Software

As you can imagine, one cannot simply plug the 3D monitor in, turn it on and watch their favorite movie or play any game right away. To see things in 3D you require specific video and drivers. Classic material with the red and cyan displacement images will not work on the Zalman ZM-215W. You require video which actually is interlaced horizontally and then polarized through the special layer on top of the 2D screen. Gaming also requires you to use special drivers, so that the games are output the same way as video is, thus working with the circular polarization of the included glasses.

Stereoscopic Player Zalman Edition

Zalman ships the unit with a video player, capable of using the information of 3D video files and present them in such a way, so that you can view it in 3D. The version included is 1.3.2, which crashed on me several times during the review. The newest version from the manufacturer is 1.5.5, while Zalman also offers a very recent version 1.5.2 on their website at the time of writing this review. I suggest you check their website for the latest version, as these include a lot of additional features and are far more stable than the one that ships with the monitor.

Setup Gallery:



The general layout of the application looks a lot like the basic Windows Media Player. There are two possible ways for 3D content to ship. You will either get separate video files for each eye, in which case you have to open them up through the "Open left and right file" menu, or as a single file in which case you have to tell the player how to properly display the content. Either way, it works the 3D comes across quite well.

iZ3D Gaming Driver

The iZ3D Gaming driver manages the output of DirectX based titles so that they are displayed correctly on the screen. Installing the app is done just like a normal driver, but I was not able to run it after successfully finishing the setup. I kept getting an error message "The service is not ready: timeout". After restarting the system I had a file named "Program" with no extension in my root directory, which seemed to interfere with the startup of the service. After deleting that file I was able to manually start the required service. Seems like even the iZ3D guys do not know how to address the timeout problems, as they are not offering any real help to those who face the same issue in their official forums. Those with pure user experience in Windows will be left with a non functional 3D gaming driver. To get a better feel on how to aquire your licence check out the iZ3D guide - yes a "Licence Activation Tutorial".

Setup Gallery:


After finally being able to start the iZ3D Control Panel, things were still not done. You cannot select the Zalman monitor and save the required settings without first logging into the iZ3D website with the credentials on the white CD sleeve. At this point you are able to acquire your licence. To do so, you have to enter a "Site Code" and "Machine ID", which seem to be unique to your user and PC. To get this code, one has to go to the help section in the Control Panel, hold down CTRL and click on the dynamic test icon, at which point you should be presented with a new window containing the needed information. Sadly, even though I was holding down CTRL, I never got that window.


At this point I was rather frustrated with this application and - while it is by no means Zalmans fault - I really do not see much point in going through such great lengths to attain a licence which is locked to your system. If you were to sell the monitor, you may not be able to pass on the licence as the "Machine ID" of the new owner will be different and thus the licence will be invalid. Even worse, what if you reinstall your system or update a component? There is no telling how the "Machine ID" is generated and what will change it.

TriDef 3D

Luckily after a few short minutes of hitting the search engines, I stumbled across TriDef 3D. This application also requires an activation code to function beyond its 14 day trial. But it includes a media player and the functionality to display DirectX based content in the proper manner to play games in 3D. Zalman should seriously consider dropping the horrid iZ3D application in favor for this application. It does not require the user to jump through so many hoops to aquire the functionality of the Trimon display and uses a simple activation code to work past the trial period. This means that users can freely sell their property and pass on the functionality to the new user. The installation procedure is quick and the application works flawlessly right out of the box. On top of that it finds your 3D capable games and allows you to start them right from within the application with the correct settings. I tried out Bioshock 2 in 3D for this review.