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Does iz3d 22" work with laptops?

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 5:12 am
by stereoviewer
Well? I have a Dell XPS m1710.

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 8:45 am
by da_giz
If your laptop has a graphics card with 2 seperate outputs then it will work.
I tested it a few weeks ago on a friends laptop and it worked.

But I can't say for sure if that works with every laptop that has 2 outputs.
What is important is that you are able to set up the 2 outputs so they are recognized as 2 different monitors (like desktop span, not clone mode)

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 8:49 am
by Neil
It does and it doesn't.

I have a Dell Inspiron 9400, and there are some bugs. It has to do with the nature of a laptop and it appearing to have three screens attached instead of two. The LCD, and the two outputs add up to three. Many games will work, but some won't because of this. I use my notebook for demos, but even so, there are problems.

If you can choose, go with a desktop solution.

Regards,
Neil

Three outputs?

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 11:52 am
by stereoviewer
I have a VGA output and a DVI output. I didn´t realize I´d need three outputs to get a iz3d monitor running.... Is there anyway to split the signal into two or something?
And yea, a second thing: I use a regular nVidia driver (for desktop) with a modded INF file, so it can run on my laptop. Maybe I won´t have any bugs then, since my drivers works the same as regular desktop videodrivers?

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 12:02 pm
by Neil
Nononono.

The VGA and DVI will work - that's fine.

From a software point of view, the NVIDIA drivers think there are three monitors attached. One for the Dell LCD panel, one for panel A on the iZ3D, and one for panel B on the iZ3D. Because this design was never intended for stereo viewing, it creates problems.

Your notebook should work, just be aware that there are some known issues.

Regards,
Neil

known issues?

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 12:31 pm
by stereoviewer
Ok, but what are the known issues?

and

Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 10:29 am
by stereoviewer
And can´t I just disable my laptop screen?

Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 7:02 pm
by Neil
You are going to have to try it. Even though your laptop only has 2 screens active at any one time, the nature of having 3 screen outputs throws things off. You're just going to have to try it. You may have more luck than me.

I'm using a Dell Inspiron 9400 with a 7900GS GPU. iZ3D has similar problems with their Dell XPS notebook, but the hardware is very similar.

Regards,
Neil

Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 12:17 pm
by stereoviewer
Interesting. Exactly what happens while in stereo mode? Can you gimme an example?

Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 1:07 pm
by Neil
Oblivion is a good example. It looks fantastic with the iZ3D drivers and the FPS is very playable. On my notebook, I get a crash to desktop within seconds. I'd estimate 25% of the games that should run don't, and there is no workaround that I can find. This could change with time as the drivers develop and improve, I'm only speaking about now.

Regards,
Neil

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 3:23 am
by stereoviewer
I play Oblivion with Z800 3d Visor, and I crash too when pressing ctrl+T in Oblivion, wich enables stereo mode with the nVidia drivers. If I have stereo enabled all the time, it doesn´t crash. Also, if I disable one of the CPU:s on my dual core laptop, it prevents the crashing when pressing ctrl+T. Maybe this could help you?

Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 6:02 am
by Nobsi
Well, I actually do own a DELL XPS 1710 Laptop and the iz3D 22" monitor, but did not try to connect it yet. But this thread has waked my interest to try it out, though I do not believe that it will work.

Some time ago I was able to get the nvida stereo driver to work on the XPS with my CRT/shutter setup. Problem here is that the DELL graphic drivers are way outdated. Luckily there is a site where you can download modified versions of actual nvidia drivers which will run on laptops like the XPS. I had success with the 94.24 driver/stereo combination. But I saw in the meantime you can get drivers up to 169.09 release for your laptop. So i will give the iZ3D and my laptop a try and wil post my results.

Ah of course, the site with the modified drivers is http://www.laptopvideo2go.com

Great!

Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 9:26 am
by stereoviewer
That is great new Nobsi! I´m looking forward to heering about your results, and I´ll be checking this forum frequently for your next post.

Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 8:36 am
by Nobsi
Hello stereoviewer,
so I spent a few hours trying to get the iZ3d monitor to work with my DELL XPS 1710 laptop.

I finally had success and could play UT2004 and Flatout in stereo!

I was not able to install the newest iZ3D driver 1.06.0378 though. Trying to do so gave me and error in rundll32.exe. The installation finishes after that error, but trying to start the control center also shows an error (Control Center.exe has encountered a problem and has to be closed).

So I tried to install the old 1.05.002 version and that worked.

I installed the newest nvidia graphic driver 94.22 from the DELL support page and connected the iZ3D mointor via DVI and VGA to the laptop. With the laptops display mode hotkey (Fn + F8) I was able to switch to a mode where the laptop display was switched off and both external ports (DVI and VGA) got a signal so I had the primary screen on the iZ3d back panel and the secondary display on the iZ3D front panel.
This was the hardest part. I tried a lot a resolutions and monitor profiles and had often the "Out of range" error message at the monitor but finally I had success with the "Plug and Play" monitor profile for both outputs and the 1280x1024 resolution.
I had no success to find a profile witch let me set the secondary display (front panel) to a widescreen resolution like the panels native 1680x1050, but that could maybe be fixed by iZ3D providing a profile file for their monitor.
Since I have to use the same resolution for both displays, I had to stick at 1280x1024.

After setting up the display, the games I tried (flatout and ut2004) worked in stereo. I have though some problems with the 1.05 driver version (also on my destop system) which do not allow me to use them seriously, so it would be fine if a newer version would be installable on my laptop.

Can you please try to install the 1.06 driver on yor laptop to verify if I have a problem with my system (German XP SP2 which may be messed up) or if the new driver does generally not install on the laptop for some reason.

Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 9:04 am
by stereoviewer
Since I don´t have a iz3d monitor (or two extrenal monitors) it´s hard fr me to try. But I´ll be following this thred carefully. According to Aaron (product manager at iz3d) the monitor does work with XPS m1710. See this: http://forum.iz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=145

Nobsi, with what games do you have the resolution problem? You sure it´s not OpenGL games, cause they don´t work with iz3d.