Hi all,

I'm new to S3D and about to purchase a 7900GS to work with eDimensional glasses, as the setup seems to be easier with 7900 series.
However it's quite difficult to find one in my area(Thailand), and someone suggested to buy a 8800GTS and mod it to Quadro.

I'm not quite sure about stereo support in Quadro (or FireGL).
Is it the same as Geforce with stereo driver (press a hotkey and 3D just work)?, or I have to modify my source code
(enable gl_stereo or something, I'm developing an opnegl visualization software)

So, should I try harder to find a used 7900GS? or a soft-quadro 8800GTS would be better?
I'm using windows xp.

PS.I've read about an original 8800 might also work with stereo driver and shutter glasses in some games, but I prefer 7900 to this method(more stable?).

Thank you so much.
Pat

Not all Geforce cards can be soft-modded to Quadro. I don't know all the specifics, but here is a guide I found:
http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=539

The thing is, that is not a magical solution. It may help you to get some stereo3d support, for example using quad-buffer OpenGL, but then again it may not. I've read in this forum and others about people with actual Quadro cards having difficulties enabling stereo. At least with the most recent Geforce drivers I have not even got a single OpenGL application to even run in stereo 3d. If it were that easy then I would imagine everyone here would be using Quadro cards (or softmodded Geforce cards). However this technique may help you if you are developing a specific OpenGL application. Beyond that I'm not really sure since I've never tried the mod. Maybe someone else knows more.

Hi and welcome!
You are correct that the 7xxx sereis cards will be easier to setup than a 8800gts/gtx (g80) as you have read. I can not comment on how stable the g80 setups are or on the compatability with alot of games since my g80 rig is on vista 64.

I have a foxconn 7950gt on an older system with xp and shutter glasses with CRT. I mostly use the 162.50 (with UI registry edit) driver pair to play most modern games including Crysis, Overlord, World in Conflict, Age of Conan, Call of Duty 4 to name a few. This driver pair is not stable and BSODs are very frequent. I have an amd 3500 with 1 gig ram and very messy hard drives to be honest. The drivers are clean and i have used driver sweeper. To run Bioshock i had to use miss matched dirvers including a newer forceware driver and old 162.50 3d. Some of the older driver pairs are known to be more stable but i was unable to run certain games using the older pairs. I can not recall which older pairs worked and did not work with different games as i too am fairly new to S3D. ( I have alot of games and i had tried the older drivers back and forth untill i got too lazy and settled with the 162.50 pair and frequent blue screens).

I am not a developer either but i did have a look around about the soft quadro mod. I was unable to find info on g80's with the mod and using the card with S3D. Assuming you have read the g80 and shutter glass guide from here on MTBS i did find the following articles about the quadro mod.

http://forums.overclockersclub.com/inde ... opic=80669

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=539

Sorry i can not be of more help other than a my limited experience as a noobie s3d gamer with 7xxx series setup. Hopefully some of the more knowledgeable members here will be able to advise or point you to the right direction.

The 7xxx series route is questionable as far as consistent game compatability and with the g80 you will probableby be entering a very untravelled road.

My only other idea though expensive, is to use a 8/9 series card that has a quadro brother for modding and developement. If the g80 does not work in s3d and you can find a decent 7 series card, you can use it to game/test your work on.

Which ever route you go.....be prepared for alot of hair pulling and inconsitent compatability. But for S3D its totally worth it if uyou can pull it off.

Hi guys,
Thanks for your replies. I'm lucky to get a used XFX 7900GT Extreme at cheap.
Currently using forceware 169.28 with classic panel and 162.50 stereo. I couldn't be happier

Update: the above driver combination is not stable in some situations, automatically reboot.
Now I switch to 163.71 forceware / 162.50 stereo. So far so good.