NVIDIA DRIVER NEWS, Your Thoughts?

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Neil
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NVIDIA DRIVER NEWS, Your Thoughts?

Post by Neil »

So! Some news from reliable sources are out!

What are your thoughts on this...

The NVIDIA beta is in the works, and should be out relatively soon as rumored. Here are the key features and caveats:

1. Dual Core Support
2. Vista Support
3. DX 9 & 10 Support (while not discussed, OpenGL support is expected too)
4. Full 8 series and higher GPU support

Now the caveats:

1. Post processing (e.g. HDR & Bloom) are not supported YET.
2. These will be Vista ONLY drivers.
3. 7 and lower series GPUs will NOT be supported by the latest drivers.


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Post by RAGEdemon »

Interesting but someone should ask them what the point in adding 8xxx support is if the damn thing won't support post processing... do we really need quake 2 to run at 600fps in stereo? NO, we bought the damn cards to play MODERN games which ALL use post processing and DO NOT allow you to turn it off. How many modern games do we know that even let you disable all post processing and be stereo compatible?



I have little problem with "no post processing" when using the nvidia driver IF they can provide an easy way to disable all post processing in most of today's games so the driver becomes as much plug and play as possible.


In my case and i'm sure in a lot of other people's cases as well, too little too late.

And what kind of idiotic decision was it to make it vista only? How many gamers or even stereo gamers use vista over XP? Seriously. Wouldn't it have been better to make the damn driver for XP? Easier even?

No self respecting gamer plays games on vista.

Makes me wonder what kind of idiot they put in charge of stereo driver develoopment... some mac using frat boy.

Thanks for the opertunity to vent :p

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Post by Neil »

Well, I think it's a case of "yet" and not "never".

This is just a guess, but maybe they are encouraging higher-end card purchases to compensate for development costs. It's interesting that the drivers will be Vista only. The only thing I can think of is the DX10 requirement may be interfering with the XP compatibility, but I'm not basing that on anything.

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Post by LukePC1 »

How many modern games do we know that even let you disable all post processing and be stereo compatible?
There are a few. I think Crysis has no postprocessing if you turn it on low. At least it works in S-3d.
NFS Pro street and Setlers6 work also...
But most games (all using Unreal3 Engine) don't do 3D for me, except shiftet 2D images.
So generally you're right, most games are programmed WITH PP and no S-3D.

Though it's good to hear Nvidia is doing something about the driver problem.
I myself don't like the Idea of using Vista to get S-3d. It needs so much more hardware specs, which I'll probably only get in a view years...

Besides of that it's quite anoying to need an series8 card to use the driver...

I think maybe my next mayour system upgrade will have a Series8 card and vista, but until then I'll have stick to my old drivers and try to play as much as possible in S-3D.

In future ther might be the need for one more compatibilty section in the forum :roll:

PS: does it support both vista32 and vista 64 bit?
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Post by InCytE »

I have to agree with RAGEdemon on this one. No XP support is a joke and a bad one at that! Vista sucks and every gamer knows it. And lets see, what is the most used Windows OS today? Any guess's? Here's a hint it ain't Vista that's for sure.
Neil, I know you try to keep a positive spin to things and thank you for that.
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Post by Neil »

Well, the important points for me are:

1. NVIDIA is actively working on stereo drivers.
2. The drivers will be measurably better than the previous versions.
3. Vista support indicates that they have redone their S-3D driver architecture, which is a good sign that they are putting some serious money and effort behind their stereo division, and the compatibility should be better.

You have to admit, these are pretty big steps and improvements over what we have seen up until now. Someone at NVIDIA woke up in a good way!

Let's see how things unfold! :P

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Post by LukePC1 »

Hey I got the Idea, of hacking the driver... maybe it's possible in some way to use the new driver without V***, like someone had some sucess to use the old beta's with it.

