I've heard a lot of people trying games that were presented as supported in stereo 3D on NVIDIA site, to only discover that it was in fact only the case with the old stereo driver but no longer with 3D Vision. I fail to see how you consider this to be a progress in their support of stereo 3D, along with the features that have also been purposely removed (like the convergence settings as you said yourself, but also dual output, other types of glasses, etc.).Neil wrote:I don't think this is a fair analysis at all. I'm the one who was leaking those Nvidia updates back in the day, and the profile updates were hardly as advanced as they are now.
I've no problem with companies making money, I even created a company with some colleagues and the goal was clearly not to loose money. What I don't like is when companies are overpricing their products using an unfair advantage, here the inner information about CRTC registers mapping, which was public before.Neil wrote:Hey - if Nvidia can make loads of money from 3D gaming, than great.
I've never been a fan of announcements of hundreds of game profiles, and I normally don't mention announcements like that in our news wire service for anyone. However, I do own the Nvidia solution (among others), and I can tell you out of experience that their offering is better than what it was before. The best measure is M3GA (which sorely needs to be updated, I know).I've heard a lot of people trying games that were presented as supported in stereo 3D on NVIDIA site, to only discover that it was in fact only the case with the old stereo driver but no longer with 3D Vision. I fail to see how you consider this to be a progress in their support of stereo 3D, along with the features that have also been purposely removed (like the convergence settings as you said yourself, but also dual output, other types of glasses, etc.).
I've no problem with companies making money, I even created a company with some colleagues and the goal was clearly not to loose money. What I don't like is when companies are overpricing their products using an unfair advantage, here the inner information about CRTC registers mapping, which was public before.
Using such tactics won't help the adoption of stereo 3D, and it still hasn't on the PC side when in the same time things are clearly better with consoles. This only creates a barrier to entry because of very high prices and in the end a very limited and complex offer for PCs. All this should be standardized and open, in the exact same way the HDMI consortium did for the 1.4 and 1.4a specifications. Heck, they even released them for free to the public, and the HDMI consortium is clearly not known to be a charity.
Unfortunately your M3GA initiative (which I find very welcomed) doesn't include games supported by the old nvidia stereo driver, so it's quite difficult to compare game support between these two drivers objectively. For me I've found that all the games I've tried on my older config are pretty well supported, even OpenGL ones. The problem I encounter are mostly related to 2D impostors that are not at the good distance or shadow techniques (shadow volumes specifically) that are not correctly rendered, but a stereo driver can't do anything for that.Neil wrote:However, I do own the Nvidia solution (among others), and I can tell you out of experience that their offering is better than what it was before. The best measure is M3GA (which sorely needs to be updated, I know).
The fact that a branding requires a licensing agreement is not a problem in my opinion, if NVIDIA did this there would be more or better stereo drivers available, including the ones from DDD and iZ3D that would be able to do 120Hz on NVIDIA GPUs, which they've tried in the past but have abandonned by lack of information about how to do it.Neil wrote:The HDMI spec is free, but using the connector and the branding requires a licensing agreement I'm sure. Also, while the HDMI spec added great support for 3D in theory...the practice is currently limited to 720P for 3D gaming. Far from perfect!
That's where I disagree, but we won't arrive to a consensus there anyway. I think selling shutter glasses at $99 when the competition sells similar glasses at half the price is a bad practice and is hurting the S3D market on the PC platform. To each his own...Neil wrote:I agree that industry-wide support is better for customers and industry alike (I got S3DGA started because of this). That said, I think Nvidia's pricing is reasonable.
My main problem with the pricing structure is that those that already have a 3D Vision kit and want a few extra glasses for friends to also use this isn't the answer. Just buy 3D Vision compatible ones for $20-30 less.cybereality wrote:Well the saturation of 120Hz monitors is not enough to support mass market $49 pricing for shutter glasses. The type of people who own 120Hz monitors are usually enthusiasts who build expensive rigs which they can obtain 120fps frame rates, or stereoscopic 3D. Either way, these are people that regularly spend hundred on video-cards (even dual video-cards), so I don't think $99 is too much to ask. If and when 120Hz monitors become standard, then at that point I think Nvidia should go for the $49 pricing. Right now 120Hz and/or 3D is a premium market, and deserves a premium price.
Some interesting news out today. With an expected release date towards the end of June, Nvidia has announced plans to release an inexpensive $99 version of their GeForce 3D Vision glasses.
[caption id="attachment_16050" align="alignnone" width="339"]
Nvidia 3D Vision Wired 3D Glasses[/caption]
We haven't sampled a pair yet, but the big difference is that these units are wired rather than wireless (which are only $50 more, by the way). To make the glasses more comfortable, the frame is more flexible around the ears. For those concerned about a price versus image quality relationship, the lenses are identical to what Nvidia has been marketing until now.
