Darren Waters

This year's Consumer Electronics Show had a number of 3D TV technologies on show. And now similar technology has turned up at GDC.

Graphics giant Nvidia has developed technology than can give games a true 3D perspective using polarising glasses and stereoscopic display systems.

Nvidia's system uses software drivers which split the video output into two views, which are slightly out of alignment.

The demo system I was shown had a 46inch television, which had a passive polarising filter over the screen. It takes each scan line from the images and selects it either for the left or right eye.

The glasses map those views to the appropriate eye. Without the glasses you see the two views.

Nvidia say developers don't have to do any extra work for their games to work with the system - but do have to follow some rules.

About 80 games will work with the system at launch, which comes in a few weeks.

So how effective is it? From the demo I was shown, very.

But what I was shown was pretty limited - a menu screen for Age of Empires III, which rendered a townscape into an impressive diorama which felt like you could reach in and touch roof tops and people at the back of the view.

The other demo was a flight simulator and that proved very effective. A sense of depth when flying is very valuable and it definitely aided the experience.

The TV it was being demonstrated on cost more than $6,000 but I'm told there are compatible displays for under $1,000.

Quite who is willing to pay out for such an embryonic technology remains to be seen.

