Driver Experiments

Discussion of legacy stereoscopic 3D gaming hardware and software (e.g. NVIDIA XP stereoscopic 3D drivers).
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mkultra333
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Driver Experiments

Post by mkultra333 »

Here are the results of some driver experiments I've done recently.

My system is:
AMD dual core 2GHz.
1 Gig ram
XP Home SP2
NVIDIA 7950GT
22 inch CRT monitor.
eDimensional shutterglasses or AnotherEye shutterglasses.

The games I play in S3D mode are mainly Id games. Doom 3, Quake 4 and Prey are more or less my reference programs.

Code: Select all

91.31  WHQL + 91.31  Stereo: Would not install with a 7950GT.
158.22      + 158.22 Stereo: Would not install with a 7950GT.
162.50 WHQL + 162.50 Stereo: Good.  Rare intermittent flicker but nothing excessive.
163.71 WHQL + 162.50 Stereo: Good.  Rare intermittent flicker but nothing excessive.
163.75 WHQL + 162.50 Stereo: Good.  Rare intermittent flicker but nothing excessive.
169.21 WHQL + 162.50 Stereo: Bad.  Excessive flicker.
169.44 Beta + 162.50 Stereo: Bad.  Excessive flicker.
173.68      + 162.50 Stereo: Bad.  Excessive flicker.
There doesn't seem any difference between 162.50, 163.71 and 163.75 on my rig. They're all fine. I now use 163.75 just in case there's some advantage for any newer (non-S3D) games I install.

The intermittent flicker is nothing serious, rare and easy to ignore although it can get worse in very foggy areas. My guess it is a bug in the 162.50 stereo driver so different main drivers won't help. And by 169.21 it is getting much worse. If I try any drivers in between I may update this list.

I've not bothered with the stereo drivers after 162.50, since my understanding is that they don't work for opengl/shutterglasses.

Edit: Added 173.68.
lost
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Re: Driver Experiments

Post by lost »

i have a 7800gtx 256mb and p4 3,4 ghz (single core), with edimensional 3d glasses, and i have tested this drivers:

163.71 whql to 169.44 beta: all drivers work perfectly for me!
Now logically I installed the latest drivers to work (169.44 beta), for better compatibility with games.

other tested drivers:

175.16 whql (crash when enabling stereo - BSOD)
175.19 whql (crash when enabling stereo - BSOD)
177.79 whql (not compatible with my hardware)
178.24 whql (stereo on, but glasses off)
181.22 whql (stereo on, but glasses off)

after this test, I thought the 169.44 was the last running driver with the nvidia geforce 7 series...
where you have taken the 173.68? i can't find it, and I want to test them with my system!!!
mkultra333
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Re: Driver Experiments

Post by mkultra333 »

Can't remember where I got the 173.68, sorry.

What games are you running? What OS? I was focused just on idtech games and XP 32 Home.
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Likay
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Re: Driver Experiments

Post by Likay »

I have bad experience with everything after the 169.21 driver it seems. I recently tried the 181.22 with iz3d driver and assassins creed. During gameplay i also had some glitches where the screen froze 2-5 seconds and after that resumed rendering again. Eventually after a few minutes i got a hard crash which only the resetbutton on the computer "helped". It didn't matter if the computer was freshly started, a few minutes of gameplay always resulted in a crash (frozen screens).
Reverting back to the 169.21 got the computer back to what it was.
Mb: Asus P5W DH Deluxe
Cpu: C2D E6600
Gb: Nvidia 7900GT + 8800GTX
3D:100" passive projector polarized setup + 22" IZ3D
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lost
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Re: Driver Experiments

Post by lost »

my system is win xp pro sp2 32bit (without any new update) with the 169.44beta driver (last running for me), and i don't have any problem with games.
I have tested this games:

-call of duty 4 modern warfare:
stereo works only if i move the menu page out of the screen (and in the "crosshair" mode, is impossible to take a shoot).

