I’ve run across a perplexing bug in the stereo drivers for the NVIDIA Quadro and Quadro2 chipsets that I hope someone can shed some light on. Running ANY application that uses the OpenGL RAW stereo mode (GLUT, Open Inventor, NVIDIA’s QuadroView), the left and right eye seems to randomly swap, and this happens continuously at random intervals ranging from < 0.5 sec to over 3 sec. If you are watching with stereo glasses, the effect is that the stereo suddenly inverts, and then switches back, etc. etc. On some systems this occurs with the entire display, as though it were linked to the vertical refresh. On others, only a small fraction of the upper part of the display seems to get swapped (~10 - 15%). This happend regardless of whether or not Sync to Vertical is active or not.
I have seen this effect on 4 graphics cards (one quadro, three quadro2) switched around between 5 different computers. It happens on all driver versions from 12.41 up through the 27.xx beta, and for all combinations of resolutions (640x480, 800x600,1024x768), pixel depths (16 bpp, 32 bpp), and refresh rates (100 Hz, and 120 Hz). All the computers are Dell Precision workstations - 330, 340, 420, and 540. OS is either Win2K or WinXP.
Has anyone else seen this problem? NVIDIA folks, is this a known issue?
I have successfuly used STEREO mode on a Quadro DCC. The glasses I have only support refresh rates of 60 and 75hz everything else fails. Check which refresh rates your glasses support.
The only bug I’ve hit with STEREO mode is that FSAA causes screen corruption.
I will be getting a Quadro2 in a week or two so It will interesting to see if I get the same problem.
[This message has been edited by Adrian (edited 03-02-2002).]
Originally posted by Adrian:
[b]I have successfuly used STEREO mode on a Quadro DCC. The glasses I have only support refresh rates of 60 and 75hz everything else fails. Check which refresh rates your glasses support.
The only bug I’ve hit with STEREO mode is that FSAA causes screen corruption.
I will be getting a Quadro2 in a week or two so It will interesting to see if I get the same problem.
[This message has been edited by Adrian (edited 03-02-2002).][/b]
Thanks for the reply, Adrian. The glasses actually have no effect here - using them helps to see the problem, but just watching the screen w/o the glasses you can see the “jump” in the display (especially on the systems where only the top 10%-15% exhibits the error). Just to rule out the monitors as well: I’ve tried with both Iiyama Vision Master Pro 510 and Viewsonic PT813. Both monitors support the necessary refresh rates, and they CAN DO stereo successfully using FireGL and Oxygen cards.
This seems to be specific to the Quadro and Quadro2 cards, though whether it is strictly related to them being used in any of the DELL Precision workstation family I don’t know. That was one variable I couldn’t test - we only have the DELL Precision workstations. If anybody else can test and reproduce this problem (or test and NOT reproduce this problem) I’d like to know.
Just trying to gather some additional data. Adrian doesn’t seem to have trouble with the Quadro DCC, but I’ve been emailed by another member that they have run into this problem with a Quadro DCC. So, this may be an OS version or motherboard related issue.
If anybody else out there has tested STEREO with the Quadro chips, successfully or unsuccessfully, I’d like to hear from you to try and nail down where the problem is coming from. OS version, SP level, DirectX version (I have some suspicions about interference from enhancements in 8.1) motherboard/system vendor - any info would be appreciated.
I am also using DELLs now and I am getting exactly the same problem as xtwombly described.
I can reduce but not eliminate the problem using driver 21.81. I have tried the new ELSA driver (23.83) today and the problem is really bad.
Matt, Is this a driver issue or Dells responsibility? The fact that the amount of flickering varies between driver versions suggests to me that it could be fixed by a driver mod.
Just to add my 2 cents, I’ve had no problems doing stereo using a Quadro DCC under Win2K. The glasses are Nuvision 60GXs at 85Hz, with display to a Viewsonic monitor and an InFocus DLP projector via a StereoGraphics Stereo Enabler.
This has worked across all versions of the driver. (Though I don’t believe I’ve tried the VERY latest.)
The machine is a slap-togather, not a Dell.
OpenGL only. I haven’t touched Direct X on this system.