I'm just getting into S-3D, and I'm noticing that iZ3D seems to have the best set of stereo drivers on the market. Am I crazy, or could there actually be a market for iZ3D just selling their amazing drivers to those of us who aren't interested in their monitor? Here's what they can offer that seemingly no one else can right now:
Works with ATI/nVidia cards
Works with the latest nVidia cards
Works with post-processing
DirectX 10 support is in the works
Ongoing development and support
BUT ALAS they've locked them down to their own hardware and haven't built in page-flipping support (naturally). This means, if we want a HMD or projector-based S-3D solution we're stuck with either iffy drivers, or no drivers at all. I've been thinking about how iZ3D could use TriDef's model and actually sell the driver itself, apart from any hardware, to boost their business. I'd personally be willing to spend in the area of $100 for reliable drivers which receive frequent updates. If someone doesn't do something like this soon, we're going to have to get a bunch of smart people together and start an open-source driver solution, because waiting on nVidia to eventually maybe release so-so drivers just isn't a very attractive proposition, and iZ3D has proved it is not only possible to do it well, but even with a small development team.
I wonder if there's any possibility of something like this happening. Would you guys buy into it? It could be a great way to further secure iZ3D as a dominant S-3D force.
I would, as long as it's under 500$. I have shutterglasses, dual projectors and I'm buying a TDVisor. The last two need two outputs like what the iZ3D could give. The NVIDIA drivers only work on old games with no postprocessing effects and the TDVirtualCam only works on programs that are programmed to use it. There's no currently no good, working and cheap solution apart from the iZ3D monitor and it's drivers, as far as I know.
I'd pay, provided it worked with the VR920. It would need to support Page Flipping though, which isn't as easy as you might think. To work it would need to be able to keep a constant flip rate of 60Hz, regardless of how long it takes to render the images.
I'd also pay if it only supported anaglyph. But I would pay less in that case.
according to this topic nvidia successfully finished the beta testing under vista, 8 series, and multicore. the release date moved to january instead of december.
is it again another "promise" or are things serious this time?
Adam Savage: "I reject your reality and substitute it for my own."
Jamie Hyneman: "It's really cool, but really unusual."
Damn beta testers. They should have leaked it. I'm pretty sure this rumour is true. I did notice that Zalman had changed their website to January instead of December.
By the way, Vuzix are claiming they will release their own stereo driver this week.
For those that are interested, here was iZ3D's response to my post:
Hi, Ryan!
Yes, this is interesting idea and we are re-thinking it
regularly, including open source even. But you are right -
we have small development team with a lot of requests even
for iZ3D device - just finished 1.06 for DX8/DX9 (release
will come to MTBS in a minute), then DX10 and OpenGL plus
64 bit version for all of them.
So, as CTO I can image this model may come some when around
mid of 2008 not earlier and it will take time to support
each specific application (page flip, HMD etc)
I don't have an issue paying for a 3D driver and would welcome other companies getting into the driver race. Nothing in this world is really free anyway. I have had a good experience so far with the TriDef Driver which uses this model. They have REAL support people dedicated to their product and I consistently get replies to issues within 24 hours. So far, all of the issues I have submitted with their driver were corrected in subsequent revisions. From looking at others experiences, IZ3D has a similar support process however the cost of driver development and support is included in the purchase of the monitor. Nvidia, on the other hand, does not have a very good track record supporting their drivers. Why? Because they don't really don't consider 3d drivers a product, they consider it a driver feature. As we all know, they can add and remove support for certain features at will (digital vibrance and SLI support are perfect examples). Their isn't any P&L (Profit/loss) accounting associated with these either, therefore they don't receive the type of support that other Nvidia software products recieve, such as NVDVD. Evidence of this is very clear by browsing their website. You can purchase NVDVD from their store, subsequently there is a dropdown in their support page and FAQ that is specifically for NVDVD. I would buy their 3D drivers in a heartbeat if it meant receiving real support in some form or fashion, but 19+ months between official driver releases is a bit much. I will be just like everyone else come January and will download the latest revision, and would be happy to pay for it if it means Nvidia is making a product direction change, but will also continue to support TriDef and purchase drivers through them as I believe they have a more sustainable and customer friendly delivery and support model. I like to play games, not sit and tinker with them for days on end figuring out what the magic settings are (game and driver) that give the best 3D experience.