-grand theft auto san andreas:
stereo works fine but the game, is too fast, and it's unplayable (this is an issue of the gta seires without the vertical sincronizzation, but even if I enable the vertical sync [for compatibility with stereo visualizzation] the game continues to be too fast, like the vsync is disabled).

-swat 4:
stereo doesn't work (stereo on, but only one "visual" is displayed).

-need for speed most wanted:
stereo works only if i move the menu page out of the screen, but the game is unplayable (too separation or too convergence take the car doubled).

-prince of persia warrior within:
stereo works fine in game, but menu screen is displayed in correctly position only on a "eye".

-prince of persia the two trones:
stereo doesn't work (stereo on, but only one "visual" is displayed).

-tomb rider legend:
stereo works but move out of the screen the menu page, and got incompatible with the "next generation features" (some bugs on the textures).

the next games i try to play in stereo are:
half life, half life 2, and assassins creed.


for the driver, i suggest that the 160 series is the only way to see the stereo mode, and i can't try any new driver anymore.
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iondrive
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Re: Driver Experiments

Post by iondrive »

OK, I'm glad I found this thread. Here's some of my data copied from another post:

7800GTX-185.20/162.50 - does not trigger glasses. Does work in multicore. Lasersight image scrambled.
7800GTX-177.83/162.50 - does not trigger glasses.
7800GTX-177.66/162.50 - triggers glasses. Dual-core works. Lasersight image scrambled.
7800GTX-174.74/162.50 - reboots computer when s3d enabled.
***7800GTX-173.68/162.50 - triggers glasses. Dual-core works. Good Lasersight image but 0 transparency control. Update: dual-monitor mode is missing in this version. Span and Clone modes work normally.
7800GTX-163.71/162.50 - triggers glasses. Does not work in multicore.

What I was looking for was a driver that...
a ) didn't crash in dual-core mode on my AMD athlon64 X2 6400 on winXP-32bit, SP3.
b ) triggered the shutterglasses, and
c ) had a properly functioning lasersight.
d ) has all dual monitor modes available: clone, dual, horizontal and vertical span modes. The nView multi-monitor options only show up after you plug in a second monitor but you don't need to restart your computer, just restart the nvidia desktop control panel with the new monitor turned on. It should detect it on the second try if not the first.

It turns out that Lasersight transparency doesn't work for me in 173.68/162.50 but I think I will still use it and see how good it is otherwise.

Driver sources:
laptopvideo2go and 3dguru are my two main sources for drivers other than nvidia. They have way too many drivers to test. By the way, you can use laptopvideo2go's inf files to install various drivers onto your laptop if it has an nvidia chip that you wouldn't normally be able to install to. You can PM me if you need help with it. You just replace the inf file and do a normal install although there's some risk I guess. You can try the same approach if you encounter a driver that doesn't want to install on your hardware.

the acid test:
I think a good test for driver stability is to set StereoOSDEnable to 1 in the windows registry under Stereo3D and see if that works or crashes (reboots) your computer. 173.68/162.50 passes this test for my 7800GTX card. Fortunately XP is pretty good at recovering from crashes but normal people probably don't want to do these kinds of tests.

Triggering the shutters:
if you're using a combo that does not trigger your shutters and you have an E-Dim dongle that DOES respond to Blue-Line-Code, then you can try these registry entries to use BLC with that combo. In the windows registry under Stereo3D, set StereoViewerType to hex 00000010 and create a dword called "LineCodeColor" and set it to 000000ff for blue or 00ffffff for white. It worked with 185.20/162.50 but not 197.75 so it won't always work. You can make different colors for fun as it's 00rrggbb. After you make the changes, don't run the nvidia control panel or else it will change values back to normal shutterglass mode.

