Zalman TRIMON 22" 3D Monitor
"The TRIMON is the first commercial 3D monitor available to the public from Zalman, and it is not often one gets to be the first to review a finally finished product. We have been waiting for these ZM-M220W monitors to hit the shelves for a little over a year now, with the first introduction of them at CEBIT 2007.
There have been several pre-production reviews on the net, but this is the first of the finished product with the latest drivers (ForceWare 91.31 for XP) on the included CD. NVIDIA, who make the drivers for the product have finally got it together, and so we have been given a list of 100 games that support the 3D monitor in Windows Vista. I will present that list later on in the review.
Now enters the TRIMON, a 22” monitor with an immaculate finish, supporting a maximum resolution of up to 1680x1050 (16:10) at 60Hz. The look and feel of the product cannot be harped on enough. If this were bought solely for 2D applications, I would be very happy. Fortunately, the 3D aspect is also included and thus makes this review doubly interesting.
Continuing from my train of thought about 3D, the TRIMON does what the IMAX does, in that the content seems to project out of the screen to an area somewhere in front of it. This only happens if you wear the polarized glasses that are included with the monitor.
If you do not wear the glasses, then you can’t get that third dimension feeling, but the content is still perfectly acceptable, as if it was a normal 2D monitor. The monitor comes with a CD for all your driver needs as well as a nifty Stereoscopic player dedicated for the Zalman product.
The manual is on the included CD and explains quite clearly how you can optimize your 3D viewing options with the 3D NVIDIA Drivers. One thing worth mentioning is that the tutorial which guides you is with reference to the “classic view” GUI of the NVIDIA drivers. There are some sample movies available on the CD, one of them an old steam train, which seems to leap out at you as it approaches. This is a very cool feature indeed.
The TRIMON achieves its stereoscopic effect by working in tandem with a special polarised filtered screen. The light that the TFT monitor emits is polarised through the two polarizing filters on the surface of the monitor itself. The glasses that you have to wear to see the 3D effect are also polarised and allow only the aligned light from the monitor that correlates through to your eyes.
Thus giving each eye a slightly different perspective, and allowing your brain to interpret the rest. This kind of stereoscopic 3D tunnelling is then interpreted as a 3D image. In the past you may have used the anaglyphic glasses (one red lens (L), one cyan lens (R)) but these tended to wash out colour aspects. The TRIMON does not dilute the colour in any way, so you see true 3D adaptations of a 2D image in true 32-bit colour depth.
Games are affected in much the same way. Each optimized game has a pre-defined profile to enhance your 3D experience. You may also refine the experience by modifying the profile to your needs. Please remember to do the associated test that NVIDIA include in their 3D driver package that measures if you can indeed experience the 3D enhancements. Fortunately, I was able to pass the test and so began my foray into gaming wonders never before experienced.
The TRIMON displays the games in 2D or 3D, depending on your driver settings and game compatibility. The 22” monitor gives stunning 2D representation, while wearing the glasses adds the third dimension; darkening shadows, lighting highlights, and basically enhancing the experience by giving you a 3D vision that projects out of the screen. This is all made possible by the NVIDIA drivers which interact in conjunction with the TRIMON with many of today’s modern games, and will continue to work with future games as well. I promised you a table of the supported games, so please find it below.
The highlighted games are the ones I personally have tested. Each has a slightly different way of delivering the 3D effect, but of them all, Bioshock seemed to be the most impressive; but in terms of game play, I enjoyed Crysis much more with this added dimension.
Also something to consider is that while the drivers are still young, you can bet that with enough support, NVIDIA are going to pump out newer drivers as they do with every graphics card release. It’s a perfect opportunity for them to get good branding and maintain market share.
Pricing is at about $650 USD for the 19” version, and $800 USD for the 22” version, including 2x 2W speakers integrated in the monitor."
By John Freeman, TweakTown
