Depth & optimization: Nvidia vs. Iz3D

Post by **Tridens92** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 1:57 pm

I'm testing the Iz3d driver (latest) w/ anaglyph and comparing it to the Nvidia driver (I run shutter glasses / CRT, on an XP box, so I'm either stuck with a Geforce 7 series card or upgrading and going Iz3d).

In my testing thus far, I just can't seem to get much depth out of the Iz3d driver, as compared with Nvidia. Games I've tried, with my results...

Oblivion --> Very flat in Iz3d, fantastic depth in Nvidia
Half Life 2 --> much better with Iz3d (the one exception)
Thief 3 --> almost no depth in either Iz3d (and menu/in-game text corruption) or Nvidia
Rallisport Challenge --> great depth in both, but Iz3d depth is very inconsistent, especially while viewing replays...depth goes from great to ridiculous/unviewable separation when the camera angle changes. No problem with this with Nvidia.
Pro Evolution Soccer 6 (from Konami, also known as Winning Eleven 2007) --> Won't even run unless I completely disable the Iz3d driver (just using Hot Key enable/disable doesn't work either).

A couple questions:

1) Am I doing something wrong? I see people reporting great depth experiences, etc, and I'm just not getting it. I've tried to adjust both separation and convergence, and can't find a great combo.

2) Are there any other controls/settings other than separation and convergence? Nvidia features lots of things you can tweak (backplane, etc.).

3) Any chance there's going to be support for DirectX 7? There's some great old games that look fantastic in 3d with Nvidia's driver (like Thief I and Thief II, Need for Speed: Porche Unleashed or High Stakes, etc. I'd hate to lose these games...I still play them.

Thanks for any help I can get. I'm hoping to have the same depth experience I've had with Nvidia with Iz3d, and I'd be happy to make the jump to an 8 or 9 series card and Iz3d, but I'm not willing to risk that until I see a good effect.

Thanks!

Tridens92

Post by **cybereality** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 2:33 pm

I agree that both drivers display a different stereo quality. I would not go as far to say the Nvidia driver has more depth, as it varies from game to game. For example FEAR, in particular, has much better depth with the NV driver than iz3D. However Crysis looks more "3D" with iz3D driver (even with the shadow glitches). HL2, like you said, works great with iz3D. On 3DMark06 both drivers produce almost identical images. UT3 looks great with iz3D but doesn't work at all with NV. Some older Dx7 games like Thief or Deus Ex work with NV but not iz3D. So it really depends on the title but, in general, the iz3D driver produces the more comfortable image. With the Nvidia driver you can sometimes get great depth, but then you can't really see the numbers so its harder to save and remember the correct settings. I'm not sure the answer you are looking for, but I would suggest you download some more demos and test both drivers so you can get a feel for the difference. Its really hard to say one is better than the other because it depends on a lot of things like your specific S3D hardware, what settings are comfortable to you, what games you want to play, etc.

Also, if you just want to see good 3D effect, download the COD4 demo and play that with the iz3D driver.

Post by **LukePC1** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 4:57 pm

You could try to change, that IZ3D driver not only shifts one eye(the option is in the config) but both eyes.

I didn't test IZ3D very much, but some short testings made clear that e.g. Flatout2 could run with more depth, than you can take

That was with both eyes shifted of couse. Otherwise I think one of the images would get out of the screen --> does not look good/normal, so you reduce seperation again...

I'm not shure, if this helps, but I wish you best luck!

Post by **Tridens92** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 6:56 pm

Thanks for the replies.

Does someone have recommended values for Oblivion? (I found some in an older post, but the values looked like they were in a format for a previous driver revision, and I wasn't sure what to do with them/where to put them).

LukePC1, can you tell me what value specifically I need to change (and in what file, and where it's located) to change the one eye / both eye option? I'm a newbie at this, and I did a search on the forums and couldn't find a relevant post.

Thanks for the help!

Tridens92

Post by **LukePC1** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 4:48 am

It is on page 15 of the driver manual

It is called seperation mode. I'm not shure, where the file is (can't find it now). But it seems, like you should be able to change it in the profile. Maybe there is a global profile somewhere

maybe programs/IZ3D/...

