Nvidia had a huge presence at PAX East 2010, and plenty to show off.  The focus of their big presentation in the Hynes Convention Center’s main hall was their newest line of video cards, the GeForce GTX 400 series, and its ability to display games in realistic 3D.  While the presentation itself was something of a letdown, the technology looks to be an impressive step forward in the 3D gaming revolution, and when seen up close, is quite a thing to see.

GeForce General Manager Drew Henry started off the presentation by officially announcing the new series, which includes the GTX 470 and its big, intimidating brother, the GTX 480. In addition to touting its sleek, black case design (which some people apparently care about for some reason), Henry also gave some specs for the card that impressed the audience.  With over 3 billion transistors, the GTX 480 is capable of doubling the performance output of the previous high-end card, the GTX 285, on games like Crysis Warhead, HAWX, and Metro 2033.  For the other games listed, the GTX 480 will add 50% to the performance of the 285.  In addition, the 480 will feature 2.5 times the physics processing capabilities of its predecessor; a fact that was illustrated dramatically later in the presentation.

Once he finished with the dry specs, Henry went on to show the GTX 480 in action; specifically in 3D action.  Gordon Van Dyke from EA DICE was brought out, and the two showed off Battlefield: Bad Company 2 in 3D.  The crowd cheered when the massive, 200+ inch projection screen above the duo was illuminated with 3D Battlefield, but their 3D glasses practically exploded when a screen on either side began showing the peripheral action.  To be perfectly honest, the “3D Vision Surround,” which uses three monitors to display a 3D wraparound image, looked extremely blurry to me in the presentation, and contained a double-exposure of just about everything on screen.  It was cool for a second, but viewing from directly in the center of the arena, the distorted 3D image quickly became disorienting and somewhat headache-inducing, and I actually had to look away.  Fortunately, in a more realistic PC setting, the technology fared much better.

Next up was World of Warcraft.  This 3D footage showed significantly less distortion and fewer double-images, but the 3D effect was not particularly impressive, and the frame rate was simply awful, bringing up serious questions about how well the 3D system will work with games that weren’t specifically designed for it.  Need For Speed was next, and we were “treated” to a cockpit view of a car sitting perfectly still.  The car’s interior looked very nice, with a believable depth of field, but the effect was diminished on faraway objects.  It also might have been nice to see the car in motion, but sadly, it never came out of park. Instead, we got a look at the GeForce 480's real-time ray-tracing abilities.  A hyper-realistic car sat in a virtual garage of sorts, and sliders appeared on the side of the screen.  These sliders changed the lighting on the car, and the effects were shown in real-time.  I have no doubt that the technology behind the ray-tracing is powerful, and will be utilized in ways that people haven’t even thought of yet, but to a layman, it was just shadows on a Need for Speed car. 

Luckily, the next demonstration was far more impressive, showcasing not only the card’s 3D abilities, but also its capacity for particle physics.  Supersonic Sled, which, along with the ray-tracing demo, will be included free with every GTX 470/480, is essentially a physics playground where a charmingly cartoonish fellow named Barney is strapped to a rickety rocket-sled on rails.  By default, the sled simply jets along the rails at blinding speeds until it either flies into a chasm or is stopped by the player.  Every element of the sled, however, is physics-enabled, and removing a single strut or support piece will drastically alter the craft’s path; and by “drastically alter,” I mean “cause it to explode in a glorious fireball of flying metal.”  At one point, the demo was paused in mid-explosion, and the camera zoomed in for a close-up view of Barney.  Despite this game’s status as a free throw-in with the cards, the character model was nearly Pixar quality, and looked spectacular even very close up.  More physics-fueled mayhem was demonstrated as chickens were fired at Barney's sled, sending him on an erratic suicide run, and a bridge over which he traveled was detonated.  The bridge initially exploded into an impressive 10,000 pieces, but by increasing the number of particles, we saw it burst into a staggering 1 million pieces.  The whole thing ran at an incredibly smooth frame rate, and was easily the most impressive demo of the day.  Afterwards, a 3D demo of Metro 2033 was shown.  Despite promises that Metro was designed with 3D Surround in mind, it managed to be even more disorienting than Bad Company 2, and actually made me slightly nauseous after a few seconds.

After the presentation, I got the opportunity to see the 3D Surround system in a more realistic setting.  Three 20” screens showed Battlefield: Bad Company 2 in action, and it looked way more impressive than it did on the projection screens.  The feeling of disorientation I’d experienced earlier was nowhere to be found, and while the double imaging issue wasn’t entirely resolved, its effect was minimal.  With these distractions out of the way, I could focus on the stunning 3D effect and the immersiveness of the triple-screen setup.  Walking through a dense jungle was impressive enough, with trees and vines passing our first-person perspective in a realistic way, but once I entered a building, things got really interesting.  Traversing hallways and narrow rooms, where perspective is more apparent, the effect was simply awesome, and taking cover behind objects did a great job of showing off the illusion of depth that the 3D Surround system can produce.  Presumably, the 3D projectors at the presentation were either slightly out of alignment or simply not equipped to handle 3D graphics on such a massive scale.  Luckily, the difference between the two demonstrations I saw was vast, and in the type of setting most early adopters will have, I was blown away.

As promising as the 3D Surround technology is, it’s likely to be cost-prohibitive for all but the most fervent PC gamers.  First off, the GTX 480 is likely to be priced at around $500, with the 470 coming in somewhere around $350, and to run 3D Surround, players will need two of the cards.  Add in three 120Hz monitors, which start at around $250 for a decent 22”, the $200 3D Vison Kit, and the needed cooling solutions required to run two monster cards in SLI, and the price tag is well out of the reach of most PC gamers.  In a few years, though, prices will likely drop for all of the components, and more gamers will be able to reap the benefits.  Despite a shaky public debut, the GTX 480 is an undeniably powerful card that will likely set the standard for high-end graphics for at least the next year.  As for the 3D Surround system, it’s still too early for mass consumption, but it gives us a peek into the future of 3D gaming, which, by all indications, looks to be the future of gaming in general.  It’s not quite time to get fitted for your 3D glasses, but if you're a hardcore mouse and keyboard jockey, it might be time to think about setting up an appointment.