My .02,
PiXeL
nice post pixel. :)i liked it very much, independently if i agree or not..
anyway i never tried the DDDup to now i tried edimensional (the worst of all imo), nvidia (up to now never got them wroking, once because of a lcd screen, then because of the 8 series) so i base it on the images i have seen, and iz3d wich in my opinion are superb.
what i like a lot of the iz3d drivers is that a bunch of people is able to kick a** and this gives much security and confirmations for the future. with companies like nvidia i have no idea if tomorrow they will develope new drivers, edim the same, DDD no idea, but in my opinion the system "pay pro game" is not a ideal solution (my personal 5 cents) but its theyr decision. i know that if 5 ppl can make such a product NOW, then i am pretty confident for the future... in 6/7 months iz3d will have everything.. and with EVERYTHING i mean EVERYTHING... including vista, dx10, opengl, postprocessing, antialaising, all gpus, and more then all: "install and play" ... personally i dont expect alll the points from any other company. maybe i am wrong, hopefully for the 3D future i am wrong, but up to now the signs from other companies where less strong then iz3ds ones.
Hi Sharky, glad you liked it. I realize my post strayed from the topic a bit so let me clarify a little. I really do hope the good folks at IZ3D continue their development and have the perfect 3D driver in 6 months. They appear to be listening to their customers and including fixes in future driver releases, which shows they care about the future of S3D. All good stuff. However, their solution is currently proprietary to their monitors only and the purchase of the monitor drives software development. Now, what if their drivers supported all of the displays currently on the market and they began pricing their drivers by the game? The overal cost of entry into S3D as a consumer could potentially go down and IZ3D's profits could go up. How? Quite simple actually...
Currently the monitor costs $1,000 and the driver includes support for about 75 games, whether you own the game or not. Do you own 75 games? I don't. So why should I pay for driver support for a game I am not interested in and will never play? Now, lets say IZ3D changes their pricing and support model into two distinct revenue streams, one for the monitor itself and a second for the drivers. Potentially they could reduce the monitor cost, say to a more industry acceptable $599-699, and allow the customer to pick what drivers are required for the games they actually own or are planning to purchase. You know, try to get the entry price as close as possible to PS3's and Xbox 360's so you can scavenge some of the 2d market. Lets say a game driver license was $5 and the average gamer owns 10 games of the 75 they support, then the average consumer would spend $750 total which is definitely a step in the right direction. Now, this would mean that IZ3D's profits would go down by 25% initially. They can recapture this lost revenue, and more, by licensing their product so that it supports TDVision, DLP 3D, Page Flipping, Dual Projection, Anaglyph, etc... Now all of a sudden their revenue shoots up because not everyone has or needs an IZ3D monitor, they need the IZ3D Driver! IZ3D can continue to support the software regardless of display type because they are actually receiving revenue specifically for this. As consumers, we all win because we gain support for the games we want to play regardless of the ergonomics of our S3D setup (sitting at a desk with the IZ3D Monitor, sitting in a recliner with a dual projector, crashed on the couch with a Samsung DLP, or sitting in a spinning office chair with TDVision). This would allow them to capture business in more than the desktop market. If they still want to include the costs of driver development in the purchase of the IZ3D monitor then that is fine as then it would add value to the purchase of their "complete" 3D solution and the consumer would have the perception that they are saving money in the long run. But, since I don't really want to own another monitor (I like to game from a recliner in front of my DLP3D set) I don't expect them to give me drivers and excellent support for free, therefore I am more than willing to pay for them. $5 on top of the game cost is negligable. Paying a flat fee, say $100, to license all of their software forever and ever really isn't a good model for them either as we want them to continue to support new games as they come out. They can only do this if they are continuing to make a profit on the service they are providing. The one time charge causes a sudden spike in revenues when the product is sold, but doesn't do anything to help out revenues after you have achieved a certain level of success in the industry. Some companies, including the one I work for, have split these costs into software (which covers the costs of development) and software maintenance (which covers the costs of ongoing support including enhancements and upgrades). I wouldn't expect to see this from IZ3D, but it is a way to insure the continuing development software.
Sorry, didn't realize I was writing a book this morning. Bottom line is you get what you are willing to pay for. If you want free, then 19 months between driver releases had better be acceptable for you.
