Well, perhaps as a brief respite from all the moaning, I'm actually rather suprised they included the 3D support already, wasn't expecting it for ages (I guess like most I was hoping they'd deliver the more important omissions like course creater and community features first).
Anyway, here is a mini-review on the 3D support:
- As with GT5, selecting 3D pushes the screen res down to 2x720p (L/R eye) so you lose some resolution. Expected really, with this generation console. Hopefully PS4 will be able to do FullHD 3D.
- The resolution loss seems more apparent (more jaggies and aliasing) than in GT5, but choosing 'Reduce flicker' display mode helps a tad, but the jaggies and resultant 'shimmering' when driving are quite noticeable. once you're in game and racing though, it's less of an issue as you're moving pretty quickly and the sense of speed is great.
- Frame-rate is rock solid (80GB FAT PS3) though as others have noticed some of the graphics, eg smoke seem pixellated since 1.06 in the game, and this looks worse with the resolution loss in 3D. Similarly there seems to be some sort of moire patterning that occurs at certain points, again possible related to the new shading/hatching that PD seems to be using for effects.
- The fine-tuning controls however for 3D depth and convergence are great - depth has 10 setting from 1-10, 1 being shallow and 10 being the deepest. Your preference would depend on the size of your TV, how far you are from it etc, but I've found the 7-8 gives a great sense of depth on my 52" Sony at about 10 feet away, with the track in the distance feeling the right 'depth' to create the right sense of speed/depth perception whilst racing
- The convergence point goes from 0.00 to 1.00 in 0.01 steps (IIRC 1-100 GT5). This controls the zero-point of convergence - where the neutral plane is. In most cases 0 is ideal as that's the plane of your TV screen and the track is, however increasing this number a litle pushes back the point of convergence which has the effect of making some of the HUD come forward and 'float' a bit in front of the screen. Increasing even further will start to make the 3D pop out of the screen a bit which some people might like - I tend to prefer the 3D effect for racing games as 'distant' so have set mine to 0.15.
Playing with these numbers is possible from the quick options menu which is great - so you can test the effects pretty quickly, even online as I was doing yesterday evening. As downside for online though, even though other players' cars are in the distance, their names are on the zero (HUD) planes so you get a weird effect of a floating name that doesn't seem to correlate to the car - hopefully they will fix this so the name is on the same plane as the distance of the car - otherwise I'll be turning off names online as it's quite distracting if you have a pack of cars ahead of you.
Other observations:
- Whilst 3D in game was great in GT5, some of the 3D in the menu screens and animations looked really bad (ghosting) as the convergence axis was too deep. This is fixed in GT6 meaning 3D in the rest of the game (albeit very little) doesn't have this problem. Cockpit views in GT5 were horrible in 3D due to a weird convergence point, but look fantastic in GT6 - you get a great sense of proportion of the cabin and even looking through the rear view the size of the car feels 'just right'.
- 3D works throughout the game so the main menu has the floating blue dots behind the main menu items etc and viewing cars in Dealerships, GTAuto (painting, parts etc) are in 3D too. Unfortunately due to the resolution loss, the jaggies are even more apparent in GTAuto, compounding the odd colour/lighting issues, but otherwise works well.
- GT5 had 3D photomode - unfortunately this hasn't made it way to GT6 as yet. The preview does indeed show in 3D however when you actually take the picture it is only in 2D
All in all, very happy with 3D, even with the loss of resolution and the jaggies - I played GT5 pretty much exclusively in 3D since that update - racing games really come alive with this tech, being able to see camber and anticipate distance better, so I'll be leaving this feature on.
Apologies for that interlude, please continue moaning.
(PS: I'm pretty annoyed at lots of the missing features too, especially the trolling that PD gave us with Zahara
, but life's too short etc so I'm happy to just get on with enjoying the game
)
Edit: Tested photomode, doesn't take 3D shots like GT5 did.
....and the list goes on and on....
I can appreciate a joke
In tandem with the Data Logger a fascinating app. Not useful to me, but - hey - it was free. I'll take it. How much was that Sports Drive Logger again? I don't have to buy a whole car, do I?
