Nvidia Announces 3D Vision 2 With New Hardware
Nvidia is refreshing its popular 3D entertainment platform, now with bigger monitors and brighter screens!
Today, Nvidia is taking the wraps off its 3D Vision refresh, dubbed 3D Vision 2. While the functionality remains identical to the original, the update includes hardware optimizations that address some concerns with the 2.5+ year-old standard. You can check out our full 3D Vision 2 review on Monday morning, complete with performance benchmarks vs. AMD's competing HD3D product. For now, here are the important points:
This latest version comes with new glasses, new hardware, and some new tech behind enjoying 3D games and Blu-ray movies. Nvidia sees its 3D products as a major success thus far, with half a million 3D Vision kits sold, over 70 compatible products (monitors, laptops, all-in-ones) and a 3D games library with over 550 titles, so a refresh after roughly two years is to be expected.
Because 3D Vision uses active shutter glasses for the 3D effect, a significant amount of light is lost before the picture hits your eyes. The original standard suffers from relatively dark monitor output in conjunction with difficulty seeing through the glasses to see peripherals such as the keyboard. This problem has been successfully addressed with Nvidia 3D LightBoost, a collection of display technologies that include an LED monitor backlight that pulses twice as brightly and increasing the amount of time that the shutter glasses remain open. Nvidia says LightBoost will make 3D Vision 2 roughly 30 percent brighter than its predecessor.
Another major improvement comes with the glasses redesign, with a 20 percent bigger lens aperture. Constructed with softer composite materials, the frame will fit to your face tighter (but not too tight), so less light should bleed in from around the lenses. Nvidia also promises less ghosting and "true 120 Hz" gaming when in 2D mode. The great news is that old and new glasses are cross-compatible, so all 3D Vision glasses will work with any 3D Vision display.
So what about the new products? Nvidia is launching 3D Vision 2 with a new 27-inch Asus monitor, the VG278H. This LED-backlit beast has DVI and HDMI 1.4, an integrated IR emitter, 1920x1080 resolution and comes bundled with the appropriate glasses. Speaking of glasses, the redesigned frames are all wireless (no wired version), and cost $99 (or $149 bundled with an external IR emitter). There's also a Toshiba laptop, the Qosmio X770/X775, that's compatible with the new 3D standard.
3D Vision 2 is being launched today during Nvidia's GeForce LAN 6 in Alameda, CA. If you happen to be in the Bay Area, you should come by the USS Hornet (yeah, it's on an aircraft carrier) and check out the new 3D goodness. I'll be there all weekend, playing Battlefield 3 until my fingers bleed. [Editor's Note: Follow Devin on Twitter @devinconnors, he'll try to post updates about the LAN.] And once again, don't forget to check out our full 3D Vision 2 review on Monday!
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Gotta say I'll never buy another set of these things again. Have a 3d projector and nvidia supports the projector but the drivers never actually identify it. Then after you hack a drive up to make it work.. it isn't even 3d..
120 fps would be sweet playing TF2. Doesn't the current 3D monitors (120 Hz) already support that? When I play games, I really miss the old days 19" CRT monitor.
I am more interested in getting something like what Sony has. Where the glasses come with two screens (left and right), instead of using polaroids or shutters.
Can't wait to check out what Nvidia will throw at our faces, at 120 Hertz.
No-no-no. nVidia, wrong... we want new GPUs (AMD already announced theirs), not 3D.
Now only if i was rich enough to spend 3k+ on a rig and monitors
i safely assume 90% of toms readers are not interested in 3d gaming. we wouild have liked another perky article to freshen us up on slow monday mornings
Awesome!! Can't wait, now just have to find some side jobs and find a buyer for my 24".
120 fps would be sweet playing TF2. Doesn't the current 3D monitors (120 Hz) already support that? When I play games, I really miss the old days 19" CRT monitor.
Ya, they do. I think they were just trying to point out that nothing is lost.
No-no-no. nVidia, wrong... we want new GPUs (AMD already announced theirs), not 3D.
though i prefere amd over nvidia (even if i have an nvidia card because of Adobe and premiere pro ) i don`t really see the need of a new gpu whem my GTX 465 still holds good in Crysis with ultra detalis at full HD res. guess the GTX 5xx series is still good enough for what software is out there. Seems lately the software kinda lags behind the hardware since the bulldozer graphs clearly shows that software is not really multicore aware and even computer graphics are kinda behind the hardware. So i`m kinda ok with them researching other things about graphics like 3D which .... an industry that needs serious improvements.
