Setting up gaming challenge: Old stereoscopic Vs latest 3d

[rogerharris]

My friend does not get the whole idea of stereo vision, well he hasnt tried it or seen an imax movie, and crows on about his amazing gaming system.

I am setting up a challenge with him. My gaming rig constructed from parts all older than 3 years but stereo against his with all the latest graphics but played on a flat screen.

We put an advert in the local university for judges to try the two systems, bet money and whoever loses also pays the student for his time.

We have three games each for testing. SO i was wondering what three games would you pick for 3d wow factor such as impressive popout ? It has to run on an Nvidia 6 or 7 series.

[Neil]

What drivers are you using?

If you can get Doom 3 to run, I think he will be impressed.

Make sure you get a game that can control the convergence setting without splitting the HUD, otherwise you're just wasting time with depth only effects.

FarCry would probably be another option. I'm sure one of our members will jump in with the best tweak settings for that game.

Don't play on a 7900GTX or you will have problems with NVIDIA's lasersight. I recommend a 6800GS GPU for the best compatibility.

Regards,
Neil

[rogerharris]

What drivers are you using?

If you can get Doom 3 to run, I think he will be impressed.

Make sure you get a game that can control the convergence setting without splitting the HUD, otherwise you're just wasting time with depth only effects.

FarCry would probably be another option. I'm sure one of our members will jump in with the best tweak settings for that game.

Don't play on a 7900GTX or you will have problems with NVIDIA's lasersight. I recommend a 6800GS GPU for the best compatibility.

Regards,
Neil

I dont know what drivers, they were installed with the edimensional glasses. I'll consider getting another graphics card for the challenge, but it has to run on an AGP m/board.

I noticed the nvidia lasersight didnt show up on descent 3 with my Msi Nvidia 6200.

I reckon games with good popout will do the trick.

My mate said he was willing to bet his car against mine. That is how unconvinced he is that old stereo is better than new flat !!

I called his bluff and said ok but you better be prepared to put the cars log books with an independent referee. Then he was shocked that i was willing to go that far, and reverted back to the money wager. Now he is wondering what is going on. He thinks i'm going to be using some kind of hidden graphic acceleration and wants me to write down all my hardware used so he can check its not higher than AGP spec....

[rogerharris]

do farcry and doom3 produce in your face popout ?

[rogerharris]

Don't play on a 7900GTX or you will have problems with NVIDIA's lasersight. I recommend a 6800GS GPU for the best compatibility.

Regards,
Neil

Is this a problem with all 7 series cards or just the gtx ?

[Neil]

If you want to use a 7 series card, I was most happy with the 7600GT series. That is your safest bet.

If you are using Edimensional, you are probably using the NVIDIA old school drivers.

I'm going to make this thread a global sticky so our members can help you out. There are a lot of passionate old school gamers here, so I'm sure they will share loads of advice!

Regards,
Neil

[mkultra333]

Doom3 is good, but Quake 4 is even better as far as graphics go. Prey ain't half bad either.

I have a thread on getting these running on a 7950GT with CRT and shutterglasses over in the Nvidia old school forum. The setup has worked for me and others, though some seem to have had difficulties... as happens with this kind of stuff.

http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=2164" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

One thing though, I think stereoscopic 3D is an aquired taste. When I first tried it I was unimpressed. It took a little while for my brain to "learn" how to see the 3D properly. Now I only play stereoscopic for the most part, can't bare gaming without it. But it took a little while to take.

[crim3]

If you want to use a 7 series card, I was most happy with the 7600GT series. That is your safest bet.

aaargh! I have just bid for a 7900GT, like 20 minutes ago. What a coincidence! Is it really such a problem?

Painkiller has always been mentioned as a game that is great in S-3D. And his old-fashioned graphics engine runs smooth in old hardware. Has quite long demos so you don't need to buy it to show it.

EDIT: is it 'bid on' or 'bid for'?

[mkultra333]

My previous card was a Sparkle 7900 something-or-other. But after a couple of years it started putting glitches on the screen during games and on startup, I think some of the memory was fried. I remember reading that specific games could burn these cards out by addressing some memory locations too fast.

The 7950GT has been good though. Only possible downside is that older drivers won't install, but 162.50 onward work.

[Likay]

Don't worry! A 7900GT is excellent for stereo. I have one since two years ago or something and it hasn't let down on me yet. It bother me i didn't go for the gtx though. lol

[Tril]

My previous card was a Sparkle 7900 something-or-other. But after a couple of years it started putting glitches on the screen during games and on startup, I think some of the memory was fried. I remember reading that specific games could burn these cards out by addressing some memory locations too fast.

