Take note, Rainier Wolfcastle, because these goggles may actually do something. Nvidia’s latest visual computing venture is a serious foray into stereoscopic 3D, a technology that has not found success among mainstream consumers (or even enthusiasts) in recent history. 3D movies and gaming at home have always been seen as gimmicky, a perception that can largely be attributed to the fact that you have to wear some pretty goofy glasses to experience the effect. In fact, past iterations of 3D stereographic technology (including efforts by the now-defunct company ELSA) have been especially troublesome because they required bulky headgear (that had to be tethered to your PC) that had a tendency to give gamers headaches after just a few minutes of use. Nvidia wants to reinvigorate the 3D stereoscopic market by developing its own glasses hardware and driver software, which they hope will avoid the pitfalls of previous efforts.

Do we have the technology to make stereoscopic 3D tech practical? And more importantly, is this something that, as a gamer, you’d be open to embrace?

You’re not going to be convinced unless you try these in person, which we did at last month’s NVISION festival. Nvidia gave us several opportunities to try out the tech, once during their CEO’s keynote address (on a cinema-size screen), on a 73” Mitsubishi DLP television, and also on a new 120Hz Viewsonic LCD display. The three-dimensional effect is definitely incredible, especially with the larger displays. We saw Call of Duty 4, Age of Empires III, and the racing game GRID demoed on these units, and each game was significantly enhanced with the use of 3D.

The illusion was most convincing in Call of Duty 4, which uses depth-of-field blurring for objects in the distance (especially when we aimed down the ironsights of a rifle). In the real-time strategy game, the HUD controls popped out of the screen, making us feel like we were looking through a window onto the battlefield. And in GRID, when cars spun out of control, they weren’t tossed off-screen, but at us. The point is, if a game is rendered with 3D graphics, it can take probably advantage of 3D stereoscopic technology. And with Nvidia’s new hardware solution, 350 new and existing games will work out of the box, with no game-specific drivers required.

We talked to Andrew Fear, the product manager of GeForce Stereoscopic 3D, to get the full scoop on why this isn’t going to be just another fad.

Q: How would you summarize 3D stereoscopic technology for someone who's never used it?

Andrew Fear: NVIDIA GeForce 3D stereoscopic 3D technology is an NVIDIA software and hardware solution which takes standard Microsoft DirectX games and converts them to stereoscopic 3D for an incredibly immersive gaming experience. Now all of your games are have depth information that goes into and comes out of your monitor. One of the best things about this from a gamer’s standpoint is that we are using the standard 3D games they are playing -- we are not requiring special versions of games to get this experience.

Q: How does it work?

AF: The NVIDIA GeForce Stereoscopic 3D driver works at the lowest level by taking 3D game data and rendering each scene twice – once for the left eye and once for the right eye.  Each eye image is offset from each other for the correct viewing. The GPU then sends this data to a 3D Ready display. These displays show the left eye view for even frames (0, 2, 4, etc) and the right eye view for odd frames (1, 3, 5, etc). NVIDIA 3D glasses then synchronize back to the 3D Ready display and present slightly different images to each eye resulting in the illusion of depth and an incredibly immersive experience for games.

Q: What software and hardware is needed?

AF: You’ll need a PC with the following:

• An NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT GPU or better
• Windows Vista 32-bit (64-bit support coming soon)
• Standard Microsoft DirectX game that NVIDIA has preconfigured in our driver (to date NVIDIA has preconfigured over 350+ games).  
• A supported 3D Ready display.  To date we have announced support for ViewSonic® pure 120 Hz LCDs and Mitsubishi DLP® HDTVs.
• NVIDIA stereoscopic 3D active shutter glasses (coming soon)

Q: How does the current generation of stereoscopic 3D tech differ from what gamers saw 5 years ago?

AF: You no longer have to crank that little handle on the glasses.  Just kidding. The new software technology we are working on has come a long way. Today our driver supports NVIDIA SLI, GeForce 8 series, Windows Vista, and DirectX 10.  So it’s a cutting edge, terrific gaming platform to start with.  

Our driver now supports the latest Zalman Trimon 3D Ready displays and will add support for new 3D Ready displays (ViewSonic and Mitsubishi) working with our new 3D glasses laster this year.   The underlying technology works the same, but the experience has improved with support for more games, more graphics cards, and new hardware.

Q: How does game integration work? Will patches or special game profiles be required? Is it compatible with both Direct3D and OpenGL?

