3D Vision Blog

Last week I was able to see a live demonstration of the Nvidia 3DTV Play in action. The software was running on Sony 3D and Panasonic 3D HDTVs and demonstrated on them was playing games in stereoscopic 3D mode as well as Blu-ray 3D movie playback using PowerDVD 10 Ultra Mark II. And after seeing it in action for the first time I was able to clarify some things for myself and it yet again has sparkled my interest into 3D-capable HDTVs, because with the general lack of other 3D content the part about PC gaming in stereo 3D mode on a big-screen 3D TV is what would actually justify the purchase of a high-end television set with 3D capabilities…

The 3DTV Play software seems to act like a kind of wrapper providing 720p 50/60Hz and 1080p 24Hz per eye resolutions for 3D playback and using the 3D Vision driver that is now a part of the video drivers for GeForce video cards. Trying Just Cause 2 running at Full HD 1080p resolution and with 24 frames per second in 3D actually felt surprisingly good, fluid just like playing most games on a console, and although not like the way PC users are used to play with higher framerates it is still Ok. Of course playing in 720p resolution with higher framerates might be better and actually the difference in perceptible quality between playing in 1080p and 720p taking the framerate aside is not so easily noticeable. The software seemed to work quite easy and problem free, although it most likely wasn’t the final version that should be soon released.

The Nvidia 3DTV Play software is expected to be available sometime later this month, so the wait is almost over for the people that were early in actually buying a HDMI 1.4(a) 3D-capable HDTV and want to easily use it for gaming in stereo 3D. And since the Panasonic Viera 3D HDTVs are currently on top of my personal list on deciding which 3D TV I should probably buy for 3D testing and personal entertainment, I was more interested in how it performed in stereo 3D mode and in this case it was the 50-inch VT20E available in Europe.

Something that caught my attention was the dithering on the Panasonic, and since it is a plasma TV these flashing colorful dots on black are to be expected to some extent. Of course they are visible only when watching the TV screen from very close distance and when you get to the optimum viewing distance you cannot actually perceive them as they blend nicely creating the full image. The above image shows the dithering in normal 2D mode…

Here is another picture with the same image displayed on the screen, taken when the TV is in 3D mode, but not through the glasses. The dithering is a bit more visible from closer distance, but again when getting back a bit from the TV things are again Ok. As I already said the dithering is normal for Plasma TVs, however it is less visible on some and more apparent on other TVs, so it is actually not an issue, I just expected it to be a bit less apparent as it is with the Samsung 3D Plasma TVs for example.

Anyway, another thing that differs the Panasonic 3D TVs is the fact that they do not feature a 2D to 3D conversion algorithm built-in, which is not exactly a bad thing and I personally can go just fine without such a feature. However I’m still not to happy with the design of the glasses, sure they do look quite nice and with a futuristic design, but the functionality part is a bit neglected… in terms of best 3D shutter glasses on my personal list Sony is still at the top spot. But anyway, I will not be making a purchase of a 3D HDTV before the 3DTV Play software comes out officially and I’m able to play a bit more with it on different TVs as for me the purchase of such 3D-capable HDTV at the moment will be mostly targeted at gaming… even if it is in 720p 50/60Hz, although quite a few games should be just fine when played back even in 1080p 24Hz too.

We already have some of the new generation of 3D-capable TV sets using the new HDMI 1.4(a) stereo 3D specifications to get their content with Samsung kind of leading the way with worldwide availability with Panasonic closely following and then again other brands like Sony for example that are soon to follow. But even if we already have the 3D hardware to display the content, we still have quite some issues with the unavailability of 3D content to play on them. Not enough 3D videos, almost no high quality 3D movies, 3D TV still in early stages and then we are left with just games, but since it is still a bit early even for the game consoles we are going back to the PC. Nvidia’s 3D Vision active shutter glasses in combination with a 120Hz 3D-capable monitors are one of the most popular solutions for viewing 3D content just because there is more content available on the PC and especially the games. As for gaming on a PC in stereo 3D you just need the software that will render almost all regular 3D games in stereo 3D mode and such software is Nvidia’s 3D Vision Driver, iZ3D’s Driver and DDD’s TriDef Ignition. But what if you want to get your new 3D-capable TV connected to your PC and play in stereo 3D on much bigger screen than you would on a PC monitor? Unfortunately you are kind of out of luck at this moment as there is still no easy and problem free way to do that, but the good news is that we already got some positive feedback on some possible solutions to do that. So if you are one of the early adopters of the new wave of 3D-capable TVs from Samsung you may be interested in trying some of these solutions in order to get the 3D capabilities of the TV actually used for something. Of course the suggestions below might also work on Panasonic and probably other brands of HDMI 1.4(a) stereo 3D specifications based 3D television sets, so if you have one of these you are more than welcome to try and report your findings…

