Last Friday Nvidia has silently released a new beta driver CD version 1.33 for 3D Vision users after previously releasing a 1.33 CD with WHQL drivers and that kind of confused the users as the version of the drivers included was the same as with the WHQL release. However in the new beta driver there are some improvements regarding the 3D Vision profiles and one of them is targeted for StarCraft II players, along with updated Mafia II profile (the game is finally coming very soon) and TRINE profile with both getting certified as 3D Vision Ready. And while normally there is no need to update (this is beta driver after all) if you play StarCraft II and want to finally be able to play in stereo 3D mode with good results then you should update the drivers as they do a good job in fixing most of the issues the game has in S3D mode. However this driver update brings the game to a “Good” 3D Vision status according to the profile and does not make it perfect in stereo 3D mode, for that we are still waiting for a patch for the game itself coming from Blizzard (like fixing the 2D crosshair etc.). One thing regarding the 3D Vision profile for the StarCraft that kind of surprised me was that the convergence level in the profile was a bit messed up, so I did some tweaking and here is a custom convergence profile that should fix things for you should you experience the same problem. So if you the the new driver and the custom convergence settings for StarCraft II please report how they work for you.

- Download the custom convergence settings for the game StarCraft II…
- Download the new 3D Vision driver CD version 1.33 beta with the updated profiles…

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Just yesterday I’ve shared the information that the game Just Cause 2 will be 3D Vision-ready title and today we already have the demo of the game available on Steam. The good news is that the demo also works just fine with 3D Vision, so you can get a feel of what to expect form the full game when it is out later this month, however there are a few issues that you should be aware of regarding the demo. The game really looks great in stereo 3D mode with 3D Vision even with all the additional effects enabled so it is really done with S3D in mind, but the demo however has some minor issues. You should start with the installation the 3D Vision driver included in the just made available 196.75 drivers as these drivers are the first ones that do include a 3D Vision profile for the game. Not that if you use older driver without the game profile you’ll have some issues as the default convergence level in the game is just fine, it maybe needs just some fine tweaking for optimum results, but that also depends on personal preferences. If you have an SLI system with two or more Nvidia video cards you should disable the SLI before running the demo of the game if you plan to play it in stereo 3D mode as it seems that the demo has some issues with SLI and 3D Vision working together. With SLI enabled when you switch to stereoscopic 3D mode by enabling the 3D Vision the left frame in the game (right when taking a 3D screenshot) is almost completely dark creating a very weird feeling and making the S3D mode unusable until you disable SLI. The last thing you should be aware of is that the demo and probably the final game is quite demanding in terms of graphical performance, especially if you wish to play it in stereoscopic 3D mode.

- To download the demo of the game Just Cause 2 over Steam…

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The Multiplayer Demo of scheduled for February 16th release game Aliens vs Predator has been released yesterday over Steam and a lot of people (including myself) tried to play it with 3D Vision. It turned out however that the 3D Vision drivers contain a profile for an older AvP game and load it and that results in totally messing up the image on the screen when you turn on the stereoscopic 3D mode. Turns out that the convergence level is the thing that totally messes up the image on the screen, but even after lowering the convergence with the help of CTRL + F5 key combination the game is not in a true stereo 3D mode…

So I had to figure a way out to fix that by preventing the wrong game profile to be loaded from the 3D Vision driver and this was not as easy as to just rename the AvP.exe file from the Steam directory as this prevents the game from actually being run. So the solution I’ve found is to rename the actual game executable from AvP.exe to AvPx.exe and then add a small launcher that is named AvP.exe that is just calling up the renamed actual game executable file and that did the trick. The 3D Vision drivers no longer detect the game and load the old profile so things look normal, although you might still want to play with settings in order to get best results in S3D mode. To make it easier I’ve packaged the launcher I’m using (Bart’s program launcher 1.2) into a small archive so that after renaming the the original Exe of the game you can just extract the files from the archive below and then just run the game with everything working fine with 3D Vision.

- Download the archive with the launcher fix for the AvP Multiplayer Demo…

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The Saboteur is a third person action-adventure video game set during World War II. In it you’ll be able to explore an open world Nazi-occupied Paris and some of the countryside and parts of Germany. The primary missions you’ll get all revolve around exacting revenge on high-ranking German officers and officials, and getting to the point to be able to exact vengeance because these damn Nazis killed on of your friends and got you angry. The game has an interesting atmosphere and features and you can consider it to be quite fun to play with some nice elements, but unfortunately it does not do very well if you try to play it in stereo 3D mode…

You should start with the Options menu of the game launcher before starting the game itself in stereoscopic 3D, because you have to be certain of a few things in order not to have surprisingly strange results. Make sure that the Refresh Rate is set at 60Hz, otherwise if you set 120Hz you’ll be forced in a low resolution, using the sixty hertz in the option is Ok, the game actually runs in 120Hz so the S3D works. Also disabling shadows can help you minimize a bit of the strange looking effects (defects) while you play the game. As for the resolution and detail level you should set them according to the specifications of your PC. Have in mind though that the game is actually quite heavy when playing in stereoscopic 3D mode and you can get some stuttering because of the framerate dropping too much when you are in a big open space. An example would be having 58 frames per second in normal 3D, but when I activate the S3D mode in a big open space it drops down to about 15 fps on Core i5 750 and GTX 275 with high detail and 1680×1050 resolution. So you might want to consider lowering the resolution or decreasing a bit the detail level in order to have at least 25-30 fps minimum framerate, otherwise it will ruin your fun playing the game.

