How to generate stereo manually

[melomania]

Thanks

I ordered the connectors. In a few days I will be ready to try it with cable.

But shouldn't the glasses work with the USB emitter without the extra Din cable? Or is the extra cable really needed for a Quadro?

I'm asking because I'm afraind something else is wrong.

[ZbuffeR]

Well those are questions for nvidia...
But according to their forums, yes, it is compulsory for quad buffered stereo.

[melomania]

Ok, talked with nVidia support.
I had to uninstall and remove eveything from nVidia and start installing everyting one by one. Booting several times inbetween.

Now it works. I do not know why, because I did it before. But probably I did something different (booted one time more?).

I also have the 'Stereoscopic settings' tab with the test application again, which I had with the GS250 but not with the FX4600 before.

And OpenGL quad buffers works , even in a window (not fullscreen). This without the extra mini Din cable!

I'm happy now and can start experimenting with 3D stuff!!

Thank you all for the hints, suggestions and feedback.

[matchStickMan]

Hi guys,

I'm trying to create a 3D app also. So I'll just do a recap of the things that you said to make it work:

1. Add the PFD_STEREO for the pixelFormat structure.

2. Draw one instance with
glDrawBuffer(GL_BACK_LEFT);
and another one with
glDrawBuffer(GL_BACK_RIGHT);

3. Don't use GTS250 ( I also tried on that one and my app crashed with GL_BACK_RIGHT) and use a high-end quadro (i got a Quadro FX 3700 ) card instead.

I'm currently in the process of installing that card and I'll let you know what happens next.


I'm writing this to confirm with you if I'm going in the right direction.


One funny thing, when I tried the Nvidia demo 3D video (with the nvidia player) on the GTS250, it worked fine. And the Nvidia website says that GTS250 is 3D vision ready.

ref: http://www.nvidia.com/object/3D_Visi...uirements.html

So if that card does not support Quad buffering, how do they achieve the 3D effects? They also give a list of games that are compatible with those cards.


I'm asking this because I want to know if there's another way of creating stereoscopic vision without quad buffering.

Do let me know.
Tnx.

[ZbuffeR]

matchStickMan, did you actually read this this thread ?
Nvidia 3D vision do not provide an API to do the stereo yourself, it guesses it for the game, as opposed to quad buffered stereo.

[Dark Photon]

Nvidia 3D vision do not provide an API to do the stereo yourself, it guess it for the game, as opposed to quad buffered stereo.

Right. More on that here:

* GDC09-3DVision-The_In_and_Out.pdf (see pgs. 36-43)
* Nvidia StereoAPI problem (search for NvAPI)
* 3DVision_Develop_Design_Play_in_3D_Stereo.pdf (SIGGRAPH '09) (don't bother - even more vague than the GDC stuff)
* NVISION08: Easy immersion with NVIDIA 3D Stereo
* NvAPI (Home Page)

From the first, you can see there's this NvAPI Stereo layer on top of D3D. From the last, you can download NvAPI. Inside you'll find a header and a help file, NVAPI_Reference_Developer.chm, documenting the 3D stereo module APIs (use kchmviewer or chmsee on Linux).

Also from the presentations you do get the jist that this isn't as simple as quad-buffer stereo. It essentially states that it is behind-the-scenes driver magic. Witness the shared cull frustum for both eyes, vertex shaders auto-modified by the NVidia driver, the driver using the w coordinate to render to left/right eye views. I've done stereo and multi-frustum displays before (the underlying concepts are simple), but frankly I came out of their SIGGRAPH presentation confused as to what they were doing or how I'd code for it if I ever wanted to.

[melomania]

I'm currently in the process of installing that card and I'll let you know what happens next.

It seems to be very important to remove the old nVidia grafphics card driver and 3D Vision driver as good as possible.
Thus uninstall drivers, remove applications. Reboot.
Install new card driver. Reboot. Make shure it is installed correctly. then install 3D Vision. The nVidia Control Panel should now have a page where you can launch the test application. It that works, I think you are ok.

[matchStickMan]

Hey tnx Dark Photon, those links were very helpful.

I've managed to setup the 3D stereoscopic view from the nVidia Control panel.

my app is still crashing though. I'll just keep debugging it.

[BoeroBoy]

I too got a 3D setup for my NV GTX 260 with hopes of testing my OpenGL applications in stereo... Somewhere the marketers who decided to support only D3D stereo forgot to tell the advertisers and the vendors.

Had I seen "OpenGL not supported... at least not without GLDirect" I wouldn't have wasted the money. This is the second time nVidia has disappointed on a big ticket research item for me. First was when I got a quadro card years ago to use overlays only to hear that Vista would be eliminating all overlay support.

How can they release products with such potential and just cripple them with ludicrous driver limitations? Full screen D3D only? My app targets mainstream for peeps without a $700 Quadro. Now they'll have to figure out anaglyph glasses with messed up color. Thanks a lot, nVidia... I've liked them for their Linux support but I think I'll take another look at ATI in the future.

FYI for some of you, GL Direct (Direct 3D -> OpenGL wrapper) may be a possible option.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gldirect/

[Robulus]

How does one set fullscreen mode? That has to be done in the CreateWindow() call? I seem unable to confirm stereo mode.



pfd.dwFlags = PFD_DRAW_TO_WINDOW | PFD_SUPPORT_GDI | PFD_DOUBLEBUFFER | PFD_SUPPORT_OPENGL | PFD_STEREO;

int iPixelFormat = ChoosePixelFormat(hdc, &pfd);

BOOL bSuccess = SetPixelFormat(hdc, iPixelFormat, &pfd);

iPixelFormat = GetPixelFormat(hdc);

DescribePixelFormat(hdc, iPixelFormat, sizeof(PIXELFORMATDESCRIPTOR), &pfd);

if ((pfd.dwFlags & PFD_STEREO) == 0)
MessageBoxError("NO STEREO!!!", "OpenGL");
else
MessageBoxInfo("STEREO YES!!!", "OpenGL");