3D Vision Blog

If you are an owner of Acer Aspire 3D AS-5738DG laptop you should know that this mobile computer uses DDD’s TriDef software to provide Stereoscopic 3D support for pictures, video and games, but since it is using a Horizontal Interlaced mode to create the stereoscopic 3D effect you can also use other software. This made me try the Aspire 3D laptop with iZ3D’s driver instead of the bundled TriDef software just to be sure and to check if there will be any significant difference when using one or the other software. You should know that both TriDef Igniton and iZ3D Driver still do not support DirectX 10, although both are working on adding this support and we should have it pretty soon, and as for DX11 it is still too early.

When you install the iZ3D driver you need to setup it to use Interlaced, Horizontal (optimized) mode in order to have it working as it should with the Aspire 3D laptop. You can as well use the normal Horizontal mode, but the Optimized version is supposed to provide a little bit of improvement by doing some minimal vertical anti-aliasing as opposed to just skipping the unneeded lines in normal mode, although the difference it is hardly visible and there seems not to be any significant difference in terms of performance.

The next step was to try a game that is not completely problem free when played in stereoscopic 3D mode and to measure the performance difference by using both programs to see if any of them is better. The game I choose was X-Blades, because it looks quite good in S3D mode and is not too heavy so the Radeon 4570 video card in the Acer laptop could handle it. But at the same time X-Blades also has an issue when HDR is enabled and you try to play in stereoscopic 3D mode that becomes apparent when you move the camera with the mouse around your character. It turned out that the weird “wash out” effect is present with HDR enabled on both iZ3D and TriDef Ignition and then again the performance I got from both solutions was pretty close to each other. When playing X-Blades in normal mode, at maximum details, with no AA at 1368×768 resolution I get average of about 40 fps, but when switching to stereoscopic 3D mode with the help of iZ3D or TriDef Ignition the framerate on both goes to an average of 24 frames per second. There is just a slight difference if you turn the Autofocus function of the iZ3D driver On, resulting in about 2-3 fps drop. Have in mind that these results were achieved with PowerPlay disabled for getting the top performance from the laptop as I described here Optimizing your Aspire 3D Laptop for Best Performance in S3D Mode. The end result from the comparison between the programs that allow you to turn a normal 3D game into a stereoscopic 3D game is that they perform pretty much on par with each other in terms of quality, performance and even features. Of course each of these solutions has its own small advantages, but if you’ve bought an Acer Aspire 3D laptop there is no reason for you to additionally buy a license for iZ3D Driver as you won’t get a significant improvement at this moment. When iZ3D Driver version 2.0 comes out things might get improved, but also don’t forget that DDD’s TriDef is also being updated quite frequently and you can upgrade your Acer Aspire 3D laptop with latest TriDef software for free.

If you have an old Stereo 3D-capable HMD like i-O Display’s i-glasses PC/SVGA or any other similar model of the company you are probably quite disappointed by the fact that S3D worked with these video glasses only on the old Nvidia Stereo drivers and these do not work on newer video cards. And if you think you are screwed and need to get rid of this old HMD you are just about half right, because there is still a way to make this 800×600 Head Mounted Display (HMD) to work in Stereo 3D mode. Thanks to a company called iZ3D (come on you have to know about them, otherwise how the hell you are interested into S3D… just kidding) and their driver you’ll be able to finally make i-glasses PC/SVGA work in Stereo 3D mode. But don’t just get too happy about that fact, because not everything is perfect and you still need to consider a few things and know about possible problems you might experience.

First of all you need to download the latest iZ3D driver and what I did was to get the V1.10RC1 from may 26, 2009. Now have in mind that this is a Release Candidate version and not a final driver and it still may have some bugs and issues present, so do not expect it to be working perfectly fine. After you download and install the driver on your computer (choose a Full Installation when asked) and don’t bother by the message that you don’t have an iZ3D compatible monitor as the driver has other modes available and you’ll use them. After the installation is finished, just make sure that Run Control Center and Enable Stereo by HotKey are checked (they should be by default). When you do that and continue you’ll be presented with the main screen of the Control Center for the iZ3D drivers where you’ll need to configure the mode you’ll be using.

Now in the main screen of the iZ3D Control Center you need to select Shutter (trial, beta) in the Output dropdown box and leave the option Simple in the second dropdown box on the right. The i-glasses will also work in Blue line coded mode, and there seems to be no visual or any other difference present between the both modes. If you still haven’t connected your i-glasses PC/SVGA now is the time to do so and don’t forget to make it the Primary display if you are going to use it to play games in Stereo 3D on it and at the same time have your normal monitor as a secondary display, but if you only have the HMD connected it will be the primary display by default. Don’t forget to set the refresh rate of the i-glasses high enough in order to not see them flickering when the 3D mode is activated… at least 85 Hz, but 100 Hz is better and I could set my pair to even 110 Hz without any problems.