Still when you run the game you can notice that there are some weird looking lights and the objects around lights might also look strange and have issues, especially if you increase the depth level more. So a custom convergence level is needed in order to get rid of the different light conditions for the left and right frame and so I did create a custom profile to help you with that. The screenshot above is with my custom settings, also notice that the frame rate is just 22 frames with the maximum details – this was just done while testing the game for S3D, not for playing it, so I needed to lower some of the detail levels to get better performance afterwards. I’ve provided the REG file with my custom convergence settings below, as usual you can download it and import the version for your operating system (32-bit/64-bit) and then just run the game and it will be auto loaded. Have in mind that in order to use this profile with best results you need to lower the depth level to the minimum, otherwise you’ll still have weird lit areas… so turning down the depth level wheel all the way down is needed. And as usual please share your experience using the custom convergence profile if you try it out…

- If you want to order the game The Saboteur for PC, you can do so here…
- Download my custom 3D Vision convergence settings for the game The Saboteur…

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Shattered Horizon is a multiplayer first-person shooter PC game where players fight in zero gravity on different levels in space and of course this is the first game that is coming from Futuremark Games Studio (3DMark anyone?). There is still not much info made available for the game, because it is just exited from closed beta status and not many people had access to it, but there is a lot of interest and big expectations from everyone for this title. The game is expected to be released by the end of this year (and Futuremark seems to be right on track for that), although there is still no official release date announced, but enough with that, lets talk a bit abut the game and its 3D Vision compatibility. Here is some first hand information about the game, but mostly focused on its 3D Vision compatibility and you should have in mind that in the final version of the game things might be different. Now I’ve been participating in the closed beta that just finished in the last few days and finally I’m able to share freely an overview of the game based on the final beta version and how things progressed since the earlier versions of the game, but still nobody is allowed to publish screenshots from the game as they were not from the final version of the game! So no images from me either, but still an overview of how things are looking so far… in text only ;)

And here is the first official trailer with in-game footage to give you a bit of an idea on what to expect from this space FPS game, but enough with the introduction, lets talk about the game and what to expect from it in S3D…

In the first betas the game was not very optimized so it was quite heavy on the video card and the system as well, but in each of the updates things were becoming better and better, including the improvement of the options menu for tweaking up the graphics settings. So pretty much in the final beta build 7 things were looking very good, although there was still something to be desired, but this should hopefully be fixed and improved up to the final version of the game. At first there were also some issues related to people using Nvidia SLI setups with two or more video cards, but this was fixed, so you can expect that playing in high resolution with maximum detail level the game will be quite demanding on your hardware now even SLI setups should be Ok in the final game (don’t know about Crossfire as I do not have such system available). Anyway I’ve had some issues with running the game (the earlier betas) on a test Dell XPS 1730 laptop with dual GeForce 9800M GT in SLI…

As for playing in stereoscopic 3D, you should be aware that by default there is no profile from Nvidia intended for Shattered Horizon in the latest 3D Vision drivers, so the beta works with the default S3D settings. And if you run the game things look pretty much Ok at first look besides your gun that is very close and looks “out of focus”, so a bit of convergence adjustment is needed, but more about that in a minute. After a more closer inspection you can see a problem in the right frame – the gun is teared and looks doubled on the image only your right eye sees, but is Ok on the one for the left eye. After a bit of playing with the convergence level you can get much better results, showing your gun as it should normally be seen without the “out of focus” effect and the doubling in the right frame. The objects that are more far still look quite good and “deeper” in the screen, as this optimization is for depth stereoscopic effect and not for pop-out effect when viewing in Stereo 3D, which is the best for Shattered Horizon and for most other FPS games. Of course there are still some visual problems and objects that look a bit weird when viewed in stereoscopic 3D mode. I’ve prepared a REG file with the needed settings for the custom convergence level for the beta that should also work for the final game (maybe just renaming the executable), but this is just in case if Nvidia does not have a profile ready by then. By importing the Reg file (link below) in the registry of your OS you just need to run the game and it will start with these custom convergence settings applied, providing you with the best possible S3D result so far.

Now, as of be beta build 7 and with the custom convergence adjustment not everything is still perfect, you can notice that some lights in a bit of a distance from you are misplaced in the frame shown for the right eye when playing in S3D mode. Also sometimes the distant dust (it should be dust and not smoke in space, right?) also is misplaced in the frame that is rendered for the right eye in stereoscopic 3D mode, but it is better than in earlier betas and in the final game we can also hope to have these fixed in order to have the game to perform great when player with Geforce 3D Vision.

- Download the custom convergence settings for Shattered Horizon Beta

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