help with video card for triple projector 3D

[therg]

Hi to all,


sorry if I happen to happen to ask a well known question, but after searching the www as well as this forum quite extensively, I think I found an answer but would like to know if it's the only one.
I'm in the position to find a video card for an already purchased stereoscopic, 3 projector setup for scientific research, mainly using the "stereoscopic player" and from time to time an opengl based rendering software with static scenes.

existing Hardware
3x BenQ MP776ST DLP Projector, 1024x768, 120Hz
3x stereographics EXXR infrared Emitter http://www.reald.com/content/proProduct ... pageID=120" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
1x stereographics CrystalEyes 4 shutter glasses http://www.reald.com/content/crystal-eyes-4.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

existing Software
Immersaview Sol7 for geometric correction & blending
Stereoscopic Player
an opengl based rendering software

In my naive approach, I thought we just need one not all too powerful video card with three independent display outputs, a feature available with some affordable consumer ati or nvidia(sli) cards.
Then the sync problem was discovered and the need for an VESA 3-pin mini-DIN stereo connector, to drive the EXXR Emitters.
So the only solution appears to be a Quadro fx 4700 x2 (http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_qu ... x2_us.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) or similar card.
Is this the only solution? Is there an other possibility to get a sync signal out of a consumer card? The budget would be within our limits, but I doubt that we really need such a powerful card.
Again, sorry if similar questions may have been asked, but I had to discover that information in this stereoscopic field for non-typical setups are quiet hard to find, at least informations outside advertising texts

Thanks for your time and help

[Fredz]

Uh, weird setup, I think you'll need more than a Quadro GPU to make all this work together.

In the end it all depends on the 3D stereo driver you want to use. With the 3D Vision driver and a Quadro card I don't think you'll be able to connect an emitter to the VESA Stereo 3-pin connector since it'll be used to connect the GPU to the 3D Vision emitter. Also, your projectors are not 3D Vision compatible, although you may be able to make them work by following this tutorial.

If you want to use your 3 projectors all at the same time in 3D when connected to a single PC, you would need 3D Vision Surround support. Unfortunately Quadro cards don't seem to support this, so the solution would be to buy a 3D Vision kit with 3 pairs of glasses and a supported GeForce GPU. This won't support your OpenGL application in stereo 3D though.

If you want to keep using your emitters and CrystalEyes glasses, I guess you could use the older NVIDIA stereo driver under Windows XP with an older NVIDIA GPU (<7950 GT), but that would support only one projector at a time. This should support OpenGL applications in stereo 3D though, but not using the Quad buffer stereo support.

[The_Nephilim]

well if he used the 7950gt and the older nvdia driver s and wanted a 3 screen with S3D Get a Matrox TH2Go unit.. that way you will have 3 screeens and in S3D..