3D Vision Blog

About two weeks ago Microsoft has made available the Windows 8 Consumer Preview for download, so that everyone interested can test the early preview version of the OS and now Nvidia has just released a full set of drivers for all of their GPUs. The just released GeForce Beta Driver 296.17 are available for both GeForce and Quadro GPU-based desktops and notebooks on Nvidia’s website as well as on Microsoft’s Windows Update. Windows 7, vista and Windows XP users aren’t left out either. An equivalent driver, version 296.10 (WHQL-certified) is also available from today with it and the Windows 8 version being a quick refresh in terms of features and support from the recently released version GeForce 295.73 drivers. The new GeForce version 296.10 drivers add 3D Vision support for the following games: Dear Esther – Rated Good and Deep Black: Reloaded – Rated 3D Vision Ready.

The new Nvidia Windows 8 video drivers support all the features of the new Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) v1.2 and also support the 3D Vision and 3DTV Play products, allowing you to play more than 600 games, watch Blu-ray movies and view photos in 3D. With Windows 8′s new built-in stereoscopic 3D support in DirectX 11, 3D Vision is poised to provide users the best platform for games and applications according to Nvidia.

And now for some more details about what features are supports and what not in the new Windows 8 Consumer Preview drivers from Nvidia based on the information available form Nvidia:

What 3D Vision features are available right now on the Windows 8 Consumer Preview?
Currently all fullscreen 3D Vision and 3DTV Play functionality is available on Windows 8 Consumer Preview. This include games, 3D Vision Photo Viewer, 3D Vision Video Player, and Blu-ray 3D. 3DVisionLive.com and 3D Vision window mode support will be available at a later date.

I read that Windows 8 now natively supports stereoscopic 3D. What applications can I use to test that?
Please use the samples from MSDN to test Windows 8 native 3D support: Direct3D stereoscopic 3D sample

I noticed Microsoft now has a stereoscopic 3D option on their display properties control panel. How do I enable 3D Vision on Windows 8 Consumer Preview?
Please use the traditional NVIDIA Control Panel > Set up stereoscopic 3D options to enable 3D Vision and 3DTV Play.

What 3D Vision features are enabled on Windows 8 Metro user interface?
The current NVIDIA Windows 8 Consumer Preview drivers do not support these products. We are working on drivers to support these products later this year. The feature support will include 3D Vision Photo and Video Player applications and also 3D applications.

Is NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround supported on Windows 8 Consumer Preview with the current 3D Vision drivers?
Yes, 3D Vision Surround is fully supported with the latest drivers.

Are “Optimized for GeForce” products such as glasses free 3D notebooks and passive 3D monitors supported on Windows 8?
The current NVIDIA drivers for the Windows 8 Consumer Preview do not support these products. We are working on drivers to support these products later this year.

Are 3D Vision DLP HDTVs 3DTV Play supported in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview?
The current NVIDIA Windows 8 Consumer Preview drivers do not support these products. We are working on drivers to support these products later this year.

I do not see a checkbox for stereoscopic 3D in the Microsoft Control Panel. How do I enable it in Windows 8?
After a clean install of the NVIDIA drivers, please reboot the system and the checkbox should show up.

I updated to Windows 8 and I can no longer play Blu-ray 3D movies. How can I fix this?
Blu-ray 3D players – such as Cyberlink, Roxio, and ArcSoft – need to be updated to support Blu-ray 3D playback on Windows 8. Please consult your software manufacturer to ensure you are using a version that supports Windows 8.

- You can download the latest Nvidia GeForce video drivers form here…

Unigine has released a new version of their popular DirectX 11 benchmarking software called Heaven, a piece of software that can put significant load on your hardware, no matter how powerful it is. The Heaven benchmark is one of the best looking benchmarks that can also take advantage of the latest graphics technologies such as tessellation and stereoscopic 3D support. The newest version of the benchmark builds on top of that and ads some new features among which is an enhanced 3D Vision support (already introduced a while ago) as well as an improved support for multi-monitor configurations including the introduction of support for the Nvidia 3D Vision Surround setups (multi-monitor stereoscopic 3D). Of course the Heaven benchmark also supports multiple other stereo 3D modes besides 3D Vision, it can already work in anaglyph 3D mode or Side by Side, even iZ3D monitors are supported. There is a free basic edition of Unigine’s Heaven benchmark that you can download and use and the commercial pro version of the software only adds some extras that might be of interest to professionals using Heaven for serious benchmarking. It is interesting to note that the Heaven DX11 Benchmark software is based on the company’s Unigine graphical engine, meaning that all that you see in the benchmark can be realized in an actual game with the game engine, including stereoscopic 3D support. And quite recently Unigine have also released a game of their own based on that engine that also supports stereo 3D, the game is called Oil Rush. If you haven’t seen it already you are welcome to try it out, it comes with a very good stereoscopic 3D support and although there are some minor things needed to be fixed the game still looks very nice.

- To download the new version of the Unigine Heaven Benchmark software…

The game Mass Effect 3 should start rolling in the US today and will be available in the rest of the world in the next few days and unfortunately it will apparently not be great when played in stereo 3D mode with 3D Vision as hinted by the demo released a while ago. The good news for the stereo 3D gamers out there is that the community is already quite ahead in resolving the issues that the game has in stereo 3D mode and there is already a fix addressing most of the problems that the demo had (it is based on the demo version). The fixes are based on the DirectX 9 wrapper developed by Helix and he is also taking an active part in modifying literally hundreds of shaders in the game for proper stereo 3D rendering. Of course when the full game is released there will probably be a need for more things to be modified, but most of the work is probably done already. So download the 3D Vision fix while waiting for the full game to become available and if you find any other issues, please make a savegame and share it with information about the issue, so that additional fixes could be added. This way we might be able to get the Mass Effect 3 to a 3D vision-ready state not from the developer, but thanks to the efforts of the stereo 3D gaming community.

- For more information and to download the 3D Vision Fix for the Game Mass Effect 3…