HKEPC preview "NVIDIA 3D VISION" IR shuter glasses

[DmitryKo]

http://www.hkepc.com/1930 ( Google translation )

The photos show the glasses have "NVIDIA 3D VISION" printed alongside the Nvidia logo.

Key points:

The Li-ion battery is claimed to fully recharge through a mini-USB connection in 15 minutes and last for 30 hours of gaming (the transmitter probably has to use an external DC power source when charging; it would take more like "15 hours" using a regular USB power)

The transmitter has a dial wheel that adjusts the convergence (probably programmable to adjust separation or other settings). Another source clains it can register up to 12 shutters; it's not in the article and I doubt there should be any practical limit to it.

The performance hit is claimed to be in the 5-20% range.

There is an interview with Nvidia egineer on page 2; he recites the announcement of a 120 Hz Viewsonic LCD monitor to be available in January 2009, and discloses Samsung will annouce a similar monitor in Q1 2009; more brands will join in H2 2009. He also claims Nvidia 3D drivers can support 100 and 110 Hz displays.

[yuriythebest]

interesting. Nice to see that they made some changes instead of just using some default shutterglasses with the nvidia logo printed on top.

link to automated translation:
http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_ur ... =Translate

anyhow the article says vista 64 bit support will come next year.

[chrisjarram]

"in fact NVIDIA only will open in the 120Hz LCD display monitor as well as Zalman the Trimon display monitor.".

lol - yawn. Back to square one then - total deal breaker if you can't use these with beamers afaic.

[martinlandau]

The Li-ion battery is claimed to fully recharge through a mini-USB connection in 15 minutes and last for 30 hours of gaming (the transmitter probably has to use an external DC power source when charging; it would take more like "15 hours" using a regular USB power)

Dmitry this is interesting, I wonder who will keep paying so much for Crystaleyes 3 stereographics wireless shutters while these seem to be similar? In fact better because you can recharge. It also seems to suggest the driver will only work on displays limited to 100-120hz. What about those of us getting a 240hz solution?

On a humoros note, there were so many good translations on this board that tickled my funny bone about "all you bases are belong to us" - we should find one for Stereo3D - let me start:

the 3D game no longer plane (from yuris translate link)

as if the audience ran to eat

electricity is not transparent (My fav)

[DmitryKo]

total deal breaker if you can't use these with beamers afaic.

This is a known limitation of the latest Nvidia 3D stereo drivers - anything other than anaglyph, 120 Hz CRT and LCD, and Zalman will not be supported (3D DLP support may come as well).

Not sure how this is a "total deal breaker" though - the glasses look sleek, and vendors like iZ3D and DDD would probably add support for the Nvidia IR protocol in no time.

Nice to see that they made some changes instead of just using some default shutterglasses with the nvidia logo printed on top.

What changes and who made them? These ARE the glasses with Nvidia logo on top

the driver will only work on displays limited to 100-120hz. What about those of us getting a 240hz solution?

There are no 240 Hz monitors or TVs.

Neither DVI nor DisplayPort have enough bandwidth to allow 240 Hz refresh rate at anything over 1440x900; HDMI is limited to 60 Hz as well - that's why 3D DLP uses checkerboard pattern to represent two frames in one and allow 120 Hz playback.

And the "240 Hz movie effect" is purely a video procesing thing, the actual refresh rate is probably no better than 120 Hz (not to mention that it's useless because actual *VA or *-IPS pixels are not able to not spin so fast in grey-to-grey transitions). And even then these LCD TV panels are not S3D ready because of HDMI limitations.

there were so many good translations on this board that tickled my funny bone about "all you bases are belong to us"

Well, Chinese and Japanese always come as garbage when machine translated to English; at least, Google translator appears to be somewhat more decent than other attempts. I for one could make fun of countless English-Russian translations as well, and machine translation between completely different language groups is even more challenging.

[nubie]

This looks interesting, so the tech will be feasible for me in about 3 years? Requiring about $1000 from me to get Vista, buy a new video card (nVidia only, pffft, until it is hacked) and buy a new monitor?

FAIL.

On the up side, if you happen to own Vista and a new video card, and a monitor with 120hz, it looks like for the amazing low price of $xxx you can see in 3D! Isn't the future awesome!

/sarcasm.


On a more positive note, it looks like they put a wheel on the back of the unit, and it appears there is a phono-style jack, perhaps for wired glasses? 2 USB required? One for the glasses and one for the base? I hope they come with a double-head USB cord, and play-charge is an option.

Wheel is interesting, but we need more adjustments than that. I don't know what the drivers will be like, but the new nVidia interface is hideous (I never even tried to like it because it hasn't yet exposed the basic functionality of the "classic" panel, far from the claims of "enhanced" functions.)

