Unsure of my options

[chilledsanity]

Hey,

I'm not new to S-3D, but I've been out of the loop for 6 months or so, so I've fallen behind any developments. I'm wondering if I have any options as far S-3D. Basically here's what I have now:

Geforce 8800
Windows XP
CRT monitor and leftover edimensional shutterglasses

I might be looking to get a new monitor soon as my current one is getting kind of blurry sometimes. This will probably mean an LCD monitor as you can't really get new CRT's anymore. I don't know if 3D is even an option for me anymore. Here's the problems I'm seeing with each option (that I'm aware of):

Nvidia drivers:
-I really don't want to switch to Vista, plus I was never fond of the effect from their old XP drivers compared against Elsa's old ones or iz3d's new ones. Is there any substantial difference effect-wise between the XP and the Vista ones? I recall in MANY games having to push the HUD completely off to the side before I could get decent depth out of the screen.

Iz3d:
-I've tried their monitor before and really did not care for it all.
-I have tried the anaglyph mode and thought the effect was excellent (but I don't want to play games in anaglyph)
-I've tried using their stereoscopic drivers with my edimensional glasses, but they didn't work at all for me.

I think my ideal solution would be to have the iz3d drivers on a non-iz3d monitor, but I don't know if this even an option. I'm open to suggestions, thanks in advance.

[cybereality]

Theres always the Zalman Trimon monitor, which works with the old Nvidia XP, new Vista driver and also the IZ3D driver. I've got a Zalman and overall its a pretty decent option. The image is nice and sharp and there is minimal ghosting (as long as you are sitting in the "sweet-spot"). Its the most expensive option compared to the iz3d or samsung monitor, but its good quality.

[dreamingawake]

Honestly if you want a good experience, upgrade your hardware and get Vista and 3d-vision.

That's just my 2 cent's though. Do what you feel is right. (On your wallet)!!

[chilledsanity]

cybereality: Good to know it's at least an option, thanks. Is that the only other monitor compatible with iz3d? (are there any shutterglass solutions?)

dreamingawake: I have a lot of qualms with Vista v. the software I run. Besides extra game compatibility, what exactly do the new Nvidia drivers improve over the old XP ones? Again, I wasn't crazy about those because several options would be locked for many games, plus the depth I had to push things to get most games to come out of the screen made the HUD completely unusable. If this has changed and they've added new features I might consider it, but if it's the same thing, I don't understand how it would be better than before.

[BlackShark]

Actually the Zalman monitor may be the cheapest solution at the moment.
At least that's the situation where i live (in France).
You can find it in local internet shops for less than 300€ shipping included + 50$ iZ3D driver, clearly cheaper than any other 3D solution at the moment in europe.

Shutterglasses that support interlaced output do work with the iZ3D driver (i think the edims support interlaced mode on a CRT monitor, not sure you have to check that). Full frame pageflipping is more difficult : it does work but the framerate must be perfectly stable or the glasses loose sych (the iZ3D driver can't control the GPU backbuffer)

[chilledsanity]

Well I did some more research and it looks like the Zalman doesn't support interpolation, meaning only 3D at the native resolution. This is probably a dealbreaker for me as many of the games I want to play in 3D are older ones that only support the 4:3 aspect ratio. Is there any sort of software workaround for this? I'd like to do 3D again, but Vista simply isn't an option for me, it breaks compatibility with software I use for work.

BlackShark: I didn't get pageflipping to work AT ALL with iz3d when I tried it, is there something in particular you're supposed to do? Also does iz3d have any plans to improve the shutter support or better yet, provide their own shutterglasses solution? I realize they already have their own polarized monitors, but it was mainly the 2D side of those that I found frustrating.

[cybereality]

You are right, you have to run the Zalman monitor at the native 1680 x 1050 resolution for it to work. If you want to play in a lower resolution you have to run it in fixed pixel mode which means there will be a black border around the display. It will still run you just won't be able to use the full screen real-estate.

[Darkbluesky]

cybereality: Good to know it's at least an option, thanks. Is that the only other monitor compatible with iz3d? (are there any shutterglass solutions?)

dreamingawake: I have a lot of qualms with Vista v. the software I run. Besides extra game compatibility, what exactly do the new Nvidia drivers improve over the old XP ones? Again, I wasn't crazy about those because several options would be locked for many games, plus the depth I had to push things to get most games to come out of the screen made the HUD completely unusable. If this has changed and they've added new features I might consider it, but if it's the same thing, I don't understand how it would be better than before.

Have you considered dual boot? XP and Vista? In fact I would recommend that to anybody even if he has no problems of compatibility; in my opinion it has the nice advantage of keeping separate and safe the work environment from the gaming one. That usually brings peace of mind, i.e. whatever problem you make/have in your gaming OS, your work environment is safe. Additionally, you can keep the gaming OS faster (it does not have to battle with all that DLLs, and files installed by your work applications, resident programs, etc).

