis sensitivity all the way up and set the x-axis to less than that, we still had troubles getting the y-axis to pick up our head movements as accurately as the x-axis. Since we were kind of too afraid to take the unit apart, we can only assume this is some sort of problem with one of the gyroscopes. Regardless, everyone that used this unit in our tests ended up with some sort of neck pains after a brief period when the motion sensor was enabled.