Dear fellow Skyrimmers,

At first my deepest thanks and congratulations to Bethesda for this jewel of a game, which is (judging from only the first 20 hours though) the best game I ever played in my life. Period.

It's like a once in a lifetime coincidence that on the same day, the 11.11.11, Sykrim arrived, another parcel lay at my door: The Sony HMZ-T1 3D Personal Viewer. This is some banano-nerdo crazy gizmo visor style head worn apparatus that makes you look as silly as Geordie LaForge. At the same time it's a space and time machine carrying you away from your desk or couch right into the province of Skyrim:

I can touch that water, hell the spray soaks my clothes and the torrent might hurl me over the rocks down hundred feet deep with tremendous force. Snow flakes land in my mouth. This mountain is so high that I shudder by the dimension making me feel dwarfish and unimportant, a little squishy insect in need of protection. I cover behind a rock for shelter, partially edging out of the screen towards me to watch over its rim clouds hover divinely around the top of the mountain. Grey in silver in mist in rock. When I do my magic a flaming lance comes forth from my hands, which look like my hands, all the distance between the fingers, the palm, the wrist, delicate and fragile, deadly yet. The flame lance goes six meters into the world - I wish it was longer and longer and longer grasping more distance, bringing more control, while I move it I feel as gently cosing this smoldering, smoking wall of rocks. In my room here in the real world, where I type these lines, that jet of flame would reach up to the table, how I wish it extend to my bedroom locker. Just a few more feet - the longing is the same in Skyrim and here. It has mixed, melted, interwoven. Welcome.

Todd Howard (or was it Pete Hines?) stated, if I remember correctly, that they would not support stereo 3d, for they would not like it. Perhaps there's some undercover agent working at Bethesda then, for Skyrim is almost perfect in stereo 3d. It's the best stereo 3d game ever conceived imho. Nvidia has done one awesome job on their drivers and swiftly fully supported the HMZ-T1. Only two days after its rather unpredictable release it's up and running flawless.

Enough words - if I would swim in money, I would send a Sony HMZ-T1 and a Nvidia 3d Vison/ 3d TVPlay license to Todd Howard and Pete Hines as my personal thank you for this masterpiece of a game. As I don't have these funds, the only thing remaining to me to open your eyes and therewith give something back are mere words, words which end here for Skyrim calls.

Best regards
youngneil1

I was thinking of getting the 3d glasses for my card this Xmas, is it this good?

Ehh do some research, I don't think what he's talking about are normal 3D glasses.

Cool story and sounds awesome, but 800 Euros for just the glasses?

Holy smoke batman, I could buy an entire extra crossfire setup for that, or...[censored], lots of [censored]e.

May others write down their experience with stereo 3d - for me there's no creeping out of this rabbit hole again.

Damn you. I want to try that.

Where do you live?

Well written btw! Minor correction though : "This is some bannao-nerdo crazy kick-ass awesomesauce gizmo visor style head worn apparatus that makes you look as silly badass as Geordie LaForge."

is skyrim side 3d? or one of standards of 3d?

Dude, Im not saying it′s awesome, but not everyone can dish out over 2 grand for just the 3d setup like you have ...It is slightly out of reach of most gamers.

Lucky you tho, either got a good job or parents with a major guilt complex lol.

Funky, overpriced 3D goggles have been around for years, and they've never really given a great 3D experience. I'd have to see these in action before even considering dropping 800 quid on them.

Indeed, these are not glasses to be used with a monitor (which is the combination I relied upon beforehand), but are themselves a monitor (actually two, one for each eye) worn on your head. The monitors, newest tech OLED screens, are not larger than stamps and yet provide the illusion of one giant sized screen with cross talk free and undimmed, vivid stereo 3d.

The former - in my age it would be me with the guilt complex if I would still have to rely on my parents.

It's hard to say for me for I never see double images with the HMZ-T1 - the images are on two different screens. Side to side the OLEDS are and each one hosts only one picture, so there's no ghosting at all.

As it's rendering the game twice to create the 3D effect, I assume it requires double the CPU/GPU power to run smoothly?

This is the first head mounted display I have ever tried - I don't know how they were before. 800 Euro are a lot of money for me, too, and without the right of sending back everything ordered via Internet within in two weeks (these are the laws where I live) I would not have taken the jump. Best gaming decision I ever made.

It requires extra graphic power indeed (as do solutions with shutter/polarized glasses and separate monitors, too). It's not neccessary double the power though, depending on the rendering technique used. Actually the HMZ-T1 requires much less graphic power than one would expect as it technically renders only in 1280 * 720 (in the 60Hz mode I use, it can do 1920*1080 at 24Hz in stereo 3d, too). This sounds like a grainy picture - but the opposite is true: it's very, very sharp due to two tiny OLEDs used: Thse are many pixels on very narrow space. This is faster and still much better looking (with Antialiasing and all other settings - except highest shadow level - fully cranked up) than using my 1650*1080 resolution screen beforehand.