It has turned out that if you own a 3D-capable Samsung C7000 HDTVs you can just connect it to your PC over HDMI interface (DVI to HDMI converters from the PC to the TV also work) and output image content in a Side by Side format that can be displayed in 3D on the TV. Of course you’ll need to manually switch on the 3D mode on the TV as it will not automatically recognize that it is getting 3D content, but that is not such a big issue. You can start by trying to play Avatar the Game as it is one of the still few games that have a built-in native Side by Side 3D output that you can select from the game options, and if this works you can consider yourself lucky and continue with the experiments. Next comes the iZ3D driver that in its latest beta version 1.11 also has support for Side by Side output that works with the Samsung the same way as Avatar, but with the iZ3D driver you can get stereo 3D output in quite a lot of games. Have in mind that this has only worked with iZ3D Driver 1.11b1-1 and there is currently a newer beta 1.11b1-2 available, but with it it has turned out that the Side by Side output does not work with the Samsung. Have in mind that iZ3D has not officially announced support for 3D-capable TVs, so you should be prepared for some issues as this is also a beta driver that you’ll be using, but until a better solution comes out this is worth trying. The good thing is that this works with the active shutter glasses that come with the TV, so no need to by specific glasses or have to use any additional hardware, you just need a PC and a 3D TV…

I’m also eagerly waiting for Nvidia’s 3DTV Play software expected this summer, that should allow the owners of a newer Nvidia GPUs (both mobile and desktop) to connect their PC to a 3D-capable HDTV over the HDMI and output 3D content. But according to the already available official information this software might only work with the mandatory requirements defined in the 3D specifications part of the HDMI 1.4(a) and that means that for gaming it might be limited to 720p for 50/60 frames per eye in stereo 3D mode. However with using the Avatar and iZ3D for outputting in Side by Side format, the Samsung 3D TV was able to report 60 frames per eye at 1080p resolution which gives us good hopes for the 3DTV Play too, but we’ll have to wait a bit more to see. Meanwhile you can try with Avatar and iZ3D if you have a new-gen 3D-capable TV like Samsung, Panasonic or any other and report your results in the comments below, just have in mind that this is not intended and will not work for 3D DLP TVs.

It seems that Nvidia has decided to finally update the notebook drivers to the latest version 197.16 to have the latest features and performance improvements and to bring official support for the GeForce 300M series GPUs that are starting to appear. Also the mobile drivers now seem to be called Nvidia Verde Notebook Drivers, probably to have something to differentiate them from the desktop drivers. Along with that Nvidia has released an updated driver CD version 1.24 that includes the latest GPU driver version 197.16 along with the 3D Vision Driver version 197.16. What is interesting in this driver is the first to officially support 3D Vision usage on a laptop (other than the 3D-ready Asus G51J 3D) with the help of an external display. This driver also supports the Asus G51J 3D laptop that has a built-in 120Hz LCD panel, so you should update if you already have one of these laptops as the latest driver CD for it was 1.17 which is already quite old.

Now what came as a bit of disappointment is the fact that the new Nvidia Verde Notebook 3D Vision Driver CD v1.24 is intended for supporting only notebooks using the latest GeForce 200M and 300M series GPUs (but that is according to Nvidia). Another interesting bit of information on the support page for the new driver CD suggests that the Blu-ray 3D playback (3rd party software required) is going to work only on the mobile 300M series of GPUs. I’ve tried to install the new driver on my Dell XPS M1730 laptop with dual 9800M GT in SLI and I everything installed smoothly and worked like a charm. The GPU driver recognized the video cards and installed without problem, then the 3D Vision driver complained (before connecting the external 120Hz display) of not finding a compatible panel. The interesting thing is that after that there was no Stereoscopic 3D panel present in the NVIDIA Control panel, but after connecting an external 120Hz LCD monitor the Stereoscopic 3D control panel appeared and the stereo 3D mode was working just fine.

Currently the 3D Vision driver for notebooks supports the usage of external 3D projector, 3D-ready DLP HDTVs or 120Hz LCD, but with the upcoming availability of the NVIDIA 3DTV Play software we are probably going to get support for also using our notebooks as a source for 3D content after connecting them through HDMI to the TV set (no need to have HDMI 1.4 on the laptop, only on the TV). This will however probably require you to purchase the 3DTV Play software, although this is still not very clear as Nvidia has promised to provide the software for free to current 3D Vision owners.

And the stupid thing of actually not being able to enable the free 3D Vision Discover mode on your laptop is still present as you get the quite well known error message that your laptop LCD panel is not qualified for 3D Vision as it is not 120Hz. But then again for anaglyph mode you don’t need a special panel, so forget about trying out the “free” anaglyph mode with the 3D Vision on your laptop once again (or go for an older 3D Vision drivers and modify them to work on your laptop)… but then again it is easier to go for other alternatives also offering free anaglyph mode that actually does work!

- To download the latest Nvidia Verde Notebook 3D Vision Driver CD v1.24…