Take Care...
check out the reply ryan got from iz3d.. (4 posts above)
have you ever tested iz3d drivers? main problems are not the games.. main problems are the hardware parts. once teh game profile is set up, its difficult that you need support on it. some games do not have a profile, and are the games on wich you usually have problems but once the profile is done its ok. the problem is more on nvidia cards, wich, as black q said in teh other topic, tend to have hidden features. so in my opinion its not at all about 75 game support.. its more a system support. and i relly think that it works very well. you have to keep in mind that behind the monitor there are years of developement (not months... ) and its normal that in the beginning theyre quite expensive. in a post of some months ago blackq said that the price is going to be lower in the future, but not now.
i mean i do not work for iz3d, what i say here is my completely personal opinion and i have no interest of defending/attacking anybody... sponsor or not.. i reall ybelive that the iz3d drivers are FANTASTIC, that the developement times are amazing, that there are problems, but none of them cant be fixed. i think that also from my previous posts, you know how i am, i always say what i think, in every situation.. remember all the bad things rage daemon said about the iz3d drivers in the beginning? well, he bought a monitor at the end, and wrote only positive thing..and we all know how rage is.. everything needs to be PERFECT...
forget a moment the 1000$... blackq said that mid 2008 the drivers will be for sale and maybe also a opensource driver.if you have the possibility try to see the driver in action and you will understand what i am talking about.. there is one major difference between iz3d and all the other companies (driver related): iz3d works WITH the customers.. normal companies develope something and posti it on the site..
bye
sharky
just to go back to the thread: i have an iz3d so i dont have the need to buy drivers, but some months ago i definetly would have done it...
Wait - let's not get ahead of ourselves. iZ3D didn't say they WILL be for sale, they said they are considering it. They need to figure out the business model that works best for them, and from a driver sales point of view, that has not been determined yet.
The new drivers aren't released yet, but I'm told the NVIDIA speed anomaly has already been solved, so there are no longer any hidden features that the iZ3D drivers are missing out on.
If you want iZ3D or any other provider to be successful at selling drivers, the first priority is to get S-3D solutions in the market, and/or create or encourage demand for them. Who knows, with enough demand, maybe drivers will become unnecessary?
Hi Sharky,
Yep, I saw the reply before typing my last post. Its all good! I do understand your preference to not pay per game. Again, that is the benefit of buying the total solution from IZ3D. You get both an excellent monitor and excellent drivers bundled together. But as a DLP3D user, I do not expect them to go through all of the expense of development solely based on the profits they receive from people that buy their total solution because I have no guarantees that they will continue to support other devices. It just isn't profitable for them. If they experience a drop in sales of the IZ3D monitor, then the amount of funds they have available to pay the programmers also dips. I want these guys to be paid well so that they will continue doing quality work. Therefore a pay by game model works well as they continue to provide new profiles for new games and can afford to support the legacy games. All of us have been spoiled by Nvidias so called "free" drivers and we have quite literally "got what we paid for". I just don't want to see IZ3D make the same mistake of giving us great stuff and then being forced to decrease development because they aren't able to turn a profit. This is where DDD have done their homework. They have developed a sales model that can continue to support itself in the future, giving me more comfort that they will continue to be around. They have provided me with excellent support and I have no issue paying them so they can continue providing this. I realize this is a tough pill for many to swallow as we have grown accustomed to getting things for free (Nvidia) or bundled with other purchases (IZ3D). As I mentioned in another thread, maybe the folks at DDD and IZ3D should team up to provide quality products to all customers. DDD has the distribution model in place to address non IZ3D display customers as well as experience it supporting these, and IZ3D seem to have a very good driver that offers a great experience. However, both have to make a profit or both will cease to exist. Its all about money. The ultimate objective is to have native support in all of the games that we purchase as consumers. The hardware (display) vendors will need to supply their display profiles to the game developers in order for this to happen. If an industry exists that is making money on supplying 3D, the developers would suddenly wake up and smell the money they are losing.
Sadly, money makes the world go around. Our industry isn't any different.
Cheers!
PiXeL
I really hate the "pay per game" idea. I would much prefer a "pay for a later version of the driver" model. Drivers need to work on all games, even if they don't work well on those games. There must be a million different games out there, and there is no way they will sell drivers for all the games that you have, currently TriDef only sells about a dozen. But generic drivers work on most games, even if they don't work well.
Carl, that would be another way to skin the cat. Yet another way would be to make it subscription based, like $50 per year for a 12 month license with all upgrades included during the subsription. All would offer them the ability to continue supporting the product. Their may also be yet another way but it would require someone with some clout (Neil maybe) and an interested developer. The idea would go like this...
How much do you think it would cost to have native stereo support added to your favorite game (Crysis, Bioshock, Jericho, Hellgate London)? $10,000? $25,000? We currently have over 5,400 mtbs members and we carry a HUGE voice in the 3d community. What if we initiated a contest for developers, where each member were to "donate" $5 and created a pool of money, held by MTBS, that would be awarded to the first developer that would add native S3D to their game? Do you think this would fly? Do you think that this would entice TDVision and "x" developer to work together, use TDVisions VirtualCam software and achieve this in the short term?
