iZ3D Ships 22-inch 3D Gaming Monitor

If you think you can handle gaming while wearing polarized glasses, IZ3D's 22-inch 3D gaming monitor promises to put you in the middle of the action.

The brand-new San Diego-based iZ3D has announced it is selling its iZ3D 22-inch widescreen 3D gaming monitor for $999—and the company is specifically targeting the gaming market. iZ3D says the system offers impressive image depth, creating the illusion of images which have depth into he screen and seem to extend out of the screen. The system works using custom software drivers, and the user must wear passive polarized glasses—although they’re a good deal swankier than the 3D glasses typically found in a cereal box.

“More content is being produced in 3D,” said Thomas Striegler, CEO of Neurok Optics, LLC. “All popular games and many new movies are now created in 3D‐most viewers are unable to see the game or movie as it is meant to be seen in 3D.”

iZ3D is a newly-formed partnership between 3D imaging developer Neurok Optics and Taiwan’s Chi Mei Optoelectronics.

The monitor itself offers a 1,680 by 1,050 pixel resolution, 5 ms response time, 170° viewing angle, 600:1 contrast, and dual DVI/VGA inputs designed to connect to a dual-output video card. The display ships with S-3D drivers which are compatible with either the Nvidia GeForce 8 series or ATI’s FireGL V3600 workstation graphics cards—either way, this isn’t a display users are going to connect to a budget gaming rig. The drivers are optimized for Intel Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors, and support DIrectX 8 and 9 in Windows XP and Vista.

iZ3D says the monitor’s display technology creates an adjustable 3D environment which can be used for long period without eyestrain, disorientation, or headaches (wait—we thought those things were part of the gaming experience?!), and can also be used for standard 2D computing tasks.