AF: NVIDIA GeForce stereoscopic 3D technology was designed to work with virtually all DirectX 7, 8, 9, and 10 games. The driver automatically converts standard 3D games to work with 3D Ready displays.  There is no need for patches. In fact, more than 350 games work well with our technology out of the box.  NVIDIA is also working with game developers to ensure that new titles work properly with our stereoscopic 3D technology out of the box.   Right now, we do not have OpenGL support but will be working to release it soon.

Q: We saw demos of the technology running in a real-time strategy, shooter, and racing game. How does the technology know how to differentiate between game genres to ensure that 3D looks right?

AF: NVIDIA’s software team analyzes games and correctly configures the settings based upon the type of game you are using.  So the great thing for consumers is that we’ve done all the work for you, so you can get gaming in minutes.

Q: How will users be able to calibrate 3D?

AF: One of the biggest limiting factors in previous solutions for gamers was that they required meticulous calibrating when setting up your display and glasses.  With many advances in technology, a lot of that setup can be done automatically now since we can detect the displays, glasses, and games.  That being said, end users still have full control over the amount of 3D depth (sometimes called eye separation) for all of their games.  So end users can configure these settings directly in a software control panel.  In our new solution launching later this year, we will also provide a scroll wheel on the back of the wireless emitter that lets you quickly “dial in” the level of 3D depth to your taste.

Q: Will this work with someone who wears glasses or contact lenses?

Users who wear glasses and contact lens should have no problems with our 3D glasses.  In fact, our glasses were designed from day one to be easily worn over most types of glasses frames, so you can comfortably wear both. In addition, we will provide different nose piece attachments when the glasses ship so you can select the nose piece that’s most comfortable for you. We tested our design among scores of eyeglass users leading up to and including NVISION, and every glasses wearer had no trouble wearing our 3D glasses over their prescription ones.  Contact lens users won’t be affected and can wear our 3D glasses with no problems.

Q: Is the effect nauseating after prolonged usage?

AF: Only if you’re looking at a nauseating image :). The experience of playing a game in 3D can be so convincing that those new to it may feel slightly disoriented at first. This varies considerably, because everyone is different. Some people get car sickness and others don’t. It’s the same thing with 3D – some people can feel disoriented while others aren’t affected. Typically most people have a negative experience with stereoscopic 3D gaming for two reasons: low refresh and too much 3D depth.

Our new 3D glasses solve the problem of low refresh rate because they are designed to work with LCDs and DLP HDTVs which operate at a higher refresh rate.  Most gamers are extremely comfortable at these settings.  

Too much 3D depth can also cause eyestrain since your brain needs time to adjust to dimensionalized data on your monitor.  If you think about it, all of your life your brain has been trained that it only has to focus at the depth of your monitor, even when you are playing 3D games.  However in the real-world, your brain in trained to change its focus on objects at different depths all of the time and you do not experience any problems.  

So if you think about it, we are just retraining your brain to now be able to focus on your monitor knowing that objects go into and come out of the screen.  To help ease this transition for users, our software always starts off with a lower depth amount.  We tested this level with end users and found it was a good value for people experiencing stereoscopic 3D for the first time.  We also found that most people’s eyes adjust fairly quickly after about fifteen minutes and generally want to turn up the 3D depth after that.

We’ve done extensive testing with our new glasses and 3D Ready displays, and we’ve found that experienced users can easily play a game for 4 hours or more without feeling eyestrain or disorientation.  

Q: What are the technological limitations of stereoscopic tech? Will more than one person be able to see the game in 3D at once?

AF: Absolutely, that’s one of the things that’s so cool about it. If you’ve gone to a 3D movie recently, you’ve seen how the audience reacts when characters and objects appear to jump out of the screen. You can also enjoy the same sense of amazement playing games with your friends or family. It definitely makes games more interesting to watch.  At NVISION, we demonstrated stereoscopic 3D gaming on Mitsubishi DLP HDTVs and we had more than eight people using our 3D glasses at once, all watching the same game.  Our 3D glasses use a wirelress IR receive to synchronize back to the monitor and PC, so the amount of users that can game at once is literally how many people can you fit in your living room!

Q: What kind of GPU processing power is required to render stereoscopic images? How are framerates affected?

AF: We recommend a GeForce 8800 GT-level GPU or faster for a good stereoscopic 3D experience because our 3D technology must calculate two versions of each frame to render it correctly.  For this reason, there will be some performance impact running in a game in stereoscopic 3D mode. With a suitable GPU, the gameplay experience is still fast and immersive.

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