Nvidia 3D Vision (previously ''GeForce 3D Vision'') is a discontinued stereoscopic gaming kit from

Nvidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...

which consists of

LC shutter glasses An active shutter 3D system (a.k.a. alternate frame sequencing, alternate image, AI, alternating field, field sequential or eclipse method) is a technique of displaying stereoscopic 3D images. It works by only presenting the image intended for th ...

and driver software which enables stereoscopic vision for any

Direct3D Direct3D is a graphics application programming interface (API) for Microsoft Windows. Part of DirectX, Direct3D is used to render three-dimensional graphics in applications where performance is important, such as games. Direct3D uses hardware ...

game, with various degrees of compatibility. There have been many examples of shutter glasses. Electrically controlled mechanical shutter glasses date back to the middle of the last century. LCD shutter glasses appeared in the 1980s, one example of which is Sega's SegaScope. This was available for Sega's game console, the Master System. The NVIDIA 3D Vision gaming kit introduced in 2008 made this technology available for mainstream consumers and PC gamers. The kit is specially designed for 120 Hz

LCD monitor A thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT LCD) is a variant of a liquid-crystal display that uses thin-film-transistor technology to improve image qualities such as addressability and contrast. A TFT LCD is an active matrix LCD, in cont ...

s, but is also compatible with CRT monitors (some of which may work at 1024×768×120 Hz and even higher

refresh rate The refresh rate (or "vertical refresh rate", "vertical scan rate", terminology originating with the cathode ray tubes) is the number of times per second that a raster-based display device displays a new image. This is independent from frame rate ...

s), DLP-projectors, 3LCD projectors and others. It requires a compatible graphics card from Nvidia (

GeForce 200 series The GeForce 200 series is a series of Tesla-based GeForce graphics processing units developed by Nvidia. Architecture The GeForce 200 Series introduced Nvidia's second generation of Tesla (microarchitecture), Nvidia's unified shader architec ...

or later).

Shutter glasses

The glasses use wireless IR protocol and can be charged from a USB cable, allowing around 60 hours of continuous use. The wireless emitter connects to the USB port and interfaces with the underlying driver software. It also contains a

VESA Stereo VESA Stereo is a liquid crystal shutter glasses interface standard by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) for stereoscopic Stereoscopy (also called stereoscopics, or stereo imaging) is a technique for creating or enhancing ...

port for connecting supported DLP TV sets, although standalone operation without a PC with installed Nvidia 3D Vision driver is not allowed. Nvidia includes one pair of shutter glasses in their 3D Vision kit, SKU 942-10701-0003. Each lens operates at 60 Hz, and alternate to create a 120 Hz 3-dimensional experience. This version of 3D Vision supports select 120 Hz monitors,

720p 720p (1280×720 px; also called HD ready, standard HD or just HD) is a progressive HDTV signal format with 720 horizontal lines/1280 columns and an aspect ratio (AR) of 16:9, normally known as widescreen HDTV (1.78:1). All major HDTV broadcas ...

DLP projectors, and passive-polarized displays from

Zalman Zalman Tech Co. (usually simplified as ZALMAN) is a South Korean company that develops and provides aftermarket desktop computer products with primary focus on cooling enhancement. Zalman has done considerable product development since its foun ...

Stereo driver

The stereo driver software can perform automatic stereoscopic conversion by using the 3D models submitted by the application and rendering two stereoscopic views instead of the standard mono view. The automatic driver works in two modes: fully "automatic" mode, where 3D Vision driver controls

Stereo Convergence Stereophonic sound, or more commonly stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration ...

(Pop Out) and Stereo Separation (Screen Depth), and "explicit" mode, where control over screen depth, separation, and textures is performed by the game developer with the use of proprietary NVAPI. The quad-buffered mode allows developers to control the rendering, avoiding the automatic mode of the driver and just presenting the rendered stereo picture to left and right

frame buffer A framebuffer (frame buffer, or sometimes framestore) is a portion of random-access memory (RAM) containing a bitmap that drives a video display. It is a memory buffer containing data representing all the pixels in a complete video frame. Mode ...

s with associated

back buffer In computer science, multiple buffering is the use of more than one buffer to hold a block of data, so that a "reader" will see a complete (though perhaps old) version of the data, rather than a partially updated version of the data being creat ...

History

The roots of the Nvidia stereo driver can be traced to the software supplied with the wired

ELSA Revelator Elsa may refer to: ELSA (acronym) *ELSA Technology, a manufacturer of computer hardware *English Language Skills Assessment *English Longitudinal Study of Ageing * Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects research * European Law Students' Association *Eu ...

shutter glasses from 1990s. Nvidia has acquired the technology and has provided support for various stereoscopic display technologies, including stereoscopic shutter glasses, with their own version driver which only worked with Nvidia graphics cards. In 2008, Nvidia undertook major rewrite of the driver which was converted to use

Windows Display Driver Model Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) is the graphic driver architecture for video card drivers running Microsoft Windows versions beginning with Windows Vista. It is a replacement for the previous Windows 2000 and Windows XP display driver model ...

, making it only compatible with

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

and Nvidia's glasses. The stereo driver was renamed as 3D Vision driver.

Discontinuation of support

On April 11, 2019, Nvidia announced that support for 3D Vision in drivers would be discontinued, as well as support for 3DTV. Driver releases after version 425.31 do not include support for 3D Vision.

References

External links