Wow! This is big news! News of the century. Nvidias new nerd glasses!
though i prefere amd over nvidia (even if i have an nvidia card because of Adobe and premiere pro ) i don`t really see the need of a new gpu whem my GTX 465 still holds good in Crysis with ultra detalis at full HD res. guess the GTX 5xx series is still good enough for what software is out there. Seems lately the software kinda lags behind the hardware since the bulldozer graphs clearly shows that software is not really multicore aware and even computer graphics are kinda behind the hardware. So i`m kinda ok with them researching other things about graphics like 3D which .... an industry that needs serious improvements.
its allot like the cpu. we will always be able to use more, just because consumers dont need it doesnt mean that there arent hundreds of thousands of applications for the hardware consumers dont get. and the good part is, when the pro hardware gets a bump, so does the consumer side.
right now with games, faster gpu means next to nothing.
look at battle field 3 or hacked crysis demo.
with crysis they hacked it and got the highest setting on dx9 and it looked exactly like dx10, next to no difference
and battlefield 3, what i played of the beta on my brothers computer, and keep in mind, i don't know if ANY of the graphics setting made a difference on the pc because i cant tell, but with what they were set at, i couldn't see a reason they couldn't have used dx9 and supported everyone with a pc who games.
the next real leap in graphics isnt going to be pushing more pollys, or higher res textures, because right now, if a game has 4 million pollys or 8 million, we cant really see a difference, and on the pc, unless you walk into a wall and are looking for poor textures, they don't exist any more. the next leap will be tessellation, and right now its still in its infancy. i mean look at the tech demos, once those go into real time game play, in a significant way, such as the the one nvidia demo were the sculpture is really only 20 pollies but gets expanded to 10000 or something insane with tessellation.
till that hits in a significant way (look at crysis 2, half the tessellation shots i had to be told what changed, because its so minimal) we will get little refreshes in hardware that make them more powerfull but not realy seeing a difference except frame rates.
The BF3 BETA wasn't DX11, it was kept at DX10 and with strong compression on textures. The graphics at DX11 would not be possible to do with DX9.
I think that Nvidia should start releasing info about their new line of GPUs and would like to hear that GPGPU capabilities are harnessed to unload work from CPU and thus moving up the point where CPU bottlenecks GPU performance. This would be great news for tens of millions budget limited people. This kind of things are completely irrelevant for gross majority of people. Firstly because 3D capable rigs are way out of their budgets. Secondly because human brain and eye physiology anything above 32fps is unnoticeable performance gain unless there is some micro stuttering which causes frames to stick for more than 1/24 sec, which is the limit of discerning individual frames.
I think that Nvidia should start releasing info about their new line of GPUs and would like to hear that GPGPU capabilities are harnessed to unload work from CPU and thus moving up the point where CPU bottlenecks GPU performance. This would be great news for tens of millions budget limited people. This kind of things are completely irrelevant for gross majority of people. Firstly because 3D capable rigs are way out of their budgets. Secondly because human brain and eye physiology anything above 32fps is unnoticeable performance gain unless there is some micro stuttering which causes frames to stick for more than 1/24 sec, which is the limit of discerning individual frames.
3D rigs are not expensive today. $400-700 for monitor + glasses depending on the size of the monitor. 1155 mobo, 2500k OCed to 4.0+ ghz, 8Gb of ram, 2x 480s or 570s ($600 worth of GPU), case, PSU, hard drive. That's Full system with monitor and glasses for about $1500 (That's less then the average joe worker gets on a damn tax return lol). That's NOT an expensive system. If you had to buy a decent HDTV + PS3 or Xbox when it came out that was well over $1000 with controllers and accessories and TV and people bought those up like crazy.
Also, PC parts can be bought in parts and upgraded as you go. PC gaming in 3D is a very affordable option today. Don't dismiss it. (There is a reason why Nvidia is paying 3D so much attention, it's obviously profitable)
It's nice to finally see Nvidia learning from AMD in terms of Backward compatibility. Can't wait to see 3D vision available w/o SLI
3D vision does not require SLI. "3D vision surround" requires SLI. What I want to see run on a single Nvidia card is 3 screens. Not entirely sure why that hasn't been enabled yet.
3D vision does not require SLI. "3D vision surround" requires SLI. What I want to see run on a single Nvidia card is 3 screens. Not entirely sure why that hasn't been enabled yet.
Single nvidia cards can push 3 screens. Problem is that just about any new game at max resolution + max settings x 3 is going to crush single card solutions. Grab up a single 480 or 580 GTX, you can run 3x L4D or COD MW2 screens no problem. Crysis2, Metro 2033, BF3... not a chance.
If you count 590 as a "single card" then yes that could do it just fine. Where have you been? lol.
Correction. Thought you were talking about performance. Yes you need SLI (590 is exeption) to run 3x monitors. Question is why would you want to? Ever try running 3 monitors with single card from ATI? Talk about bad FPS in just about every new game.
