3D Vision Blog

The updated version of the 27-inch Acer HN274H 3D monitor with the new 3D Vision 2 and support for 3D Lightboost technology is here as apparently Acer is already releasing the monitor on some markets and I just got a review sample. The new monitor looks exactly the same as the old version on the outside, even the model name on the front is printed as HN274H…

Looking at the back of the display reveals more interesting facts. Instead of Acer HN274HB the model name apparently remains HN274H, but with a slight difference in the version of the model only. So instead of HN274H bmiiid as the old model, the new model is labeled HN274H Bbmiiid with a part number ET.HH4HE.B04. The fact that the model number remains as HN274H and not HN274HB and the difference is in the version number only might be a bit confusing for a lot of people and it is not impossible that somebody can get the old model instead of the new one. So be careful when looking for the new version with 3D Vision 2 and 3D Lightboost support and wait for a review of the monitor very soon.

Lately we’ve been literally attacked with a lot of hit titles to play during the holiday season and more are constantly coming out from different game developers. And the GPU makers have been pressed a bit in releasing a lot of new driver updates with fixes and improvements to make things work as they should or to bring better performance for the gamers. And today comes a new beta driver for the owners of Nvidia-based video cards in the form of driver version 290.36, the first release from the R290 series of drivers. This beta driver brings some new features and a lot of fixes, but as usual I’ll focus on what is new regarding stereoscopic 3D support and you can find the full release notes here in PDF format should you be interested in all the details.

The new beta driver has an interesting new feature for 3D Vision, it adds support for 3D Vision over the native DisplayPort 1.1 connection available on the new BenQ XL2420T and BenQ XL2420TX monitors (supporting 3D Lightboost technology). These are apparently the first 3D Vision-ready 3D monitors with DisplayPort available, so Nvidia has also found a reason to add support for 3D Vision to work over DisplayPort as well. Previously DisplayPort was only used together with active adapters to convert it to Dual-Link DVI, mostly for output from laptops that did not have DL-DVI interface, but now you should be able to directly connect one of these BenQ 3D monitors and use it in 3D mode.

The new driver also comes with added or updated the following 3D Vision game profiles:

- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – rated Good
- Cang Sheng – rated Good
- Diablo 3 – rated Good
- Fei fei – rated Good
- Final Combat – rated Good
- L.A. Noire – updated rating to 3D Vision Ready
- LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 – rated Fair
- Qian Nv You Hun Online – rated Good
- QQ Xi You – rated Good
- Sonic Generations – rated Good
- Xian Tu – rated Good
- Yong Bing Tian Xia Online – rated Good

There are a lot of Asian games being added with a rating Good, L.A. Noire is apparently finally fixed, MW3 should also work better in 3D. There are also some specific fixes for 3D Vision, 3DTV Play and stereo 3D in various specific situations and hardware combinations that you can read about in the detailed release notes I’ve linked already. But based on the user experience from the first people that have installed the new beta drivers and the issues and complaints that some of them are having, especially in stereo 3D mode, I would not advice you to hurry and install the beta, you may wish to wait for the WHQL release. But if you do install the 290.36 beta, you are welcome to share your feedback in the comments below…

There were already a few people that complained of not being able to make their 3D Vision 2 active shutter glasses work with the new Asus VG278H 3D monitor that comes with integrated IR emitter. And apparently some units do have a hardware issue with the IR emitter itself and the problem is not software related at all. So if you have a similar problem you can get into the monitor’s menu and take a look at the Information menu of the display to see if your monitor also does not detect the IR emitter as connected (as in the photo above posted by milkman in the forum). If you see the red error message then there is something wrong with the emitter and it is a hardware issue and not a software one, so you should get a replacement unit as clearly you’ve got a defective one. Normally the Information menu should not have the red error message and then the issues of not being able to make the 3D glasses activate could be software related. So make sure to check what your Asus VG278H monitor reports as it could save you a lot of trouble…