Just an idea... This would probably make another great topic for a poll...
Hi,
although shutter glasses have a few problems, I really love to play games in stereo3D with my Elsa Revelators.
I would spend 50$ or 100$ dollars right now to get a good working driver and frequent updates for a year.
But for me and for a lot of other people 1000$ for a monitor is just too much.
If you want to step into mass market, you have to sell things a little bit cheaper, IZ3D.
1000$ is too much, but there is money in my pocket that I would love to spend on 3D equipment. Let's wait and see, which company offers a product that is good working AND affordable...
I'm waiting.
qm
ELSA 3D Revelator wired shutter glasses, MSI 7900GS, 93.71 driver combo, WinXP Pro SP2, 2GB RAM, Asus P5N-E, Core2Duo 6550.
Is an NVIDIA 8800 Ultra affordable if it is only top of the line for a year (actually, less than a year)?
LCD shutterglasses are indeed a mass market product. However, like a 7300GT versus an 8800 Ultra, you get what you pay for. iZ3D monitors and products like it are targeted to gamers who demand premium equipment for their gaming experience. Even LCD shutterglasses have their premium markets through 3D HDTV and the like.
That's how it is with new technology. The first adopters do pay a bit more, and the masses come later.
What I will say is this. I've been reading and watching S-3D hardware reviews, and my biggest frustration, which we will be making an effort to change by the way, are reviewers who claim that the monitor and products like it aren't worth the money. It's not that the reviewers aren't being truthful or honest in how they are expressing themselves, the issue is they aren't using the equipment properly before they reach their conclusion.
I saw one review where the host was giving a completely incorrect description of how the technology works and the importance of separation, and then he showed an application which I am well aware does NOT work in S-3D even though he said it did. So, these reviews are based on false information, and it's a shame.
That said, we will be taking measures to help prevent this.
After giving this some thought.. Yeah I'd pay a yearly subscription price if stereo worked on my 8800 using either a crt or regular lcd. It would have to support a lot of games, not just a select few. It would be nice if it worked with the VR920 too, even though the devs are working on their own stereo project.
The IZ3D monitor is a dual screened polarised setup, i wouldnt have thought it would be to hard for IZ3D to release a dual projector black box type thing that would allow people to run dual projectors using the IZ3d drivers as it wouldnt be that much different than the IZ3d monitor, as the IZ3d monitor already has the hardware inside the monitor just used to run dual lcd screens rather than projectors.
They could sell it sperately from there screens and as it would work with there drivers they would have another product to sell that shouldnt take much R+D money to get working as they allready have the hardware in the monitor to begin with.
Im sure theres alot of people who would love a good hardware system, supported by IZ3D excellent drivers that would be willing to pay a few hundred dollars to be able to play all the new games on there dual projection setups with the benefit of the IZ3D drivers that are actually being improved and worked on rather than the Nvidia drivers which just seem to be done as an afterthought.
I have been a big 3D stereo fan for years, but have been letdown by companys that dont care but IZ3d seem like there putting alot of effort into bringing it into the mainstream and i would be happy to support them by buying there monitor and paying for the drivers per month.
I also wonder what benefits SLi would have on 3D Stereo seems like a great use for haing two cards.
agreed,
i would also pay for the drivers,
im even happy to be able to use the v1.07 iZ3d drivers on me laptop in anaglyph mode with a 8600gs.
Very happy with the results,
would be even happier with shutter glasses support on a crt
Yeah, I would also pay for a 3d driver that would work on the latest games and hardware. I am interested in seeing support for the VR920 HMD (which uses page-flipping) and also the Samsung 3d-ready DLPs (HTL series). I think I'd be willing to pay up to $100 a year for something like this, however that works out. If its $5 a game, $25 for quarterly updates, whatever. But there are certainly people that would be willing to pay for this type of stuff. Not only that, but iz3d will likely see more sales of the monitors once people are accustomed to using their drivers. Like users with shutterglasses and CRTs that wish to upgrade to a widescreen LCD computer monitor. They would likely buy the iz3d because they already know their computers compatible, and are familiar with the software. Users with fancy dual-projector setups could show their friends and recommend the iz3D monitor as a good entry-level model. Its a win-win situation.
there is one major difference between iz3d and all the other companies (driver related): iz3d works WITH the customers.. normal companies develope something and posti it on the site.. 
