Nvidia 3D Vision (previously ''GeForce 3D Vision'') is a discontinued
stereoscopic gaming kit from
Nvidia
Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...
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 for displaying stereoscopic 3D images. It works by only presenting the image intended for ...
and
driver software
In the context of an operating system, a device driver is a computer program that operates or controls a particular type of Peripheral, device that is attached to a computer or automaton. A driver provides a software Interface (computing), inter ...
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 20th 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 type of liquid-crystal display that uses thin-film transistor, thin-film-transistor technology to improve image qualities such as addressability and contrast. A TFT LCD is an active mat ...
s, but is also compatible with
CRT
CRT or Crt most commonly refers to:
* Cathode-ray tube, a display
* Critical race theory, an academic framework of analysis
CRT may also refer to:
Law
* Charitable remainder trust, United States
* Civil Resolution Tribunal, Canada
* Columbia ...
monitors (some of which may work at 1024×768×120 Hz and even higher
refresh rate
The refresh rate, also known as vertical refresh rate, vertical scan rate or vertical frequency in reference to terminology originating with the cathode-ray tubes (CRTs), is the number of times per second that a raster-based display device displa ...
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 the Tesla microarchitecture, Nvidia's unified shader archi ...
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 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.
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 (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 buffers.
History
The roots of the Nvidia stereo driver can be traced to the software supplied with the wired
ELSA Revelator 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, initially LDDM as Longhorn Display Driver Model and then WVDDM in times of Windows Vista) is the graphic driver architecture for video card device driver, drivers running Microsoft Windows versions beginning with ...
, 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, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...
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.
See also
*
List of Nvidia 3D Vision Ready games
Nvidia 3D Vision is a technology developed by Nvidia, a multinational corporation specializing in developing graphics processing units and chipset technologies for workstations, personal computers, and mobile devices. This technology allows games ...
*AMD HD3D
References
External links
*Intel Adaptive Stable Image Technology
ASIT
The Association of Surgeons in Training (ASiT) is an independent professional organisation with the stated aim of promoting excellence in surgical training. It represents over 2,700 surgical trainees from all ten surgical specialities at both ...
pape
*
iXBT.com ELSA Revelator stereo glasses review
{{Stereoscopy
3D imaging
Nvidia
Stereoscopy
Video game development software
Video game hardware