Product Reviews

Most modern PC games are set in 3D worlds, but they have to be translated into 2D images for display on your PC monitor. Zalman's new monitor improves on this by tricking your brain into perceiving the 3D information inherent in your games.

The monitor works with 5000-, 6000- and 7000-series Nvidia graphics cards and uses a tweaked driver to create the 3D effect. This encodes 3D information into the image by rendering the world from two points of view, which is how we perceive 3D in the real world.

Glasses and clip-on lenses are provided with the monitor. The left and right lenses are polarised at offset angles, while a pair of filters on the front of the monitor match up with them. Without the glasses the picture looks blurred, but put them on and each eye perceives a subtly different image. Your brain then combines the two images and everything pops into startlingly effective 3D. Specially created 3D video clips had an impressive sense of depth. In a particularly impressive underwater scene, a fish seemed to swim out of the screen towards us.

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current driver works only in XP, although a Vista driver with 8000-series support is expected soon. The technology is a result of collaboration between Zalman and Nvidia, so don't expect to see any ATI drivers. It also works with only a limited number of games, but support will increase with future drivers. See the current list at http://tinyurl.com/2rdxle.

We played Painkiller on the test system provided. There were some bugs - for example, some of the weapon graphics were blurred. In general, though, it was very impressive and produced a very real sense of depth. Structures such as pillars, beams and any large objects standing alone in an empty space were particularly effective. The effect is so striking that we died repeatedly while marvelling at the enemy leaping towards us. Even little touches, such as the way the HUD sits in front of and apart from the rest of the action, look and feel right.

With the glasses off and the monitor in standard 2D mode you'd never notice there was anything unusual about it. It's a 22in widescreen display with a native resolution of 1,680x1050. It's ideal for playing the latest games, whether in 3D or not. Response time was quick, contrast looked good and the polarising layers didn't seem to add any unwanted graininess.

Driver support is limited, and if your favourite games are listed, you can count yourself lucky. It's not cheap either, costing around £200 more than an equivalent standard monitor. It works impressively well, though, and when it works with more games, we'll be tempted to get rid of our boring old 2D monitors for good.