GeForce 3D Vision: Gaming Goes Stereo

[cangelini]

Do you remember the stereo glasses that were around about 10 years ago? Now that 120 Hz LCDs are starting to pop up, Nvidia is teaching an old dog some new tricks with its GeForce 3D Vision shades.

GeForce 3D Vision: Gaming Goes Stereo : Read more

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Interesting, but I'm surprised that this came out before an updated and finalized GTX295 review.

nV's recent flurry of 3D stereo-vision and Charlie @ the InQ's pre-emptive bashing of it have been interesting, but it reminds me of Matrox's wonderful surround-view feature, which is great, but it's still niche and will remain so.

Not my cuppa, but at least the tech is moving forward so who knows about the future.

I'm one of those people who see the rainbow effect on Gen3 DLP screens with 360hz colour wheels, so I have a feeling these new glasses won't improve the headaches anymore than the faster wheel solved my rainbow vision. Now synch some shutter glasses on a 480hz plasma...

 

[gmt325gh]

nice...
just one small problem .... what about people who wear glasses ???!!!

 

[Guest]

Nice article, but you're forgetting about something...Pc's are not only used for gaming, and if NVidia wants to make this really popular they MUST find a way to make movies work with their glasses.Currently there are very few titles that are in 3D, most are old, and the new ones are expensive, and so far converting a regular movie to stereoscopic 3D is almost impossible, and the quality is not what you'd expect. Also...besides providing their own hardware and a new Vista compatible driver, what did NVidia came up with that surpasses all the other 3D shutter glasses on the market(eDymensional..etc.), giving to account that all the titles you tested work with/the same(look,FPS etc.)with any stereoscopic glasses?

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]TheGreatGrapeApe[/nom]Interesting, but I'm surprised that this came out before an updated and finalized GTX295 review.nV's recent flurry of 3D stereo-vision and Charlie @ the InQ's pre-emptive bashing of it have been interesting, but it reminds me of Matrox's wonderful surround-view feature, which is great, but it's still niche and will remain so. Not my cuppa, but at least the tech is moving forward so who knows about the future.I'm one of those people who see the rainbow effect on Gen3 DLP screens with 360hz colour wheels, so I have a feeling these new glasses won't improve the headaches anymore than the faster wheel solved my rainbow vision. Now synch some shutter glasses on a 480hz plasma...[/citation]

Grape,

It's coming. I sent all of the hardware to Thomas, who has a second GTX 295, which means we'll be able to deliver benchmarks of two 295s versus a pair of X2s and so on down the line. I'm over at CES, so all of this had to be finished up before the show. Should be worth the wait. I'm looking forward to see what four-digits worth of graphics horsepower is capable of, to be sure.

I had the chance to check out Nvidia's competition tonight at the show and am currently working on a news story about it. Not. Impressed.

 

[enewmen]

This brings be back to the Asus V6600 GeForce Deluxe card I got in 1999. At that time, the 'Dagoth More Zoological Gardens' with the VR-Glasses was the most awesome sight I've ever seen on a PC. This worked with Ultima9 as well as a nice surpirse

I'm surprised I havin't seen (mainstream) 3-D displays without glasses yet. I've seen some samples of this in the past with small screens.

 

[cangelini]

Totally remember that myself. That was actually one of the first video cards I ever reviewed =)

 

[Guest]

This reminds me that Sony showed a stereo version of Gran Turismo 5 running on a PS3 AND that the RSX is a NVidian board...

 

[Guest]

LCD shutter glasses again??? Really? Yawn. Where are the glasses that beam images directly onto my retinas or even a set of lcd glasses that are actually 2 tiny HD monitors but still light enough to wear comfortably...

 

[Fadamor]

I need to point out an apparent error in nVidia's statement regarding TV's... I purchased a Samsung 40" LCD TV (Model number LN40A650) just prior to the holidays that has 120 Hz HDMI ports (4 of them) AND has 120 Hz refresh rate. So there ARE large screens out there that should be able to support the 3D technology.

 

[GlItCh017]

[citation][nom]gmt325gh[/nom]nice... just one small problem .... what about people who wear glasses ???!!![/citation]

I would guess that it fits over glasses.

 

[hixbot]

120hz processing isn't enough. The screen must be fast enough to DISPLAY 120 distinct images per second, and it must be at a precise rate, so the shutter glasses can sync properly.
The varrying response times of LCD panels, depending on colour etc, will prevent a smooth moving, stereo image.

 

[bounty]

Does it work with other 3d capable apps. Scientific stuff, 3d desktop, media player visualizations/screensavers etc?

 

[roofus]

Wow it's been a while since I have seen Elsa mentioned. They made some really good video cards back in the day.

 

[coldmast]

so what, Tom's is telling me I need 2X 295 and then everything is good right?

darn! I think I'll have to stick to a red-blue and rad racer

 

[Fadamor]

[citation][nom]hixbot[/nom]120hz processing isn't enough. The screen must be fast enough to DISPLAY 120 distinct images per second, and it must be at a precise rate, so the shutter glasses can sync properly.The varrying response times of LCD panels, depending on colour etc, will prevent a smooth moving, stereo image.[/citation]
So you're saying the problem is based on the fact that the display is an LCD display? Then why were two LCD monitors listed as compatible?