If it can come in under $100, and come bundled with TV's (I suppose the electronics would be in the TV, and only the glasses come with it), and video cards, then it could revolutionize the scene.

Any word on an LCD for under $200 with 120hz support? Maybe something in the 17"-22" range?

If it will support 3D DLP does that mean there are 3D projectors for ~$600-800 that will display the 3D? (minimum 1024x768, 1280x720+ preferred though).

Frankly this seems like a way to drop $1000 quick just for a piddly desktop solution, and I am not convinced of its merit yet. My only hope is that a showroom I can visit will have a 3D setup and allow me to tweak the settings.

[DmitryKo]

if you happen to own Vista and a new video card, and a monitor with 120hz, it looks like for the amazing low price of $xxx you can see in 3D! Isn't the future awesome!

/sarcasm.

I don't really think the technology is overpriced. If you're a hardcore gamer and are in the market for a better video card and LCD monitor, then the added price premium will be less than $200: the wirelesss shutter glasses will cost no more than $100-130, and 120 Hz Viewsonic VX2265WM will most likely be only $50-70 more than the current VX2262WM. For a typical hardcore gaming desktop that can cost $1500 or more, 10% is a very modest price increase for something as revolutionary as stereoscopic 3D.

OTOH, if you're not a hardcore gamer or S3D enthusiast and can't justify spending on a new video card, a new monitor, and Vista license, then OK; iZ3D drivers work on any 3D card out there and come with free anaglyph support (and the 2-disc DVD release of "Fly Me to the Moon 3D" comes with 4 pairs of cardboard anaglyph glasses).

[nubie]

if you happen to own Vista and a new video card, and a monitor with 120hz, it looks like for the amazing low price of $xxx you can see in 3D! Isn't the future awesome!

/sarcasm.

I don't really think the technology is overpriced. If you're a hardcore gamer and are in the market for a better video card and LCD monitor, then the added price premium will be less than $200: the wirelesss shutter glasses will cost no more than $100-130, and 120 Hz Viewsonic VX2265WM will most likely be only $50-70 more than the current VX2262WM. For a typical hardcore gaming desktop that can cost $1500 or more, 10% is a very modest price increase for something as revolutionary as stereoscopic 3D.

OTOH, if you're not a hardcore gamer or S3D enthusiast and can't justify spending on a new video card, a new monitor, and Vista license, then OK; iZ3D drivers work on any 3D card out there and come with free anaglyph support (and the 2-disc DVD release of "Fly Me to the Moon 3D" comes with 4 pairs of cardboard anaglyph glasses).

I don't think you understood me, I and many others have spent $xxx or $x,xxx (I only spent ~$300, because I repaired eBay LCDs)on a "perfect" solution using polarized and/or HMD. nVidia pulled the rug out from under us hard, and now their support now involves more money for what is conceptually a poorer technology.

IF I was a hardcore gamer, then I might be able to justify this (if it works well on a 120hz DLP projector I can see it).

My "typical" hardcore gaming rig costs me about $500, and achieves 95% of the performance of a $2,000+ rig, but I am a savvy shopper (and usually wait until I can get the parts for ~$300 on ebay, I saw a $55 8800GSO yesterday, but by the time I checked my bank account it was sold ).

The more proprietary something is the harder (to near impossible) it is to play with if you are a tinkerer like me. Requiring 3 pieces of expensive hardware and an expensive OS is an artificial barrier to entry (Glasses and transmitter, 120hz LCD, new video card, Vista).

You can see that I am opposed to nVidia artificially hampering the S3D scene, I am now starting to wonder if they purposefully dropped shutter support to force the upgrade to this new dongle. If they were serious about S3D they wouldn't pull the rug out from under current S3D users (if you want to argue that current S3D users are the ones who will adopt the new hardware first, I say maybe nVidia should offer some incentives in repayment for ditching the scene for 3 years.)

Did you notice how nVidia treated Zalman? First they promise Zalman S3D drivers for about a year and a half, then they start a marketing campaign that denounces polarized S3D solutions as "half-resolution" (Clearly a half-truth, as I personally built 2 S3D polarized setups, monitor and projected, that offer DOUBLE resolution, and the iZ3D monitor is also double resolution.)


All said though, if they can make the price attractive (>$90), if it is of incredible quality (high contrast ratio), if there are XP drivers (even iZ3D), and if there is a free hack to enable it on a CRT (or any display) I am sure I will get a pair of them.