The other Idea is, that the series 7 cards may work with it, even if the aren't supported :)
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Post by Likay »

Great news Neil!
Agree fully that it's a relief that Nvidia actively are working on continued stereosupport. It might also be time far a change to vista soon too. (well, at least have dual boot as an option hehe. :D ).
All newer comps are delivered with Vista and more or less 8800's (if not ati's) as gpu so it's very understandable that they focus on that. For me it's good news since i'm now ready to give vista a decent try. A little bummer with postprocessing though. :(. If they could manage so at least you get stereo without such effects even if they are present in the game i wouldn't suffer too much lol. Unless for a few games wich really has good postprocessing-effects the effects on most games sux and looks mostly lika a bad distorting screenfilter. :(

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Post by Freke1 »

It might not be so good news right now for long time 3D gamers on XP machines, but it is certainly very good news for new ppl wanting to try out 3D. Most got Vista, DualCore and 8 series cards. And also LCD screens...
Could be fun if MTBS3D got 50.000 new members in the next months...
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Post by Mong »

Well it's good to hear nVidia have'nt given up on us 3D gamers....and thank you Neil for saving my a wallet of cash... why!?...well i was just about to purchase 2 new 7900GTX cards today,BUT now i can finally make use of my 2 8800GTX cards. :roll:



And RAGEdemon i understand how you feel, XP users deserve better treatment from nVidia...BUT! at least we can make use of directX10 which will be interesting to witness. Well you still can use your iZ3D for post processing. 8)
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Post by Znith »

Well both good and bad news. I can totally relate to not wanting to game in Vista, performance is mostly terrible (for now). However I see Nvidia's side of things in wanting to support DX10 and moving forward.

I'm anxious to see what happens and how well this driver will work in stereo and in Vista. I dual boot XP/Vista but rarely use Vista for anything.. If they can fix Vista with SP1 perhaps things will start looking up. For now though, I only game in XP.
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Post by pixel67 »

Hmm. Like many of you, I too have mixed feelings on this one. I have hung onto XP, and the 7900 series which I just sold on ebay, just for S3D compatibility and rendering speed. I really don't want to throw any more money at microsoft (just purchased windows home server OEM last week, which is cool by the way!) as we all know Vista isn't fully cooked yet for games. But... I can see why Nvidia would want to do this and actually applaud them for doing it this way, even if it is at my expense. One of the biggest issues we in the S3D community have been battling for years, and one of the main reasons why developing for a console is so attractive, is simply the variability that exists from one PC to the next (hardware, OS, video drivers, other installed programs, etc). Even without S3D, there are forums just full of statements like, "This d*&n thing doesn't run on my machine even after OS reinstall". Come to think of it, I have made posts to this effect several times. Narrowing initial support allows them to fine tune the product even more since obviously this would be a brand new implementation and not a rehash of previous drivers. They can take their budget of $ and put it towards one product vs two. Makes good financial sense and we will all benefit from this decision with a more complete product (we hope). Especially when you throw into the mix that Microsoft will be shutting down support for XP in the not too distant future. However, this is yet another reason why they should take a second look at S3D on the PS3. For the cost of a high end video card, I can have a complete system with an established installed base and developers that can fine tune their game on a fixed hardware platform. But I digress...

My fingers are crossed that we will have something new to play with over the Holidays!

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Re: NVIDIA DRIVER NEWS, Your Thoughts?

Post by genetic »

Neil wrote:
1. Post processing (e.g. HDR & Bloom) are not supported YET.
Well my opinion of all this really depends on the ?YET? part for post processing.

If YET means that they are actively working toward that goal and simply wanted to get out what they had now for people who CAN make use of it (those who have vista and already own a 8xxx) then I can hardly fault them for the decision to put it out as is.

If YET means that post processing is an issue they hope to address in the future then this is a monumental defeat. Why would anyone who has been holding out on buying a 8xxx get one now if the only games you actually need a 8xxx to play* are not playable due to our inability to turn post processing off?

* for example a 7800GTX can play all but the newest games well enough
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Post by Tril »

I'm looking forward to the release. I'll judge the product after trying it out. I'm just hoping that they succeed at adding post-processing support as soon as possible. For now, a driver driver that does not cause an instant blue screen will do but I want much more than that for the future.

I upgraded from a 7900 GT to a 8600 GT recently. The performance with this new card is about the same as the 7900 GT (roughly same fps) but it's a DX10 card and it's a passively cooled model (less noise). I'm missing the stereo drivers. I'll definitely try them out when they are out. For now, I'm dual booting XP and Vista and mostly using XP.