SLI / Crossfire is pretty much required for decent high-res framerates.
This 3d stuff couldn't be good for your brain in long gaming sessions. I'd rather sit comfortably for a good few hours than to pay a little extra money for 3d.
This 3d stuff couldn't be good for your brain in long gaming sessions. I'd rather sit comfortably for a good few hours than to pay a little extra money for 3d.
I agree. 3D is lame and long term use will be bad for you especially young children. Your eyes aren't meant for it. The way your eyes, or mind rather, makes 3D happen in real life is by using shadows.
Some guy at this TV store tried to sell me on 3D HDTVs and I just laughed at him. Then he tried to bring up watching a movie in 3D at the movies like Transformers. I did regrettably go see Transformers: DOTM in IMAX 3D and hated every minute of it. Will never watch a 3D movie again. And in no way will I ever game in 3D. Not to mention having to wear annoying glasses.
Single nvidia cards can push 3 screens. Problem is that just about any new game at max resolution + max settings x 3 is going to crush single card solutions. Grab up a single 480 or 580 GTX, you can run 3x L4D or COD MW2 screens no problem. Crysis2, Metro 2033, BF3... not a chance.If you count 590 as a "single card" then yes that could do it just fine. Where have you been? lol.
2D surround and 3D surround both require SLI, but it can be a single SLI card, like the 295 and 590.
I agree. 3D is lame and long term use will be bad for you especially young children. Your eyes aren't meant for it. The way your eyes, or mind rather, makes 3D happen in real life is by using shadows. Some guy at this TV store tried to sell me on 3D HDTVs and I just laughed at him. Then he tried to bring up watching a movie in 3D at the movies like Transformers. I did regrettably go see Transformers: DOTM in IMAX 3D and hated every minute of it. Will never watch a 3D movie again. And in no way will I ever game in 3D. Not to mention having to wear annoying glasses.
We have 2 eyes because we use binocular vision. We don't judge depth primarily by shadows, we judge depth by how our eyes align on an object, which is EXACTLY the same way 3D vision works. Both eyes will point at an object, because they are separated by a couple inches, they will point inward at different angles to achieve this. That is what 3D vision does. It causes your eyes to angle the same exact way we do in real life. If you ever try to focus on an object right in front of your nose, for example, you go cross eyed. (This cross-eyed effect can be problematic with 3D vision, because sometimes they screw up the depth and it causes your eyes to go cross-eyed in the extreme. This is likely why it's not advised for kids. It's not because 3D vision doesn't work, it's because the games have bugs).
The only thing that 3D vision is not able to emulate, at least not at this time, is how the individual eye focuses on those images. We do judge by shadowing as well, but that's 2ndary, and 3D vision adjust shadows based on your perspective as well, so that's not different either.
We have 2 eyes because we use binocular vision. We don't judge depth primarily by shadows, we judge depth by how our eyes align on an object, which is EXACTLY the same way 3D vision works. Both eyes will point at an object, because they are separated by a couple inches, they will point inward at different angles to achieve this. That is what 3D vision does. It causes your eyes to angle the same exact way we do in real life. If you ever try to focus on an object right in front of your nose, for example, you go cross eyed. (This cross-eyed effect can be problematic with 3D vision, because sometimes they screw up the depth and it causes your eyes to go cross-eyed in the extreme. This is likely why it's not advised for kids. It's not because 3D vision doesn't work, it's because the games have bugs).The only thing that 3D vision is not able to emulate, at least not at this time, is how the individual eye focuses on those images. We do judge by shadowing as well, but that's 2ndary, and 3D vision adjust shadows based on your perspective as well, so that's not different either.
thats not true. 3d works by drawing two images simultaneously and the shutter glasses lets one eye see at a time back and forth rapidly tricking your eyes to see that image at a different location. Not what our eyes naturally do. I wouldn't recommend this for your eyes health. I could see some endused siezures coming out of this.
thats not true. 3d works by drawing two images simultaneously and the shutter glasses lets one eye see at a time back and forth rapidly tricking your eyes to see that image at a different location. Not what our eyes naturally do. I wouldn't recommend this for your eyes health. I could see some endused siezures coming out of this.
Yes, it does go back and forth simultaneously, but the two images are drawn so that it each eye is seeing an image from a slightly different perspective, the same perspective you'd see if you were seeing an object at a particular distance. Just like real life. But because the screen is at a single distance, it does it by drawing a different image for each eye, to give the same effect that your eyes have when they are at different depths.
Simply put, by drawing a different image for each eye, it causes your eyes to align in the manner it would normally align if you saw the same thing in real life.
