GeForce G310 Fermi - Nvidia news! 2010

Final Considerations

Besides the 3D glasses, another limitation is the cost of the required hardware. As it was mentioned before, the graphic engine has to calculate two frames for each of the two eyes, for each image. So the cost to make such a gaming platform could be rather high.

Those are, however, limits that can be overcome with time, also because the immersion and the game experience obtained with the 3D Vision Surround is worth the wait.

Final Considerations - Part 2

The stereoscopic experience cannot be a common thing just yet exactly due to the presence of the 3D glasses. Those glasses make the whole gaming experience tiresome and the lack of brightness also make it harder to play. The 3D experience is in the future of gaming, but it’s likely that we’ll need to wait for monitors that can offer the 3D experience without the 3D glasses.

The technology is moving to the right direction, albeit slowly. The Nintendo 3DS’s screens have achieved something similar, but only for small displays. Applying this technology on bigger displays would occur in the loss of precision. The big manufacturers are testing and trying solutions but there are still no satisfactory results.

Final considerations - Part 1

The gaming experience with 3D Vision Surround is very absorbing and completely different from normal gaming sessions. It could be the future of videogames. However, there are many negative points, one of those being the need of using the 3D glasses. Also, the stereoscopic gaming can be tiresome, and it’s almost impossible to play for more than 30 minutes without feeling slightly ill.

Another negative point is about the 3D glasses, once again: using it, the player will lose 85% of the brightness in games. Which means the images are much darker than usual. Changing the brightness on the monitor doesn’t work as well, as it would occur in a change in contrast as well.

The Gaming Experience - Part 3

In a driving game, for example, the length of the vehicle can be seen in 3D and the space it occupies on the track. The objects pass by in an incredible speed, giving the realistic feel to the game. In cases where the game allows to crash against objects, those seem to come towards the player with quite a violence.

If playing in first-person mode, then the immersion is even bigger. The crashes against obstacles and objects are even more real and spectacular. Other things that can be highlighted when in 3D mode are the interface items, such as mini-maps, that are highlighted, for example.

The Gaming Experience - Part 2

With the 3D Vision Surround, it’s not the game that will adapt to the stereoscopic vision, but everything is managed through the drivers, that take care of generating two frames for both eyes and finding the right distance to project it on the screen. The 3D effect, thus, can be configured and enhanced by enhancing the distance between the two images or reducing it until it disappears, by decreasing the distance.

Once a game is launched, the system notifies the user about the game’s compatibility and adaptability to the 3D Vision Surround. If there are no problems, the system gives you a positive message, which means the game can be played normally in 3D and in three monitors. Although all is done through drivers, some games are more compatible than others, in any case.

The gaming experience - Part 1

The gaming experience when using a 3D stereoscopic system will be completely different from what every gamer’s used to. The sensations are different and it brings new perspectives in game, perhaps even adding new tactical solutions and a bigger immersion.

The usage of three monitors in stereoscopic vision also gives different sensations depending on the game. In a driving title, the landscape will pass by on the sides, giving a better sense of speed. In a shooter, there will be different possibilities and strategies as players can see their enemy’s movements from the sides.

Some games don’t have the support for the resolution that would be needed in order to play without stretching the image. Although for some games it is possible to force a change on the driver panel, some titles, such as COD: Modern Warfare 2, will still not give the right proportion to the images.

As we mentioned before, in order to properly use the 3D Vision Surround, we need two graphic cards. Unlike the Eyefinity technology from ATI, that allows one of the Eyefinity edition cards to manage up to six monitors, nVIDIA’s solution manages only three monitors. But looking in detail, it’s a sensible choice: in order to use the stereoscopic mode on three monitors at the same time, a big performance is needed, and it cannot be achieved with only one card.

Contrarily to the ATI Eyefinity technique, the 3D Vision Surround doesn’t need DisplayPort monitors: it can be done with three normal LCD displays with DVI dual-link ports, as long as they respect the refresh rate of 120Hz.

In this way, at least according to nVIDIA, the game experience will be much more immersive. If this is true or not, we’ll see in the next few articles. For now, let’s explain how the 3D Vision Surround.

First of all, we must mention one thing: in order to use three displays at the same time, we need two cards in SLI. For the rendering of the scenes, the two card work on AFR mode (alternate frame rendering). This technique is the most used and it includes the management of each single frame on one GPU at a time, in an alternate manner.

Introduction

3D Vision is the name nVIDIA chose to their new technology that manage 3D contents: Thanks to a graphic card, a kit that includes glasses and a transmitter and a monitor capable of reaching 120 Hz, it’s possible to use the PC to play or see movies in 3D.

Our next few articles will talk about the 3D Vision Surround, a slightly modification of the 3D Vision technology brought by nVIDIA to gamers: with this name, nVIDIA indicates the possibility of using the 3D technology from 3D vision simultaneously in three displays.

A few images depicting the reference design that will be featured on the next nVIDIA card, the GeForce GTX 460, have been released. The new proposal is scheduled to launch mid-July, and the GTX 460 will feature the GF104 chipset, designed for the medium-high range in the market. Despite the lack of official confirmation, it seems that the model will be fitting the price/performance proposals, capable of guaranteeing, thus, a good ratio when it comes to the performances it can offer and its price: it should be set between $230 and 250.

The new proposal seems shorter than the other Fermi models seen up until now, and there are many noticeable changes. The heatsink is still a dual-slot, but the fan is placed on the middle of the card. The more traditional solution should perhaps guarantee better temperatures, which was one of the downsides of the GF100 solutions.

The GTX 460 should also come with two models: one with a 256-bit memory bus and 1GB RAM, and another with 192-bit bus and 768 MB RAM. Nothing new when it comes to the connections: 2 DVI-D and one mini-HDMI.

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