[genetic]

Yeah DmitryKo, there is just a generation gap here, in our golden days, things were much better for a 3D gammer. Many of us already have S-3D setups that we view to be far superior to the S-3D offerings of the “future”.

nubie was commenting on the heartbreaking scenario of paying more money for inferior 3D. The only reason we even discus such a nightmare is because Nvida rendered our setups into museum pieces by locking us into 7 series GPUs and older.

[martinlandau]

nVidia pulled the rug out from under us hard, and now their support now involves more money for what is conceptually a poorer technology.

So you are certain nvidia's future driver updates will never support the IZ3D monitor? Why would they cut themselves off from all the installed base of IZ3D monitor users? I would think the AMD announcement would make them more frantic that they must support the IZ3D monitor now or they will lose a lot of Nvidia videocard sales to people who will buy ATI video cards. Certainly having their stereo driver do the calculation for a viewsonic 120hz monitor and an IZ3D monitor is not too much difference.

Did you notice how nVidia treated Zalman? First they promise Zalman S3D drivers for about a year and a half, then they start a marketing campaign that denounces polarized S3D solutions as "half-resolution"

I don't understand, are you saying Nvidia claimed IZ3D monitors only offered half the resolution? Huh? I thought the iz3d was full resolution and it was the zalman or 3d checkerboard solutions that cut your resolution in half?!? Nubie that gets me wondering how does the IZ3D monitor offer full resolution and color and such when there are only so many pixels and some must draw the right image and some the left image and then those pixels are polarized? Are you losing information at the sub-pixel level? How are 2 images worth of information pixelwise put on one LCD screen? Is the color sacrificed?

All said though, if they can make the price attractive (>$90), if it is of incredible quality (high contrast ratio), if there are XP drivers (even iZ3D), and if there is a free hack to enable it on a CRT (or any display) I am sure I will get a pair of them.

Why would you choose a CRT over LCD when the CRT can cause headaches and the LCD does not? The technology of the CRT and the electron beam gun causes much more flicker than an LCD where all the pixels are lit up at the same time instead of one little phosphor element at a time. I would recommend if you do get shutter glasses, that you do not use a CRT nubie, and only use LCD. But ideally it seems to me the IZ3D monitor solution (if ghosting can be minimized or eliminated) has the best technology and ergonomics and will give the best experience with fewer headaches.

[DmitryKo]

If they were serious about S3D they wouldn't pull the rug out from under current S3D users (if you want to argue that current S3D users are the ones who will adopt the new hardware first, I say maybe nVidia should offer some incentives in repayment for ditching the scene for 3 years.)

Yes Nvidia want you to buy their shutter glasses hardware and use it with their video cards. It's a market economy and they made no obligation to support products of long defunct companies AFAIK.

I do agree that Nvidia is not acting very wise by forcing the "older" technology out of their latest drivers. But then again, other vendors like AMD/ATI and iZ3D will be happy to fill the gap.

First they promise Zalman S3D drivers for about a year and a half, then they start a marketing campaign that denounces polarized S3D solutions as "half-resolution".

I didn't see the marketing campaign, but I they talked about Zalman and other PASSIVE (line-interleaved) monitors (which I'd imagine they did), they are perfectly right - the vertical resolution is halved.

if they can make the price attractive (>$90), if it is of incredible quality (high contrast ratio), if there are XP drivers (even iZ3D), and if there is a free hack to enable it on a CRT (or any display) I am sure I will get a pair of them.

120 Hz CRT monitors are supported; the problem is they are very few and in between, and you wouldn't really want to try it on a far more common 100 Hz monitor.

Nvidia probably won't even bother making XP drivers now, just for the sake of easying the support burden - but technically the driver interace (DDI9) is pretty much the same on both XP and Vista.

[DmitryKo]

Many of us already have S-3D setups that we view to be far superior to the S-3D offerings of the “future”. nubie was commenting on the heartbreaking scenario of paying more money for inferior 3D.

120 Hz CRT monitors at 1024x768 px would hardly qualify "far superior", and they were never a cheap offering from the start. Dual-projector setup is not cheap either.

The only reason we even discus such a nightmare is because Nvida rendered our setups into museum pieces by locking us into 7 series GPUs and older.

EVERY enthusiast video card out there goes to a museum in less than 3 years after initial release. The processing power has more than tripled going from Radeon X1950GT to HD4850, for the same price; that's hardly a "nightmare" (I'd reserve that for Intel Pentium 4 processors which offered only marginal performance increases through their product run).