@ the values: did you hould down + and - and schift++ or shift +-?

You might need to push it as long, as the numbers in the uper left match to the values you want to choose...
All players like different values, so feel free to choose good values for yourself

Post by **artox** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 4:55 am

SeparationMode – this will define game crosshair position
0 – camera shifted in both eyes
1 – camera shifted only in left eyes
2 – camera shifted only in right eyes

to edit find the config.xml file in

Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\iZ3D Driver

Personally I get the best results when using shift only in right eye.

I agree with cybereality that the depth greatly varies from game to game, but in general I've been able to get better depth with Nvidia drivers
( but I really love my separation and always struggle to get more and with the Nvidia driver I usually keep it on 100%, while with iz3d it is very hard to get it just right - in some games the max. bearable sep. is around 9-10%, and in others above 1000). Of course comparing is hard without having numbers in the Nvidia settings.

Games which I would recommend you try are - prince of persia: warrior within (with iz3d you can achive incredible pop-out if you like, but also great separation values at the value of less pop-out. Nivida requeres you to use dragon tool, but pretty much hadles the game's depth great too)
Try a racing game - NFS:most wanted - personally I find the depth with nvidia much better in this game.
Peter Jackson's King Kong - you have to use different settings for Kong and for the first person view, but generally I'm very happy with iz3d results in this game.
Far Cry- I think that nvidia's driver hadles this game much better than iz3d. Same goes for UT2004.

Post by **Tridens92** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 10:35 pm

LukePC1 wrote:It is on page 15 of the driver manual

Thanks for the gracious response, given this was in a manual (oops, sorry...)

LukePC1 wrote:@ the values: did you hould down + and - and schift++ or shift +-?

Yes, I did...played with it quite a while. Still feel like I get much more separation (at least in Oblivion, which is most important to me at this point) with Nvidia.

artox wrote:but in general I've been able to get better depth with Nvidia drivers

I agree with you here, artox. I read another post in which you explained the effect (or lack thereof) with the Iz3D driver as a "toybox" effect. That's exactly what I'm seeing in Oblivion...my weapon appears pop out, but there's very little separation between objects in the far distance, middle distance, and foreground. When I try to make convergence/separation adjustments, it largely just increases or decreases the depth (not separation) of these objects as a whole...no increase distance between them. The nvidia driver gives me great separation...walking through the forests is a real treat. I'd love to see this in Iz3d driver, but I've not been successful.

The mtbs3d review on Oblivion was really positive...Neil...any chance of getting your setting recommendations?

Thanks everybody, for your help!

Post by **Neil** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 11:47 pm

Sure!

I use 576.37 Separation, 0.0141 convergence in 1680 X 1050 resolution.

Regards,
Neil

Post by **artox** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 1:19 am

Tridens92 pls post your results with Neil's settings, I haven't got the game installed at the moment but I'm interested in hearing your opinion since Oblivion is a must play game in stereo.

Post by **KindDragon** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 2:59 am

Tridens92 wrote: I agree with you here, artox. I read another post in which you explained the effect (or lack thereof) with the iZ3D driver as a "toybox" effect. That's exactly what I'm seeing in Oblivion...my weapon appears pop out, but there's very little separation between objects in the far distance, middle distance, and foreground. When I try to make convergence/separation adjustments, it largely just increases or decreases the depth (not separation) of these objects as a whole...no increase distance between them. The nvidia driver gives me great separation...walking through the forests is a real treat. I'd love to see this in Iz3d driver, but I've not been successful.

Can you provide screenshots with iZ3D and NVidia drivers on the same scenes with identical convergence level?

Post by **artox** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:53 am

Tridens92 - since you don't have the numbers for the convergence level with nvidia I suggest you set the convergence for 0 parallax on the closest object near the screen - be it the characters hand or weapon and than increase separation til the point you feel comfortable ( with iz3d driver) and at the same time set the separation to 100% with Nvidia.

Screenshots are made with alt+f1 with nvidia driver and are saved in :\NVSTEREO.IMG folder

With iz3d Screenshots are made with print screen button and are saved in :\Documents and Settings\(Your user name) \My Documents\My Pictures\iZ3D Driver Screenshots

Good luck

Post by **Tridens92** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 6:35 pm

Neil, thanks for the settings!

artox, I'll be happy to post my impressions with Neil's settings.

