which is best plat form? nvidia or radeon?

[beyonder]

Im setting up a 3d projector optima hd33 setup.. wondering if anyone had any advice..

thanks a ton!

also of note.. i really want to play some old games like jedi knight academy in 3d etc.. and if possible stuff like deus ex .. n thelike..no idea how successful ll be.. but that should be considered..

any suggestions?

[cybereality]

I have both, and I am not sure there is a clear winner. In general I find Nvidia to have a larger list of games, but DDD to have better looking 3D (more depth). But support can vary depending on the game, so its hard to say one way of the other.

In terms of older games, none of the drivers really support them well. DDD and IZ3D support from DirectX8 and onward, I think Jedi Knight and Deus Ex used Dx7 (or older) so its not looking good. The old Windows XP Nvidia driver did support these older games, but its very difficult (if not impossible) to get this working with modern equipment.

[DmitryKo]

Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy uses Q3A engine by id software which uses OpenGL for rendering.
Which means you cannot play this game in stereo. No middleware can hack you quad-buffered OpelGL, since the OpelGL driver is impossible to hack, unlike DirectX. Nvidia could probably do it, but they don't really care for OpelGL gaming.

[Fredz]

Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy uses Q3A engine by id software which uses OpenGL for rendering. Which means you cannot play this game in stereo. No middleware can hack you quad-buffered OpelGL, since the OpelGL driver is impossible to hack, unlike DirectX.

Really ?
Support with 3D Vision using GLDirect : https://forums.nvidia.com/default/topic ... gl-titles/
Support with TriDef using GLDirect : http://www.tridef.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2334

[DmitryKo]

http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10553

I wouldn't even bother to try it. Numerous projects tried to implement a decently working Direct3D-OpenGL and OGL-D3D wrappers since S3 Virge and 3dfx Voodoo times, and all of them failed.

[Fredz]

Several people already reported this game to work properly with GLDirect. And as for D3D-OpenGL wrappers, the one implemented in Wine does work pretty well, I wonder were you got the idea that it was not possible.

[WiredEarp]

NOTHING is 'impossible to hack'.

[Neil]

All it takes is a big enough hammer...

Regards,
Neil

[Likay]

I'm not a developer myself but this info is my impression/assumtion of why so few makes good openglwrappers.

Directx is standardized with a structure that makes it relatively easy to implement stereo-3d. However: the freedom of directx structure does allow to make own programs that may not be compatible with such wrapper and causes problems in s-3d (shadows, lightning, 2d-skybox/other objects always at fixed depth etc). There are quite a few who tries to fix these issues by altering shaders themselves (Helix and the guys for instance). This is done "per game" basis where the versatile dx-wrapper (3d-vision) doesn't work.

Opengl isn't impossible to hack, it just demands a lot more effort because of the very free structure (i'm told, feel free to correct).
In order to make opengl into stereo-3d each game needs individual wrappers or a very versatile wrapper to work with many games. A more versatile wrapper is what i can imagine difficult to program, causes more bugs and will probably costs more hardwareresources due to worse optimization relative to individual wrappers. Even between two games which uses the same opengl-engine the differencies can be big enough to cause one game not working while another runs fine.

Anyway: In order to play older opengl games in 3d it's practically best done using the nvidia legacy stereodrivers (not counting making an own wrapper). Support for newer hardware may be a hit or miss with those though.

[Fredz]

Doing an OpenGL wrapper is much easier than a Direct3D one, camera matrix projections functions are standardized contrary to D3D so there is no need to have a different code base for each game.

[DmitryKo]

All it takes is a big enough hammer

All it probably takes is a copy of Windows 8 Pro with a built-in Hyper-V client, an Intel Core i7, i5 or i5 processor which supports Extended Page Table, a copy of Windows XP professional, and an older Nvidia 8000-series card with an older Nvidia ForceWare 3D Stereo driver.

Or getting over Jedi Academy to play a modern game.

Several people already reported this game to work properly with GLDirect.

It required some non-trivial amount of console tweaking trying to guess the right settings.

And as for D3D-OpenGL wrappers, the one implemented in Wine does work pretty well, I wonder were you got the idea that it was not possible.

Should I install Linux just to play Jedi Academy in Wine using their D3D-OpenGL wrapper? Wait, first I would need to install OpenGL-D3D wrapper for Linux then find a stereo middleware driver that works in Wine and doesn't get lost in all these compatibility layers. Hmmm.... no, thanks. Too much hassle for me just to play some 10-year old game with PS2-level graphics.

Opengl isn't impossible to hack, it just demands a lot more effort because of the very free structure (i'm told, feel free to correct).

Exactly. Open GL 1.x has been an incoherent mess with lots of proprietary extensions each doing the same thing but having proprietary application interface and data structures. There are not enough developer resources even at Nvidia, no to mention smaller companies like DDD.

Now if you would try and undertake a free-time unpaid project on the scope of DOSBox or Wine which would take like 10-15 years of your lifetime in the alpha stage... well, good luck. Commercial software development doesn't work like that.

In order to play older opengl games in 3d it's practically best done using the nvidia legacy stereodrivers (not counting making an own wrapper).

These are the words of wisdom.

[Fredz]

Or getting over Jedi Academy to play a modern game.

The question of the OP was precisely to be able to play older games such as this one in 3D with current technologies, I don't see the point of telling him to play more recent games.

Several people already reported this game to work properly with GLDirect

It required some non-trivial amount of console tweaking trying to guess the right settings.

What's the problem with non-trivial tweaking, if the goal is attained ? Not everyone is afraid of the console, and in the end only the result matters.

Should I install Linux just to play Jedi Academy in Wine using their D3D-OpenGL wrapper? Wait, first I would need to install OpenGL-D3D wrapper for Linux then find a stereo middleware driver that works in Wine and doesn't get lost in all these compatibility layers. Hmmm.... no, thanks. Too much hassle for me just to play some 10-year old game with PS2-level graphics.

I just explained that writing a Direct3D-OpenGL wrapper was very much feasible - citing Wine as an example - when you said it was not possible. Nobody asked you to install Linux.

Now if you would try and undertake a free-time unpaid project on the scope of DOSBox or Wine which would take like 10-15 years of your lifetime in the alpha stage... well, good luck.

Wine is pretty much functional in its current state, thanks for them. Just have a look at http://appdb.winehq.org/ to see the current list of supported games, a lot of them just work fine out of the box.

Commercial software development doesn't work like that.

I guess that's your job to peremptorily affirm things like that ? Actually it's mine, and like most developers I mostly rely everyday on "free-time unpaid projects" to build the ones I sell.