The 7950GT has been good though. Only possible downside is that older drivers won't install, but 162.50 onward work.

I had that happen starting with Crysis. It was the first games in years that really pushed the card. Vertex would randomly move extremely far from where they were supposed to be. In a flat terrain outside, I would see columns rising toward the sky because some of the vertex of the ground were incorrectly rendered high in the sky. That's what forced me to change video card.

You won't be able to play recent games like GRID and Crysis on a 7900 GT with decent fps and good graphics quality. It's too slow.

[cybereality]

For old school drivers you can't go wrong with Unreal Tournament 2004. Works great in stereo with the HUD shut off. Very impressive.

[rogerharris]

Do any of the games mentioned here produce popout the screen effects like the Nvidia test logo ?

[crim3]

In my opinion, having pop-out is a matter of having objects in the game close to the face/camera. Once convergence is set correctly, if you walk to a wall and get close enough to it, it will emerge from the screen and float in the air. I agree that a wall popping out off the screen doesn't have the impact of particles or objects (like nvidia's logo) floating at a few cm of your face.

But the nvidia demo is built as little objects, kind of scale model, and is easy for the eyes to see the logo coming of the screen. Whereas, in a FPS, everything is scaled more or less as real size objects (except, depending on the game, the weapon), and trying to set convergence to force the pop-out effect is very uncomfortable, and leads to nause, etc.

If you are using a desktop monitor, the viewer's distance to the screen is relatively small. Let's say 40 cm. Once convergence is set correctly, objects that in the game are at 40 cm (virutally) will be shown at the screen as not doubled. The closers ones will pop-out of the screen and the farthers will go into the screen. But in a game there usen't to be things that close, so pop-out effects are very spare.
On the other side, if you are using a big screen like a projector the viewer's distance to the screen will usually be bigger. In this case more things will pop-out off the screen into the room, an effect I still haven't experienced by myself but I'm willing to.

In my case, my HMD equals to a screen at 3.6 m from the viewer and lot of things appear to be in front of the screen and not into. But, as discussed in other threads, in this kind of displays you can't appreciate it unless you pay attention to that due to the lack of real life visual references.


Well, all this was just to say that don't try to force pop-out effects or the people will change their faces from a grin to white or other unhealthy colors in just seconds.

[Borg_Rootan]

Don't play on a 7900GTX or you will have problems with NVIDIA's lasersight. I recommend a 6800GS GPU for the best compatibility.

Regards,
Neil

Is this a problem with all 7 series cards or just the gtx ?

Best choice is 7800GT Extreme, maybe 7800GTX ( I have GT Extreme only)

[rogerharris]

Update on this challenge. just off the phone to my challenger who is now showing signs of backing out, after telling me he will get the latest graphics card, i said "fine you get whatever you want, latest quad core, £300 graphic cards, none of my rig will be newer than three years old"

Then despite that the deal was old stereo vs new flat he started renaging on the deal saying well he should be able to have stereoscopic in his setup, and that the competition will just be for fun, no money. I pointed out somebody has to pay the judge, and he said well it wont be me.

[Neil]

What a chicken!

Wait. I have some extra prizes here - how about giving away console games to the winner of the challenge? Or have a draw for the participants - something like that.

Regards,
Neil

[The_Nephilim]

The 7950GT has been good though. Only possible downside is that older drivers won't install, but 162.50 onward work.

Hi MK I have the 7950GT and I was able to use the older 93.71 and 94.24 drivers No Problems?? But I now use the 162.50 Drivers & Stereo works fine


I would also like to submit a game to play in S3d "Return to Castle Wolfenstein". I have NOT Played it on my Projector but it used to look Very Good on a 22 CRT Monitor the 3D was just superb..

[StereoGaming4Me]

Don't play on a 7900GTX or you will have problems with NVIDIA's lasersight. I recommend a 6800GS GPU for the best compatibility.

Regards,
Neil

Is this a problem with all 7 series cards or just the gtx ?

Believe it or not, I've had amazing results with an nvidia 7950 gt 512 mb on most games up until Bioshock, Dead Space and the like. With the old and outdated 93.71 forceware and 93.71 stereo I was able to get good S3D using an emagin z800, a DIY planar, and a samsung 3d hdtv, most games running at max details. I'm using the iz3d now with newer titles and the 3d is so much easier to tweak and work with, no more BSOD or the dastardly nv4disp.dll corruption problem.

Has anyone been able to get Dead Space in 3D on the iz3D?

[fiksal]

EDIT: bugger, just realized it's an old thread