Edit: Try reading this for a simple but good explanation of how sterioscopic 3D works:
Most human beings use what is known as binocular vision to perceive depth and see the world in 3D. The binocular vision system relies on the fact that we have two eyes, which are approximately 3 in apart. This separation causes each eye to see the world from a slightly different perspective. The brain fuses these two views together. It understands the differences and uses them to calculate distance creating our sense of depth and ability to gauge distance.
A simple way to understand this principle is to hold your thumb up at arms length and close one eye. Then try closing the other eye. As you switch between open eyes you should see your thumb "jumping" back and forth against the background. To see how much of a difference the binocular vision system makes, have a friend throw you a ball and try to catch it while keeping one eye closed.
http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/classroom/how.shtml
I agree. 3D is lame and long term use will be bad for you especially young children. Your eyes aren't meant for it. The way your eyes, or mind rather, makes 3D happen in real life is by using shadows. Some guy at this TV store tried to sell me on 3D HDTVs and I just laughed at him. Then he tried to bring up watching a movie in 3D at the movies like Transformers. I did regrettably go see Transformers: DOTM in IMAX 3D and hated every minute of it. Will never watch a 3D movie again. And in no way will I ever game in 3D. Not to mention having to wear annoying glasses.
Eye strain does not cause adverse effects on eye health. The worst side effect possible from over exposure to 3D vision is a temporary headache or fatigue.
Remember the old wives tales of "Sitting too close to a TV will hurt your eyes. You're doing the same thing here. Making health stuff up because it's new tech and your understanding of how eyes work, grow and develop is pretty non existent.
2D surround and 3D surround both require SLI, but it can be a single SLI card, like the 295 and 590.
Yes I've always run SLI (For GPU horse power to handle 3x monitors OR 3D vision). I forgot that the 3rd micro HDMI port can't be used as a 3rd display outlet for 3x monitors on a single card. But I consider 590 and 295 to be a "single card" solution. Anyway, not like ATI can handle 3X 1080p monitors on a single 5780 or 6780. The 3x monitors crush single ATI cards in modern games. So I don't see ATI as having any hardware advantage over nvidia.
This 3d stuff couldn't be good for your brain in long gaming sessions. I'd rather sit comfortably for a good few hours than to pay a little extra money for 3d.
There are no "brain effects" for long term 3D exposure outside of maybe getting a headache. I played through almost all of Duke Nukem Forever in 3D, in one sitting, at 100% depth and felt fine through the whole session that lasted many hours. Once you get used to 3D and adjust the settings correctly to your tolerance, there is very little strain on your eyes (if any at all)
There are no "brain effects" for long term 3D exposure outside of maybe getting a headache. I played through almost all of Duke Nukem Forever in 3D, in one sitting, at 100% depth and felt fine through the whole session that lasted many hours. Once you get used to 3D and adjust the settings correctly to your tolerance, there is very little strain on your eyes (if any at all)
I believe the headache/strain that people might get from 3D is directly related to flickering, not the 3D effect. The flickering happens at 60hz, and gives the same strains that 60hz CRT's give people for the same reason. I personally don't have this issue and have played for hours at a time.
About the only effect I have noticed is that I now feel disoriented a bit when playing a game I'm used to playing in 3D, after switching to 2D. My eyes keep wanting to adjust for depth, and have to readjust back.
I believe the headache/strain that people might get from 3D is directly related to flickering, not the 3D effect. The flickering happens at 60hz, and gives the same strains that 60hz CRT's give people for the same reason. I personally don't have this issue and have played for hours at a time.About the only effect I have noticed is that I now feel disoriented a bit when playing a game I'm used to playing in 3D, after switching to 2D. My eyes keep wanting to adjust for depth, and have to readjust back.
Preaching to the choir buddy. I'm same as you. With proper adjustments and a little use 3D works great and doesn't give me any eye strain or headaches.
People on this comment thread are very ignorant. Most of them have probably never sat in front of a 3D monitor and gamed on one, and if they had I doubt they did so for more then 5 minutes.
I hate 3D movies, there isn't a lot of noticable depth, it darkens the movie screen and doesn't look as good imo. However, 3D gaming on a good 120hz LCD has massive, almost unbelievable amount of added depth and realism. If you'd have asked me about 3D vision before I tried it, I would have called it gimmicky and probably said that it was probably as bad as "movie theature 3D". Having actually owned one for a while now, I wouldn't go back to a standard monitor for gaming.
Only time I wouldn't use 3D is if my PC couldn't handle the 3d game at 50-60fps and I was trying to be competitive. (Like BF3). But when that day comes I'll just upgrade my GPUs. And till I put in the new GPUs, the 120hz 3D monitors do 2D gaming the best anyway. zero ghosting, awesome picture and up to 120FPS with vsync on. Amazing.