Gaming on Vista is actually not that bad and supporting it is a step in the right direction.
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Post by crim3 »

The only changes in my computer's hardware that I have done for 5 years are my video card (6600GT) and a RAM upgrade. And I expected to keep it as it is as much as possible, I'm still very happy with its performance.

You feel so helpless when industry forces you to change your plans and expend your money, no matter if you like the new things or not, no matter if you like what you already got or not.

I know that things have to go forward, but companies should support their own products as long as someone who paid for them are using it.
And also this: I don't like the idea of wasting my hardware resources in turning a SO interface into a cartoon animation.
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Post by b4thman »

We must wait for the result. If it works fine in compatibility and performance, I will go to vista and 8xxx. But I still think it will not happend soon.

I?m still waiting for a good auto-convergence feature (good and working). I focus my eyes in the real life at different depths, and it would be good to see this in the computer, following the cursor deph, or mouse cursor, or the point that you select. Nvidia has not given us any innovation in the last 3years, only compatibility. Maybe they would have to put a second worker to made things for this project, not only one and working only when he is in holidays.

I do not understand the way path of the tecnology sometimes... postprocesing in games?.... what a s**t. And stereo3d like a totally unknow thing for most gamers.
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Post by cirk2 »

Hey that means I can turn back form Linux and can continue to ply in S-3D *Jump* Looking up for the beta
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Post by Jahun »

Well any news is good news by now :P
Hopefully I can play Bioshock at last :)

Ow btw, Neil, could you link to those "reliable sources" next time? It's nice to read a post and be able to find all related info quickly. Yes I am lazy and busy... :)
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Post by Neil »

I'm sorry. My sources did not want to be officially recognized, but I'm very careful about what I consider reliable information. MTBS is the source in this case! :P

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Post by zebrastealer »

Honestly no one should be suprised that these drivers are only for DX10 and Vista. Doubtless Microsoft has convinced NVidia to make them Vista only in an effort to get more folks to finally make the switch to Vista. As you all know there hasn't been much of a compelling reason to upgrade to Vista (I know I've got 4 xp machines and only just recently added a vista box to the mix) from a performance side. DX10 is another example - there is nothing design-wise about DX10 that would prevent it from working on XP, but MS kept it Vista only in an effort to enhance the appeal of Vista...I read something awhile back about some guys in Europe who had gotten DX10 to work on XP, which proved that MS was simply holding it back to increase new OS sales.

Still, it is good to finally hear about some drivers on the way, too bad the hardware requirements needed to run most games in a 3d configuration on Vista will be incredibly high - plus that whole lack of post processing support is a big downer.
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Post by wuhlei »

How many games run in vista? I play a lot of old games and my computer can barely handle the new games if what I hear is true the games will run atleast 30% slower on vista.
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Post by A.J. »

wuhlei wrote:How many games run in vista? I play a lot of old games and my computer can barely handle the new games if what I hear is true the games will run atleast 30% slower on vista.
Hi, I've been using Vista for a few months now and although I haven't played many old games on it, at least the performance with newer games is really not as bad as it was at launch. I'd say they run no more than 5% slower than on XP. I think nvidia made the right decision to dump XP support if the S-3D team is low on resources, at least if we start getting updates more often. Vista is the future, whether we like it or not.

Here's a recent comparison between Vista and XP:
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd ... ce_update/
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Post by wuhlei »

sigh thanks for the info atleast now I just need another stick of mem.
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Post by pixel67 »

Neil, do you know if they are going to support SLI in stereo this go around? Should would be nice to regain the lost framerates...

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Post by Neil »

I have to double check. I think this was in the "not yet" category, but don't quote me on that one.

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Post by wuhlei »

does any one have vista's game compatibility list?
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Post by micronaut »

Hopefully Nvidia will release an XP version of their driver shortly after the Vista release, as they have been doing with the forceware drivers... or my glasses will be shelved until Ubuntu supports S3D :(
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Post by nubie »

Ugh, just ugh, I already spent $xxx on the 8800GT and more for the monitors (and more to get them set up in Planar/Polarized fashion), and now they tell me I need Vista, blech.

