3D Vision Blog

Last few months AMD has been announcing one new graphics processor after another from their new Radeon HD 7000 series, something that is not bad considering that before that we’ve had quite a long time with the last generation. Together with the release of the Radeon HD 7000 series AMD has also brought some new features regarding stereoscopic 3D support and the Radeon HD 7850/7870 essentially brings a bit slow in terms of performance and more affordable in terms of price graphics cards on the table for gamers with more limited budget. Now it is maybe time to for Nvidia to bring out what they have been working on secretly up until now since the announcement of the last generation of graphics processors that they also had quite a while ago.

One of the things that I was eager trying out with the new Radeon HD 7000 series of video cards was the Multi-GPU Crossfire support in stereo 3D mode that the company has introduced, however there are still a few things that are preventing me to do it. First the lack of official drivers for the Radeon HD 7000 series that include proper support for all the new features as AMD has been struggling with that apparently and currently only offer 12.1 WHQL and Catalyst 12.2 Pre-Certified Driver. Second, a good active 3D monitor to use for testing that can properly bring out the full performance from two Radeon HD 7970 cards for example, Samsung’s SA 750/950 series of 3D displays are pretty much the only good option for that, however these are still not available everywhere like in my region for example… we only have the TA series with built-in 3D TV tuner here and no DL-DVI interface. Meanwhile I’ve already tested the Catalyst 12.1 drivers together with my trustworthy old Radeon HD 5970 dual-GPU card working in Crossfire mode on a Passive 3D display from LG and it worked very well in stereo 3D mode, although performance wise it was a bit slow at times, but it is already a bit old GPU. So stay tuned, hopefully sooner than later, for a comparison review of the new AMD Radeon GPUs like the Radeon HD 7970, 7870, 7850 etc. in stereo 3D mode.

Similar to other AMD products the AMD HD3D Technology apparently also got Gold and Silver logos that are meant to show the level of experience that you should get with products certified to work with AMD’s stereoscopic 3D technology. The difference between the gold and silver is actually quite simple, with AMD uses the Gold AMD HD3D Technology logo for products that have been tested by AMD and the Silver logos for products tested by their partners to meet AMD’s standards. So in short you should be looking for the Gold logo, here is how AMD describes the difference:

The AMD Gold logo depicts products tested by AMD to provide the best possible experience while using AMD technologies like Eyefinity, HD3D and CrossfireX.

The AMD Silver Logo showcases products, tested by our partners to AMD standards, that enhance the user experience when using AMD technologies like Eyefinity, HD3D and CrossfireX.

Here is the list of recommended 3D displays by AMD, the ones that have been tested by AMD and have received the Gold certification from the company. And here you can download a PDF file with the additional compatible displays, the ones that should be compatible and got the Silver logo (apparently not directly tested by AMD). If you are looking for an active 3D display that has the Gold certification you’ll be pretty limited to the Samsung SA 750/950 models and the only other option is the Viewsonic V3D241WM–LED that is with the Silver logo. The interesting thing here is that only one 3D-capable projector made the Gold certification and that is Optoma GT720 and among 3D HDTVs only Samsung’s TA750 series made it and these are 3D-capable monitors with a built-in TV tuner limited to HDMI 1.4 input. On another page on AMD’s website I’ve also noticed the Sony HMZ-T1 Head Mounted Display listed as a recommended 3D display, but that page did not include any information about Gold/Silver certification. The list of Silver logo products that you can find in the PDF linked above is more extensive of course…

About a month ago the new Radeon HD 7970 GPUs were revealed by AMD as the must have solution for gamers willing to have a really powerful next generation video card in their system. And a bit earlier than that AMD has released a Catalyst Preview driver 12.1 announcing some new and exciting features for gamers. Both of these also came with some very interesting promises for gamers interested in stereoscopic 3D as well, such as multi-gpu CrossfireX support in stereo 3D mode, HDMI 1.4a 30Hz 3D mode on supported hardware, 60Hz 3D mode support over HDMI, Eyefinity setups with active stereoscopic 3D monitors.

So the question that many gamers interested in playing their favorite game titles in stereoscopic 3D mode were asking themselves (and me too) is if they should buy a new video card based on the new AMD Radeon HD 7970 GPUs. And while a lot of people may be really tempted in pulling the trigger on a Radeon HD 7970 for stereoscopic 3D gaming platform, I would strongly suggest to wait a bit more and not to be in a hurry. There are a lot of things that we are now expecting from AMD, but they are apparently not in a hurry to deliver them, especially after the release of the HD 7970 that yet again brings some architectural changes and probably way too many features for the company to quickly bring them to the users. It has been about a month already since the official announcement of the Radeon HD 7970 and while the card is “Out of Stock” already in most places or is being sold for an extra high price where there are some quantities, there is still no proper driver available for that GPU. Let me explain what I mean by that, on AMD’s website there is still only one driver available for the AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series of GPUs, released on 1/9/2012 with no version or information what features it supports, it is only available for Windows 7 64-bit OS, so you can pretty safely assume this is not the typical official video driver you are used in getting from AMD for their products.

The problem with this driver release is that there is no information about what features it supports, not only regarding the stereo 3D, but in general what from the all new things that were announced with the release of the new GPU are already supported. The latest official Catalyst Driver 11.12 is from 12/13/2011, or over a month ago and it does not have support for the new GPUs. So AMD may need some time for releasing a proper driver and for making available all the features initially introduced in the Catalyst Preview driver 12.1 as well as all the new things announced as supported for the new GPU. And especially if you are interested in using the HD 7970 for stereoscopic 3D gaming you might have trouble not only in getting the new software related features, but also in getting the 3D-capable hardware that is going to be compatible with them. Not to mention the fact that you may have trouble finding more than one of these cards or that you will have to pay extra for them and then find out that stereo 3D mode is not yet supported in CrossfireX in the driver. Better play it safe now, instead of being sorry later on, because of being too eager to get your hands on the new hardware. I do plan to do some testing of the new AMD Radeon HD 7970 in stereo 3D mode when a proper driver for it is released…