For example, usually the drivers for gaming (gpu, stereo3D, sound card, etc) are updated frequently to improve compatibility/fix problems, and to be sure that you do things correctly and thus the drivers works (or not!) as it is expected, usually it is recommended to uninstall them, to use driver cleaners, testing, more testing, (in some cases you will need to remove even mobo drivers in order to get a clean uninstall of gpu drivers, that's depending on your config), installing third-party drivers mods (i.e. nhancer, rivatuner, etc), etc.

Thus on a gaming dedicated OS you have always a higher probability of even re-install OS, to be sure no interferences of old drivers are bugging you, (or if you, as sometimes me, has messed things up ) than in a work environment, where usually you can keep same drivers until you forget your OS indeed needs drivers...

As an example I have a quad-boot system: Vista x64 (work), Windows 7 x64 RC (general testing and new games + 3D Vision testing) , XP 32 (old games - old stereo drivers 162.50), XP 32 (new games that need more recent drivers than the 162.50, and no stereo). If Windows 7 keeps going as good as it is for the moment, I will get rid of the second XP 32 in favour of that W7.

I assume that quad-boot could be overkill for someone, but a simple dual boot (XP-Vista) could be an excellent solution for what you want.

On the other hand I understand what you say about the hud problem, but on the other hand I think that although the behaviour of nvidia and iz3d is different, in essence they both are variations on the same problem, i.e., the hud problem dissapearing (or bad z-placed) in order to have things popping out is more a problem of game developers than the 3d system used. Sure, iz3d has some games in which the hud is rendered better than nvidia, but we find exactly the inverse situation too. IMO the problem is mainly around developping games thinking on 2D gaming and pass all the job to the driver/wrapper (as if it could solve all problems of a not 3d oriented programming ) instead of developing them keeping in mind 3D Stereo.

About the "locked features" in some games, I'm not sure to what you are referring to. If you think in "old" features/hotkeys as auto-convergence, backplane/depthplane adjust, these stop working after directx7, if I recall correctly, and in the new 3D Vision, they have been dropped (correct me if I am wrong). As far as I can remember, the wrapper functions of iz3d are more or less equivalent to nvidia's too (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Will new features be added to the drivers in the future? Nobody knows, the only thing that can we think on is that nvidia is pushing with energy its system, and that the support that has currently 3d stereo is night and day with what it was until last year. But we should keep in mind that for the moment, future/expected/probably driver improvements (iz3d or nvidia) is smoke in the air: market does change so quickly...

I expect that situation to change for good now that nvidia has put more effort on 3d, and use its influence over developers, but that should come in next months/years. And IMO that will be good for both Iz3d and nvidia: what is worst for any company developing stereo 3D drivers/wrappers? the dispersion on the way games are developed; that is the main reason why in one driver version some games works and others no, and vice-versa in the next driver iteration, so a "common" way to program games (as far as 3d is related) is a priori, all benefit for everybody, no matter if it follows nvidia scheme, iz3d's, or other: it is a common scheme for all games. That's the important thing.

Right now I think that one of the best options you have (for desktop stereo) is to go with 3d Vision and dual boot (or if you prefer iz3d, it would allow you to use XP), and accept that you can't have things popping out a lot and well placed hud at the same time in most games (be it nvidia or iz3d). As far as I recall I still manage to have a relatively nice (subjective!) pop-out effect and keep the hud at a readable depth (although not ideal depth!), in some games.

My 2 cents.

[chilledsanity]

Darkbluesky: It's sort of a nuisance to switch between OS's constantly, plus aside from the Nvidia driver support I'm not sure what the advantage is. I haven't heard of any games that have HUD problems with iz3d, but not Nvidia, only the other way around. And yes, it was the backplane/depthplane adjustments that I was referring to as being locked. While the controls may be the same, I've tested both and find iz3d's much more conducive to my tastes. Not only will the HUD behave (at least in the games I've tested) where Nvidia's won't, but I can push the the 3D to higher depths before distortion. It reminds me of the old Elsa Revelator drivers, which were fantastic for the time.

As I understand it, for the majority of the games the HUD is directdraw data, something iz3d's drivers and Elsa's just ignored, but Nvidia's does not. What this means is that I can ignore it most of the time when I'm focusing on 3D, but still read it when I need to. With Nvidia's, a common problem I found was that in order to get something in the foreground to have the depth I wanted it, sometimes it would completely distort the background (unless I put EVERYTHING back inside the monitor, in which case that caused more ghosting for me and felt less immersive). I realize both pretty much have just the convergence/depth controls, but Nvidia's does something differently that I really don't like for the majority of games I've tested it on. Maybe it's my imagination, but the HUD thing is not. To get the kind of depth I prefer, I have to shove my HUD off the screen entirely, see how many games you find playable without a HUD.

This is all coming from a CRT perspective though, maybe the effect is better on an LCD. Anyway if they haven't changed the drivers substantially or added a way to lock the HUD/2D images from being shoved off the screen, I honestly don't see the appeal of moving to Nvidia's solution.