ATI Drivers: stereo 3d????

[Spud1]

Hey guys, nice to see an ati forum here So i can finally ask this question to someone who should know the answer

It's simple really, why don't ATI support Stereo3D when their biggest competitor does and has done for years?

I previously had an Nvidia card between my 9800pro and my current X800, and I also have a pair of stereo 3D glasses. I was able to use them to great effect in many many games using the built in nvidia stereo 3D drivers, producing a great sense of depth and general 3d-ness in my games. Which was great

Then the time came to upgrade to PCI express due to my newly won mobo (thx ECS ) not having an AGP slot. Looking at bang for buck at the time, and because my 9800pro had served me very well i plumped for an ATI card. All the terrible driver problems of a few years ago seemed to have almost vanished and my new card seemed great.

That is ofc until i find there is no stereo 3d support...So my glasses don't work with my new card...great..i'm stuck wtih using a 3rd party driver for them that is terrible compared to the nvidia driver.

So why is there no ATI support for stereo 3d? is there anything planned? It is a great technology that can really enhance games and (if created properly) videos too. Nvidia have recognised this and even have a dedicated support forum just for stereo 3d.

This does now mean that my next gfx card will have to be nvidia purely for the stereo 3d support, unless I can get some good news here

[Syn]

http://www.edimensional.com/index.php?cPath=21&ref=73

Thats the ones i am buying they are GPU "neutrul" so it doesnt really matter what card you have.

[Spud1]

thats what i have

trust me it doesnt really work with ati at all

[Syn]

wierd... i guess ATi dudes must reply to this.

[Spud1]

yeah i'm hoping so

The ED glasses are great - and honestly with an nvidia card it works so well, but with the ED drivers...its just terrible. Slow perfomance in games, and poor control over the depth etc. The effect simply isnt the same and prolongued use messes with your head

[Mike K]

Hi Spud,

This was supposed to be a Multimedia forum, but seems you really want an ATI answer. Well, stereo in general is a FireGL feature, where the application has to support it. The reason behind this is that two different pictures have to be rendered and the frama buffer has to support quad-buffering.
With Radeon, there simply is no out-of-the box stereo support. Nvidia has it, because a small company in Germany, ELSA implemented it for their stereo shutter glasses (ELSA Revelator) and when they stopped development of HW and drivers, NVidia picked it up. I worked for that company that time...
So this is not much of answer, but at least you got one of an "ATI-dude".
What do you need it for? Gaming or some other application? It works for example in MAX and Alias Studio as far as I know.
When I worked at the Games Convention this year, a company dropped by who used a prism mask on any TFT. It worked very well and didn't require any HW interface. I could try to dig their address up, if you're interested...

Cheers,
Mike

[Spud1]

Hey thanks for the reply

I know this is really a multimedia forum but seriously trying to get an answer even remotely as good as that has been difficult.

Yeah It does work in certain applications that are built specially for shutter glasses stereo 3d, but I mainly want it for gaming - and 99% games out there don't have a native stereo mode, hence you need the 3rd party software (nvidia's drivers or the shocking ED version).

So does this mean that it is not a feature planned for the radeon series? I guess that the rapid take up of TFTs will encourage ATI and probably Nvidia to drop the stereo 3d thing in the end since it works poorly with them anyway.

Still means my next card will probably be a stereo supporting one though since by then I will be back in the uk with my lubly crt again rather than this tft ;/

Nice of you to reply though anyway

[Mike K]

Always welcome...

When I first saw 3D stereo for games it was too early from the technical standpoint. It was in the ages of TNT2 and first GeForce 256s. Most Monitors couldn't handle the required 140 or even 160 Hz and games performance really suffered from stereo rendering. So mostly you had to go back to 800x600. Nowadays we would have enough performance to run almost any game at 10x7 with acceptable frame rates, but a whole lot of people use stereo-incpmpliant flat panels. So again it's a small amount of people interested in 3D stereo. But considering the rendering power we have now, we should re-think supporting it, you're right.

[Xcalibur]

I would like to reopen this thread if i may as there are numerous developments in the stereo 3D area since 2005 which are important to this argument ...

Now im thinking of buying an ATI card due to the wonderful 48xx series. Ive always despised ATI due to their poor drivers and heat issues but i digress. The loss of 3D stereo is a big thing for me as ive been using it for years now on NVIDIA.

Ill admit that with LCDs becoming the dominant medium, shutter glasses are no longer an option with the low refresh rates. However, head tracking is far superior anyway as it does not require a flickering display and can be run at any resolution. The results are simply stunning anyone who has tried it will agree.

I think a large reason that many people dont use this technology is that they are not aware of it and it has not been commercialised enough. However with recent advents in people using Wiimotes, etc to create very cheap homebrew headtracking, more and more people are becoming aware of it. I predict that in years to come this technology could become the norm for 3D gaming with the right advertising because it vastly improves the experience.

As a software developer i can assure anyone that drivers from 3rd parties is simply not going to cut it. Something like this really needs to hook into the graphics at the lowest level, the actual driver itself, to achieve seamless results. NVIDIA have realised this and to their credit support 3d stereo even through its lowest and most unpopular moments.

ATI PLEAAASE think about supporting head tracking at least - i cant imagine its too hard and i suspect that some clever LINUX developers may even one day implement this if what i hear about making the drivers open source is correct?

If someone from ATI can take note of this and supply a resopnse that would be great

[jamadaia]

I so am with you on the 3D front. Seen the promise of actual 3D flat panels for years now, but no consumer level production version as of yet. Such a shame, as I would jump it, long as it is a reasonable price (and the normal display capabilities is near enough or on par with good displays).

[Betty_Swallocks]

Originally Posted by jamadaia

Such a shame, as I would jump it, long as it is a reasonable price (and the normal display capabilities is near enough or on par with good displays).

So would I. I can't imagine anything that would add to the immersion ingame more than an effective 3d solution.
They pay so much attention to rendering individual blades of grass which rarely get noticed in the thick of the action but 3d would make the game so much better.