The Future of Stereo 3D Part I: Nvidia Geforce 3D Vision

Installation

In the past, setting up stereo 3D had always been a frustrating process at best for those new to the market but Nvidia has made the hardware and software installation of their system a breeze. Basically, the entire installation process is handled by a setup wizard that walks you through every step of the process. Naturally, you will want to properly delete any drivers currently on your system before starting this process. Another thing we need to point out is that there may be some of you who prefer a more intricate setup process so you can tailor the stereo 3D experience to your liking. Unfortunately for you, Nvidia took an approach that is more user-friendly but they still offer additional settings in their control panel.


After you install the graphics drivers that are included with the 3D Vision installation package, the wizard will take you through the process of installing the actual hardware. All you need to do set up the 120Hz monitor, plug in a dual link DVI cable and run the USB connector to the IR Emitter. DLP installation involves the same process but an additional VESA 3-pin connector needs to be run between the emitter and your TV.


In order to ensure that the setup is working, a series of images will appear followed by the most important part of the setup: the elimination of flicker. Even though this is supposed to be a flicker-free stereo 3D solution, some flickering in your peripheral vision may occur depending on the type of lighting you use. For example, a compact fluorescent bulb has an operating frequency of 60Hz which will interfere with the image from your monitor before it gets to your glasses and will cause minor flickering. Daylight and standard incandescent bulbs can also cause flickering due to their respective frequencies as well but luckily, this last step in the Nvidia setup wizard will allow you to counteract any flickering.

A Quick Control Panel Rundown

The control panel for 3D Vision resides within the main Nvidia control panel, under the Stereoscopic 3D header. The stereo 3D section is broken down into two parts: Set Up Stereo 3D and View Compatibility with Games.


The setup screen gives you access to low-level system settings such as the ability to disable 3D Vision and a depth (or separation) slider. Both of these functions can also be adjusted in real time by using the appropriate buttons located on the IR emitter. There is also a selector where you can change the display type to suit regular anaglyph (red / blue) glasses or your 3D Vision kit.


Quite a few first person shooter games (including Call of Duty: World at War and Fallout 3) render the in-game crosshair at screen depth instead of at object depth which results in inaccurate aiming when stereoscopic 3D is used. Actually, you will often see a pair of crosshairs instead of a lone crosshair at the center of the screen. To counteract this, Nvidia has added their own proprietary “Laser Sight” which can be toggled on in a game. Within the control panel you are able to change the look of the laser sight as well as its opacity within games.

The keyboard shortcuts dialog box allows for additional on-the-fly adjustments to the finer details of the 3D Vision system. Meanwhile settings which are extremely important to some stereo 3D enthusiasts such as convergence and the cycle frustum can be changed but remember that these settings are for advanced users only and should only be adjusted once you are familiar with the system. While Nvidia has come under some fire for supposedly "hiding" these settings, I find their location understandable since the consumers this system is targeted towards want a plug and play solution while still having the option to fiddle with the finer details once they have more experience with it.


To me, the most useful part of the Stereo 3D control panel is the Game Compatibility section. Here, you are able to see at a glance how well a huge number of games support 3D Vision. After you highlight a game in the list, a short description of known problems and solutions will appear under Issues and Recommendations. This same description will appear as an overlay whenever you start a supported game so you can take a few minutes and configure the in-game settings to properly support Stereo 3D. However, you have to remember that as the Nvidia drivers mature, some of the issues may be taken care of so it is important that you periodically check the games you have installed after the drivers are updated. There are unfortunately some problems with this system; most notably the fact that there are some games missing from this list that do work quite well.