And seriously, no post-processing? When will they learn?

On the other hand, I am very glad to see that it is being worked on, and I sincerely hope the promised SLi modes are forthcoming (and multi-screen Polarized, heck if that were to happen I would almost buy 3-SLi for the six-monitor, 3x Planar, gaming in uber-surround.)
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Post by CarlKenner »

:evil: This is very very very very very bad news.
All I can say to nvidia is probably not allowed to be typed in this forum. Let me know if extreme swearing is allowed.

Anyway, we got a computer with an ATI graphics card for my sister for Christmas. So there nvidia :-P

I wonder if I can sue nvidia. This laptop says "graphics by nvidia" and it comes with vista, and says it supports vista. But if they are not going to make drivers for it, then that makes them criminals in my book.
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Post by LukePC1 »

Yeah maybe you get rich and can sponsor MTBS3d, or the game developers to make S-3D compatible games.
Then there won't be any need for N****a to make new Drivers. :D

I think they should write on each 3D graphics-Card, that it doesn't support S-3D jet - because of missing drivers. Otherwise the name would be missleading...
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Dates for N****a drivers

Post by nimotei »

Are there any expected dates for s3d drivers to come out for the series 8 cards? Like March, or April?
I'm waiting on buying a new PC, as I was running shutter glasses on an ati card that has worked for me, but only on a CRT.
Now I have an Eizo monitor and don't want to go back to the CRT and shutter glasses option.

The old 3d effect was brilliant and I couldn't believe this was available and not more known about.

Then I found out about the awful lack of support for the whole experience.

Anyway on another note, do the vuzix/icuiti glasses work or are they no good? I can't find an decent review anywhere!
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Post by NITRO1250 »

I finally had time to start posting more on this forum!

Anyway for those that are wondering about game compadability with older games, fear not, Vista runs them too. The date I have gone back to playing older games is 1998, although there are a few games from 1992 that I have been meaning to test still... if the installers still work! But still, I have had no slow down with older games and in fact, I have even had games run FASTER wtih Vista than on XP. I think it could just be me as I have a quad core and Vista loves multi core systems, but if you have a multi core system, you will have the time of your life!
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Post by chilledsanity »

I had a hard time finding incompatibility lists for Vista, but here's a list of several that I found.


Albatross18 Golf [NOTE: This will install fine, but fail to enter into the game.]
Colin McRae Rally 2005 (64 Bit) [NOTE: The game doesn't launch saying it's not compatible with the OS.]
Command & Conquer (64 Bit) [NOTE: Fails to install, incompatible.]
Command & Conquer Red Alert (64 Bit) [NOTE: Fails to install, incompatible.]
Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2 do not work at all. Fails to start.
SimCity 4 (64 Bit) [NOTE: Game fails to start due to not detecting cd in drive.]
Empire Earth 1 and Art of Conquest Expansion Problems Whith C++ Runtime Libry error
GTA 2 Say that DirectX 8.1 is not installed
Second Life Won't connect to login server
MS-DOS Games, Duke Nukem 3D, Doom 95 etc... [NOTE: These games/some of these games may not work on Windows Vista, because they are old games, they were designed for very old Windows versions or only MS-DOS]


The DOS games are less relevant with the use of DosBox, however I'd be very surprised if Vista could run any of the following:

Amber: Journey's Beyond
Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (installer can be problematic plus gamespeed is way off)
Phantasmagoria 2 (in Windows mode)
Rama (after the first level)

I can't even get these to run properly in XP, I'd be amazed if Vista actually increased compatibility with older games. As for Vista running your games faster than XP, I haven't heard of that at all. Do you have any benchmarks to go with that? I think things people don't like about Vista is that it's more resource intensive, it's slower across the board in applications (though some minimally), it's less compatible, and there's no obvious advantage to using it over XP (aside from the GUI).
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Re: NVIDIA DRIVER NEWS, Your Thoughts?

Post by Maggi »

Neil wrote:So! Some news from reliable sources are out!

What are your thoughts on this...

