3D Vision Blog

How often does it happen that when you run some new game in stereo 3D mode it looks almost perfect, but there are just one or two small things that don’t look Ok in stereo 3D and this ruins all the experience, so you have to revert back to playing in 2D mode? The answer to this question is very often and just a few games make things better by offering you an advanced options menu or config file that you can use to turn off some of the extra details or effects in order to get rid of the problematic things in stereo 3D mode, so that the game can be fully enjoyed with the added perception of volume. Moreover not a lot of game developers do address issues in their games related to stereoscopic 3D rendering in their patches, so the ever growing community of stereo 3D gamers is left alone to find alternative ways to fixing things…

One new such alternative, made by the user -=HeliX=- in the Nvidia Forums, is a DirectX 9 wrapper DLL file that can give you the ability to modify the pixel and vertex shaders in games using DirectX 9. The wrapper comes in two versions, one a Debug to find and save the problematic shaders and another Release version for when you just need to run a game with the modified shaders. Now, the idea is that when running a game in stereo 3D mode using the Debug wrapper and you find something not rendered properly in stereo 3D, you would be able to save the problematic shader and then you have two options – either fixing the shader yourself (not something most people can do) or deleting the contents of the shader, so the next time you run the game via the Release wrapper you will either have the shader rendered properly or it will not be shown anymore and the game will look better in stereo 3D mode, and after finding the few pixel and vertex shaders that are causing the issues in the game it might become much more stereoscopic 3D friendly. The author has also provided an example fixes for some of the issues inside Assassin’s creed Brotherhood and Dead Space along with the two versions of the DLL wrappers, so you are ready to go and try this solution. There is a more detailed explanation on how to use it in the dedicated topic in the Nvidia Forums, you can read all the details following the link below. And while this wrapper has apparently been developed for use with 3D Vision, it might also work well with other solutions for rendering games in stereoscopic 3D mode such as the iZ3D driver or DDD’s TriDef 3D Ignition.

- For more information on how to fix or disable shaders in games you play in stereo 3D…

The official version of the AMD Catalyst 12.1 driver is now available based on the <а href="http://3dvision-blog.com/amds-catalyst-12-1-preview-driver-with-improved-stereo-3d-support/">Catalyst 12.1 preview driver released a few weeks ago. Sadly the Catalyst 12.1 driver has no support for the new Radeon HD 7970 GPUs and neither does the new AMD Catalyst 12.2 Preview Driver that was also made available together with the release of the official 12.1 version. For AMD AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series the company recommends users to use the 8.921.2 RC11 driver at least until an official release of the drivers becomes available.

But back to the AMD Catalyst 12.1 driver, as expected from the preview driver released earlier, the new driver adds support for the use of AMD HD3D technology in conjunction with AMD CrossFireX configurations – both for native stereo 3D games using HD3D as well as games relying on the middle-ware partners such as iZ3D and DDD TriDef 3D, as well as well as the new Stereo 3D mode over HDMI 1.4a connections supporting 1080p at 30Hz, but only on compatible displays (anyone tested this already?). Other improvements and fixes in this driver release are oriented at more general things and not at stereoscopic 3D support. As for the Catalyst 12.2 Preview Driver, some improvements to Eyefinity support, but nothing apparently especially targeted at stereoscopic 3D users… maybe in the official 12.2 driver next month we are going to also see support for Radeon HD 7970 as well as other new features such as Eyefinity stereo 3D support with active displays as well as support for 1080p 60Hz 3D mode (anyone know of a 3D-capable display product already supporting this?). So stay tuned for more form AMD and meanwhile do not be in a hurry to pull the trigger for a Radeon HD 7970 if you plan on building a stereoscopic 3D gaming rig.

- To download the latest official AMD Catalyst 12.1 drivers for your graphics card…

The developers of the game Alan Wake have published some interesting photos on the official game’s blog that are hinting at some interesting features about to come in the PC version of the game. On the photo above you can see a three monitor configuration built with 2D-capable only Samsung monitors (probably an Nvidia Surround setup), and there is also a pair of the new 3D Vision 2 glasses lying around…

The PC version of the game Alan Wake itself should be released sometime in February and it should be available trough Steam according to the latest information available. It will apparently work on multi-monitor configurations very well, and although it probably will not be a 3D Vision-ready title it should work very will in stereo 3D mode with 3D Vision setups… hopefully in 3D Vision Surround setups as well. For playing in stereoscopic 3D mode however you should be ready with some quite serious hardware, especially in terms of GPU performance. The game does not feature AMD HD3D native support either, but it might also work well with a middle-ware such as the DDD TriDef 3D software and hopefully by the time the game gets released AMD will also release an official driver supporting Eyefinity 3D configurations as well as Crossfire setups in stereo 3D mode as well.