[koshien]

Hi, I'm a 2D gamer and I'd like to buy a new pc and a monitor to enjoy 3D.
I read somewhere new polarized glasses from iz3d are going to be released and they should reduce a little bit of ghosting... do you guys know anything about it?
I also knew of an iz3d monitor price-cut by the middle of November...
What do you guys think I should do?
a) Wait for the iz3d monitor price-cut (and better glasses?) and for the euro to get stronger over dollar and order the iz3d monitor (taxes, douane, different voltage...).
b) Buy a 120 Hz CRT monitor, Ati card, shutterglasses (Nvidia ones compatible???), iz3d drivers.
c) 120 Hz CRT, Nvidia card and Nvidia shutterglasses.
d) Viewsonic monitor, Nvidia cards (Ati cards compatible?), Nvidia shutterglasses.
Do you guys think of any other option? What would you suggest me?
I almost forgot...can vga cable support 120 Hz CRT refresh? What about more than 120 Hz?

[yuriythebest]

Hi, I'm a 2D gamer and I'd like to buy a new pc and a monitor to enjoy 3D.

I'd go with the iz3d monitor. Regarding the new glasses- I hear iz3d is aiming to release them by new year's if all goes well. I do not recommend a CRT+shutterglasses solution, even with good drivers this solution will be hard on your eyes. Not sure about the viewsonic solution- haven't noticed any 3d reviews thus far.

[martinlandau]

I read somewhere new polarized glasses from iz3d are going to be released and they should reduce a little bit of ghosting... do you guys know anything about it?
a) Wait for the iz3d monitor price-cut (and better glasses?) and for the euro to get stronger over dollar and order the iz3d monitor (taxes, douane, different voltage...).
b) Buy a 120 Hz CRT monitor, Ati card, shutterglasses (Nvidia ones compatible???), iz3d drivers.
c) 120 Hz CRT, Nvidia card and Nvidia shutterglasses.
d) Viewsonic monitor, Nvidia cards (Ati cards compatible?), Nvidia shutterglasses.
Do you guys think of any other option? What would you suggest me?
I almost forgot...can vga cable support 120 Hz CRT refresh? What about more than 120 Hz?

Many professional currency traders I know say don't count on the EURO regaining its purchasing power in the near future. Don't buy a CRT monitor either, the technology causes headaches and eyestrain for sensitive people - Yuri can tell you he had much more bloodshot eyes with CRT and shutter glasses than with IZ3D, LCD doesn't cause the headaches and eyestrain. Going forward I would recommend either the IZ3D or some 120HZ 3d LCD with nvidia solution. At the end of the day Nvidia has the developers that have the most experience with this stuff and I would hope that would mean far better support for the stereo3D in directx land.

[yuriythebest]

Many professional currency traders I know say don't count on the EURO regaining its purchasing power in the near future. Don't buy a CRT monitor either, the technology causes headaches and eyestrain for sensitive people - Yuri can tell you he had much more bloodshot eyes with CRT and shutter glasses than with IZ3D, LCD doesn't cause the headaches and eyestrain. Going forward I would recommend either the IZ3D or some 120HZ 3d LCD with nvidia solution. At the end of the day Nvidia has the developers that have the most experience with this stuff and I would hope that would mean far better support for the stereo3D in directx land.

yeah my right eye was pretty red after hours of use. Yeah nvidia has more manpower, but they also have a bad history of abandoning support.

[martinlandau]

Yeah nvidia has more manpower, but they also have a bad history of abandoning support.

I am hoping Nvidia choose to support IZ3D monitor users with all that manpower and experience, I don't want to have to buy ATI card in the future - don't you have Nvidia solution right now too Yuri? Wouldn't you like it if Nvidia support IZ3D in their driver and let you get access to those 250 games or so they claim their new stereo drivers will work with? I have not been to Nvidia forums in a while but have you heard many IZ3d monitor owners complain to Nvidia why they are not supporting this most eyestrain free of monitor solutions?

[yuriythebest]

Yeah nvidia has more manpower, but they also have a bad history of abandoning support.

I am hoping Nvidia choose to support IZ3D monitor users with all that manpower and experience, I don't want to have to buy ATI card in the future - don't you have Nvidia solution right now too Yuri? Wouldn't you like it if Nvidia support IZ3D in their driver and let you get access to those 250 games or so they claim their new stereo drivers will work with? I have not been to Nvidia forums in a while but have you heard many IZ3d monitor owners complain to Nvidia why they are not supporting this most eyestrain free of solutions?

actually I don't consider that an issue. I think iz3d drivers are superior to nvidia's drivers since people who use the zalman solution, nvidia's flagship 3d monitor are in fact switching to iz3d drivers.

[chrisjarram]

Not sure how this is a "total deal breaker" though - the glasses look sleek, and vendors like iZ3D and DDD would probably add support for the Nvidia IR protocol in no time.

