Acer’s annual global press conference, Next@Acer, doesn’t have much to show on the gaming laptops front for 2022, but the one thing they showed really is a peculiar one.
There’s another version of the refreshed Acer Predator Helios 300, first revealed at CES 2022. And it has support for glass-less stereoscopic 3D, using Acer’s own SpatialLabs tech.
For the uninitiated, stereoscopic 3D tech makes visuals from a 2D screen pop out. It’s something that’s hard to demo from watching a video.
Stereoscopic 3D was once a fad in gaming, which saw consoles like the PS3 and handhelds like the Nintendo 3DS supporting the feature, which has seen less use as games move into exploring virtual reality.
The Predator Helios 300 SpatialLabs Edition has an extended camera array which adds eye trackers, plus a 3D display module to support the 3D effect, as well as beefier specs (an Nvidia RTX 3080 GPU and 32GB of DDR5 RAM to name a few) to render stereoscopic 3D. The display is at 4K resolution normally and can render in 3D at 2K resolution per eye at 60Hz.
The SpatialLabs tech has been used on other Acer laptops from the ConceptD line, but this will be the first time Acer is bringing the tech to the gaming laptop line.
At least 50 games will have support for SpatialLabs 3D displays (referred to as SpatialLabs TrueGame), including games from Xbox Game Studios like Forza Horizon 5.
The full supporting SpatialLabs TrueGame, at the time of writing, listed 51 games which are the following:
- Abzu
- Amid Evil
- Anno: Mutationem
- BioShock Infinite
- Black Mesa
- Borderlands 2
- Borderlands Game of the Year Enhanced
- Bright Memory: Infinite
- Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition
- Call of Juarez: Gunslinger
- Darksiders III
- Dying Light
- Elite Dangerous
- Firewatch
- Forza Horizon 4
- Forza Horizon 5
- Ghostrunner
- God of War
- Godfall
- Hob
- Injustice 2
- Kena Bridge of Spirits
- Maneater
- Max Payne 3
- Metro 2033 Redux
- Metro: Last Light Redux
- My Friend Pedro
- Need for Speed Heat
- NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139…
- No Man’s Sky
- Psychonauts 2
- Quake
- Raji: An Ancient Epic
- Remnant: From the Ashes
- Serious Sam 4
- Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider
- Shadow Warrior 2
- SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated
- Spyro Reignited Trilogy
- The Forgotten City
- The Surge 2
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- Tiny Tina’s Wonderland
- Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2
- Trine 2
- Trine 3
- Trine Enchanted Edition
- Tunic
- What Remains of Edith Finch
- Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair
Acer has been introducing peculiar features (that may as well be considered mere gimmicks to some) over the past few years, such as the introduction of analog WASD keys in the high-end Predator laptops. Will stereoscopic 3D on gaming laptops catch on, though? At the very least the PC and laptop brand is always trying something new.
No details about the price, release window or whether the Predator Helios 300 will be available in Malaysia yet.