A buzzing quirk:
Now that I'm using multicore mode more, I'm getting a buzzing from the PC speaker in my computer case. I'll post more about that in another thread. Switching to one core fixed it. It might be a power supply issue.
http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10287" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Later all,

--- iondrive ---
Last edited by iondrive on Sat May 29, 2010 3:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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The_Nephilim
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Re: Driver Experiments

Post by The_Nephilim »

7800GTX-173.68/162.50 - triggers glasses. Dual-core works. Good Lasersight image but 0 transparency control

If I get a Intel C2Duo E8400 will I be able to use the dual core If I use these drivers??

I also want to get a 8800 GTX Vid Card!!
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crim3
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Re: Driver Experiments

Post by crim3 »

Regarding flickering, be sure to activate 'force vsync' with opengl games.
(wow, this thread is from january 2009..., well, I'll post anyway for the sake of knowledge gathering)
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The_Nephilim
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Re: Driver Experiments

Post by The_Nephilim »

Ya I did NOT realize the age of this thread SORRY!!

But since it is active now. will the new Drivers work with OprnGL and S3d?? I know the 162.50 drivers Don't work in S3d with OGL??
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cybereality
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Re: Driver Experiments

Post by cybereality »

Nvidia dropped OpenGL support a long time ago. I think the 91.31 might have been the last driver I recall working with OpenGL (or maybe not, hard to remember).
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Re: Driver Experiments

Post by crim3 »

I'm using 162.50 in win xp with il-2, which is opengl. The only other opengl game that I'd like to run in 3D is x-plane, but it crashes no matter what.
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iondrive
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Re: Driver Experiments

Post by iondrive »

Hi guys,

old-school, old-thread, old-guys (or gals). LOL.

I thought I found a good driver combo with 173.68/162.50 and I did but there's a little problem for some iZ3D users. iZ3D 2-monitor modes need the nvidia driver to be set to Dual output mode for it to work and 173.68 doesn't have that option. It has clone and spanning modes but not dual-monitor mode so this only affects people who need those modes. Otherwise it's a pretty good driver combo except for the lack of transparency control for the lasersight. I'll update the above post to note the missing dual-output option.

Nephilim: I'm not sure about dual core issues with Intel CPU's. Sorry.

crim3: thanks for the vsync tip.

Hi cyber, I can always count on you to read all. :)

Regarding OpenGL, if you're not sure if you have any OpenGL games, you can use the windows search function on the C:\NVSTEREO.LOG directory and search for * files containing "opengl" text and you'll get a nice list. Right now I've only got the old Serious Sam game which can run either OGL or DX by your choice. This only works if you've tried running the game in s3d and used the "save settings" hotkey. If you want a list including other games that you don't have, you can search the registry for "Values" set to "OpenGL".

Maybe someday I'll continue the quest for the "perfect" old-school driver combo.

--- iondrive ---
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cybereality
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Re: Driver Experiments

Post by cybereality »

The only full OpenGL I have installed is Doom3. But many of the Nvidia graphic demos were OpenGL like Nalu, Dawn, Adrianne, etc. And the Ogre3D engine I play with sometimes has an OpenGL path. Doesn't really matter much because my old computer is dead and gutted and on my new machine I've got Vista and a GTX 285 card. So I don't think I will ever be touching the legacy Nvidia drivers again.
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Re: Driver Experiments

Post by The_Nephilim »

Well I had Success with the E8400 C2D CPU and S3D.. I used the 162.50 Drivers & Stereo Drivers.. works Fine NP's with any game so far!!

I even use a glide wrapper with one old game and it works fine in S3D..
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Re: Driver Experiments

Post by The_Nephilim »

Small Update: I ran into a Problem with Black shark and Flaming Cliffs 2. BS would lock up upon enabling stereo and FC2 would lock up when adjusting the Gama..

I had installed the 163.75 drivers w/162.50 Stereo drivers and all is well with Both games will test some other games ltr like ArmA 1&2 and OFP:DR , which worked NP with the 162.50 Drivers!!
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