Well duh Until that time, it is a total deal breaker for me - I dont want to be stuck within anything other than DLP proectors.

[koshien]

Thank you guys!
I guess I'll wait and decide between iz3d and viewsonic monitors

[Neil]

Some more NVIDIA news here:

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/ ... oscopic-3d

Regards,
Neil

[martinlandau]

Great work Neil.

Some more NVIDIA news here:
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/ ... oscopic-3d
three different types of displays which supported the 3D glasses, including old Analog CRT 100+ Hz monitors.

What happened to zalmans interlaced solution? So Neil, that meand 3d dlp, 120hz lcd, and 100+hz CRT - where is IZ3d? Why would Nvidia do something so limiting when they could include IZ3d monitor users, they are going to anger customers who will remember this for a very long time, you need to tell their management they are burning bridges they cannot afford to burn with this recession looming ahead of the world and Intel threatening their business model with multi-core CPU's that are claimed to obsolete GPU's in the future. IZ3d is the best eyestrain free monitor solution with lightest glasses and they are really dropping the ball not supporting this product - what has been their justification?

He went on to note that he, of course, couldn’t comment on pricing except to say that Nvidia’s specs were made to a particularly high quality of design and included larger lenses than other 3D specs on the market, being the only lenses which could work with 120 Hz screens.

Is that true Niel? What about crystaleyes 3 glasses from stereographics corporation (now realD) - I thought they could work too?? They are also designed to work over glasses and have 1500:1 ratio, but I cannot find ratio for Nvidia glasses in all the reviews I read, I don't like when inaccurate information disseminated to the public.

[Okta]

Great work Neil.

Some more NVIDIA news here:
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/ ... oscopic-3d
three different types of displays which supported the 3D glasses, including old Analog CRT 100+ Hz monitors.

What happened to zalmans interlaced solution? So Neil, that meand 3d dlp, 120hz lcd, and 100+hz CRT - where is IZ3d? Why would Nvidia do something so limiting when they could include IZ3d monitor users, they are going to anger customers who will remember this for a very long time, you need to tell their management they are burning bridges they cannot afford to burn with this recession looming ahead of the world and Intel threatening their business model with multi-core CPU's that are claimed to obsolete GPU's in the future. IZ3d is the best eyestrain free monitor solution with lightest glasses and they are really dropping the ball not supporting this product - what has been their justification?

He went on to note that he, of course, couldn’t comment on pricing except to say that Nvidia’s specs were made to a particularly high quality of design and included larger lenses than other 3D specs on the market, being the only lenses which could work with 120 Hz screens.

Is that true Niel? What about crystaleyes 3 glasses from stereographics corporation (now realD) - I thought they could work too?? They are also designed to work over glasses and have 1500:1 ratio, but I cannot find ratio for Nvidia glasses in all the reviews I read, I don't like when inaccurate information disseminated to the public.

You really are slow on the uptake arent you. Nvidia could not give a **** who they anger as long as they can sell the new kool aid.

[martinlandau]

You really are slow on the uptake arent you. Nvidia could not give a **** who they anger as long as they can sell the new kool aid.

But see there is your catch 22 that you are not logically and critically thinking through. Nvidia must give a shiot who they anger because if you pee off everyone - then like saddam - people come in and hang you and you die, no matter how high and mighty you may think you are. Now we could get into all kinds of debates into john bogle's lost "soul of capitalism" and the many CEO's who complain their entire business model on wall street is defunct because the shareholders and investment bankers demand they "beat the street by a penny" on each quarter of earnings with funny accounting and they are not able to take actions that will require many months or years of planning and release. However that would not be constructive, like your insult of me.

So constructively why do you think Nvidia, who is getting attacks from INTEL invalidating the whole GPU concept with multicore and the likes of ATI/AMD who are supporting whole ranges of 3D solutions would choose to commit saddam hussein style suiicide and wreck a decade of good will built up with the gaming community? How would that serve the management or the shareholders or the customers?

I just don't see it, I see a future - possibly early/mid 2009 where Nvidia supports many S3d solutions on their drivers in Vista with newer Nvidia video cards and all your hyperbole to the contrary is not proof enough for me. Patience is a virtue my friend.

[Okta]

Looks like you really got me there neilthecellist, oops i mean martinlandau. This whole thing must just be a bad dream i will wake up from and discover Nvidia didnt really shaft the entire s3d community.

[StereoGaming4Me]

The rechargeable shutterglasses sound nice, but you can probably build your own with a simple charging circuit and a solar panel, and one Li-Ion battery. I'm about to make a solar USB charger and found some nice clearance 2000 maH camcorder batteries for $3.00 each at Walmart.