The NVIDIA beta is in the works, and should be out relatively soon as rumored. Here are the key features and caveats:

1. Dual Core Support
2. Vista Support
3. DX 9 & 10 Support (while not discussed, OpenGL support is expected too)
4. Full 8 series and higher GPU support

Now the caveats:

1. Post processing (e.g. HDR & Bloom) are not supported YET.
2. These will be Vista ONLY drivers.
3. 7 and lower series GPUs will NOT be supported by the latest drivers.


Regards,
Neil
Hi Neil,

to be honest, I'm starting to get tired of unfulfilled promises.

It's been more than 1.5 years since the last 'official' Stereo3D driver was released and now you come up with a half hearted attempt to raise interest ?

I know, nVidia is terribly busy to resolve some very basic driver issues so that they can "keep the performance crown" and "appease their shareholders", but seeing how poorly they are covering the most imminent Stereo3D issues just makes me sad.

You more than once emphasized you had some "good connections and sources" and you keep touting how close you are to the developers, how come that the latest "leaked beta" is more than three months old already ?

Sadly, you give me the impression you're just a marketing tool, parroting what you are getting told, without any further critical inquiry or in depth knowledge.

...

Maggi

PS: don't take this as a personal insult, you asked for my thoughts and those they are.
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Post by Neil »

Hi Maggi,
You more than once emphasized you had some "good connections and sources" and you keep touting how close you are to the developers, how come that the latest "leaked beta" is more than three months old already ?

Sadly, you give me the impression you're just a marketing tool, parroting what you are getting told, without any further critical inquiry or in depth knowledge.

Last night I had dinner with the NVIDIA marketing and PR team, this morning I had a private meeting with David Cook, the head of the NVIDIA stereo driver development team, and this afternoon I touched base with Zalman.

I got an updated list of supported GPUs, an expected driver release date, and an estimated number of compatible games. Oh! The list of supported solutions will be interesting too.

I'll get to it later though - nothing personal. Next time you have an issue with me, please don't make public remarks like this, and just PM me with your concerns.

Thanks in advance,

Neil
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Post by NITRO1250 »

I've always had faith in you Neil. I mean, who else can get all this good info?
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Post by wuhlei »

anything for linux?
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Post by Maggi »

Neil wrote:Hi Maggi,
You more than once emphasized you had some "good connections and sources" and you keep touting how close you are to the developers, how come that the latest "leaked beta" is more than three months old already ?

Sadly, you give me the impression you're just a marketing tool, parroting what you are getting told, without any further critical inquiry or in depth knowledge.

Last night I had dinner with the NVIDIA marketing and PR team, this morning I had a private meeting with David Cook, the head of the NVIDIA stereo driver development team, and this afternoon I touched base with Zalman.

I got an updated list of supported GPUs, an expected driver release date, and an estimated number of compatible games. Oh! The list of supported solutions will be interesting too.

I'll get to it later though - nothing personal. Next time you have an issue with me, please don't make public remarks like this, and just PM me with your concerns.

Thanks in advance,

Neil
Hi Neil,

I tried to note in my post scriptum, that I don't really have an issue with you, but rather with nVidia.

I was always under the impression, that you really tried your best to get hold of information and updates, but in the long run, nothing really has changed, ie. nVidia releases Stereo3D driver if and when they want, the only difference now is that they seem to utilize you as an unofficial organ to keep the user base from completely loosing interest and faith.

Why is it, that nVidia marketing and PR don't show up in here and openly participate in these kind of discussions ?
At the very least, they should show some presence and support in their very own Stereo3D forum, don't you agree ?

However, I hope my points are a little clearer now, but feel free to ask back, if further clarification is needed.

Lastly, please excuse me, that my initial post wasn't worded properly enough.

If I had an issue with you, I wouldn't go public in first place ... really !

Best regards,
Maggi
Nil Einne
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 14
Joined: Tue Jun 19, 2007 12:58 pm

Post by Nil Einne »

Maggi wrote:
Neil wrote:Hi Maggi,
You more than once emphasized you had some "good connections and sources" and you keep touting how close you are to the developers, how come that the latest "leaked beta" is more than three months old already ?

Sadly, you give me the impression you're just a marketing tool, parroting what you are getting told, without any further critical inquiry or in depth knowledge.

