Housemarque Discuss The Process Of Adding Stereoscopic 3D To Super Stardust HD

Housemarque have talked about the process and history of adding stereoscopic 3D to Super Stardust HD. they started thinking about adding stereoscopic 3D back in the summer of 2009, but they initially didn't think it would work as they were not going to compromise on 60fps gameplay in the game. the engine behind Super Stardust HD would need alot of work as they also needed to reduce the time it took to draw a frame from the current 16.7ms to 8.3ms.


The team knew that they had 50% of the PS3's SPU power left to use. the core engine to the game was going to be completely replaced. the team moved vertex processing from the GPU to SPU's and merged as many objects as possible into one drawcall. this was done by Autumn, and the first 3D version of Super Stardust HD was up and running. the next issue was a lack of 3D tv's to play the game. the team used the red and green 3d glasses to check the effect until they got 3D TV's in early 2010.


Changing the games engine also bought about benefits for the 2D version, split screen co-op went from 30fps to 60fps and 4x anti aliasing support has been added to 720p, whilst 1920×1080p support has been added. The 3D part of the game runs at 720p at 120fps. People with the game can update it for free now, the updated version if 5.00.

From EU Playstation Blog