Old or new gfx card with new drivers and old games (NVIDIA)

Post by **yomer** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:05 pm

I used to play S-3D games in my old Ati Radeon 64MB card, with a mixture of Win3D, Edimensional, VRcaddy and maybe some other driver I don't remember. I could play Clive Barker's Undying, Collin McRae, Unreal, QuakeGL, Deus Ex, realMyst (you gotta try it) and some other games I can't recall. Today I got the opportunity to buy, for $30, a Dell 24 inch P1130 monitor which achieves about 110-120Hz at 1280x960. I have the old iArt Eye3d 4in1 Wireless glasses, which I believe still work. I want to buy an NVIDIA card for better compatibility, now the question:

If I wanted to play more old and some relatively new games, will the newest NVIDIA drivers be compatible with an older card? FX, 6, and 7 series. How's the compatibility page flipped and line synced? I will be trying to play even directx8 games, I don't remember if any of the games were directx7 also. The best scenario could be to buy a series 7 card, but will the new drivers (before NVIDIAs recent announcement) be compatible even with old games in D3D and OGL? Thanks.

Post by **Neil** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:11 pm

Well, officially at least, the new NVIDIA drivers are going to begin as Zalman only. That means your CRT monitor isn't going to do you much good.

HOWEVER, if you spend on an older generation card like a 6 or 7 series card, and use the available stereo drivers, you should have the mix you are looking for until you are ready for an upgrade.

Regards,
Neil

Post by **yomer** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:33 pm

So, if I get a series 7 card, will I be able to play old dx7, dx8 and OGL games in S-3D? I was worried that newer cards and newer drivers meant lost compatibility.

Post by **Neil** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:35 pm

Newer drivers mean lost compatibility with solutions like LCD shutter glasses (for now), not with your selection of games or with Vista compatible GPUs.

Regards,
Neil

Post by **yomer** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 1:01 pm

By newer drivers I mean the latest working on windowsXP. If I were to buy a geforce 7900GT, on vista, with the latest drivers compatible with XP and directx9; will my LCD shutter glasses still work? If not, which was the last revision which worked with LCD shutters? I really appreciate the time you spend answering my questions. Thanks a lot.

Post by **Freke1** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 4:13 pm

I used the 91.31 combo to play Call of Duty 2 with DirectX8 (and 9 also) in S-3D (shutterglasses+CRT) if that is any help. All I tried of older DirectX.
I believe some ppl used the 91.31 combo to play a DirectX 7 game called Klingon Academy.
And You can buy new 3D glasses on ebay for 5$ in case Your old ones don't work:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... SA:US:1123
and cheap CRT monitors for ~2$:
http://computer.search.ebay.de/_CRT-Roe ... acatZ19549
just don't use Vista

Post by **CraziFuzzy** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 6:18 pm

I have been using the 91.31 stereo drivers on my 7900 GT for a while now, and they work just fine on any game I've thrown at it. I am not using the 91.31 forceware though, as I needed HDCP supprt for HDDVD playback on the same machine. I have found that the 91.31 stereo drivers work just fine with the 93.71 forceware (which HAS HDCP support). I have had no reason to change drivers since finding this working combo.

Post by **yomer** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 8:08 pm

CraziFuzzy, do you play or have you tried old games with this combination of drivers and the 7900GT? The 91.31 drivers seem to be the warm spot when playing old and new games. I think I'll buy the 7900GT and try the 91.31. Thanks.

Post by **wuhlei** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 8:10 pm

The beta drivers are pretty new? I hear the latest drivers dont perform the best for 7900 on nvidia anyways.

what is win3d? is it free will it let me play 3d on most shutter glasses?

Post by **yomer** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:45 pm

It used to be free. I got it mixed up, it was the Winx3D drivers from a company called Win3D. But X3D acquired them and they stopped distribution of this free utility. It worked for some games, but I couldn't test it thoroughly because my S3D rig was very limited. If I remember well, it worked mostly with OpenGL games.

Post by **LukePC1** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 1:39 pm

Is it possible that driver still works for some new openGL games? Or maybe for Google Earth in OGL mode -if it has one?

Post by **yomer** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 9:49 pm

I cannot tell you until I try it on Windows XP, my current machine has Vista. Besides, when X3D bought Win3D, they banned further distribution of the utility, even the old versions.