3D Vision Blog

AMD is talking stereo 3D again and their stereoscopic 3D support, based on the open stereoscopic 3D initiative they’ve announced a while ago, and now they have given it a name – it is called AMD HD3D Technology. The list of supported hardware includes all the Radeon HD 5000 and the two new announcements from the HD 6000 series, although apparently only the new Radeon HD 6850 and 6870 support GPU-accelerated Blu-ray 3D playback. Still, considering the fact that AMD is dependent on their partners like DDD and iZ3D for the actual software that creates the stereoscopic 3D output from games, you can use even older hardware with most of the supported 3D viewing solutions. However if you want to take advantage of the new active shutter glasses and a 120Hz LCD monitor, then you should have one of the newer video cards that also have built-in driver level support in order to ensure good synchronization with the shutter glasses.

On their website AMD is still not giving out a lot of information, but they do have a big list of supported 3D HDTVs, 3D DLP projectors, as well as a few of the first solutions that do utilize an AMD GPU, along with stereoscopic 3D support and shutter glasses. These we already know of, but just to mention them again: the new HP Envy 17 with 5850, the MSI Wind Top AE2420 AIO PC with 5730, and the new Viewsonic V3D241wm-LED monitor. Of course there are a few other solutions that do not use active shutter glasses already available that can be used with AMD GPUs and these are the iZ3D display, Zalman’s Trimon passively polarized monitors, some laptops with passive polarization from Acer and Lenovo and quite a few other commercial or custom built products that can be used to provide stereoscopic 3D support.

One important thing again related to the new Radeon HD 6850/6870 GPUs is the fact that they do come with DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4a connectors that both do support stereoscopic 3D output. Of course we are yet to see some 120Hz LCD monitors that do use DisplayPort, however the availability of HDMI 1.4a ensures compatibility with all the 3D-capable consumer hardware such as 3D HDTVs already available and the upcoming 3D home cinema projectors with the same interface. So the new GPUs do have support for HDMI 1.4a and the frame packing specifications used for stereo 3D content distribution over the interface, however you still need to have something to provide the 3D content, so you still need the iZ3D Driver or TriDef’s Ignition software to convert games for example, or a software Blu-ray 3D player to output the movie.

One related announcement to the new AMD news is the fact that the new DeusEX: Human Revolution game, supporting DX11 will also have stereoscopic 3D support available. And AMD is claiming support for over 400 game titles in stereoscopic 3D mode through its two main software partners for the gaming in S3D part – iZ3D and DDD. With the company also promising more native stereoscopic 3D games to come out in 2011 (we already know of some like Crysis 2). On the Blu-ray 3D software players support AMD is working with the same major companies like Nvidia is doing with Cyberlink’s PowerDVD 10 Ultra 3D going to be the first to provide the support for hardware accelerated Blu-ray 3D playback of movies from your PC. This will happen on November 5th through a software update that is expected to be released by Cyberlink.

There are however still a lot of unanswered questions like for example will we be able to use lets say an older 120Hz LCD monitor that was introduced with 3D Vision support with AMD’s solution with a new pair of shutter glasses. Will there be only shutter glasses available and not as a bundle at all and who will be selling them or we are going to go for an “open” initiative with 120Hz LCD monitors that are only going to be usable with AMD’s stereo 3D solution and that need to be bought with the glasses bundled. AMD is currently talking about 3D gaming and 3D video, but what about 3D photography that is also gaining more interest… is there support for viewing 3D photos without having to resort to third party software that may or may not work? And what about Eyefinity with stereo 3D support? DX 10 and DX11 support are still quite a bit of a problem for both iZ3D, who have beta support that is kind of working, and DDD who still don’t have anything available to support DX10/11 games. And more and more and more… I’m hoping to soon be able to test the HP Envy 17 laptop to get some first hand impressions from the active shutter glasses support that AMD is starting to offer, because I’ve already had some experience with other stereo 3D products based on both iZ3D and DDD. And I’m eager to get more information from AMD about their stereo 3D support…

- For a list of AMD supported GPUs and other hardware for stereo 3D support…

ATI has been talking about their upcoming stereoscopic 3D support utilizing 120Hz LCD monitors and active shutter glasses for quite some time already, and although we expected a complete working solution as early as this summer, things did not work out so well. So now, according to an interview with ATI made by Digital Versus we are going to wait a few more months (second half of the year), but we should see the complete working solution before the end of the year, maybe just in time for Christmas.

Now when talking about openness, ATI is open to supporting different standards and hardware, along with middleware software, but in the end you will most likely be required to have an AMD/ATI-based video card in order to use one such solution. This is of course normal, as ATI will want to sell you their hardware as well as Nvidia does, to use when watching any kind of stereo 3D content. So although ATI in general seems to be more open, the end results seems to be not that different than what Nvidia is doing with their 3D Vision product. You can say that a really open approach is what companies like iZ3D and DDD are doing with their drivers/software that do support multiple stereoscopic 3D solutions and work on all video cards, no matter if they are based on ATI or Nvidia GPUs. What we actually need are standards that will allow interoperability and the users will not have to think now do I have a compatible video card for that solution, or will this 3D monitor work for me or not, or what shutter glasses should I get.