Last night I had dinner with the NVIDIA marketing and PR team, this morning I had a private meeting with David Cook, the head of the NVIDIA stereo driver development team, and this afternoon I touched base with Zalman.

I got an updated list of supported GPUs, an expected driver release date, and an estimated number of compatible games. Oh! The list of supported solutions will be interesting too.

I'll get to it later though - nothing personal. Next time you have an issue with me, please don't make public remarks like this, and just PM me with your concerns.

Thanks in advance,

Neil
Hi Neil,

I tried to note in my post scriptum, that I don't really have an issue with you, but rather with nVidia.

I was always under the impression, that you really tried your best to get hold of information and updates, but in the long run, nothing really has changed, ie. nVidia releases Stereo3D driver if and when they want, the only difference now is that they seem to utilize you as an unofficial organ to keep the user base from completely loosing interest and faith.

Why is it, that nVidia marketing and PR don't show up in here and openly participate in these kind of discussions ?
At the very least, they should show some presence and support in their very own Stereo3D forum, don't you agree ?

However, I hope my points are a little clearer now, but feel free to ask back, if further clarification is needed.

Lastly, please excuse me, that my initial post wasn't worded properly enough.

If I had an issue with you, I wouldn't go public in first place ... really !i
Well nVidia doesn't show much participation in any of their forums. Their forums are intended to be user to user support forums without much or any official support, which isn't that unusual in the hardware industry. So to be fair, I don't think it's really unexpected that they show no participation in their Stereo3D forum. Their lack of details is perhaps disappointing but not really surprising. nVidia as with most companies don't want to make promises to their users they can't keep. Given that Stereo3D sadly remains of interest to only an extreme minority/niche of users there's no way they're going to give it much priority so there's no way they can keep any promises. I mentioned this somewhere before that one of the problems we had is that Vista and the 8 series cards were basically at the same time which perhaps isn't surprising since Vista was delayed so much. And for whatever reason, it appears nVidia and indeed most of the hardware industry has had much bigger problems with Vista drivers then they had anticipated (or perhaps they had anticipated, they just didn't care). It's taken them a long while to get Vista drivers for their cards and other drivers for the new series 8 cards which have obviously required a lot of work in themselves since the series 8 is quite different from 6 & 7 into a resonable state. They even temporarily abandoned their unified approach for many drivers (well often the drivers did support the cards, they just didn't enable it I presume because they didn't have time to spend the effort testing the drivers). What this all meant was that there was very little spare time for their driver teams to be working on stuff which they obviously thought was a lot less important, like Stereo3D. So all in all, I would say it's not surprising and I find it somewhat difficult to blame nVidia for what's happened. Let's face it Stereo3D was not an advertised feature and it's not just because they didn't know when or if they would deliver, it's also surely because very few people actually care.

Advocacy is good and important, but I think it's just as important to keep a broad perspective of where things are at. Advocacy is a lot less effective when people think you're out of touch with reality.

The good news is things are looking up. I'm using LC shutter glasses, but LCDs have probably killed that market. But LCDs have also brought a wave of new products, most of which will work a lot better and increase user interest in stereo 3D. Also, stereo in movies may have finally come of age (personally I think it's going to be a lot bigger then HD). All in all, I think stereo is the way of the future...
Maggi
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 48
Joined: Sat Dec 22, 2007 3:38 am

Post by Maggi »

Thanx for your input, Nil.

Although I mainly agree on your views, nVidia publicly announced Quad Buffered Stereo support for their Quadro FX 4600/5600 lineup, which are based on the G80 chip.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro_fx_ ... tures.html


Further, the Control Panel User's Guide for driver v162.50 has an explicit section for "Professional 3D Stereo" (page 58ff) with the only cards not supported being the Quadro NVS series.


Admittedly, those documents only cover OpenGL applications that are developed for stereo, but it clearly shows that

a.) the hardware is supposed to support it
b.) they are providing drivers that are supposed to support it


I just hope, they can afford to put more resources into Stereo3D driver development so that I can finally upgrade my 7800 to a decent 8800 SLI setup for sustained high framerates with top notch visual quality.

Cheers,
Maggi
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