Now you should be ready, but don’t bother with iZ3D’s demos to see if your Stereo 3D is working as expected, because it probably won’t be Ok in the demos (they are kind of buggy and don’t provide high enough framerate even on fast video cards). So instead just run a good S3D-capable game that looks nice with the added depth perception like Tomb Raider: Underworld for instance and when you start a level you can activate the 3D Stereo mode from the HMD (hold the Power button for a few seconds on the i-glasses to see the menu and activate 3D mode 1 or 2, doesn’t matter much) and the also from the iZ3D drivers by pressing the * key on the Numpad (the default hotkey to enable/disable the stereo mode). It is a good thing to also activate the Show FPS from the driver In-Game Options, but it is not required (it just helps to keep a track of the framerate)…

If everything is working fine you should be able to see the game normally in Stereo 3D with the illusion for depth of objects and/or pop-out of the screen effect (depending on the game and the settings) and of course you can also play with the level of depth and convergence to achieve better results. If you see the image jumping on both displays of the i-glasses this means you have a problem with achieving high-enough framerate in the game – try lowering the level of detail. Unlike with Nvidia’s GeForce 3D Vision, when you are using iZ3D driver and get lower framerate than the refreshrate you’ve set on the i-glasses (for instance 100 frames for 100Hz, 50 fps for each eye) you loose the sync of the Stereo 3D mode and the image starts to “jump”. Nvidia has found a solution for this, but iZ3D are still working to make it work and you may have problems with this, especially if you try to run a heavy game on a not so powerful PC with a slower video card. You should also note that using the iZ3D driver with Shutter Output is not for free, you’ll have to pay $49.99 to buy a license for this mode, although you are good for up to a 120 days which it the time you get to freely test this mode. Also unlike with Nvidia’s 3D Vision, iZ3D drivers do not have so good compatibility with so many game titles, and while they do work well with quite a lot of titles still you might experience some games just crashing when you try to run them with the driver installed. Something that is good for owners of video cards not based on Nvidia GPUs is that iZ3D driver works independently of the VGA type, but still requires a fast graphics card. Also have in mind that the iZ3D driver still does not support SLI or Crossfire configurations (multiple video cards).

- For more info about iZ3D, their Stereo 3D monitors and drivers…

If you remember I’ve written that the shutter glasses designed by Nvidia for the GeForce 3D Vision are way looking much better than previous such products, but here I made some pictures so you can even see that for yourself. In the left of the images you can see the glasses from Nvidia and on the right are eDimensional’s wireless 3D Vision glasses, the difference in design is clearly visible…

Besides being more good-looking Nvidia’s glasses are also more comfortable and adjustable to the needs of different users, not that Edimenstional’s glasses don’t have such ideas embedded, but their design is still not that good. By making shutter glasses you need to design them so that they not only don’t look weird, but also to be comfortable even when wearing them for longer periods of time…

Not that the shutters on eDimensional’s glasses are almost square in form, where as the glasses from Nvidia are wider and this is because of big difference in time when the products were designed and first released on market. eDimensional’s 3D Vision glasses are quite old product, as far as I remember released 5 or even more years ago when the CRT displays with aspect ration of 4:3 or 5:4 were used almost everywhere. But now most of the new displays are widescreen with aspect of 16:10 and 16:9 so having wider shutters is not only good, but is actually a requirement in order to have the wide filed of view needed for the new LCD monitors. Another big difference is that eDimensional’s glasses use 2 lithium batteries for power that are not rechargeable and you have to replace them from time to time, although they last longer than the rechargeable battery available in Nvidia’s glasses. Anyway with up to 40 hours on a single charge and an easy and widely used mini USB connection for recharging there is not much to complain about Nvidia’s 3D Vision glasses.

Here I have not provided pictures of the IR transmitters of the two types of wireless shutter glasses, but you should know that eDimensional’s solution does not rely on USB connection and actually requires you to connect it between your video card’s output and the monitor you are using. And you can already guess that it utilizes an analogue DSUB15 video connector in order to do that and the drivers are supposed to do everything else. Now, when talking about drivers, eDimensional had a bit of an advantage, becuse they used their own drivers that were compatible with both ATI and Nvidia video cards, although the glasses also worked with Nvidia’s old stereo drivers. Currently eDimensional’s drivers are quite out of date and not very usable, and the newer stereo drivers from Nvidia no longer support them (along with many other older devices!). If you own eDimensional 3D Vision glasses or any other shutter glasses you may try to run them with IZ3D’s driver, but the success rate depends on a lot of factors and the results will still not be as good as when using Nvidia’s 3D Vision. Not to mention the fact that if you intend to use the IZ3D driver (besides just quick testing) with something else than their 3D displays you’ll have to buy a license and the shutter glasses support that is currently available is still not very good, so don’t get your hopes too high.