I recently purchased a NVidia GeForce4 video card and I was thinking about downloading the NVidia 3D Stereo Driver. I develop CAD software and I was curious to find out how well this would work. Also, would I need to purchase a pair of LCD glasses? I have a nice pair of the old red/blue 3D glasses. Would these work?
Thanks for any help that you can provide.
Pat
Isn’t there anybody out there with some experience on this topic that can make a comment ?
add the PFD_STEREO flag to the PIXELFORMATDESCRIPTOR structure.
Then, render to the back buffers (GL_BACK_LEFT and GL_BACK_RIGHT) with a different view matrix (small translation).
Yes, you do need special glasses to see in stereo.
I was under the impression that the NVidia Stereo driver created the “stereo” buffers at a driver level. This would allow all OpenGL/DirectX apps to to render with a stereoscopic effect without code modifications.
I was under the impression that the NVidia Stereo driver created the “stereo” buffers at a driver level.
In that case, it probably means you have the special graphic card from nVidia. This special card is shipped with stereo glasses and a jack-like video output. Use those glasses.
What video outputs do you have ? CRT ? DVI ?
No, nVidia has special drivers that you can install which will add a Stereo property sheet to the nVidia advanced properties dialog. It will make any fullscreen OpenGL or Direct3D application stereoscopic. It has modes for pageflipped stereo and anaglyph (red/blue).
Just download the consumer stereo drivers from nVidia.
My question is how to get stereo pixel formats on nVidia cards (no using the driver hack, i.e., professional 3D). Do you have to have a Quadro, because clicking on ‘Enable Quad Buffered Stereo API’ on the driver property sheet seems to do nothing, nvPixelFormat still reports no stereo pixel formats (Tried with TNT/Vanta, GeForce3, and GeForce 4 MX).
Has anybody tried the anaglyph mode? How well does it work?
Thanks.
My question is how to get stereo pixel formats on nVidia cards (no using the driver hack, i.e., professional 3D).
It doesn’t work with all cards. To use stereo without driver hack, you need to do as explained in my previous post.
Do you have to have a Quadro,
yes
because clicking on ‘Enable Quad Buffered Stereo API’ on the driver property sheet seems to do nothing, nvPixelFormat still reports no stereo pixel formats (Tried with TNT/Vanta, GeForce3, and GeForce 4 MX).
With a quadro 4, clicking on ‘Enable Quad Buffered Stereo API’ reports stereo pixel formats.
[This message has been edited by opla (edited 09-18-2002).]
Thanks opla,
I wonder why that checkbox is there on ‘consumer’ cards?
I was thinking I ‘needed’ a quadro. It is kinda of annoying that they would choose to differential the cards purely based on drivers. You should not really need a quadro to do page-flipped stereo.
Pat,
The anaglyph works as well as anaglyph can work I think. You get a good 3D effect, but everything is darker and tinted red. It was fun playing Quake 3 for a while, but I would definitely want to move up to shutter glasses or a HMD, because anaglyph is the cheapest method and you get what you pay for 
I am actually most interested in building a polarized projection system, but thats just a far off dream…
EDIT: After re-reading your original post, I am thinking you definitely want to get a Quadro and do stereo by requesting a stereo pixelformat and shutter glasses. I think some Quadro’s come with shutter glasses, but I have seen pairs for as cheap as 40 dollars.
[This message has been edited by Nakoruru (edited 09-18-2002).]