Nvidia to make all your PC games 3D (if you so choose)

Post by **mastRmind** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 7:56 pm

Article on Cnet by someone who obviously knows very little about the history of stereo 3d: http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-993176 ... tag=blog.3

Thanks to a new software driver Nvidia is cooking up, any PC game can be played in 3D, with no extra work on the part of game developers.

Beginning this summer, any PC with an Nvidia graphics processor will have the ability to run a game in normal mode, or in 3D, with the aid of 3D glasses.

The software driver will enable the ability to have two views--left eye and right eye--which, at the push of a button, appear blurry and pixelated to the naked eye. When viewed through 3D lenses though, the game pops into three-dimensional mode.

The important part is that game developers won't have to do anything differently. They just continue to make their games the way they want, and Nvidia will take care of the rest. It's just an option for gamers though--it doesn't mean all games have to be three-dimensional.

The challenge for Nvidia is making the glasses widely available at retail, as well as turning the silly-looking lenses into something actually cool and "not as geeky-looking," said Drew Henry, general manager of the company's Media Communications Processor (MCP) group.

And yes, they promise the final product will be much cooler than the glasses pictured above.

Didn't Nvidia have this driver for the longest time until they stopped updating it a year and a half ago? Does this mean Nvidia will once again have universal stereo support for all stereo 3D hardware. (not just Zalman's monitor)

Post by **VadersApp** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 10:50 pm

Maybe this guy understood some things wrong (seems to be a S3D Noob

).

If not it would make sense that Nvidia sells their own S3D technology, since they want to make money.

A solution for all existing S3D technologies would then not be the best for them. Their Anaglyph Mode feeds the future customers, so Nvidia maybe thinks, that offering shutterglasses (with a dongle, so that nvidia drivers only works for them) will give just more money to them. Together with giving away expensive licenses thats a good market.

Post by **Neil** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 11:32 pm

I added my two cents to the article. I'd be appreciative if you could add your share too. I know they meant well, but the core message they put out is very dangerous for everyone including NVIDIA.

Regards,
Neil

Post by **Okta** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 8:21 am

Wow, just wow.

Post by **chilledsanity** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 8:59 am

Yeah Neil, I saw your response about the UT3 article where they use a shader to make the whole damn scene completely flat and a driver hack was needed to get around that. That's total bullshit, I hope more games don't take a page from Epic's playbook with that.

Post by **Neil** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 9:44 am

Yeah Neil, I saw your response about the UT3 article where they use a shader to make the whole damn scene completely flat and a driver hack was needed to get around that. That's total bullshit, I hope more games don't take a page from Epic's playbook with that.

I'm not really upset with Epic Games. We were very lucky that the problem was easy enough to solve once we dug in there. However, what NVIDIA is putting out is the message "Hey! Don't worry! We'll take care of the 3D for you!" - and that is completely false. I guess we can expect them to throw out their 2D TWIMTBP initiative too? I think not. There must have been a misunderstanding somewhere because it makes no sense.

Regards,
Neil

Post by **chilledsanity** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 10:10 am

Well S-3D aside, that's a bad practice in general because it makes antialiasing impossible on some games that could really use it. And yeah this does sound a little optimistic . Hell, I suppose Nvidia could redeem themselves if they want to fix every 3D game out there.

Post by **VadersApp** » Thu May 01, 2008 11:40 am

If this article was a misunderstanding, and only a false rumor, its spreading like the wind

Several other news sites jump on this article without asking if the information is right

That´s real journalism

german game site: http://gamestar.de/hardware/news/treibe ... vidia.html
and another one: http://www.winfuture.de/news,39134.html

It´s interesting to read that most of the users think that a new technology is coming to them.
Some of them remember using a revelator on a Riva TNT 10 years ago, but forgot S3D in the meantime.

It is realy funny to read for us veterans

Post by **Neil** » Thu May 01, 2008 11:53 am

Link them back here! We got the story right.

Regards,
Neil

Post by **VadersApp** » Thu May 08, 2008 11:52 am

I think this one is new:

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/3d_stereo_dev.html

and it seems they know that they need the help from the game developers

Maybe this one will spread like the rumour before, but now with official info.

Edit: This one is the one we wanted to know:

Two different techniques for viewing:
Active shutter glasses
Passive glasses and LCDs with polarized filters

NVIDIA drivers will support passive
glasses at launch. Active shutter glasses
is currently a technology demo.

its worth a new thread i think...

its from http://developer.download.nvidia.com/pr ... eo-web.pdf

i ll open a new thread, because i think its worth it

Post by **flexy** » Thu May 08, 2008 4:02 pm

so is the article referring to the "old" driver from April (174.16)...or are they talking about NV actively sitting and developing those drivers right now?

Maybe those drivers DO work eg. with Samsung DLPs already?

Post by **cybereality** » Mon May 19, 2008 2:42 am

The original article is totally misinformed, but at least its some mainstream coverage of 3d. Let people think it just came out!