And example that I’ve been seeing a lot lately of not having good interoperability that is confusing the users and making them wonder why is the fact that they cannot use their 3D-capable monitors and 3D DLP projectors to display 3D content from their PlayStation 3 console. The reason for that being that the PS3 sends the stereo 3D signal to a 3D capable display according to the HDMI 1.4(a) stereo 3D specifications and not a single one of the 120Hz 3D LCD monitors is capable of understanding and displaying 3D content sent this way. Of course you need to buy a 3D HDTV to play stereo 3D games from your PS3 console, but then again you’ll also have to buy a 120Hz 3D LCD monitor for your PC, as you will currently also have trouble connecting and using your new 3D HDTV to your PC. So being an early adopter has its advantages, but also comes with a lot of disadvantages and trying to cover more things and work with more partners like ATI does not only means bigger delays, but might as well mean more problems.

If you take a look at how much time the 3D Vision has been available on the market already and how Nvidia is having trouble to convince the hardware and software manufacturers to work on products that support it, not to mention that for more than a year and a half the software and hardware support is still far from being perfect. Now imagine what will be the situation when ATI’s complete stereoscopic 3D solution finally becomes available… I expect a lot of issues to be present at first and it will take some time for all of these to be fixed, and that is something that everyone of the early adopters of 3D Vision is well aware of. Now the 3D Vision already has a lot of users, has a larger community and this also helps a lot in reporting problem and improving the S3D support of the product. But ATI will need some time before reaching the critical mass of users that will have all the needed hardware and software and users that are willing to experiment, test and report issues, even make optimizations and workarounds for better experience etc.

So although I’m eagerly expecting to see what will ATI offer at the end as their complete stereo 3D ecosystem using shutter glasses (I’m a 3D enthusiast after all), I’m not trying to lie myself that it will be a problem free solution, perfect from the start and much better than what 3D Vision currently offers. Yes, it might be better in some aspects, but I don’t think that it will be that different in terms of overall experience for the users. And finally getting some competition between ATI and Nvidia in the stereo 3D area too may help in faster and better development of the software and hardware needed for that, and let us just hope that ATI will be as active as Nvidia in pushing both software and hardware companies into adding stereo 3D support in their products or releasing new stereo 3D-capable products. After all this can only benefit us, the end users that just want better and more affordable solutions for enjoying stereoscopic 3D content of all kinds, isn’t that right? Not to mention that we do need more stereoscopic 3D content available and in that area things are still moving a bit slowly, especially regarding 3D photo and 3D video, as the situation with games is better. However we also need both ATI and Nvidia to work more closely with the game developers in order for the upcoming games to have better stereoscopic 3D support and thus less or no issues in S3D mode at all, so that playing these will be much more fun… ;)

The summer is coming and it is time to get hot, really hot outside (depending on where you live of course), but with the temperatures increasing and all the hot hardware he have into out computers playing in stereo 3D can bring some issue. You should know that playing games in stereoscopic 3D mode is more demanding for your hardware and that does not mean only the GPU, but all other components and they all generate more heat. And with the the high-end video cards like GeForce GTX 4xx Fermi and Radeon HD 5xxx the heat dissipated is already quite a lot and the air cooling might sometimes give you quite high temperatures reaching even over 100 degrees Celsius or 212 degrees Fahrenheit and that is not good…

I’ve already started working on upgrading my stereoscopic 3D test PC using GeForce GTX 275 and Radeon HD 5970 to water cooling for the quad-core AMD CPU and the Radeon HD 5970 GPU and removing the GTX 275 card (to be used for iZ3D testing). The other project I’ve started working on is building a new Nvidia-based water cooled PC that will use single GeForce GTX 480 videocard and and Intel i7 quad-core processor with everything stuffed inside a Big Corsair Obsidian 800D case (great and big case, on the photo above, ideal for more serious water cooling projects). I think it is about time to get a GTX 480 card for stereoscopic 3D gaming with 3D Vision, because the GTX 275 is a bit old already and the GT 9800Ms in SLI inside the test Dell M1730 laptops is even slower. But thanks to a lot of money going into the upgrade and new system, I’ve postponed the purchase of a new 3D HDTV for testing at least for the end of the year hoping for some better prices and more content and easier PC connectivity for gaming in stereo 3D by then. I’m planning to get a Panasonic VT20E Plasma 3D HDTV as this is what is currently available and the best choice so far from what I’ve seen, unless other competitors manage to offer something better meanwhile.

Say tuned for some more information about the water cooling upgrade for my current test 3D system and the new PC built especially for stereoscopic 3D gaming coming soon… and I do hope to have some benchmarks in stereo 3D with the GTX 480 in stereo 3D mode on some of the newer and popular game titles… ;)