I remember my first unforgettable experience at Disney World watching their "3d" show, and seeing everything just pop out at me (Especially an unusually ugly witch).  I remember grabbing at the 3d objects to see if they were really there.  Being only seven I couldn't believe what was happening and still to this day I remember.  Elsa took this technology and brought it to new levels with their Revelator glasses.

The Glasses

The glasses came with a big Elsa folder with an extensive informative brochure.  These guides had everything you would want to know about the history and the complicated physics behind 3d technology.

What's included:

• Comprehensive user manual

• ELSA 3D REVELATOR CD

• Stereo adapter cable for connecting ELSA 3D REVELATOR to the graphic board

Warranty and Support:

• The ELSA 3D REVELATOR is backed by a 1year warranty

• Technical support Monday-Friday - email (24 hours) and phone (8:00am - 5:00pm PST)

• FAQ at www.elsa.com/AMERICA in the support section

• Online registration www.elsa.com/AMERICA

The only catch with these glasses is that you can only use them with Direct3D API.  For anyone out there that still doesn't know what API is here is something to help you out. API is an acronym for Application Programming Interface. Simply put, an API is the set of functions that an operation system or a hardware device provides to allow software to use it. Without it, the software would have to provide its own drivers for all possible hardware configurations (remember DOS?).  Games such as Quake2 and Halflife use the same API's but Halflife offers another API called Direct3D, Quake2 on the other hand does not offer this API. 

Installation

This is the part where I had my trouble.  I did everything just how the directions told me to.  I hooked the glasses up like the pictures, put them on my face, started my computer, stuck the installation CD in for the correct drivers to be installed and restarted my computer. It should work now right?  Wrong! I used Elsa's Stereo 3d viewer to view screenshots from games in 3d.

Starting this program eagerly I saw the glasses flicker a few times and waited to see my first 3d picture on my computer... but after waiting 10 seconds I saw this message: OUT OF SCAN RANGE ...WTF is this I thought... then I thought... hmm maybe my refresh rate is set too high, but in reading I saw that the refresh rates for the glasses can be up to 140 Hz.  Then I thought. Maybe my version of DirectX is too old.  So I checked my system information and that seemed to check out.  V6.1... no problem... What could be causing this error?  I know, maybe I need newer drivers.

 I went to Elsa's web page and got the latest drivers for my Elsa 3d Revelator Glasses and new drivers for my Elsa Erazor III video card.  It's gotta work now, right? Nope!  What could be causing this problem? Could it be monitor?  I got an old monitor from upstairs on my other computer and hooked it up.  After configuring it properly I set everything to defaults and gave it a whirl. Elsa's Stereo 3d viewer came up and a great looking picture of Halflife showed up in beautiful 3d.

I was so relieved to see this; nobody could know how I felt except maybe the people upstairs hearing my yelling.  I don't know if my monitor was too good for the glasses or vice versa, but the load was lifted.  I mean, I was trying to get these glasses to work for over two weeks now... maybe Elsa can look into that...BTW, I have a SONY Trinitron Multiscan 100 ES monitor that goes well above the minimum 100Mz refresh rate.

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