Newbie to Gaming: 3D Vision and 3D Gaming

[PeteS457]

Hi all. Just found your forum and hoping to learn about gaming. Thanks for your help with a newbie.

I bought a Samsung UN65ES8000 TV in August (my first 3D TV...love it) along with a Denon 2113ci AVR. I homebuilt an HTPC 3 years ago and instead of using the nvidia 9300 integrated graphics on the mobo, I've recently added a GTX660 GeForce card. This was to ensure 3D Bluray playback via TotalMedia Theatre 5. I setup the 3D Stereoscopic in the Control Panel with the setup wizard and everything tests OK (see the colored geometical figures through each eye separately and layered checkerboard). I had two 3D HD resolutions to choose from - 1920x1080/24Hz and 1280x720/60Hz. Anyway, I chose the higher resolutions and lo and behold, my 3D Bluray playback via TMT5 works (near) flawlessly. I play a 3D Bluray disk, TNT5 mounts it, the TV automatically senses that it's 3D, automatically goes into 3D mode, and goes back to 2D when the disk is ejected. Excellent.....However.....

I'm now fascinated with 3D content and I wanted to see what 3D gaming would look like. Disclaimer: I have never been a gamer, but I understand technology fairly well. Anyway, I installed Batman Arkham City - which is a game written specifically to take advantage of the 3D Vision drivers. I'm using the latest 306.97 drivers (and have installed the beta 310.xx drivers also for testing). When I start the game, the game setting is already set for "3D Vision Enabled", resolution is set for fullscreen 1920x1080 (I have tried other resolutions also) - all the default settings. However, I play the game, but the 3D is totally lame. I guess I can see a bit of depth, but certainly nothing that pops out of the screen and blows me away like a 3D Bluray. So here are my questions:

1. Being a total noob when it comes to gaming and having no one around to tell me otherwise, am I expecting too much from 3D gaming? Should things be popping out of the screen? From researching this online, this game (in particular) has had some rave comments about the 3D effects.

2. I have my HTPC connected via HDMI to my AVR which is connected to my TV via HDMI. Is there other software or hardware that is required to make 3D PC gaming work different than Bluray on TMT5? I see all this stuff on the nvidia site about 3D Vision kit with glasses and IR emitters and also 3DTV Play - but I can't understand it and all the info on the nvidia site and google is dated a couple years.

3. I notice that the driver settings have a lot of options greyed out. For example, I can use the 3D Stereoscopic section to enable and setup 3D. But things like the "Depth" slider, "Change 3D Laser Sight", "Keyboard Shortcuts" are all greyed out. Also, the 3D Display Type is hard set to "HD Bluray".

4. Also, should I be seeing two images in stereoscopic on the screen in the game (I don't). When I go to 3Dvisionlive.com, I think I should be able to view 3D content on there - I don't, I just see a lot of dual images that stay that way through the glasses with the tv in 3D mode.

I'm a novice to this, I've tried a lot of things and researched this online with no luck. It was time to ask someone. However, the more I have researched I'm guessing that the basic nVidia geforce drivers I installed can handle 3D Bluray just fine, but are not equipped to do 3D PC gaming without additional drivers. If this is the case, will 3DTV Play solve this issue? (My TV is not listed as supported although it's a top of the line 65" Samsung 3D TV and displays other 3D content beautifully). Are there other drivers that are comparable - or free? Thanks all for your help.

[Fredz]

You need 3DTV Play to be able to play games in 3D on a 3D TV with a NVIDIA GPU. Also you'll need to change the mode to 720p because that's the only way to have a 60Hz output. 1080p in 3D is limited to 24Hz, which is enough for movies but not for most games.

[PeteS457]

Thanks so much Fredz for clearing that up. That confirms my suspicions. I'm hoping that my particular Samsung TV has just not been "certified" by nVidia for 3DTV Play yet - I'm hoping it still works. I'll download the trial to test it out.

A couple more questions if you don't mind. If I set the 3D resolution to 1280x720, 60 MHz, then do I have to set that as the resolution also in the game? Or will the game automatically read that and set it automatically and grey out the higher resolution options? Also, is 3DTV Play a proprietary solution for nVidia cards - or just the best? How about DDD? Are there any free solutions? As I've stated, I'm fascinated with 3D content at this point, but I'm not a gamer (yet) and would prefer a cheaper solution than $39.

[Fredz]

My knowledge on this particular subject is quite limited, I don't know if the 3D driver from DDD would work on 3D TVs with NVIDIA GPUs. Technically I don't see anything preventing this since it only needs to support the HDMI 1.4a modes, which are GPU agnostic. I think their is a trial version for the TriDef driver also so you can try. Other people on the forum should be better informed and could shed some lights on this.

Not sure also for the compatibility of 3DTV Play with your TV, as you said your best bet would be to try with the trial version. IIRC NVIDIA said some months ago that if a particular 3D TV model wasn't supported people could tell them so they could enable support for it.

No idea for resolution settings either, I guess you'll discover how it does work with the trial.

I don't know any free solutions that support 3D gaming on 3D TVs, although there is one for videos (Bino). I'm afraid you'll need to spend some cash on a 3D driver for games, either from DDD or Nvidia.

[PeteS457]

Thanks Fredz. I'm giving the 3DTV Play trial a test this evening.

[cybereality]

Yes, your best bet is 3DTV Play. When you look in the Nvidia settings under "stereoscopic 3D" is should have a 3DTV Play icon there. Make sure the 3D is enabled, and also enable "advanced hotkeys" (this will let you adjust the 3D effects better). Some games that have good support are Left4Dead and HalfLife2. When the game starts if the image doesn't look doubled (with glasses off) then try hitting "control+T" to enable the 3D. Then try "control+F3/F4" to adjust the 3D depth. But it at around 50% to start. Then adjust convergence by pressing "control+F5/F6". You probably want to make it higher, so use "control+F6". There is not visual indication, but you should see the images shifting. If that doesn't work, please come back here and explain exactly what you are seeing (or not seeing) on screen.

[PeteS457]

Thanks everyone for your help. I downloaded the 3DTV Play trial and yes, I got it to work. It's pretty cool - checked out Batman Arkham City and Call of Duty: Black Ops - but somewhat problematic for me being a newbie to gaming. However, a couple more questions:

1. First, 95% of the use of this computer is as an Windows Media Center HTPC. So most of the time, I'm running the TV display in 1080p, 60Hz. However, every time I turn on the TV now, I get this annoying red banner about "Current mode 1920x1080, 60 HZ is not HDMI 3D compatible. Please use 1280x720, 60Hz, blah blah blah". Please tell me there's a way to turn this off (and the annoying trial reminder popup). Surely the 3DTV Play software can play nice and coexist with other non-3D HDMI modes.

2. Does anyone know if I need the 3DTV Play software if I subscribe to 3D cable channels like ESPN 3D?

I know these aren't exactly 3D gaming questions, but this is part of my 3DTV Play evaluation. Thanks.

[cybereality]

3DTV Play is commercial software. Meaning, you have to pay for it (its cheap, only $40). I don't know about the red banner.

3DTV Play is for viewing content on the PC, like games or 3D Blu-Ray. If you have a cable box that has nothing to do with your PC. In that case you would use side-by-side (or over/under) mode directly from the cable box to your TV.