Lately there have been lots of posts about 3d gaming capabilities on consoles, specifically on PS3, and a lot confusing information is going around. Resolution drops? Inferior games? Reduced frame rate? etc...
Below I took the liberty of explaining to you what these gaming consoles are capable and what you can expect in the near future.
1. 3D formats currently available(taken from the brand new Samsung HDMI 1.4 3D TV):
There are polarized 3d standards such as RealD which are not supported by this Samsung TV, but other than that...this is it. All 3D tech available today.
The only tech on that list that stands out from the rest is "Frequency". As it is the only tech capable of showing 1080p resolution to each eye. All other 3D formats send a 1080p signal which contains 2 images, hence the signal is 720p x 2.
2. Console 3D gaming capabilities
Avatar is a game which came out last year supporting 3D. It supported the following 3d formats on PS3 and 360. "side-by-side, line-interlaced, and full checkerboard"
The "Frequency" 3D method was not supported for 2 reasons. There were no TVs available at the time to support that method (only PC monitors) and there is no advantage in doing 720p frequency 3D since results are same as side by side 3D and worse than checkerboard. Consoles are not powerful enough to render 1080p res X 2 and take advantage of this tech.
As is, Avatar on consoles sent out a full 1080p signal when running in 3D. Hence it sent out resolution 720p X 2. Both PS3 and 360 are able to run 720p 3D resolution per eye at 30 frames per second. PS3 could technically do 1080p per eye if the games graphics are kept simple and primitive but non 3d games have a hard time acomplishing this so only a few DLC games can achieve this resolution using "frequency" method.
3. PS3 3D update, HDMI 1.4 -
HDMI 1.4 is pretty much exactly the same spec as HDMI 1.3. The only difference is that HDMI 1.4 includes software which determines which 3D format is being sent to the TV and it automatically sets the TV to that format. PS3 uses HDMI 1.3, and because of this does it need a "3D update".
This update allows the PS3, through software to automatically tell the TV which 3D format the game is running in. Games can choose to run in any of those formats. We still don't know if Wipeout is going to run in "Frequency" format @ 720p (No! Bad Sony!) or Checkerboard (Yes! please!). Maybe both! Lets wait till E3 and official announcements before we make any judgements.
Gaming devices that do not have HDMI 1.4, or a 3D update like the PS3, are sill perfectly capable of 3D gaming. However they will have to have the user set the 3D format in the game options menu, and choose the proper 3D display mode on the TV.
The End!