KindDragon--I'll see what I can do in the next couple of days. Today was my last day of vacation, and things start to get busy again tomorrow, so it may be a while. Thanks, everyone!

Tridens92

Post by **Tridens92** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 7:01 pm

Initial results with Neil's settings and Iz3d are fantastic! I'll do some more testing, but this looks much more like what I experienced with Nvidia drivers. Neil, thanks so much!

Post by **Neil** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 8:05 pm

There is a settings guide here if you haven't tried it yet:

http://mtbs3d.com/cgi-bin/rss_blog.cgi?news_id=44

Once you get the hang of it, most of your games should work like this.

Regards,
Neil

Post by **artox** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 12:20 am

@Tridens92 - great news, still pls post shots, although if the depth is right iz3d is the clear winner for oblivion - post processing vs. pink (blue but shaderless) water

@ Neil - I've said it before but I'll say it once again - this guide is great and you should make it a sticky (if you haven't) along with your new s-3d methods
guide !
I have another suggestion too - a thread (again sticky) in which everyone would post their best results with a game - meaning separation and convergence, something like the stereo registry profile which existed before. I know it really depends on the preference of the player but we could also add a rating system.

Post by **Neil** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 12:34 am

Ok - let me put some thought into how to best do this. Thanks for your feedback!

Regards,
Neil

Post by **LukePC1** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 5:02 am

If you make this list of settings a thread:
Everyone may only post 1 time and only the settings...
or we could do it like it was and make a topic to each game? It was very usefull with NV driver, because of all the tweaking needed...

Post by **artox** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 12:14 pm

Yeah, but maybe after a while a game thread has been open so to say and everyone who wishes has posted results there can be somekind of sum up, like a table or a list of games and their suggested top settings.

Post by **Tridens92** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 7:33 pm

Great ideas. Neil, I also think it would be helpful to include in the game reviews the settings used for methods tested (in the case of the Oblivion review, Iz3d and Nvidia). It would save you needing to respond to people like me who want your expert settings.

Thanks for a great site!

Tridens92

Post by **Tridens92** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 7:57 pm

@artox -- OK, I posted some S-3D screen shots from Oblivion using Neil's Iz3d settings, and placed them in the gallery under RPG, Other. I tried to pick a couple of angles that had good foreground, middle and background objects so you could see the separation.

@Neil -- I may have messed something up here, though...I uploaded the files as .JPS, which is what the Iz3D driver produced, but I see they're not viewable, and I couldn't figure out how to download them. Let me know if I need to do something different or fix this. I also thought I'd have a chance to name the files as required (Game, driver used) after I uploaded them, , but I see I was supposed to do it before upload. So I gave them a title with the proper format (sorry Neil...

).

Tridens92

Post by **LukePC1** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 4:11 am

you need to rename them to .jpg

Post by **artox** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 10:20 am

@Tridens92 - as Luke said rename to jpg before you upload. If possible upload shots with Nvidia showing the same scenes too.

Post by **Tridens92** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 8:30 pm

OK--thanks for the help. I couldn't find a way to delete the old files, but I changed file extension to .jpg and uploaded them again. Won't get to Nvidia shots right away, but I'm pretty happy with the iZ3D performance with Neil's settings. I never would have thought to crank the separation up that far...

Tridens92

Post by **Neil** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 10:03 pm

Sorry for the late reply. Yes - JPG only!

Regards,
Neil

Post by **Neil** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 3:17 pm

Just wanted to tell you that I created special forum sections to submit game settings in individual threads for iZ3D and NVIDIA (old and new) stereo drivers.

Here are the links:

http://mtbs3d.com/phpbb/viewforum.php?f=58
http://mtbs3d.com/phpbb/viewforum.php?f=60
http://mtbs3d.com/phpbb/viewforum.php?f=59

Regards,
Neil

Depth & optimization: Nvidia vs. Iz3D

Depth & optimization: Nvidia vs. Iz3D

Artox' Idea!