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… ;)
There are interesting things happening over at Nvidia’s forums in the topic discussing the leaked 32-bit version of the 265.76 drivers that have support for 3D Vision Surround. It turns out that if you have a triple-SLI system like the 3x GTX 470 in the picture above (the fourth GTX 465 is for PhysX and not in SLI) you can connect each monitor to a single video card for the 3D Vision Surround configuration…
The drivers seem to recognize the configuration and users are reporting that 3D Vision Surround works that way too. So if you need more processing power, and you need that for playing on 3 monitors, then you can go for 3 Fermi cards in SLI configuration and connect each monitor to each card. I’m not sure how well the 3x SLI performs compared to just 2 cards in SLI for 3D Vision Surround and I cannot test that. But more interesting is the fact that this may open a possibility to have 3D Vision Surround on 6 displays with three video cards in SLI, it will just be a matter of software support as it is now for the 3x monitor/projector mode. And three Fermi cards in SLI should give you much better performance than a single Radeon driving lets say 6 displays, although even with three cards for some games the combined resolution of six Full HD displays may still be too much, so make room for these dual-GPU Fermis that are most likely on their way already. Just a reminded, the official 25x driver that will come with 3D Vision Surround is expected by the end of this month and it should be also available in x64 version, not just in 32-bit like the leaked earlier beta.
I’m starting with Nvidia as they are are probably going to be very active about 3D during Computex 2010. The first announcement from them is the new GeForce GTX 465 GPU and the availability of cards based on it from ASUS, EVGA, Galaxy, MSI, Palit, PNY, Zotac and others with an estimated retail price of $279 USD. Amazon is already taking pre-orders for GTX 465 from Asus and Evga, but Newegg is a bit ahead with GeForce GTX 465 available from MSI, PNY, Gigabyte, EVGA, Palit, Zotac and Asus. The new GTX 465 GPUs come with 352 CUDA cores (stream processors), 1024 MB GDDR5 video memory with 256-bit memory bus and they can be a good more affordable alternative to GTX 480 and GTX 470 for stereo 3D gaming as they still pack quite a lot of processing power.
Until now, getting the NVIDIA 3D Vision experience was mostly for the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) enthusiasts who could purchase a 120Hz, 3D Vision-Ready certified display, install a suitable GeForce graphics card, add the 3D Vision shutter glasses kit and install all of the drivers. But today at Computex during his keynote CEO of NVIDIA Jensen Huang announced the creation of the new 3D PC category, so that consumers can buy a completely configured 3D PC and get a 3D experience right out of the box. And this idea seems to be getting a broad industry support from companies like Asus, Acer, Dell, LG, Toshiba, ViewSonic and many system builders. The prices for the 3D PCs will begin at about $1,500 USD and that price will include everything that you need: 120Hz monitor, 3D shutter glasses and pre-installed drivers. This is about half the price of a new 3D HDTV, making it the least expensive way to enjoy 3D content at home, but if you do purchase a 3D TV later (or if you already have one) you’ll be able to connect your 3D PC to it via HDMI 1.4 to enjoy your stereoscopic 3D content on the big screen using the Nvidia 3DTV Play software.
Another very interesting announcement came from Microsoft who announced that their product Silverlight (an alternative to Adobe’s Flash), a web content development platform now supports streaming 3D content over the web to NVIDIA 3D Vision-equipped computers. NVIDIA and Microsoft also demonstrated a high definition stereo 3D music video (We Are The World 3D) streamed over the internet, but we are expecting to get more details about that very soon.
ASUS is demonstrating its new 15.6″ Asus ROG G53 3D gaming laptop (with 120Hz LCD panel) that has full support for 3D gaming and the new HDMI 1.4 output (does not come bundled with 3D Vision glasses), a new 17.3″ Asus ROG G73Jw 3D-ready laptop that may come with the recently announced GTX 480M GPU combined with a 1080p 120Hz LCD panel. As well as the Asus G51Jx-EE 3D-ready laptop that probably has the Nvidia IR transmitter integrated to support the 3D Vision active shutter glasses. The Asus Eee Top ET2400 All-in-One with 3D capabilities was also shown as wells the Asus CD5390 PC said to be the “world’s most powerful gaming solution,” equipped with two GeForce GTX 480 in SLI and ready for a 3D Vision Surround setup. And we’ll probably also see the 23″ Asus VG236H and 27″ Asus PG276H 3D-ready 120Hz monitors too.
MSI is introducing their 24″ Wind Top AE2420 All-in-one PC with 3D support, a built in 120Hz LCD Full HD panel and touchscreen support (with multi-touch functionality). The PC comes bundled with a pair of active shutter glasses for the 3D functionality, but the more interesting thing is that the GPU inside is ATI Mobility Radeon HD5730. And this raised the interesting question if this will be one of the first implementations with the anticipated shutter glasses from BitCauldron and ATI stereo 3D support? According to MSI their Wind Top AE2420 3D comes with MSI’s exclusive 3D Infinity shutter glasses (whatever they are) and there also seems to be a built-in function for converting 2D videos in to stereo 3D.
Cyberlink will be showcasing Blu-ray 3D Movie Playback that is expected to be available very soon (via a free update) in the PowerDVD 10 Ultra 3D software player and the 2D-to-3D DVD Video conversion technology that is already available in the product. Corel WinDVD Pro 2010 with 3D Blu-ray will also be demonstrated at Computex, as the company just announced that its DVD playback software has received Blu-ray 3D certification from the Blu-ray Disc Association. The customers who already own Corel WinDVD Pro 2010 will receive the new 3D capabilities with a free update later this year, so we are still out of luck with no Blu-ray 3D software player actually available on the market yet…
, but Newegg is a bit ahead with