Hehe, indeed I like this alternative phrasing very much, too. I live in Germany btw. Sony told us for quite some time to expect the HMZ-T1 at Christmas the earliest. Then for whatever lucky reason the release date suddenly switched to early November. I was one of the first persons to preorder it here and was lucky enough to be high placed on that rather small pre-order list. They are sold out now - next shipment expected around January/February next year (though this info might have changed already, I think supplying the world with the HMZ-T1 leads to rather hectic and chaotic office times at Sony right now .

I have one question. Are you using a keyboard or a controller to play the game? How can you see which buttons to push?

And also if you turn your head right for instance, u see what happens automatically or you have to use the controller to turn your view in the game?

Keyboard and mouse, as I am a huge mouse look fan. Indeed I cannot see any buttons - it's amazing how fast one adapts to that though. Within hours you learn to feel your keyboard and correctly guess the distances between keys. By the end I will be very fast with the keys, I guess, and immersion will never be broken again by looking away from the screen for the right key.

There's no head tracking included, so I use the mouse and keys just as normal for looking around and moving. Some dedicated fan already posted a video on youtube though where he attached a Trackir device on top of the HMZ-T1 and played WoW this way. Looked really cool, perhaps later on I might try Trackir, too.

What's cool already is that I follow with my own head the situation my character is in (subconsciously it seems): I caught myself looking down a cliff and indeed I looked down with my own head, too. The screen moves with me. A little like playing Doom the first time back then and trying to lean physically around corners .

The HMZ-T1 doesn't have head tracking, so you'd need to use the controller (booo).

Does anyone know if these work with an Xbox 360? I've long given up updating my PC for every new game since I stopped being a proper gamer. But would love to know if this does 3D on the xbox?

DOn't mind the 3D haters, it's "cool" to be above all the silly naive people who don't realize 3D is a gimmick.

I am dying to see how these new sony screens feel and look. And to people who think 3d glasses or headmounts look silly, do you wear headphones and think they look better or worse?

I have a $250 Zalman 3d display that works with normal movie theater glasses, the kind that are clear, not red and blue, and not the shutter glasses. The 3d is practically without ghosting, and you wear a simple set of polarized sunglasses. But the downside is this 3d is low resolution, and I am a resolution "hoe". I play on a 30 inch display at 1600p and my Zalman is gathering dust at the moment.

How is the ghosting on these Sony displays? I think the only thing that seems possibly as cool is a full sized wrap around panoramic display in full HD resolution. I dream of having my peripheral vision immersed in the screen. I've been studying head mounted displays the last few years and this looks like one of the most affordable and interesting choices out there right now.

I support the need for track ir in this game.. Nvidia did an amazing job with this and their drivers. I have a 30" dell, a 100" 1080p projector and neither come close to playing on the sony HMD. It's the most feeling of immersion. Believe me if you havent tried it with these in 3d don't comment as I promise you will feel silly when you do get to try it.

There is no ghosting or cross fade with these. you have 1 screen per eye. and it runs at .01ms.. when I'm closing 1 eye to fire an arrow its pretty true to life.

Please Bethesda aid Natural point with access to make this work.. this would be the perfect combination.

One of the best threads for HMD owners http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1371946

I haven't tested so far. It does work with the PS3 (just saw "How to tame your dragon" as 3d blue-ray on PS3 - best 3d movie experience I have ever had, including cinema; also the movie itself is just lovely). It should work with the Xbox 360 though due to the 1.4a hdmi standard. Unlike Nvidia 3DTV Play there is no white list that has to be adjusted prior a device is recognized. Uncharted 3 on PS3 ran in stereo 3d, too, but I found it a little underwhelming to be honest.

Don't worry, you will get there - if you're lucky .

Sounds absolutely awesome, however even the most uptodate PC today might get a challenge running the game on ultra high(especially with all the graphics mods and improvements to come), when rendering it "twice", and is really the details and resolution as great on those small tiny screens? How can they be?

I'm also afraid of that thing giving me brain cancer or rot my eyes out, ha ha, but it does sound incredible. I might get it.

No ghosting at all. Black against white background - no ghosting, ever.

It's not panoramic as in 360 degress around you or the like. Nonetheless, it's extremely immersive. It has some other drawbacks I will not fail to mention, mainly weight on your head and blurriness at the edges of your vision if not 100%ly adjusted. Both are truely minor niggles once it grips you and never lets go again.