A few questions regarding HD3D and 3d Vision

pyro1588

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Hey Folks, I'm brand new here.

Brief background: My old Q20wb LCD is squealing and my wife wants me to get a monitor that doesn't shriek at us. I will be gradually upgrading my components (mobo, CPU, GPU, probably RAM) over the next year, but I have to make my monitor choice soon.

I want to get into the 3d market. I do a fair amount of flight simulation, and it really helps being able to visualize the distance to the ground when you're trying to make a hover landing. The main sim is DCS BlackShark, if anyone wants to know.

So, I have to choose between the ATI standard or the NVidia standard. I'm pretty clear on what sort of monitors support 3d Vision, because they usually advertise it in the monitor description. I'm not so sure which ones support HD3D. Is there a list of HD3D-compatible monitors? Can HD3D use 3d Vision-compatible monitors? If so, can they use NVidia's glasses, or do I need the ATI glasses?

Additionally, what's your folks' experience with the two technologies? As far as I've experienced (w/one 8800GTX and one Radeon 4870), ATI is generally the cheaper option which offers more bang for your buck. NVidia gives a more top-of-the-line experience, but you pay a pretty hefty chunk to get that last little bit of quality that ATI struggles with.

What are your thoughts on MSAA vs MLAA? As far as I've seen with some brief googling, MLAA seems pretty darned decent, especially considering the better performance.

I appreciate all the advice you folks can offer. Thanks =)
 
I have used both, but primarily have used Nvidia 3D Vision. I did a quick look up in Nvidia's compatibility list, and DCS BlackShark is listed as "good" in 3D. It makes one note that the target icons are in 2D, which is why it's not "excellent". That is generally good news, because more games than not, do not work well with 3D Vision or HD3D.

Both setups are about the same cost. The only difference is that Nvidia wants you to use their specific standard, while AMD only requires that the monitors supports 3D with HDMI 1.4a (limits you to 720p @ 60hz) or Displayport, which happens to be more rare than 3D Vision monitors.

3D Vision has the software built into your drivers and is a lot easier to configure and generally faster at supporting new games. However, HD3D does have close to as much support. HD3D also requires you to use 3rd party software to use. I've used Tridef, and it is not bad, but more complicated to use. Its one special advantage is Virtual 3D mode, which allows for higher performance at the cost of some blurriness around the edges of objects.

As far as MSAA vs MLAA goes, you are comparing the wrong things. Both brands have MSAA, it's been used for years. MLAA is a special post process AA, which works on anything as it does not require any information from the game. However, it makes things a bit blurry and will affect things you don't want to, like text. Nvidia just recently added a similar AA mode called FXAA. From my experience, FXAA is a little better, however, I have noticed that AMD has updated MLAA to MLAA 2.0, which might have improved things since I've used it.

I personally would go Nvidia 3D Vision 2, but if you went with HD3D, look at the Samsung 750 and 950 lines. They are the only good HD3D monitors I'm aware of that support Displayport with 3D.

Edit: one more thing I forgot to mention. Up until January, AMD did not support crossfire with 3D, but I saw some notes in their drivers mentioning that it was being added. I do not know if this will be well supported or not, because it is new. You might need to ask around to see if it is well supported.
 

Swolern

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The best 3d monitors currently are from Asus and Samsung. Asus supports Nvidia3d vision natively and Samsung supports AMD HD3D. Now there are work arounds for both that you can swap and use either 3d software but it's more complicated and your results may not be as good. So if you choose Nvidia 3d vision it is suggested to stay with an approved 3d vision monitor.

From what I've seen Nvidia's 3d has been much better with more games that support 3d, better 3d visual perception, and less bugs.

The new Nvidia 3d vision 2 definitely puts it up in a league of its own with brighter 3d results and less ghosting(seeing double vision with glasses on). Now to use the new vision2 you can only use a compatible monitor and the only two I know of is one by Asus and one by Acer.

Now don't forget that stereoscopic 3d uses 2x the GPU power so you are going to need a beefy PC to run alot of the new games in 3d at a good framerate.
 

pyro1588

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May 6, 2012
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Are there any 3d vision 2 monitors <$400?
Do all of these monitors simply take an HDMI 3d signal? If so, does it really matter which brand of monitor I end up using?
I've also read that HD3D tends to be brighter than 3d vision, at least for the 1st gen.

Thank you for the feedback so far. One of my big issues is cost. I'm a poor medical student and my funding for this is relatively limited.
 
3D Vision (2) use dual link-DVI connections for 3D or HDMI, but HDMI limits you to 720p or 30hz. HD3D uses HDMI and Displayport. HDMI has the same limitation with either brand.

Check this page for monitors to look up on newegg: http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d-vision-displays.html

You'll probably have to go with a 23"-24" to have a chance at $400 or less.

The only 3D Vision 2 monitor I found in their list at 23" to 24" was this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824014288&Tpk=BenQ%20XL2420TX
It's $500.
 

pyro1588

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May 6, 2012
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Is there a really substantial brightness difference between v1 and v2? I know that some of it has to do with updated timings, so will you see any benefit from using 3dvision 2 glasses with a v1 monitor?

Thanks again for all of the help, by the way =)
 
There are 2 features that are different. 3D Vision 2 have cordless glasses and are wider and lighter (though my Acer did come with cordless glasses too). The other feature is lightboost, which makes everything brighter. While the 3D Vision 2 glasses works on a 3D Vision 1 set, you won't notice much difference without a monitor that uses lightboost.

I have no experience with lightboost as I have a 3D Vision 1 monitor.
 

Swolern

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Swolern

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Not at this time. Only the 2 27inch monitors from Asus and Acer. The Light Boost works from the glasses being lighter and the display given a "brightness boost" when 3d is activated. D-DVI is used for Nvidia 3d.
 


I was more giving the link to read about Nvidia 3D Vision 2, but while you bring it up, only a couple games have native 3D Vision support as well (Crysis 2 and Starcrfat 2 are the only ones I've seen personally). The rest are handled through Nvidia's software.
 

Swolern

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Well I have only seen Nvidia 3d. I bought 2x 6970 in CF before and returned them because they did not support 3d in crossfire. I think that has been fixed now, not sure.

Bystander u have used both 3d vision and HD3D. Do u consider them a close comparable software?
 

Every time I load up Tridef, because 3D Vision isn't working quite right, I get the same exact output in Tridef. Though since I've installed my GTX 680, Tridef hasn't worked with the new drivers.

I've gone through most my games and found I get similar performance from both, but Tridef does not work with SLI, and I do believe Crossfire is supposed to work now, but I haven't tried it on an AMD card in a few months. I also find Tridef has a much higher learning curve with its software and when I game is just released, I can almost always use 3D Vision immediately, while Tridef may take a few days before it supports the game.

I would recommend 3D Vision over HD3D as I wrote originally, but if you did go HD3D, I wouldn't cry about it, as it can get similar performance. In fact, with the use of virtual 3D, it can get higher performance, at a small cost of some blurring around the edges of objects.