After trying the Panasonic 3D HDTV (TX-P50VT20E) with the latest DDD TriDef software with no success in making the TV work with stereo 3D content from the PC, I’ve decided to switch to iZ3D. And I was not even sure if the iZ3D Driver actually does have support for working with 3D HDTVs using HDMI 1.4(a)’s frame packing through AMD’s video driver.The reason for that is due to the fact that they don’t clearly state that and the naming convention of their stereo 3D outputs in the driver is not helping for that at all. But after some discussion about it here and going through the iZ3D forums I saw people confirming that the driver has the support and should work, so back again to the testing…
Unfortunately after a few hours spent in making sure everything is right – reinstalling video drivers with the latest Catalyst 10.10c, the latest iZ3D Driver 1.12 build 4016, trying with different cables and cable adapters there was still not luck in making things work the way the should. The closest thing was kind of making them act as they should, but not exactly as you can see in the video above. I’ve managed to get the same results as with the TriDef Ignition software – the picture is there, you can see some depth of the objects on screen when wearing the glasses, but there is annoying flicker and artifacts all over the screen making it totally unusable in this state.
As you can see from the video the driver shows “ATI Presenter”, which means that it is using the Quad buffer support which in turn should mean that the sync should be perfect and everything should be working just fine, however it is not. Note in the video that even before activating the stereo 3D mode the on-screen image is having the same strange behavior, just no 3D, and after activating the 3D mode the FPS counter still shows 120 fps in the game which is kind of strange… shouldn’t it be 24 or maybe 48, after all this is in the 1080p/24Hz? After switching to 720p resolution from the game to ensure support for 60/120 fps the strange behavior of what is being displayed on the screen is still not gone – the artifacts and flashing are still there. So still no luck with the AMD HD3D technology in terms of support for my Panasonic 3D HDTV, and the problem is that I’ve only seen a lot of complaints from other people trying to make their 3D HDTVs work too. But since both iZ3D and DDD have the same issue I’m starting to think that they are not at fault here (although they can improve in a few areas too), but the actual problem lies withing AMD’s Catalyst driver that probably needs an urgent update or yet another hotfix to resolve the issue.
The new MSI Wind Top 2420 3D is apparently the first All-in-One PC that offers stereo 3D support and that also has a Multi-touch capable touchscreen integrated. The PC is equipped with 24-inch Full HD 1080p 3D-capable 120Hz LED backlit LCD panel, and has an integrated Intel Core i7 CPU and whatis interesting the ATI-based Radeon HD 5730 DirectX 11-capable discrete graphics card. We got a hint about that model a while ago thanks to iZ3D who listed some information about it on their website, so this means the AIO PC will be actually the first to offer stereoscopic 3D capabilities with shutter glasses and using ATI-based GPU thanks to the iZ3D driver. There are still some details unknown, but since the AE2420 3D-046US 3D-capable PC is already available for same from today in North America, we are probably not going to have to wait too much before someone gets it for a review or buys it and shares more information on the stereoscopic 3D implementation and capabilities it offers.
MSI AE2420 3D-046US PC Specifications
Display – 23.6″ Multi-Touch Widescreen (16:9), 120Hz LED back-light panel, 1920×1080
Graphics Card – ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730 Discrete Graphic, 1GB VRAM
3D Glasses – One pair of Active Shutter Glasses
Processor – Intel Core i7-860 (2.8GHz)
Chipset – Intel H55 Express Chipset
Memory – 4GB DDR3 800MHz on board
HDD – 1TB SATA Hard Disk Drive
Optical Drive – Blu-Ray / DVD Burner Combo
Network – 802.11b/g/n Wireless, 10/100/1000 Gigabit LAN
Operating System – Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
Speakers – Built-in 2×5W, Hi-Fi 7.1 channel with THX TRUSTUDIO PRO
Multimedia – 1.3MP Webcam with Microphone, 6-in-1 Card Reader (support SD/MMC/MS/XD), 2x USB 3.0 ports, 4x USB 2.0 ports, HDMI, Wireless multimedia keyboard and mouse
Power Supply – 180W Power Supply
Dimensions – 21.81″ x 15.89″ x 2.42″
Amazon already has the MSI AE2420 3D-046US AIO PC listed with a price of $1,799.99 USD. The configuration seems quite Ok for multimedia use like movies and photos in 3D and a little gaming in stereo 3D mode, but the Radeon HD 5730 graphics card is not the best choice for primary gaming solution even when not in stereo 3D mode, let alone for playing comfortably games in S3D mode with high-details and with Full HD resolution.
It seems that iZ3D has decided to phase out of their 3D hardware business and this means that they are going to cease selling iZ3D monitors and instead from now on will focus on the development of their 3D driver that will work with hardware from other vendors. Of course all owners of iZ3D displays do not need to worry as the support for the monitors will still continue to be available in the drivers in the future too. More details about that are available on iZ3D’s official blog post published today that is available here.
Meanwhile the company has made available a second release candidate (RC2) of their 3D driver version 1.11 with some fixes and improvements like for example the new ColorCode anaglyph output support and improved performance on Nvidia-based GPUs. The new iZ3D version 1.11 RC2 driver is available for download here.
As we know iZ3D is one of the software partners for the upcoming stereoscopic 3D support with shutter glasses produced by BitCauldron and compatible with ATI GPUs and working with 120Hz LCD monitors currently a territory reserved only for Nvidia’s 3D Vision. And while there is still no official word on when the complete solution will be available from ATI or actually AMD and their partners, we are already seeing some hints coming from iZ3D. Like for example the dedicated page with details about MSI All-in-One 3D PC that uses ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730 video card and the apparently new and still kind of mysterious 120Hz Viewsonic 3D LCD Display that should work with both AMD (ATI) and Nvidia-based GPUs.
