It seems that Nvidia has done a bit of a silent update to the requirements for using GeForce 3D Vision for some tasks. Of course for gaming and 3D applications such as CoolIris you still need to have a high end GPU, but if you plan to primarily play 3D Stereo images or 3D Stereo movies on your 3D Vision you can now go for a low end GeForce 8 or 9-series video card and you should not have any problems. This is a good news for Nvidia ION-based solutions that come with GeForce 9400M video, which along with their smaller sizes and low power consumption makes them a great addition to 3D Vision for watching 3D pictures and movies. The only problem you might face with these ION-based systems is the lack of DVI output for connecting directly to a Samsung 2233RZ (if you have bigger 3D-ready TV you might be Ok) and using an adapter to convert form one type of digital output to another still might bring problems. And I’m talking about having problems with all of the first ION-based PCs such as Acer Apsire Revo R3600, AsRock ION 330 or even the very slim and tiny Pegatron Cape 7. They all have HDMI outputs which you can easily convert to DVI with the help of a special conversion adapter, but the result will not be what you expect. By using the conversion adapter from HDMI to DVI you won’t be able to set the Samsung 2233RZ display to work with more than 60 Hz refresh rate and you still need at least 100 Hz. So before thinking of some great idea combining ION system with 3D Vision for viewing 3D Stereo movies and images you better check things a bit and then decide it if is going to be Ok.

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Cooliris is an interesting plugin that transforms your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari) into a lightning fast, cinematic way to enjoy photos and videos from the Web or stored on your computer in a cool new way. The program allows you to view 2D images and videos only (so far) with an intuitive and very cool looking 3D interface, and now you can turn the browsing experience into an even more fun experience with the perception of real depth with the help of nVidia’s GeForce 3D Vision kit. There is already a profile in the latest driver version 186.18 that provides pretty good results in Cooliris, but not perfect. The program also has support for viewing JPS and PNS format 3D stereo images, but 3D videos support will be even more impressive and that may be possible in a later version, but who knows. Anyway nVidia rates Cooliris’ 3D Stereo results as good with a notice that some objects render at wrong depth, but overall the results you’ll get are very satisfying and it is a good improvement especially if you are a frequent Cooliris user. Have in mind that Cooliris 1.10 might not work if using older 3D Vision drivers, I haven’t tried that, because I’ve read that the latest drivers are required and I’m using them. ;)

- Download Cooliris version 1.10 with 3D Vision support…

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You can say that nVidia has released a new version of the GeForce 3D Vision drivers (186.16) without saying too much about it and even without updating the download section of the 3D Vision drivers on their website. The only way you can get the 3D Vision driver version 186.18 is by downloading the appropriate new video driver for your card that is designed for Windows Vista or Windows 7. Then you’ll have the latest Video driver, a PhysX driver and a 3D Vision driver all in one package – just run the downloaded Exe file and you’ll find the other installers in the C:\NVIDIA folder where the driver package gets extracted by default. There isn’t much information what is new in this driver, but probably we get new profiles for games, support for ViewSonic’s recently announced PJD-6210-3D and PJD-6220-3D GeForce 3D Vision-compatible DLP projectors and it seems some new applications will support 3D with the new version (Cooliris for instance)…

Update: Just installed and played a bit with the 186.18 drivers. I’ve found out about a big fault in them, nVidia had forgotten to include the USB device driver for the IR transmitter so after you install the drivers you’ll get a not working 3D Vision system. The solution is just to install the USB driver from the old version of the drivers that do have the device driver in them… we’ll probably see a fix if somebody notices that.

Update 2: nVidia will release an updated separate driver for GeForce 3D Vision that will have the missing USB driver for the IR transmitter… probably they didn’t include it, because the video drivers bundle version is intended mainly for use with paper or plastic anaglyph glasses… ;)

- Download the latest nVidia Video Drivers 186.18 for Vista or Windows 7 with the 3D Vision update…

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