The TV I purchased lists a 4ms response time for the pixels. That translates to approximately a 250 Hz refresh rate. The requirement for these glasses is 120 Hz which means it is less than half of the TV's rated capability. Are you SURE it's not going to work?

 

[hannibal]

It's god to know that if I ever have enough money I can get something guite interesting to my desktop! Even if this will be a niche solution for some time, at least it's nice to know that there is something that you can put your sli cards really to do something usefull. But I really hope that even this feature should be "open" standard to all GPU makers...

 

[zodiacfml]

looking from nvidia's perspective, this feature must work really good in order to sell more GPUs since this obviously requires SLI more than crysis.
I wonder how amd's stereo solution will work, probably performs almost the same but cheaper.

 

[Pei-chen]

[citation][nom]k_meleon1982[/nom]....if NVidia wants to make this really popular they MUST find a way to make movies work with their glasses.Currently there are very few titles that are in 3D, most are old, and the new ones are expensive, and so far converting a regular movie to stereoscopic 3D is almost impossible, and the quality is not what you'd expect.[/citation]
3D is the next big thing in movies after digital projection and HD. Check out Wikipedia's list of future releases in 3D for more info.



Go see Bolt in Disney Digital 3-D

 

[Balshoy]

"and you’ll need a fairly potent graphics subsystem in order to really enjoy it. "

You people always complain about performance issues... well gotta tell you that things aren't so black and white... well not so black anyway
I have a HD4870 video card, a phenom 9950 processor and 5 GB RAM @ 667Mhz... and I can play Crysis with all the settings turned to VERY high at a 1680x1050 resolution with a playable frame rate. So what I'm trying to say is that with a fairly standard gaming rig you can play the latest games with all the settings turned on/set to very high... just imagine what you can do with just a little more (a 4870x2 instead of the simple 4870... or a tad more ram)

 

[knickle]

I used a pair of shutter glasses a long long time ago. They were pretty cool, but far from perfect. One of the issues I experienced was ghosting (a faint image of what the opposite eye was seeing). This was on a CRT. I would expect such an affect to be more apparent on an LCD.

So my question to the author is, was there any noticeable (or negligible) ghosting during your tests?

 

[sojrner]

[citation][nom]TheGreatGrapeApe[/nom]...won't improve the headaches anymore than the faster wheel solved my rainbow vision. Now synch some shutter glasses on a 480hz plasma...[/citation]
I am w/ you on that ape... Way back w/ CRTs I could not game under 85Hz w/o seeing the flicker. Did not move to LCDs for a long time b/c I could see ghosting so bad it hurt and the screen door on DLPs is only starting to disappear on the spendy ones within the last year.

I don't have the rainbow issue, but mine are sensitive enough that I am sure I would struggle w/ the headaches just like the old ones gave me.

@Balshoy: a 4870 is not a weak card, so what is your point here again?

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]knickle[/nom]I used a pair of shutter glasses a long long time ago. They were pretty cool, but far from perfect. One of the issues I experienced was ghosting (a faint image of what the opposite eye was seeing). This was on a CRT. I would expect such an affect to be more apparent on an LCD.So my question to the author is, was there any noticeable (or negligible) ghosting during your tests?[/citation]

There wasn't on the Nvidia shades, but I did see ghosting on the iZ3D solution I compared last night at CES.

 

[ninjahedge]

There are several issues that are paramount with this, as mentioned in the article.

Sync is definitely one of them. But as another poster commented, it is important that despite the refresh rate, the TRUE response rate is fast enough to get a clean image of the other perspective on the screen in time for your LCD glasses to see it w/o any remaining from the other perspective view.

Now, add to that the glasses also have to have a great solid response time. If they dim and brighten too slowly, you will also get ghosting.

I think the control panel adjustment for depth of play is VERY important. One of the biggest problems with motion sickness is the incompatibility of the perceived motion with the coverage of depth of field. The same thing happens when people play regular 3D flatscreen. The FOV may be adjusted abnormally to give the feeling that you are actually looking over the shoulder of the character you are playing, but are being forced to "see" it from first-person.

Question. And his is a hard one (like she said.....maybe). The main problem with flicker is not coming from refresh rate in quite the same way as we are accustomed to normally. Video is currently at 30hz refresh and peopel do not complain about flicker (hell, films are still at 24fps!).

The problem is simple. For half the time you are seeing NOTHING out of one eye. How can they find a way to get an image to stay residual on your eye while the other is being viewed? If you can still see the one image for a fraction of a second longer, your mind will fill in the rest and eliminate the flicker.

Do you think another solution would be a true polarized signal coming from the monitor itself which would allow two images to be constantly broadcast on the screen rather than resorting to flicker? Could both flicker AND polarization be used (an LCD set of glasses is actually a polarized filter with another electrically oriented polarized filter). Would simply dimming one of the lenses in time (not a complete blackout) to force you to pay attension to the other eye make it so that if you were to do a polarized image, the 3D effect could be strengthened?

They have enough money to try this, why do they keep going one way or the other?

 

[techtre2003]

I wonder why we aren't seeing 3D displays that don't require glasses? I remember seeing a large 3D display (around 42")at an Intel show about 3 or 4 years ago. I guess the cost would be prohibitive?