How to generate stereo manually

[def]

I just got the Nvidia 3D vision glasses and I did some experimenting. I couldn't get a GeForce card to work in stereo.

So I installed a Quadro FX 580 (no frame sync connector) and it works with the NVidia 3d Vision setup...

...without using quad buffering!!! Just

glDrawBuffer(GL_BACK);

Running an application at 120Hz the frames get displayed alternating between left and right eye, just how it should be possible without a Quadro card... Of course you have to check for correct sync and frame performance yourself.
(running in windowed or fullscreen mode)

So this setup comes as close to "manually controlling" OpenGL stereo as possible.
Now we only need to find out how to hack the NVidia drivers...
Setting the window to stereo seems enough to activate the IR transmitter, only problem, on Geforce cards we get "pixelformat with necessary capablitilies not found."

I used GLUT (lazy me) for my testing with:

glutInitDisplayMode( GLUT_DOUBLE | GLUT_RGBA | GLUT STEREO);

Any comments or ideas?

[ZbuffeR]

Well, it has already been confirmed that GLUT_STEREO with a Quadro and Nvidia 3d vision works correctly with GL_BACK_LEFT and GL_BACK_RIGHT.

Not sure what you want to do with just GL_BACK ?
I must be missing you point ...

[def]

My Point?
Maybe only that there would be no effort involved for NVidia to enable this behavior on GeForce cards as well.
( just being able to switch that IR transmitter on via the driver settings would be nice. )

No quad buffering or creating a window with stereo pixelformat needed!

[ZbuffeR]

You say that as if it was a good thing. It is not.

No quad buffer means your application can not control the stereo parameters. Bad.

[def]

Not "bad" in all contexts!
When you are used to writing applications with fixed framerates and you need the fastest and newest cards it's either spending too much money on quadro cards or bitch about defunct GeForce OpenGL drivers...

[ZbuffeR]

Please keep us updated about your progress.

I, too, would love to see correct stereo on non-quadro card, I am just pessimistic about it.

[Chris Lux]

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.

same here. it more and more puzzles me why they not just open up QBS for GeForces. This would make their live easier and ours too. There is just too much guessing involved with the driver-magic-hacks which frankly is doomed to fail from the start.

Please keep us updated about your progress.

I, too, would love to see correct stereo on non-quadro card, I am just pessimistic about it.

dito.